I’m concerned about Mo. His current output from the wing is not elite. It’s not terrible, but he doesn’t worry too many fullbacks and his goals and assists this season so far are fairly modest. They dropped off late last season too, after an incredible run for a while.
I tend to think it is age catching up with him. It’s not a black and white thing where one day you are world class and the next you are past it. It’s more nuanced than that.
So, how do we get more out of the current version of Mo?
Midfield diamond. Get him playing in a two up top, closer to the goal. 2 of Isak, Salah, Ekitike, with Wirtz behind them, seeing a lot of the ball and knitting it all together.
That’s what is needed, imo. At least that’s what is needed system-wise. Beyond that they have to work a bit harder, and we need more players to find their form.
Is there a chance a less well hit shot still goes in? Sure. But the reality is he absolutely fucking creamed it in a way that made it pretty much unsaveable and is something he wouldnt replicate if given 100 goes.
Any call to change our shape needs to consider that has on our ability to press. Right now we are doing it poorly, but we are still trying to do it. Shifting a bunch of players around so we’re occupying different areas of the pitch creates additional challenges to ever getting that right.
Yes, he took it very well. But I think 1 in 100 overstates it. I think most good level professional footballers would feel confident of finding the top corner if given that much space and time.
I know it was in before it left his boot, because he is a quality player and our defence backed off him and parted to let him pick his spot.
I don’t think anyone at Liverpool should be shrugging their shoulders and thinking nothing you can do about that. There was lots they could have done about.
Football is increasingly about narratives, especially in this social media era. You have to sift through a lot of murk to get to a substantive discussion…
I’m slowly getting to the point where I’ll switch off the “volume” completely…
Good point. Any change we make won’t be all upside, and the press will need to be sorted. I think we could do a good press with a midfield diamond and two hard working strikers in front of it. It will still need some coaching, mind.
Salah can’t and shouldn’t be relied upon to track back. That’s well-known and that’s why Klopp and Slot have a midfielder covering the right flank. In this case, there were four or so players in the box who didn’t pick Cucurella up after he literally went right through them and didn’t do anything to hamper Fernandez either.
The implication that the goal resulted from Salah’s “weakness” is disingenuous at best.
Salah stopped his run before anyone else picked up him, and while Dom had 2 players. Yes it took a little bit longer in the sequence for them to be able to create the goal, but what followed was players scrambling to find their right mark, something that would have been far less complicated if Salah had just continued to own his responsibility.
I get the idea that we get more out of Mo by reducing his defensive responsibility. But that isnt absolute, as we see with him all the time when he actually works hard to track back. Because even he understands it is situational. And in this situation, a minute left, the scores tied, with the ball deep in our half and an overload building down your side, you’ve got to focus on defending.
Here is a still from just before Caicedo takes his shot. It’s absolutely astonishing that he has this much space.
Under no pressure, a premier league football should be able to find to top corner. The reason why these shots don’t come very often, isn’t because player can’t find the shot - there are thousands of show offs on you tube putting that in the postage stamp on an empty pitch.
The reason why you don’t see Szoboszlai and Mac Allister cracking one of those in every week, is not because they can’t do it. It’s because they don’t have the space or the time. They are closed down, harassed and blocked.
The really interesting thing about that goal is that Caicedo shapes to hit it a couple of seconds before he does, and Virgil and Konate back off more. It’s almost like Caicedo thinks “What? You’re going to let me get even closer? Seriously?
I just find it mad that Quansah was hauled off v Ipswich after a poor 45 minutes and that effectively ended his LFC career yet Konate gives us stinker after stinker and keeps playing.
As I said in match thread Gomez and Chiesa must be stinking the place out in training to not get on when someone like Konate and Salah or Gakpo are having stinkers.
Couldn’t believe what I was watching when that was happening.
Me and my mate just sat there saying - anyone going to close him down? anyone? no - OK give him a shot…and there it is 1-0
Its a complete shambles all over. How can every player be out of form (bar 2 or 3) - we are champions - seeing that Gold badge should give us an extra 10% - we’ve been awful all season.
Yes I know Jotas death has been massive but I dont want them hiding behind that - go and win it for him and take inspiration from doing it for him not give awful performances and saying well this was always going to be tough. I dont doubt that but raise your game lads and do it for Jota.
You wont find many defenders agreeing with your criticism of the CBs here. As already mentioned, you cannot step out to close the distance to the man on the ball here without leaving far more dangerous space behind you that will be easy to pick off with a simple pass. In this situation defenders are trying to manage multiple risks simultaneously. He was 2 or 3 yards away still from the point that the calculus changes, that the space in behind is no longer as big a concern, they that can step up with confidence. The big problem here here was his ability to pick the ball up behind our midfield so close to goal in the first place (Mac diving in was in large part because of his bad starting position)
But you are massively overlooking how ridiculously well he struck it. I concede that it is possible for a less well struck shot to still go in from there. But with someone as good as Mama in goal he is still backing himself to keep out a good number of shots from there. No shot from outside the D is more than a half chance no matter how much time the player has. The moment that left Caicedo’s foot there was no question it was going in though. There probably isnt more than 1 goal every couple of seasons that we concede where my first response is “wow” before I feel disappointment of conceding. This was that goal.
I think Virgil didn’t trust that Kerkez was able to cover a pass to the left. He moves away, towards the left and that creates the gap for Caicedo to take the shot. Its a great hit, but he has too much time and space without a challenge. When MacAllister is gone from the picture, then Virgil needs to step out and trust his full back.
We’ve not been awful every game for 90 minutes. We’ve been awful at times and the lows are more apparent in the last three I think that’s the point of those 3 had been the first 3 and not the last 3 I could see things developing. We could have also desperately needed a home game but will play 1 home game in 6 ties.
Thats kind of silly if you think about it. If our performances were a bit more on it I’d be ok considering the fixtures.
So many issues that continue to persist in this team it’s quite unfathomable. Issues that’ve stemmed long before the season started. From the set up and structure to the style of play all the way through to Arne’s selections and in game decisions.
The 3 losses on the spin doesn’t even surprise me and it wouldn’t surprise me if Utd came here and got a deserved result in a few weeks time either.
We’re in a rut and the only way out is for the players to show some balls and desire as a unit to which Arne needs to be the instigator behind, I don’t see a lot of motivational energy coming from him on the touchlines but in a weird and sadistic way I think this needed to happen so we could learn more about him and what he’s really made of.
Main priority is getting back to the basics - because at the moment it’s like he’s trying to teach a bunch of 3 year olds about trigonometry, please stop changing and chomping every week and build a compact structure which stems out and makes us hard to beat/create chances against. Please recognise without an energetic workman horse like midfield, you cannot carry passengers off the ball like our front 3 have showed. Not even going to name individual players because I wouldn’t know where to begin.
