Elliott’s problem is his physique. At 5’7” he simply doesn’t have the height to play in midfield. He isn’t particularly quick either.
Mac Allister is 5’9”. If you are playing him and Elliott together, you are giving up a lot of height in midfield.
If Mac Allister is getting the nod (as he should) the other two have be at least 6ft.
I really like Harvey, but I think he should be playing in the front three, probably the right hand side.
Shame we couldn’t nick it in the end.
It was disappointing how early we conceded first, at the first and one of a few cracks in defence. Immediately made it harder to chase. Line certainly wasn’t at it should be and Virgil’s positioning and body position.
Very frustrating how it took us almost half of the first half to put the ball on the floor, it was too much in the air.
Some of our attacks were predictable, Diaz trying to drop and connect, Murillo following him, our attacks were mostly players coming inside for a cross on the far post. Not difficult to defend, especially for Forest.
As the game went on, gaps started to appear in their team and Trent coming inside more helped us gel a few attacking sequences, ball finally cutting through the lines and on the floor.
I wanted Jota and Jones on sooner and luckily Diogo was again the difference, his 5th goal against Forest.
I have say though that our corners lately haven’t been good enough, we don’t seem to make the first contact.
Salah unfortunately had a few bad reactions and there were bodies on their line. We lacked the better final touch, either pass, shot, decision or a bit luck for the second one to get in.
Szoboszlai working really hard off the ball, being one of our best pressers, but in some situations on the ball, especially in dangerous zones, I don’t know what happened with him for a while now, his confidence is such that if he went out with a student that’s liking all his social media posts, he’d hesitate making a move on her.
Think in the next game Jota will start and Diaz will probably push Gakpo (other than that deflected shot, he was invisible in the second half) to the bench.
Overall, there was enough for it to end 1-2, but some of the lessons remain that our defending needs improving again and our possession also. First half was a bit too predictable and not dangerous enough, second half was better, but more on the wild side.
Since the City game we are ; DDWWWDD. And before then we only had one D all season. We’ve been lucky that none of our main competitors have been able to string results together but that might not last. A draw is as good as a loss in this league and if we don’t start turning some of those D’s into W’s then we could well see our title hopes slip away.
A win at Brentford is a must now or we could have Arsenal breathing right down our necks after the weekend.
Depends on the opponent and the situation. Elliott got plenty of time in the midfield under Klopp, he brings more than enough in possession to overcome his physical shortcomings.
I’m not suggesting that he should be starting. But going from being a valuable member of the squad to not being able to get look in, doesn’t seem right. He could have helped; especially in situations where we’ve pinned the opposition down and are looking for the final pass/move, which was in short supply against Forest.
Just love fucking spellchecker,.
I probably agree with that, but it’s a classic managers dilemma.
There have been games where I’ve been screaming to get Harvey on, but for the manager it’s alway a difficult decision. If you are on top an pinning a side back, bringing on a sub can break the momentum as easily as it can break the deadlock.
Take last night, in the last 15min it really looked like Forest were struggling and a winner was coming. Slot has got to decide if the goal is more likely just letting the players on the pitch keep banging on the door, or introduce a new player, which could shift the momentum either way.
What makes Salah difficult to replace is the fact that he still has a high possibility of scoring a goal even when he has a bad game. I suppose that was playing in Slot’s mind. And he nearly did pull off a goal. Had two very good chances at the end as well.
I would have replaced him with Chiesa though after 70 min. It isn’t a guarantee that Chiesa would score but opponents aren’t used to him and that could have counted in our favour.
I guess my question on Salah is would someone else - Kudos for example - produce high numbers in our team and add a little more elsewhere. Not saying he would score or create as much but net net may replace?
Nope.
Liverpool front line Post Salah would be probably more balanced in terms of their scoring/assists.
It might make us more unpredictable. As was the case in the peak Bobby/Mane/Salah days. Opposition never quite knew who the biggest goal threat was. The duties would have to be split in such a case and might as well prove to be the benefit for someone like Gakpo who’s allround play is really good.
It would take a very brave manager to sub off our main goal threat in the last 15mins of a game in which we are looking for a winner.
He was two outrageous Sels saves and a bent referee from getting the winner.
That was true when Man City were putting up 100+ points but it’s not really this season.
Yep. And that was his bad game.
This is a new perversion of which I was previously, blissfully unaware.
Sorry Maria.
A word on Salah, this season he’s more often than not been our driving force when we have needed it. He had lead us to our victoires.
Last night I didn’t see or feel that at all. It was as if Williams had worn him out beaten him up.
It wasn’t until Williams hurt himself that Salah started showing anything even so it wasn’t in his usual l’m the boss gusto that he had shown in previous close games.
So in hindsight subbing him off was surely an option. This particularly as he’d obviously been asked to help more defensively down the right when needed. Elliot for example would have been fresher and willing to do that.
I’m not sure Salah is the right target for subbing off. Ultimately he’s a good GK save, a goalline clearance and a stone-wall denied penalty away from a hat-trick. That’s what he brings to the table - you can manage him well for 80 minutes but the moment you drop that intensity for a minute he will take advantage.
Having said that his inability to be effective across 90 minutes is surely part of the discussion Hughes and the analysis guys are having regarding a new contract. Right now 10 minutes of Salah being effective could win you most football games, will that still be true in 2 years?
. It was actually pretty similar to loads of games this season where he’s been anonymous and then just steps up to provide and assist and goal to win us the game. He did step up for a 10-15 period and would have done it but for the reasons you mentioned.
Fine margins between our fans wanting to pay him a million a week, or replacing him with Kudus
I think even the first half would have gone largely as Slot expected it. It would be tough work to create openings and his issue will likely be less the number we created and more how badly we snatched at them. Of course the reaction from the fans is different, but we tend to not give the opposition credit for an effective game plan well executed, and over react when we’re not winning
For all the frustration on here I think we showed significant growth compared to the first game. First time around we struggled to create openings and became increasingly ragged and rarely looked like turning the game around. Last night as the game went on we responded to the challenge by putting our heads down and following the process, and as the game went on it felt like the only question was whether the ref would blow thee whistle before forest finally broke. A marginally better result, but a considerably better response to the challenge posed, and very different from the common response we seem to be getting from fans
We had so much of the ball it seems Slot wanted to improve our ability on the ball from deep
That is never true against a direct competitor. And this season, it’s hard to decipher who is our direct competitor. They take turns bottling it so far.