That would be a valid point until you watch Arsenal, City and to some extent Bournemouth…
I don’t think pressing is in Arne Slots plan. Possession seems to be his only go to trait. Slow possession at that.
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Whenever I watch them, they don’t seem to be full on pressing animals. Guardiola never has been - he has always leant more into closing passing lanes than pressing. And Arteta has followed his old mentor.
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Because the geggenpress as we know it, including much of Klopps at LFC, has evolved. And it was evident in how we pressed last season, a hybrid approach. Squeezing the lines as opposed to the more direct approach, but with triggers.
But this season’s been different, from the aforementioned physical issues- IMO, and having new players, especially up top…
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Touched lucky yesterday. I had to go out at 3.30 and then the late KO meant I was only subjected to 15 minutes of Slotball.
We looked comfortable for those 15 minutes but by the time I got into the car and put the radio on we were 1-0 down!
WTF are those marks on Gakpo’s back?
It looks like chinese cupping therapy…
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yep its cupping.
ive never had it, but know people who have, it seems to work
It may well be harder these days, but we are still objectively bad at it and bad relative to other teams. I don’t know how if it’s changed as a result of this more conservative approach of the last few weeks but back in October or so the stats from this season had us as 4th highest in the league in terms of pressing efforts but rock bottom in terms of effectiveness. It matches the eye test of seeing our forwards aimless chasing after the ball while the midfield stand off and allow players to get the ball to their feet and turn, something we’re still routinely
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i thought todays press was marginally better than in the past, there outlet though, most times, was a wide player our fullbacks - particularily Kerkez- were miles off .
That was there out that i saw.
really didnt rate Kerkez today, at all.
@jaffod is probably thinking about Neo from Matrix when seeing Gakpo’s back. 
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That’s because we all assume the lines on the pitch are straight and parallel to the goal line!!!
We now have a different press to what we did under Jurgen, as Slot’s supposed ethos is plus 1, in other words, always an extra defensive player free.
The issue with this is either an oppositions full back moving into midfield for an overload, which happened more when Mo was playing or an attacker coming deeper and being open as the defender isn’t following him.
The other thing under Klopp was that not only did we have identifiable pressing triggers, i.e a certain player in possession or a certain pass type, but we used the press to force play in certain directions to set pressing traps.
I see neither of these and a also see an uncommitted press in regards to the whole team setup.
But as you say those leakages are a concern as teams are beating it too many times and it improves only when we go behind, we then level the score and it drops off again giving the initiative back to the opposition.
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Nah, mate. Fuck all that modern 4-4-2.
They should still be playing WM formation 
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I’ve never seen so much head shaking, shoulder shrugging, and arms thrown in the air as I did in that first half. They looked complety lost both on and off the ball.
The fulham equaliser wasnt anything new this season. We’ve been abandoning that area all season. Its clearly how we’ve been instructed to defend. The last fifteen minutes of the leeds game was the same. Leeds players were receiving the ball in the same position with the same amount of time and space.
I was convinced that we’d come good, but theres nothing in our play to suggest it will. The players don’t look convinced either.
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I agree, but wouldn’t read much more into that. Of course, the pressure is higher when you lose points and your team isn’t playing as well as last season, but he has to react quickly and answer to questions in his second language. Not easy.
I’d prefer if he kept it very tight and didn’t give away too much though. In our current situation, every word he pronounces will be dissected, and when possible, used against him.
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You mean body language?
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I don’t think they’ve been told to defend like that at all. It’s fear. Fear of conceding means the line drops deeper and deeper. It’s not the manager urging them to drop off like that.
Go watch Carra’s analysis of the end of the Spurs game. They show the last couple minutes from a super wide shot. Slot and one of our coaches are clearly shouting and gesticulating for them to move up the pitch. Happens three times when Spurs keeper has the ball but the back line just keeps edging further and further back. And then the midfield line drops too until they’re practically stood on the toes of our centre backs making easy second ball wins for the spurs midfield.
And if you look at one of their attacks, it’s remarkably similar to the Fulham goal. Ball out on the left, they play it back to a player 30 odd yards out with no one near him. Seven of ours, plus Alisson, versus four of theirs in the box. This time Jones does charge out to close that player down. It gets popped off and Jones then goes chasing that ball even though there are two of ours in that area who could close down but instead just stand there. Then when the ball is rolled back to the original Spurs player a different one of our lads charges out to close down but it’s too late and he swings an easy ball into the box. Virg clears, we lose the second ball and Spurs end up with a decent shot.
This week we don’t close down that man and he bangs in a worldie.
I highly doubt they’re being coached to defend like this. Certainly the signs from the manager on the touchline don’t suggest that’s what he wants. Been saying it for months but it’s mental not physical or coaching per-se. We’ve gone from a team with a strong mentality, work ethic, sense of shared responsibility and clear leadership on the touchline and on the pitch to a bag of scared nerves.
Interesting watching that Spurs analysis you see zero leadership on the pitch. No one taking charge, no one holding the backline where the manager wants it, no one putting a foot on the ball to slow things down. And crucially no one running for each other. At one point Alisson hoofs the ball upfield towards Wirtz with four Liverpool players level or behind him in our own box. There’s no clear break on and we’ve two extra men on the pitch but we’ve eliminated any numerical advantage we have. We’ve also seen zero movement for Alisson to roll an easy ball out to a man in space, making the pitch big and forcing spurs to chase us. Just statues looking upfield as one of our most senior and experienced players launches it back to the opposition.
I think it’s a really worrying sign when there’s clearly a disconnect between what the manager is asking them to do, players not doing it and the on pitch leaders failing to set standards. Call it fear, malaise, poor mentality or poor coaching but we’re simply not a cohesive team.
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Yeah. Ive seen poor body language before, but that looked really bad.
Sorry, it was a bit of an in-joke.
I mentioned the players body language in the Arne Slot thread and another poster found it funny (no idea why), and your post was a perfect example of what I was trying to say.
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A point that’s been nagging away at me is the “Konate gallop”. He made a run through the middle of the park and made a pass that went out of play… Many jumped on this in a negative way and so did I but for polar opposite reasons. From my perspective, I saw a team that was so rigid that they either do not see opportunities or are too afraid to take them. Konate carried the ball from his usual spot near right back (where he often gets it from VVD) and carried it to a little over the halfway line. He passed laterally and the full back was on his heels and the ball dribbled out of play. Rather than be looking for the ball to build something we seemed set on him passing backward to initiate the usual left/right/left passing between the CBs, left/right/etc between the midfield until we’re in their third and then, you guessed it, left/right/etc until we loose the ball… The spontaneity aspect is completely lacking. Sometimes there can be an opportunity in momentary chaos or transition and we are too entrenched in our process to take advantage… We revert back to “shape”, as do the opposition, and we resume our attempt of hypnotize the opposition into giving up a goal…
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