A few take away points;
- Jota added much needed energy and intelligent pressing in the front 3, his touch and passing was much better than it had been
- Kostas needs a run of games, even when Robbo comes back. He really was exceptional at both ends of the pitch
- We need to work out the problems with our right side, if Elliot is struggling with defensive transitions then we need to ask Trent to play more reserved or play Gomez. Alternatively we play Thiago over there and Arthur on the left
My view on the right sided problems is it’s about communication, look at the left side and you have Van Dijk and Thiago who are constantly talking and keeping shape. We used to have Hendo on the right and whilst some people mocked him for constantly shouting it’s clear he was bringing a lot of structure over there. One example was Fabinho tracking a midfield runner on the left side, you can see Thiago hand him off to him as he goes out wider, Fabinho sees this and follows him into the box and makes the tackle… On the right none of this happens, look at Trent, Elliot, Matip none of them talk. How can you work as a small cohesive unit if you aren’t constantly telling eachother where players are. It’s easy when the game is in front of you but we have zero capability to adapt and shift on that side hence why we are continually caught. I don’t even think it’s a problem with Trent being too far up field, thats what he’s being asked to do, but what he needs behind him is other players shifting to fill the gaps, and continually telling eachother who is doing what.
Hence why I think Thiago on the right might work really well for a little while, but as part of that Klopp picks his right sided “commander” and coaches them on reading the game properly but importantly empowers them to get the right side structure sorted throughout the game (which is a huge ask for Elliot imo). Thiago’s reading of the game and defensive positioning is world class, we need to use that whilst we get back into form.