In the news this morning…
Arteta trying to get his game against Spurs at the weekend called off because of the number of Injuries and Covid in his squad…!
Ya couldn’t make this stuff up…
It’s really strange that it hits us always at the same time. You’d expect Klopp and his staff to learn a thing or two and try addressing this problem.
On the other hand, and thinking a bit about it, it might be calculated. Every team (bar Cheaty it seems) hits a rut at some point in the season. Maybe the choice is that it has to hit now, in a relative ‘calm’ period with a lot of national cup games, but less league games, and before the crunch European games start again, while trying to get results no matter what.
So, it might be that the physical preparation of the lads takes into account a weaker period at this moment of the year.
Then again, as far as this season is concerned, losing our two best forwards and one midfielder to a tournament in Africa was always going to hit us hard, no matter what.
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The reason why Arteta has every right to rip Xhaka a new one is because the probability of Jota scoring from there is actually quite low. I don’t think we’ll see any xG for it, as it never developed into a shot, but I’d imagine it would be something a lot lower than 1.
The sensible thing to do in Xhaka’s position is let it develop, stay tight and be a nuisance, and trust your goalkeeper to do enough.
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I’m the oldest brother. They’re better at football and I’m a prick, so your thesis holds
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Fabinho, Henderson, and Milner against a low block team is useless, yet Klopp took till 60 mins to make the changes. Robertson and Trent weren’t great either and we had options on the bench. Pitiful.
Well, not practising corners obviously.
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And LFC have left Melwood now.
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Ball is in Arsenals Hand now. They have the home advantage and I don’t expect us to start with such a ‘strong’ side in the second leg because we need the players for the PL.
Also, Thiago and Origi won’t be back next week.
Expecting extra time 100% and that’s actually the last thing we need.
Crying out for Thiago or Keita last night.
But we still should have enough to break down these teams.
Hendo and Milner were poor, Bobby was poor and Taki is not at the level required.
Both full backs looked jaded and our corners were dreadful.
Poor night overall, Matip and Allison the only positives.
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I realise, we’ve had the disruption of the recent Covid outbreaks, the training ground closed and players self isolating etc and we don’t know how certain players may have been affected by testing positive. But last night’s performance lacked energy and intensity. A few players were nowhere near the level required, Trent, Virgil, Firmino, Jota and Minamino, to name five. Klopp and his staff have got some work to do, to get this squad going again.
I just want to mention AFCON. We’ve known for a very long time that we would lose three players to this competition, two thirds of our forward line, Salah is currently one of the best players in the world, and yet there has been no preparation for their absence. The club appears to have taken the decision that we’ll just get through this period with what we’ve got. Well, it could be very damaging, in my opinion.
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The irony is our best midfielder is fucking Matip, the problem is once he’s beaten 2 men he get a nose bleed. Was crying out for a midfielder to do that he was doing, Jones should have started.
Last night’s game in 15 seconds.
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Not wanting to make any excuses for last night’s performance, but I think we might be underestimating the impact all of this has had on us. We’re a momentum team. We went into December on our usual roll but since the Spurs game we’ve won 1 in 6 and that was against Shrewsbury. Every game now we look rusty and disjointed. The Covid outbreak and all the disruption has definitely had an impact.
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I never imagined Trent starting before the match, since he just got over covid. After all, he could have entered in the second half due to 5 possible subs. Although I do not blame Klopp for starting him, he should have reacted much earlier with changes because it was blatantly visible that the starting XI was not capable of creating anything dangerous yesterday. Okay, Jones sub can be considered timely, but why didn’t he send Neco in at the same time and Kostas as well?
Klopp surely has some thinking to do before the Brentford match and maybe do the unthinkable: bench the likes of Trent, VVD and Robbo. In the last few games, they were not at their usual (world-class) level. I know they are tired because of playing almost every match for the last few seasons, and Trent and VVD clearly still feel the consequences of covid infection, but precisely for the situations like this we have back-up options and we should not be afraid of utilizing them. It is hard to make major tweaks in midfield and attack due to our limited options there (especially with Thiago and Divock absent due to their injuries at the worst possible time and it seems nobody even knows what is their issue). But it seems Milner’s age is starting to catch him - he might still be valuable to close games as a sub but not as a starter against a Prem side. Rather play Jones there on the weekend.
As much as yesterday was frustrating, it was only a first leg and everything is still left to play in the Kangaroo Cup.
Now focus on somehow getting the three points v. Brentford.
It’s just piling on. The team’s form has taken a nosedive in January even in normal seasons. Throw in and all the covid disruptions and the AFCON absences and it becomes much much worse. Last night was never going to be easy but nobody expected it to be this bad. It really doesn’t look good for the upcoming fixtures. Brentford will be another slugfest.
At the beginning of the season I always thought that the only way get through this period relatively unscathed, would be for us to find that level of concentration and consistency that we had in 19/20 and start controlling and winning games by the odd goal. But when you see Van Dijk and the entire first choice backline having problems dealing with Arsenal’s punts and our FBs failing to clear the first defender with their corners, you realise that this team couldn’t be further away from where it needs to be.
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Clearly we had a few players who needed a run out to regain some match sharpness, nothing lost, and dominated the game so nothing to get too upset about. Still, we have some longer term issues regarding our inability to break down ten men (not sure any team find that easy), and our lack of threat from corners - this is the big one for me and could have cancel out the first point. Not long ago it was one of our strong points, not sure what has happened but I hope it something that the guys are going to be working on.
Agreed. And the same can be said for many of our players who usually take a few games to build up their form. But that’s not helpful in an era where Man City do not drop that many points for us to have that luxury of building up our form post disruptions. It’s been the same now for couple of years, so was hoping we would be better adapted to it now.
It’s a great Liverpool tradition that goes back decades.
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When I saw a starting line-up I really wasn’t delighted with Millie, Hendo and Fab trio. Poor creativity between these lads. But what the fuck do I know.
What I again do not understand why the team isn’t really prepared for these low block tactics. It’s almost always same old story of trying to pass the ball into a goal between gazillion of bodies. Or hoping for individual brilliance to save the day.
Why are we shit at set pieces? No real danger or cunning ideas from corners.
Free kicks are shit and appart from Trent we don’t have any decent taker?
Why isn’t there any serious ball delivery into a box from these positions? We have some tall players with decent heading abilities.
It’s just one of the ways to beat low block teams.
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This is a real concern. Don’t think we have created much from corners and free-kicks in last few games.
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