Who would you put in his place. I doubt think we have anyone left?
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All fair comment. One way to get more players forward is to pass the ball earlier, or quicker. Pass and support repeat repeat etc. We are still trying to do exactly the same things as we did in our prime but with a diminished squad. A little tweak is needed to give players a fresh hope, a new challenge.
It will be interesting to see what team we field next Saturday at Sheffield. Pretty sure Phillips will start, he deserves it.
Kieta is fit again but I would look to see if I could pull Grujic back. If that fails look to the Academy. They are all trained to play our way.
I don’t think Thiago is bad buy but he is just too set in his ways to change to our style of play. When we have our midfield of Hendo and Fabinho back he might be more effective as a utility technical player…but not now.
The only other option is Ox but he is not a play maker and he doesn’t track back and do the dirty grafting that’s needed.
Not sure I buy the conspiracy theories, and I’m from Liverpool. There is a southern distain for all things scouse, but I don’t think it extends to organised bias. We’re having a poor season, injuries, passive tactics & predictable lineup.it may get worse before it gets better, but I believe the foundations are there for success.
On the other hand you might argue that we got lucky three years ago. Had Coutinho not left we wouldn’t have acquired VVD or Alisson, who have been unbelievable for us. But we can’t afford to tread water. Some players need to be moved on and replaced with quality.
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You’re not allowed to call them conspiracy theories here. You have to describe as ‘institutional bias’. Totally blinding everyone from a rational discussion here.
Like you say, a dislike of the city and all things scouse in some of the media, and possibly with some of the refs, may be one factor…but there’s a lot more to- our passive nature with the refs, lack of fans, fatigue, drops in form…before we even get onto the injuries
There is zero merit behind the premise that Thiago is responsible for neutering the attack but even if there was, the suggestion that Klopp doesn’t drop him because he is a Bundesliga legend is beyond ridiculous.
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He is a classy player, no doubt. But I wonder his value atm with teams playing so defensively . Our midfield works a treat when teams try and play football, but when teams sit back we struggle to get through. Is Thiago the type of player to help in these situations? Not from what I’ve seen so far. What type of player(s) might be the key for us getting back on track?
Err… Van Dijk? Gomez? Matip? Fabinho? Hendo?
If Keita can gain back full fitness, he could be a game-changer for our latter part of the season I think. But will he ever be fully fit again? I wouldn’t hold my breath.
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They will help, but what about breaking down 8 man defences?
You seem to forget where you started your response to me with personal attacks!
Yes LFC, have been impacted more than any by injuries.
But after we recognize the undoubted impact of this, we are faced with analyzing our response to the adversity.
Your problem is your chronic inability to make this transition in thought…
According to bitter-Murphy, Judas-Owen, neanderthal-Keown, blue-shite-Lineker et al, it was a penalty because Trent raised his leg.
However, the fact that diver-cadaver-lewin was already going down, before Trent raised his leg, and that he made no contact with Trent’s foot/leg in the process, doesn’t seem to matter.
And now for today’s quiz. How long does long time shiteh fan kavanagh look at the VAR monitor.
(hint, the video shows frame numbers, each frame is 1/25th of a second)
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I think for me, the situation requires acceptance of reality to some extent.
We cannot get back to the counterpressing/high intensity game with so many missing parts.
The team IMO would be better off playing different; perhaps a deeper line, which would probably suit Kabak and Phillips, and the return of the midfielders in MF.
Maybe play more on the counter, with two forwards, Mane and Salah, and an extra midfielder in place of Bobby.
This is what happens when a team is built around a playing philosophy.
Pandemic football has made nonsense of everything Klopp and team have planned, yet they are still operating from the basis of a playing philosophy that does not have the tools to support it.
You move MFs to CD; you create two holes; in defence and MF; then you create a further constraint upfield in the attack!!!
The team was woefully unprepared to adapt to adversity. For the most part you cannot control how or where injuries occur. And we have been hit harder than any other team.
But you can control how you choose to respond to the adversity…
You can control when you sign a CD in the winter window- Jan 1 or Jan 31.
You can hail Edwards for pulling off the transfers on deadline day. Or you can ask why a team like LFC is battling on deadline day to sign a CD from Preston North End!
The sheer toll of injuries are what got us in this mess. Its not an excuse, like Carragher was stupidly saying. Its the reality.
But after you accept the reality of the injuries, we all have to make the transition to analyzing how we have chosen to respond.
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Why do we have to constantly play 433 .
Yesterday if we had one more in midfield we should / could have created more chances .
Question is .
Is 433 easier for teams to defend against ?
And what is your reasoning for that other than you disagree? The facts are that our performances dropped when he came back from injury. It’s pretty obvious that our attack has slowed?
One of the reasons Klopp wanted Thiago was precisely because he could add an element of unpredictability and incision especially against deep lying defences. His guile and intelligence would add a new dimension to the team that walked the league. In normal times the second half at Chelsea would have been a preview of what was to come. Unfortunately everything has gone to shit since then and as a result the current Liverpool iteration has little in common with last year’s winning side.
He’s supposed to provide goals on a plate when there is no movement in front of him against packed defences while he also has to contend with bigger defensive responsibilities. Not to mention that he has missed two months due to injury and he has had no preseason. Now I wouldn’t say that he’s been playing well because he hasn’t. No one has. But expectations need to be realistic both about him and the team in general.
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That’s a good question. Why is Klopp so fixated on this? Surely having an alternative strategy would at least keep the opposition guessing.
Our attacking play stalled after Jota got injured, and because Bobby continued to do little.
Our midfield went south after we had to take Hendo out of it to play in defence, with Fab already in defence, Keita injured, Milner in and out, and Oxlade next to useless when used.
Thiago might have come back into the side at just the point we started losing matches, but it wasn’t all on him.
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Even with Gomez being a result of freak accidents you can put that down to bad luck or whatever but somewhere there is a reason why he gets injured whereas others don’t.
Being pushed into hoardings might have something to do with it.
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Yesterday you were saying that the injuries were an excuse and other teams have faced similar adversity. Glad you’ve reassessed that.
Right now a few responses to this.
We’re already playing a deeper line. That shift has definitely happened. Because of that the rest of the team is also deeper too. That’s a big part of why we are struggling to get at teams before they are settled back into defence and hard to break down.
The other effect of losing the four usual CBs is that it’s limiting the full back’s abilities to be our playmakers further up the pitch. They are more cautious, wary of bombing on too much, and attempting less risky balls for fear of turning over possession.
I think it’s hard to adapt to the adversity we’ve had to face just on the injuries, you can’t have six first team players out every game all year, and it not have an impact. If you could just adapt to losing Van Dijk, Gomez, Fabinho, Thiago, Jota etc these players would not be so prized and valuable. Losing a player like Van Dijk would hurt any team, losing a bunch of players of his stature would be catastrophic.
On the Transfer Window stuff, you say you can just choose to sign players on 1st Jan. I don’t think it’s that simple. There are suggestions we moved for a Kabak in December but were told to fuck off unless we were willing to drop 30m cash there and then. I’ve also seen rumour that we were looking at lots of Centre Backs earlier in the window but were being quoted ridiculous prices because clubs knew we were desperate.
On top of this I think it’s quite obvious that the club is broke. Not a pot to piss in. It’s no surprise that we spent not a bean more that we brought in in the summer, and did the same in Jan.
You can say that we should have unveiled a centre back on January first but I don’t think we had the money, let alone could swallow paying double in desperation tax.
I think until December we’d actually responded well. We were top on Christmas Day. But there is only so long you can ask lads to keep going to the well when you ability to rest and rotate has been shattered.
And I’m not forgetting that we are firmly entrenched in the top four had we not been on the end of some absolutely scandalous refereeing.
I’m not criticising Klopp because I think he is doing the best he can, and is currently trying to manage us with both arms and legs tied behind his back. Fans might not like it, but all his decisions have been pragmatic and sensible. The only one that left me properly furious was the team selection in the CL dead rubber. We lost Jota that day, and that really hurt us.
So in conclusion has the team does as well it can despite the injuries? Yes I think it has. It’s easy to underestimate the extent so many injuries for so prolonged a period will hurt a football team.