The pair of them! And when Big Sam is available too!
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Surely if we’re talking about fullbacks the archetype should be Tony Pulis?
But that’s not the point.
Beating the FB is one thing, and no manager or FB would want that, but the goal is always to ensure that no real damage- measured in chances created, comes from that…
Merely mentioning how many times Doku dribbled Trent is a mere statistic. It has zero value in the context of the game.
The only value it has is for either bean counting, or someone who enjoys “mastubatory dribbling”…
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It was funny yesterday as even the press were mocking the banner at the emptyhad champions 4 times in a row displayed in front of swathes of empty seats!
The point trying to be made is that sure Slot would prefer Trent can deal with Doku 1v1 but he’s one of the best dribblers in the world and Trent is not the best 1v1 defender as we know. So to mitigate the threat the instruction to Trent was likely to at least make him go on the outside and not allow him to come infield for an easier pass or shot. Once Trent stops the inside move then that signals to Grav/Salah and later in the game Endo to come and double up. If he still gets beyond that it’s all given Konate a chance to get into position.
It’s not so much that Slot wants to see Trent get beaten by the winger but an acknowledgement that Trent isn;t the greatest in those situations and Doku is very good, so limit the damage by dealing with it as a team rather than just telling Trent to deal with it. It’s good coaching in my opinion because it’s limiting the damage of exposure to a weakness in Trent’s game.
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Spot on with your analysis!
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The day after. Yep. Feels good.
Trent’s defending? Very tough to go up against Doku. Yes, he personally got beat a number of times, but the overall team tactic worked a treat. The pass map above was instructive. There was a red wall stopping them from coming into our box in the middle, and they were forced wide. That meant Doku got a lot of the ball, and he definitely won the medal for getting to the byline.
Unfortunately for them, it all amount to zero goals and zero points.
Slot just showed that there’s more than one way to win a football game, and while we will never become a cagey shit house sort of team, there were elements of that win that looked like prime Mourinho. It’s a nice option to have.
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I think we saw a flip of that with our approach with Diaz. There were lots of times we got the ball to him in a pretty isolated situation leaving him to battle through what looked like hopeless situations up against 2 or sometimes 3 players. It looked like again we prioritized keeping shape in the middle of the pitch, primarily to be ready to defend in the likely case he lost the ball (so not a great outcome, but something we accepted). But also because he is such a difficult player to dispossess that we hoped that if he could somehow wriggle out of those situations even a couple of times we’ve automatically created an overload we’d then be really well positioned to exploit.
In both scenarios it’s a case of prioritizing where we want the numerical overload to be, accepting the trade off and having enough faith in your isolated player for them to rise to the challenge even if looks like a challenging day where things arent going right for them.
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Sorry we played a relatively low block (as per our usual standards) , crowded the middle with a 4-6-0 at times, didn’t play any designated striker.
That is parking the bus. Do I hate it ? Nope. We got the win. We fucked up their game plan.
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If Doku played for Liverpool he would be a world beater as he would get the right service to score more goals while still creating havoc with his dribbles.
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Nope. We had the option to sign on Doku first. We passed on him.
And with respect to Doku vs Trent I will say this.
Trent did the job for his team. Bought the team enough time even when he was looking ugly at times to get back in position to ensure that Doku had to pass back most if not all of the time.
The one time Doku did give a right pass, hey flukes do happen.
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Was it nice to see Trent getting skinned so much ? Nope.
But what it led was a predictable barrage of balls down Trent’s side with a guy like Doku who had no end product.
Trent’s brilliant pass to Mo helped create the second goal. Which is more than can be said about anything Doku did
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:0)
Liverpool and their ‘blip’
Story by Barry Glendenning
In the days before Liverpool’s trip to Manchester City, much was spoken about the mid-season wobble being endured by Arne Slot’s league leaders, a worrying collapse in form that incorporated creditable draws in difficult away games at Everton and Aston Villa, along with a win over Wolves at Anfield. Presumably working on the entirely specious presumption that Arsenal were guaranteed to win against West Ham on Saturday, a general consensus appeared to form among the punditocracy that if Manchester City could conjure up enough muscle memory to beat or even draw with a supposedly out-of-sorts Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium, the gap at the top would be reduced to just five or six points and Arsenal, with their game in hand and a match to come at Anfield, would be well and truly back in the title race.
Of course with the benefit of our old friend 20-20 hindsight, everyone can now see that much of this pre-match hypothesising was almost certainly just wishful thinking and conclude that simply hoping for a closely-contested climax to the season is no guarantee that one will materialise. The fact of the matter is that Liverpool’s recent ‘blip’ was little more than a figment of the fevered collective imagination, while most of us have been watching football for far too long to underestimate Arsenal’s comically-unerring capacity to blunderbuss themselves in both feet. While any criticism of Mikel Arteta’s side must be accompanied by the now obligatory caveat that they are missing four of their most talented attacking players through injury, any team with serious delusions of title-winning grandeur does not have any business losing at home to a West Ham side that – Football Daily checks notes – are also missing four of their most talented attacking players through knack.
Duly unencumbered by any additional pressure placed upon them in what is looking like an increasingly serene march to the title, the players of Liverpool rocked up in Manchester knowing that victory would take them 11 points clear of their London rivals and, despite enjoying only 33% of possession, strolled to a victory that could scarcely have been more routine if it had covered itself in fake tan and sequins and been performed on Strictly Come Dancing. “Three days ago we had a draw at Villa and people told me we weren’t in a good place and then three days later we win and it changes again,” mused Slot in the wake of a win that, in tandem with the previous day’s Arsenal defeat, means only a collapse of Devon Loch proportions will cost Liverpool their open-top bus parade.
“You have to have that bit of tension in the dressing room saying if you slip up now, you’ll be a laughing stock,” tooted Roy Keane on Sky Sports, upon being asked if complacency might be a problem for Liverpool’s players. “You’d have good squad members and obviously the manager would do it, the senior players would do it to make sure you don’t slack off in training. You look at some of the fixtures and you’re playing Southampton at home but you treat Southampton like you’re playing Real Madrid.” While Slot and his dressing-room leaders are unlikely to tolerate any kind of dip in standards, it is quite frankly preposterous to expect professionals even as consummate as they to treat the triple-pronged threat of Cameron Archer, Tyler Dibling and Paul Onuachu with the same amount of foreboding as that of Vinícius Jr, Kylian Mbappé and Rodrygo.
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Glendenning can sometimes be a bit miserly when it comes to Liverpool but he’s been very forthright in recent podcast episodes that we are doing perfectly fine. He’s pretty much the only one who wasn’t getting excited at a last second Everton equalizer (that he agreed was a clear foul) and a draw away at a rejuvenated Villa.
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Lowest Liverpool winning possession
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What Trent lacks and Doku has in abundance, is a burst of pace and along with Trents starting body position, Doku is always going to win that battle.
But as you said we allowed for that and apart from a couple of times in the 1st half, where Trent got roasted high up the pitch, Trent slowed him down enough so that our team was in position to help and cut down the threat.
Even though Doku had the beating of Trent, Trent never gave up,
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Are you saying they said to Trent don’t tackle him just force him into areas, nope that is nonsense they would still want both him and Robbo to win their respective duels, but do it when cover can assist
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