We lost at home to a poor United side after losing to an injury ravaged Chelsea and a poor Galatasaray.
It’s clutching at straws to take positives from yesterday’s game, we were awful. The structure of the team is terrible and the coaching looks non-existant.
We have loads of good players and were playing at Anfield. We did create some chances. That doesn’t mean it was a good or promising performance. I didn’t see a single bit of improvement in our build up play or our ability to defend transitions. Not a jot.
That’s kind of ignoring the fact that we were at home to the worst Man Utd side in living memory. They were just as fucking rubbish yesterday as they have been since Amorim took over and they beat us in our own back yard because we can’t defend and are largely incoherent as a team. Sorry , but I don’t take any positives from that shitshow yesterday.
I think I am in between the two at the moment but there is a major issue about having to chase games, we were fine even up to last season but seemingly can’t do much in that way at the moment.
Next up is Frankfurt who have conceded 18 in 7 league games so I expect quite an open game. Probably the type of game we need right now.
No it’s not it’s more blatant, we don’t have a midfield.
Imo you correct, formation doesn’t matter as it’s not a tactic as such. What you need is players doing their job where it’s necessary and our midfield isn’t doing enough to protect the defence or supply our attackers. If that means dropping an attacker to ‘strengthen’ the midfield then do it or any other solution however we have to look at what the present midfield are doing and what they need to do to improve things.
I think if you watched an edit of that game in which the goals were taken out, and were then asked who won it 2-1, you’d be surprised it wasn’t Liverpool winning a lot more comprehensively.
The stats back that up too.
This isn’t saying it’s rosy, because there are obviously some big issues to sort out. Most pressingly, the tendency to lose games by switching off in key moments.
Palace and Galatasary were the real shockers. Chelsea was a better performance, but we shot ourselves in the foot. This was better again, but we’re still missing big chances and having defensive brain farts.
I don’t think this is thecworst Utd side in living memory. Last season they finished 15th, and adding Mbuema and Cunha have been smart. They won’t finish in the bottom half this season.
Yeah hate to say it but they looked good at times yesterday. Their defence and midfield are still shite but the two you mentioned are quality additions
From what I’ve seen of us this season, I would summarize as follows - we are too rigidly set up for both defense and attack and I would add that we act as if we are entitled with regards to both. The rigidity leads to a predictability and exploitability.
There is a lack of fluidity and instead a rigidity that is constraining on our attack and indeed on the defense. Our players feel caged in their positions. Gakpo does his thing in the top left third, Kerkez runs up next to him and passes to him. Same on the right. Isak/Ekitike/Fede/Wirtz add a bit of variety but it is confined by the rigidity of the flanks and feels like a plan B - rather than one broader plan. We are predictable.
The fluidity that is lacking may come with time - hopefully sooner rather than later. As we are a pretty changed team, it will likely be later rather than sooner.
I don’t need to watch an edit of the game, I watched the game.
We were crap.
If you want positives, all 5 subs gave it a proper go. I’m struggling with anything else. Whether we had more chances than United or not isn’t the point, they’re a terrible side and we should be doing much, much better.
That’s it for me, the structural issues. I’ve read a few Man Utd fans compare our midfield set-up yesterday to Ten Haag, with two defenders back, with Gravenberch in the midfield occasionally, and everyone else just pushed forward. I can understand the logic of trying to pin their defence and midfield back, but it looked naïve, and something I’d expect from maybe a Rodgers when he was with us.
We’re creating chances through moments from our players, but nothing from consistent patterns of play. Yesterday, it was Gakpo creating stuff from nothing. But we don’t stretch the play with players who can do that (pacey full-backs or wide players), pinning the opposition in, and using our other attacking players to move and create space. It’s all a bit ‘once the ball gets to our attackers, let’s hope they do something.’ It’s not sustainable. Even the basics like our passing and heading the ball in a particular direction look way off. I lost count yesterday of the times our player headed the ball straight to a Man Utd player, rather than have the awareness of our own players, and where to head to.
This coming week with away games against Frankfurt on Wednesday and Brentford on Saturday are huge. After that, we have Palace in the League Cup, Aston Villa and Real Madrid at home, and Man City away. We need to show some positive signs now, because there was nothing to hang onto yesterday… I tell a lie, Konate and Gakpo looked better.
As we seem to be having problems at right back, as is evidenced by Dom being called upon to play there, wouldn’t it make sense to play Gomez there? He knows the position and can definitely do a job in that position. Okay, we’d lose something attack, but right now it’s the defence that’s the main worry.
It makes loads of sense. The issue is we only have 3 centre backs.
We should’ve bought a more defensive player instead of Frimpong, or a passing left back rather than a runner like Kerkez. The balance is totally off due to poor recruitment.
The only other solution I can see is to play Robbo as a sort of third centre back, or even Endo at right back. Hardly ideal.
There are tiny margins between the result we got and having won 2-0, or even by a wider margin. But that does not actually argue against it being a poor performance. We were both ponderous with the ball and incredibly wasteful. This has been a theme of the season resulting in us having very little control of the games we’ve played like we’ve come to expect of this team. And the result is we look very vulnerable defensively because of how often we then give the ball away in bad situations. The fact we can still create enough chances to win most games doesnt negate that and if anything it has somewhat papered over the issue
We lost 4 in a row in the league under Klopp, but it came during a time where we lost all our senior CB’s to season ending injuries.
What mattered is he found a way to fix things and we ended the season strongly (unbeaten in our last 11 games), with a CB partnership of Nat and Rhys.
Right now there’s too many issues to address at once to think everything will fall into place with a click of the fingers and those worried things will get worse before they get better have every right to feel that way, Arne’s stubbornness not to change a single thing yesterday was criminal.