Guess which darling of the country has no game in midweek and has the advantage to play Saturday at 12:30h against a side which has a Wednesday night away game?
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Can still see West Ham beat them.
you still feel that way after the anemic display at home against United yesterday?
8 years and we still canāt break down a low block.
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The low block wasnāt what led us to coming up short last season.
Not even sure the issue was a low block the chances missed some of them should have been put away.
Expected goals suggests as much.
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what was it then?
Consistent Injuries leading to lots of disruption amongst the playing side and a midfield lacking the energy weāve come to expect from a Klopp side were the key factors in my opinion. Losing Diaz and Jota early on in the season clearly had a big impact and their return to the squad after injury coincided with much of our unbeaten run, as did the arrival of Gakpo.
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8 years? Are you implying the 2019/2020 team couldnāt beat a low block?
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itās been the achilles heel of Jurgenās teams since 2015. that one season, we had a better run at it than most but we still struggled against deep compact defending. A week after we blew Palace out 0-7 on the road, we drew to West Brom at home just after Christmas, they were playing a 4-5-1. Three days later, 0-0 draw to Newcastle set up in a 5-4-1. 7 days later, a 1-0 defeat away to Soton. following match, a 0-0 draw at home to United.
That was the disastrous 2020/2021 season, not 2019/2020.
Beating a low block isnāt an issue that is exclusive to Liverpool or Klopp, itās difficult because it simplifies defending for the low block team and reduces space around your own penalty area, at the expense of attacking output, making it a very effective tactic for keeping out a superior team.
If you donāt get an early goal against low block defenses then its very common for those games to turn into turgid slogs. There isnāt any consistent way to beat it, you just have to go aggressive, be brave and hope you can get a clear look at goal.
Even Man City struggle with low blocks.
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what I found bothersome about the game yesterday was the lack movement across our front line, Diaz being the one exception.
Salah no longer has that step to drive past his mark on the dribble. He did do a good job turning his guy once for the shot to the far corner but heās gotten so predictable with it that Onana had it easily.
Nunez was a pylon up front, he really isnāt one to create with his back at goal like Firmino could, or even Gakpo for that matter who is a step up. Diaz was good at doing some cycling of the ball in the corners but it gets so condensed down load that they sometimes just need to pull the ball back and open things up. let United press them out a bit, get their back line out of their third and try to expose space behind. But Endo doesnāt have that in his locker as the transition man and really our only play was to go out wide.
I really miss when Firmino used to drop between the lines, a quick turn and heād be lookign for the diagonal. He was a fucking genius and seriously missed right now.
Everyone does. Thatās why shit teams do it. Itās hard to play against and makes defending easy(ier).
This idea that its some sort of personalized kryptonite for us is weird.
During this period we have not only won more points that anyone but city, but scored more goals than anyone else. All the while, doing it the majority of the time against teams who tried to stay tight and compact (what is now called the low block).
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fair enough. doesnāt make it any less frustrating.
Its frustrating as shit. It is to watch and it is frustrating to play, for players on both sides. But it is effective if your goals are limited. The key, as much as it is a cliche, is the first goal. Yesterday we had no glaring misses, but enough openings that cumulatively we should have finished at least one. That is obviously not great, especially in the context of the scoring run our forwards are in. That is not sustainable and needs to break sooner than later if weāre going to mount a serious challenge. But I also know weāre going to face opposition like we have over the last 3 games the majority of times between now and the end of the season. In most of those games we will look poor(ish) until we score. That will not mean we are poor. It will mean that packing your defending third with 11 players makes it really difficult for attacking players to look good and pushes them into trying to force things to make something happen.
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youāre right on that one. when I saw Nunez watch the ball dribbling across the six after what he thought was a pen callā¦I lost my shit. heās pissing me off right now.
I think Nunez gets a really rough rap from our fans. And even yesterday thought a lot of our best stuff happened with him deeply involved. I remember one really nice criss cross movement with mo where he darted inside creating space for Mo to get in around the LB, but couldnt quite reach the square ball Mo put back across goal for him. Then there was the big scramble at the back post that came from Nunez stretching to knock trentās slightly overhit cross back across goal for someone to try to force in. I think those were two of the closest chances we had that didnt factor into the official shot/saves stats.
But itās now been 10 games or so without a goal. He is now firmly in the territory of these ābut did you see the dummy runā type defenses not being enough.
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A few have commented that we lacked fitness, however, for me, the energy was there, we pegged United back nearly the whole game and pressured them throughout most of the match.
What seems to be missing is the decision-making, which, as most have said, has been off for quite a while, but I also agree that our front 3 are at times static, they very rarely interchange.
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What exactly do you want?
On current form (last nine games) we are top of the league.
On the season we are second, and potentially top at Christmas.
All of this without 100% gelling and integration of a completely new midfield.
And our inability (?) to master teams utilising a low block is the main take away from the United game?
If we were offered our current position at the start of the season with room for improvement to come we would have been really happyā¦
But that fucking low block though.
Our forwards are too static and wasteful, yet we are third highest scoring team in the PL with arguably the tougher away schedule than any other team.
Klopp is rebuilding a twam that won the PL and CL and were cheated out of more. The team that were two matches from a quadrupleā¦and still the moaning continues.
For Fuck Sake.
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Ten Blag didnāt set his team up for a 0-0 draw as suchā¦ he set them up for a maximum 2-0 defeatā¦ The fact they spawned a draw was a bonus.
Very difficult to play football and get rhythm, against such negative tactics that deploy 10men behind the ball in their own halfā¦
Also very difficult to criticise too harshly, our players when they are thrown into such a quagmire of a game
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Its obvious, this is not the same team that played 60 games and two matches from a quad.
The only reason weāre in 2nd is due to other teams blowing up games they shouldnāt be losing, not due to our own stunning performances.