the press worked when we had a bunch of mid-late 20’s running around the pitch. Now a whole bunch of high-mileage legs out there.
these lads have busted their guts for 4-5 seasons now of high achievements and clearly need some fresh legs to come in and rotate the middle of the pitch.
Especially galling is when one of the midfielders is sprinting to press the keeper, and the opposition just does a long ball into the space left wide open in midfield or right back.
I don’t think its new problem, we played like this in the end of last session as well. Our front line cannot press, our mid have no legs. Klopp have to change because he knew our mid can’t cover backline anymore. The question is why we just don’t give Klopp players he need to continue his game plans than force him change because of squad’s limitations. Elliott. Thiago Carvalho cannot defense, Fabinho is overload. Milner is done, Keita, Ox always injure. Klopp cannot change it.
We can press the keeper if the spaces behind are covered. Our lack of mobility and compactness in midfield allows for us to get bypassed too easily.
Add to that, he only has one year left in his contract. But, we must secure a CL slot first.
Never heard Klopp talking like this even during the 20/21 season. Truly worrying
Something I’ve mulling over for the last few months is are teams just coping with the press a lot better? Are teams just more press resistant than they were in Klopp’s early years?
I’m only going on eye test, but I see even bang average teams pinging little passes around our press, and I don’t know if we’re not pressing as we used to or teams are just living with it better.
When he started he brought with him a manic press that teams just looked shell shocked trying to live with. He’s been here, what seven years? That’s a fair amount of time for teams to adapt and respond.
Our lack of success in implementing is allowing teams to braver and try playing through it, knowing the pay off is big if they can succeed. It starts with us being less effective.
Wolves have one of the better, more technical midfields in the league as well. Going to be great fun watching Milner and Fabinho in their current states trying to chase around after them on Saturday.
I would like to test TAA as a CM - he has been playing half-assed CM, half-assed RB for a while - he shows up too much in the centre these days. He should either go back to the wide where he belongs to, or start playing as proper midfielder, especially in a 3-4-3 setup. After all, he used to be a CM as a junior.
If I was Trent I’d go and work on crossing a ball from a set piece. They were almost all poor tonight.
Yep
He is useless at crossing or set pieces
He has never had an assist.
Sell him immediately
I’m actually delighted to hear him say this, it’s taken a few weeks and the manner of this defeat has no doubt intensified the emotion but it seems that the penny has dropped that we aren’t going to be successful by trying to do the same things again and again.
Really hoping to see a different approach at the weekend. The players have been shite this season but Klopp has been shite too, to be honest. I’m encouraged that he’s recognised the need to change.
Never happy to lose but once the result became clear last night I didn’t feel any anger because we got exactly what we deserved. If it took a gubbing at the hands of Napoli away for us to reassess our tactics this season then I’m good with that.
No because our press is none existant, Klopp confirmed this yesterday by saying we didn’t counter press once till Thiago came on.
The whole system is wrong top to bottom and it’s made to look even worse by the likes of Milner and Elliot playing who are very poor defensively, the amount of times they get stuck up field leaving Fabinho (whose not playing well) to deal with overloads is in the 10+ per game.
Firstly our passing is too slow, too many touches so we allow a team to get back and defend in numbers. Teams are happy to give us 70% possession because they know we’ll do little with it and ultimately end up giving it back to them with minimal effort.
Secondly our movement off the ball is none existant, so what ends up happening is you combine that with the slow passing we spend 30 tepid passes side to side, ending in a pass which isn’t on (typically from Trent) or an aimless punt into the box and we lose the ball.
Thirdly our left/right midfielders are too high, one doesn’t drop next to Fabinho to give an extra passing option (which would help get out of the press) to him and the central defenders - This is also key because if our fullbacks who are higher do take on a riskier pass and it’s intercepted we have 2 midfielders back v’s 1.
So for me one of the biggest problems in defense is our passing, movement and attacking because it’s so slow and predictable with 9 attacks out of 10 ends up with the middle of the park vacated and one simple ball forward gets a fast attacker 1 v 1 with a central defender (who no longer dominate these types of duels).
So you add all the above, and the fact our midfield seems to be static and never closing down a player we are all over at both ends of the pitch.
It was no surprise that when Thiago came on we looked like a different team, he didn’t even do anything special. He simply played as a midfielder, he stayed central, he dropped to help build up, he passed it quickly and moved into space to receive and defensively he pressed their midfield and dropped when needed.
It’s very very basic things to change tactically.
The desire not shown? Well I think it’s time Klopp dropped the ones not able to put in the 110% demanded of this club.
its hardly fair to expect Klopp to drop the owners though…aint it?
all gentle jokes aside, for the first time in a long time im looking at the owners and thinking to myself ‘your move’
i understand how good they have been for the club to date…
but we have an ageing squad who’ve made the CL final 3 out of 6(is it?) years and have pressed Man city all the way at the same time in the league, all on very healthy net spends, with smart business transactions along the way and a very talented recruitment team.
but it feels a bit of a cul de sac now, a bit like theyve asked Jurgen to go to the well one too many times…i mean…we are hunted Man city, trying to keep off UTD, Chelsea, Spurs and the arse, not to mention Newcastle utd in the rear view mirror…
needs must, we can scream how its unfair to have to compete with Cheats (budgetory) but the place just feels like it could go further…expectingly trying to extract anything out of Keita, Milner and Oxalade just seems financially focused, not football focused.
at some point, Jurgen and co wont be here…if this is ‘living within our means’ with what weve done in the last 5-6 years a dread what we’ll be doing when we back off a little bit -which looks like this will be the year unfortunately.
the future is bright with a few of those kids, but they need to be given the right introduction, at the moment it feels like a ‘hail mary’, not a long term plan
But Klopp himself said the blame for not signing a central midfielder was his fault, he was happy with his squad (waiting for Bellingham).
As others have said before, it’s a double edged sword for Klopp his loyalty… It gets players to run through walls and go beyond their ability time and time again… Yet on the flip side he will show loyalty to players who really should have got rid.
A prime example is Gini, Klopp wanted him to stay and it was FSG who pushed him out saying his wage demands were not in line with the role and age he was approaching… This was ultimately the right decision as Gini’s legs have gone and he’s now picking up injuries. We are sadly seeing the same with Henderson and Milner, keeping Milner as an option seems to have been the wrong call.
I think in the summer we needed to have been ruthless (easy in hindsight I know), take losses on Keita and Oxlade but get rid of them to give room in the squad for a quality robust midfielder - There was many available in the window we just didn’t persue because of Klopp.
Both of them will run out of contracts anyway. The problem here is that we will have to buy Bellingham AND another midfielder.
I think we sign one in January.
