If the press from the front isn’t working, stop doing it and maintain a good shape.
Most of the teams we play against don’t press us from the top of the field, that doesn’t mean they let us walk through their midfield without resistance.
Basic stuff. Keep a good shape, frustrate the opponent. It might not be 99 point achieving football but we can do a hell of a lot better than we are.
That’s a good point. If a quick retrieval of the ball isn’t on, let the opposition have it in their own third, and only start contesting it as they come to our half.
Keep shape, be harder to break down.
It’s not as sexy as when we were at our peak, but it will give a platform to build on, especially with the current personnel.
It’s crazy how our entire team has forgotten how to press as a unit. It’s not as though Thiago, fab and Hendo haven’t played together before…
The amount of times we saw one player press on their own was just bad. Glad Klopp mentioned this.
That’s thoroughly ironic for all those people who keep suggesting that what we need is to be deeper…
Aye, look at their goals. None were from getting in behind. It was all being able to too freely play between our lines and exploit the acres of space they had.
Just another instance of Fabinho pointing fingers to team mates on where to pass. Been a constant this season.
we wonder why we cannot move the ball through the midfield, but when your #6 is hiding from a simple pass up the middle to which he’s already facing up-field then you’re going to be in trouble.
There didn’t seem to be any structure to our pressing, by that I mean forcing play in a certain direction to trap a player in possession, for me we used to force the opposition out wide and trap them there or when they then tried a ball into their 6 we would have players ready to pounce so all they had was to lump it up field.
Remember thinking that whilst watching the game as a midfielder you don’t always need to move to far to be in a position to receive the ball and you should be on the move all the time creating better passing angles and also creating space for others.
We are very poor in our movement when we have the ball which kills a lot of passing options.
What was the Liverpool way, pass & move, we can’t do either at the moment lol
And that pass cut out 3 of their players, we just don’t play enough vertical passes or we don’t have movement to receive vertical passes, how we miss prime Bobby!
look back to our successes in pressing, it was always led by Bobby who split the pitch and the winger on that side would already be in motion to the recipient of the pass. Kind of like a shepherd who moved the flock to one side where it was easier to contain them.
We no longer have that. two new strikers leading the line who don’t understand the system, and if the trigger man of the press doesn’t do the job then the rest of the press will fail. Midfielders don’t allow their marks to turn towards goal, force lateral pass.
Yes Bobby was instrumental but it ain’t rocket science in how to cut down passing options and force play in a direction, coaching this should be pretty straightforward.
Another take on all this is that CB’s & Full backs are now becoming better on the ball and the 6 isn’t just a destructive 6 but more and more are now a mix of creativity & defensive abilities i.e Rice, Caicedo, Palinha, Nunez, Casemiro.
I did think playing a player to put pressure on Caicedo was a good idea, just the wrong choice of player as it took out our best ball player tout of our build up and forced him to do too much chasing. I do feel that the 4 2 3 1 could work, but the 3 sometimes need to get a feel for the game a drop to a 5 in midfield to take control of defensive situations
IIRC Thiago was tasked as chasing Caicedo, when it should have been Henderson who was more of a disrupter and not so much a good tactician. that free role should be Thiago to allow him some time on the ball to affect the play.
Bobby would have been perfect, if available as he would also be in position to receive the vertical passes that Thiago likes to play and which neither Hendo or Fab see
yep it’d be ideal for him to be in that false 9 role.
what’s shit is nobody else is tailored for it, or understands it. When your attack has that much emphasis put on someone like Bobby and he’s unavailable for a period after being the mainstay for 6 years, having nobody capable of stepping into that spot is a big downfall. Even Diaz had a nous to be that sparkplug there but Nunez doesn’t see it.
I guess Thiago is next up in terms of his ability to see the pitch from that forward position but it leaves us soooooo weak behind him it’s a detriment.
Isn’t Jota not too bad at that?
Thiago should be our conductor leading the orchestra, someone mentioned Jones, who could be an option, just unsure on whether his defensive nous is good enough.
Also, the issue wasn’t with Thiago stopping Caicedo, as Caicedo very rarely turned at went forward, he just popped off the pass to an open player who then played it forward, beating the press. It seems once our player has played the ball we stop marking him and ball watch whilst he moves to receive the next pass (Trents biggest issue for me), football is really simple, but players need to be switched on for 90 mins.
my youth coach used to call it “the ladder”. Idea was if you’re going to play the ball on a direct forward pass, the next ball should be a lateral one to a player who is forward-facing and anticipating it. already looking for the next ball forward. Strikers should be anticipating that ball and making themselves available for it. Further forward the player is, changes the movement of the forward. Sometimes you can run a diagonal for a pass splitting the defenders and run on to the ball, sometimes it’s a ball into the channel. Sometimes it’s to feet if the player can get the ball on the correct side of his body to turn a defender.
But it’s just not happening with us right now. Our defenders are getting the ball to feet and the next line of players are cut off and not moving into space to receive a pass. We’re getting beaten at our own game which brought us oodles of success over the past 5-6 years and it’s frustrating none of them are able to affect this outcome. that video of Fab/Konate really highlights it. Fab doesn’t want the ball, but he is also not looking over his shoulder to see he has acres of space if he moves just a little bit to receive the ball.