Who would you buy?

How does anyone outside the clubs know how much time we take for transfers?

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Players were getting tired when we had to do full on gegenpressing as was seen in Klopp’s earlier seasons. The change from that to pressing during certain moments and playing the possession came after Buvac left and was replaced by Ljinders.

And you can’t say the move hasn’t been successful when Liverpool didn’t win anything with the previous system and won it all with the system after Ljinders came on board

If we can do it, fine. But from watching last year I’d say we were too ponderous in possession and we got countered very easily when we turned the ball over because we over committed bodies forward. And when out of possession we didn’t press properly but still held that high line.

Whatever the reason, buying Lavia isn’t going to fix the issues we had last season.

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If anything, we became too predictable by attacking with our wingbacks. Teams just focussed on adding more bodies to play through the center.

Moving Trent (in transitions) to a more withdrawn inverted wingback role allowed us to gain some modicum of control over the center including an extra person. That meant that we’ve had to sacrifice some space on our Right side.

Not really. Given our income hasn’t benefitted from the same inflation and with Lavia, you’re largely buying on potential, I think it is worth highlighting that difference.

:100:

Need to sort this out. Irrespective of who is on the pitch

That’s a valid point

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Darmstadt’s goal wasn’t anything to do with a bad tactical plan, with having no right back or having no 6. It was because Trent was being lazy and didn’t push out with the rest of the defence.

It quite funny actually. Had TAA been in his midfield role, rather than the RB position that some people want him to stay in, then we would have kept a clean sheet.

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This is the reason.

Trent’s role has him on the ball more, defending the box less. That’a a good thing. We completely wasted his talent last year by asking him to do so much 1v1 defending when left exposed. Lesser able footballers can do that.

Robertson’s positioning is what I’d be questioning. If Robbo was to stay deeper, we have an extra body against the counter. Matip/Konate can stay wider and defend those balls into the channel easier, Van Dijk comes across, Robbo defends the other space. The pay off we get by allowing Robertson to get so far forward doesn’t seem worth making us so much easier to counter.

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This is just my opinion, but Trent is not a very good defender and that is the main job of a full back.

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He didn’t even have to defend in that situation, just be alert and push out with everyone else. That’s why I like him recovering into a RB position but not being asked to be a part of the defence.

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I would say that’s all part of being a full back, being aware of when to push forward as a unit. Sometimes, he can be a liability defensively.

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Trent might not be a very good defender but he’s still a good one with some lacunae that the others in the team are supposed to cover up for. The odd mistakes that he makes are more than made up for by the energy he gives when pressing and his other offensive related playmaking skills.

Who are you and what have you done to the real @Sithbare ?

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There was an email sent by someone higher up in my office days bemoaning the fact that there were some mistakes by people.

I’ve just had to waste 15 seconds finding out what ‘lacunae’ means.

Learning is never a waste of time.

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darth vader GIF

True, we lacked that cohesion in pressing last season but I still look at those days of 2018-2020 when Fabinho would often split the centre backs, essentially form a back three and make it more difficult for long balls to hit us. Height helps, as does speed, but numbers help the most in my opinion - and we didn’t defend in numbers, even in this pre-season.

For some reason, there were often just two players at the back having to defend against counter-attacks. If I remember correctly, even Bournemouth, for example, applied the same tactic against us when they beat us last season, so seeing that it repeats in this pre-season should raise a red flag with our coaching and playing staff.

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argh GIF

Our “6” is not playing it by himself.

Nothing. Most of the best possession based sides of recent years have intensely pressed to try to win the ball back quickly. The challenge with playing that way is that if you spread the pitch in possession there is way too much space to cover to press when you lose it and makes you easy to play through. The result is you have to play in possession differently, picking and choosing your times to risk losing the ball, similar to winger in rugby having to be conscious of not outrunning his support. It results in half your team having to always be playing defense even when in possession and the player on the ball being aware of how the rest of the team is taking shape so they know if there is the necessary structure behind them before they try something that might risk losing the ball.

Grealish finally figuring this out was the main reason he went from a very expensive back up at City to a key player. It is also the primary reason for Trent’s switch because it automatically pushes players into better pressing positions at the time we lose the ball

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