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Football: Attempting to stay ahead (in your) City.


A Horse Named Stranger

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2 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

But why for god's sake? He's not some noob manager.If we all can see it,why can't he? So frustrating.

Dealing with star players who are struggling with form is never easy. It basically winds down to two choices.

Either you bench them and run the risk of destroying their confidence completely, and on the long run unsettle them if they don't find a way back into the team.

or

Play them, and hope they find their legs rather sooner than later. Sometimes it just takes 1-2 good plays to get their confidence and mojo back. The problem, the longer you keep them on the team without them performing well, the tougher it gets to justify it and it might upset back ups, who feel they are more deserving of a place (and fans and pundits who have the same idea).

Klopp apparently opted for the second alternative. Obviously this can't go on forever. But given that some fans (and posters here) were close to dropping Salah despite him posting okay to good numbers, just not that spectacular as he was last season, it's sometimes good to just take a deep breath lay back and remember that form is temporary and class is permanent.

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Fred, Mata, Alexis, Lukaku, all benched for United ahead of the Manchester derby.

I suppose we are only gonna play past the 60' min then ? In another world, this bench could be a sign of a wealthy squad, but there is no actual Utd fan who can claim, today, that we have a rich squad. It is just a sign of weird tactics lol

Our starters should actually be on bench ffs. Mata & Fred, at least, should start over Herrera & Lingard. I'd give Fellaini a shot, just in case of a miracle.

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To be fair, can't really argue with Mata, because he's not got the balls for this, nor with Sanchez, coz he's worse than Gabriel Obertan ever was. And Fred/Herrera is at most a zero sum game, and I prefer Herrera, whereas you couldn't play all three with Mata together.
But the sum total is a very defensive lineup.

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I was kind of impressed with our defending today. We struggled a bit for pace in the second half - expected with Keane and Mina together - but overall we looked solid at the back. Pickford was on top of everything as well. Well done us!

We could perhaps have stolen a win, but all in all that wouldn't have been deserved. However, I think we were value for that point. 

Also, as a mention, we look light ears better than we did under Samuele. F*ck that guy.

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Not surprising we were totally outplayed. As I said before, we'd do well to avoid an embarrassing scoreline. Whatever hope there was of getting something out of this game disappeared when it was confirmed that Pogba wouldn't be fit. 

 

2 hours ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

Our starters should actually be on bench ffs. Mata & Fred, at least, should start over Herrera & Lingard. I'd give Fellaini a shot, just in case of a miracle.

Herrera should be starting over Matic who has been very poor thus far this season. He's not moving well at all and seems to be struggling with fitness - I believe it's a result of Mourinho rushing him back. Fred should be getting more game time as well.

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I thought Herrera was shocking today. Was dispossessed so many times, and too easily, and didn't contribute much going forward.

Contrary to our resident wailing harpies, I thought there were promising signs to Liverpool's play today. We could/should have put the game away before Fulham's disallowed goal, but we're still a bit wasteful with our chances. Shaqiri makes a big difference to our attacking play. He always wants the ball and is always looking to make things happen. He's also got superior vision, passing and shooting to our current crop of fit midfielders. I hope he gets a continued run as a PL starter.

Fabinho had some good interceptions and tackles, but was also caught in possession a few times and misplaced a few long passes. Still seems to be adjusting to the tempo of the PL. Hopefully he will acclimatise, but he looks worryingly slow and ponderous at times.

Our defence looked shaky on one or two occasions, but were mostly on cruise control. 

Allison didn't have much to do, but gave a dreadful rebound on what looked like a routine shot from Schürrle (I think).

Overall, job done. We've taken 24 out of 24 points against presumably weaker teams, and have only lost points against other "top 6" teams (City, Chelsea and Arsenal).

This is our best or joint best start to a Premier League season ever. We're second in the league, two points behind a different class Man City. Everything's not perfect, but it's not as bad as some people make out.

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13 minutes ago, Mme Erzulie said:

This is our best or joint best start to a Premier League season ever. We're second in the league, two points behind a different class Man City. Everything's not perfect, but it's not as bad as some people make out.

I think that's the whole drama. Everybody and everything gets overshadowed by City cruising their way thru the league again. While that was predictable, it still the other teams just pale when compared to City.

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One win (Crystal Palace) and three draws (Liverpool, Man United, Everton) out of the last four home games for Chelsea. The fact we haven't been able to turn those draws into wins shows we aren't title challengers this season. 

I thought Chelsea played pretty well yesterday, we just couldn't get the ball to go in the net. Alonso, our left back, was our main goal threat, which is the main reason that I don't think we are good enough to contend for the title. Chelsea do have goals in the team, as we have wingers, midfielders and defenders who are all capable of chipping in with a decent amount, but we need more goals from the actual strikers. 

Watching Chelsea, then watching Man City straight after really showed the gulf between us and them. 

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14 hours ago, Mme Erzulie said:

Fabinho had some good interceptions and tackles, but was also caught in possession a few times and misplaced a few long passes. Still seems to be adjusting to the tempo of the PL. Hopefully he will acclimatise, but he looks worryingly slow and ponderous at times.

Maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see but I thought Fabinho was one of our better players yesterday. He might’ve misplaced a few long passes but he also picked out a few that couldve led to goals. I’ve been impressed with his passing range when he’s played. And I don’t remember him being caught out in possession much at all? In fact the one time I remember him losing the ball he ran back made a tackle and got possession right back. Gini was very passive in comparison. Wouldn’t mind seeing Hendo take Ginis spot in the double pivot Klopps been using. Shaqiri is undroppable at this point for me. 

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8 hours ago, Mark Antony said:

Maybe I’m just seeing what I want to see but I thought Fabinho was one of our better players yesterday. He might’ve misplaced a few long passes but he also picked out a few that couldve led to goals. I’ve been impressed with his passing range when he’s played. And I don’t remember him being caught out in possession much at all? In fact the one time I remember him losing the ball he ran back made a tackle and got possession right back. Gini was very passive in comparison. Wouldn’t mind seeing Hendo take Ginis spot in the double pivot Klopps been using. Shaqiri is undroppable at this point for me. 

Yes, Fabinho is doing ok despite not being fully up to speed yet.  The only problem is that he doesn't have much pace to chase down anyone but there is plenty of pace around him.  Our back four is pretty fast now, and Gini has decent pace.

We're not terrible, we're just not clicking like we did last year and we have several players below their best form (all of the front three) and a system change that is less creative/attacking than last year.  And it's a bit disappointing that our summer transfers -- hailed for reinvigorating our MF -- have left us with a stagnant MF so far.

But we're within touching distance of arguably the best ever PL team, and we have room for improvement as the season progresses.  I'm grateful for where we are, but I'd like to see some of that improvement up front before it costs us more points or a CL exit.

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The Liverpool attack looks a bit disjointed so far this season, looks like Salah is playing further up the field and more central which is leaving Firmino no room to operate in and he is playing more like a midfielder. Last season he would play the false 9 role starting high and drawing at least 1 defender out allowing Salah and or Mane to run in behind, the system seems slightly different this year like more emphasis has been put onto Salah. 

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2 hours ago, lmanion said:

The Liverpool attack looks a bit disjointed so far this season, looks like Salah is playing further up the field and more central which is leaving Firmino no room to operate in and he is playing more like a midfielder. Last season he would play the false 9 role starting high and drawing at least 1 defender out allowing Salah and or Mane to run in behind, the system seems slightly different this year like more emphasis has been put onto Salah. 

I think part of that was because Salah was getting wrestled and clogged by the LBs who have marked him for special attention like Hazard, and he was not handling it as well as Hazard.  It became possible to mark him out of the game with some physicality, and refs were not protecting him.  Moving Salah more central and furthest forward meant that fouling him is more likely to result in a penalty (rather than a rather useless free kick wide on the right) so now he gets fouled less.  Plus Shaqiri tends to attack from an inside right position.  But it has thrown off the balance of Firmino and Mane who are both operating deeper now. 

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Yeah I do understand that, I still think on the whole the team has suffered because of the change. The formation is more like a 4231 than the 433 we were playing, however there isnt really a centre mid thats fit that can play the more attacking advanced role of say ox or coutinho, so I can understand it from that perspective as well

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