Football: You Can't Handball The Truth

[polishgenius]

since we're full up, continue


Lacazette for Nketiah is kind of a weird sub. Nketiah's, like, decent but he's all about feeding off scraps really and there aren't gonna be that many in this one.

[Soylent Brown]

Lacazette looked dangerous when given the ball, so I can't say I'm sad to see him go. Annoyed that Firmino is still on though.

[Soylent Brown]

Salah is a massive wanker. Fucking hell.

[polishgenius]

On your question in the last topic, I don't know and anyway my impression of him might be wrong, but I feel like Klopp isn't sure Minamino has the necessary physical resilience and busy energy to play the false 9 role rather than a straight 10. I get Firmino's no Richarlison but the way he ties the attack together, even when playing badly, is hard to replicate.



Salah literally tackling his teammates to stop them shooting now. What a nobend.

[Soylent Brown]

3 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

On your question in the last topic, I don't know and anyway my impression of him might be wrong, but I feel like Klopp isn't sure Minamino has the necessary physical resilience and busy energy to play the false 9 role rather than a straight 10. I get Firmino's no Richarlison but the way he ties the attack together, even when playing badly, is hard to replicate.



Salah literally tackling his teammates to stop them shooting now. What a nobend.

From what I've seen of Minamino lately, I do think he can fill that role in the team. And with Firmino's form lately, I think he's the better option right now.

And finally, a ball at the edge of the box drops to a player who can put it away, and Jota gets his first goal.

[ljkeane]

Good little cameo from Jota. Getting the goal was nice to cap it off but he was consistently getting in good positions in and around the box the entire time he was on.

[polishgenius]

You can see why Mane was irritated at being brought off coz Jota is a bigtime threat to his first team place.

[AncalagonTheBlack]

12 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Salah literally tackling his teammates to stop them shooting now. What a nobend.

this one is even better

 

[Soylent Brown]

Just now, polishgenius said:

You can see why Mane was irritated at being brought off coz Jota is a bigtime threat to his first team place.

Mane is as good on the right as he is on the left, so perhaps he's more of a threat to Salah's place. He fucking should be anyway.

[ljkeane]

Arsenal weren't bad while pretty much always being on the back foot but I have to say their goal kick routine was pretty weird. Passing it from the goalkeeper to the centreback in your own box then out to the fullback puts you pretty much exactly into the position where Liverpool want to press you. I suppose that was the point and Arsenal were backing themselves to draw Liverpool on and play through the press but it was an oddly risky move to go with an otherwise fairly conservative gameplan.

[Iskaral Pust]

I think that ends any question of whether ‘Pool could rediscover their focus and intensity after playing in flip-flops for July.  There’s lots of other things that could drag them back, but they seem ready to dominate opponents again at least.

That was a good performance and result against an Arsenal that played like Leicester.  Pretty big contrast with how City handled a similar situation yesterday. The Gunners, to give them credit, were well organized and played a deep defensive shell that I would not have thought possible for them prior to Arteta’s coaching.  And they alway have fast, dangerous attackers. 

But we dominated the game, denied them time or space to develop dangerous attacks, and Alisson was rock solid in the one or two sniffs they got.  It was only a ridiculous mistake that let them score.  Gomez did very well on his return, Trent was sharper, Fabinho shielded well and the pressing from the front five was really important in keeping territorial control.  Basically the opposite of what Southampton did at Spurs. 

Mane was great.  Salah worked hard (needs to make some better decisions).  Firmino still not quite at it and perhaps Minamino should get a chance soon considering fixture congestion ahead.  Keita did well in MF.  And Jota did well to score, even if it was only to settle the fans’ nerves.  Only real criticism is that we should have scored another sooner (or Robbo not make that mistake in the first place).  We need that level of dominance to be reflected in the scoreline.

But starting the season against Leeds, Chelsea and Arsenal was no easy task.  3 wins from 3 let’s us keep Everton in sight for now.

[polishgenius]

12 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

Mane is as good on the right as he is on the left, so perhaps he's more of a threat to Salah's place. He fucking should be anyway.

After moments like that he may well be.

Salah, the poor man's Bowen.


Problem Arsenal had is we're talking about their relative solidity past a couple of mistakes but they introduced that solidity at the cost of any serious chance to win the game, because they went for defensiveness over players who can create the consistent counter situations for Auba and Laca to run onto. Ceballos, Saka and Pepe are their three best anti-press players and none of them started for solidity reasons. At least one should have, preferably one of the first two.

[Iskaral Pust]

18 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Problem Arsenal had is we're talking about their relative solidity past a couple of mistakes but they introduced that solidity at the cost of any serious chance to win the game, because they went for defensiveness over players who can create the consistent counter situations for Auba and Laca to run onto. Ceballos, Saka and Pepe are their three best anti-press players and none of them started for solidity reasons. At least one should have, preferably one of the first two.

That’s how opponents used to (still do?) approach City, and perhaps Liverpool have earned similar wariness from opponents now too.  Arsenal didn’t play to their strengths today, which always seems like a mistake, but if they had then there’s a pretty good chance that the game could be done and dusted within 30 minutes.  Leicester showed yesterday that Arsenal’s approach today can work well if you’re incredibly efficient up front.  But either approach had risk for them today.

[polishgenius]

26 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

 Leicester showed yesterday that Arsenal’s approach today can work well if you’re incredibly efficient up front.  But either approach had risk for them today.

 

Leicester didn't drop Tielemans and Barnes. With less outright forwards Leicester's team was even less attacking than Arsenal's on paper but the presence of those two, and indeed Praet, meant they could play their way through to more dangerous situations to play Vardy in. I know Laca missed the great chance but in general they were much more reliant on the long punt from Xhaka et co coz that midfield sits back. Much bigger gap between the forwards and midfield, and less craft to cross it. 

[Mark Antony]

Jota is gonna be awesome and he looked great but he’s not a threat to Mane or Salah yet. Both have been awesome to start the season anyway so weird to see that even mentioned. 

[Soylent Brown]

I think you're exaggerating how good Salah has been so far this season. He's looked pretty sharp, sure, but he also seems more selfish than ever.

Salah plays only for himself, and that's not really a good thing when it leads him to shooting against the legs of defenders while there are others in better positions half a dozen times a game.

Which is not to say Jota will be walking into the team, but Salah could certainly do a lot better.

[ljkeane]

1 hour ago, Soylent Brown said:

Salah plays only for himself, and that's not really a good thing when it leads him to shooting against the legs of defenders while there are others in better positions half a dozen times a game.

Come on, that's rubbish. Salah has a certain amount of the selfishness that all great goalscorers have and he should have left that chance for Jota but he'd just set him up with a brilliant pass a couple of minutes before. He consistently racks up more assists than Mane every season. He's second only to De Bruyne for total goal involvements (goals and assists) since the start of last season, he isn't close to being a problem for Liverpool. The idea that he only plays for himself is complete nonsense.

[baxus]

During yesterday's match was the first time I was truly pissed off at Salah. It went right through the zone of annoying and straight into "is it possible you're that big of an asshole?" territory.

I get trying to shoot when a teammate is in a better position instead of passing. It can be attributed to the mindset of a goalscorer, but there's no excuse for ruining a chance for a teammate that's making a league debut like that. Even if Salah's first touch was PERFECT he still would've been in a much worse position than Jota. It was an asshole move, through and through.

Other than that and Robbo's fumble, I think Liverpool were a much better side and I quite liked what I saw.

[Soylent Brown]

1 hour ago, ljkeane said:

Come on, that's rubbish. Salah has a certain amount of the selfishness that all great goalscorers have and he should have left that chance for Jota but he'd just set him up with a brilliant pass a couple of minutes before. He consistently racks up more assists than Mane every season. He's second only to De Bruyne for total goal involvements (goals and assists) since the start of last season, he isn't close to being a problem for Liverpool. The idea that he only plays for himself is complete nonsense.

He could easily have had an additional 10 assists last season. I'm not saying he's a bad player, but he can be way too selfish at times.

[polishgenius]

16 hours ago, Mark Antony said:

Jota is gonna be awesome and he looked great but he’s not a threat to Mane or Salah yet. Both have been awesome to start the season anyway so weird to see that even mentioned. 

 

When you buy an established Premiership first teamer as good as Jota it's not as a 'oh maybe he'll break through in two years' deal. Obviously the first priority is depth in a tough season and onus is on him to prove himself but he's been brought in to be a threat.

6 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Salah has a certain amount of the selfishness that all great goalscorers have

 

Tbf while I think Soylent is being a little OTT and agree when I'm not shit-talking that he's not really a an actual problem and is still arguably the best forward in the league, I do think Salah's selfishness is a little more than the standard that many great goalscorers have. It's also frustrating coz I think he's got it in him to be an Henry-level forward but for all he's still great he never hits that level consistently, partly because he does waste moves by shooting when he should pass. Oft-times it's not even as if there isn't a good chance he'd get the ball back if he passed it and continued the run.