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Football: Leicester We Forget


polishgenius

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Yep, the problem for now is at the top end. All of our forwards are in poor form.

Salah couldn't beat a man if his life depended on it, Mane is fine on the ball but can't pass or shoot accurately, and Firmino is useless at everything and has been for the best part of two years.

My biggest issue with tonight is that Firmino wasn't dropped, he was fucking rested. He could score ten own goals in a game (he probably couldn't even score one if Alisson stepped aside, but let's pretend), and Klopp would still happily leave him on the pitch.

He needs to be dropped down to the second tier of the squad with Origi and Milner. Let him play domestic cup games until we're out, and then move him on in the summer.

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I think as some have mentioned earlier that an important part of why you're not clicking has to do with the pressing game being gone. 

I was struck yesterday seeing that Burnley - that tiki-taka outfit, you know - being able to play up on completely unmarked midfielders and then turn the ball out to the wing. When Liverpool were pressing as a unit, there was no time for defenders to hit passes, and no free midfielders to hit. 

Sure, it's a problem that the players seem vaccinated against scoring, but I think that's a knock-on effect of the game plan not working as normal. 

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Yeah, pressing game is gone. That's what tends to happen once your midfield made up of 3 of Henderson, Fabinho, Gini and Milner gets completely messed up by pulling Fabinho into defense full-time, switching Henderson between midfield and defense and using Milner as a quickfix for any hole in the team that needs filling. Plus, Milner is 35 so as fit as he is, age is catching up. On top of all that, Gini has that whole thing with a new contract hanging over his head and that can't not leave a mark.

Of course, that Henderson-Gini-Fabinho midfield was bound to be torn up when Thiago was signed, but having Henderson-Fabinho-Thiago (under assumption that Gini would be the odd one out due to his contract issues) is a much different setup from Thiago-Ox-Gini (especially when they have Mane-Origi-Shaqiri up front instead of the usual front three).

@polishgenius Buying a central defender would free up Fabinho and/or Henderson from playing there and allow bringing them back to midfield where they can contribute the most. That would, in turn, quite help to reestablish the pressing game Liverpool used quite successfully in recent years. The thing is that Liverpool has 3 senior central defenders, one of whom is very injury-prone. It's not as if it would take another defender of VVD quality to help the team out and everything else would just be a waste of money.

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Our pressing game makes very little difference in games where we have 80% possession. What are we going to do, press ourselves? That wasn't the issue last night.

It absolutely is an issue against teams who have more of the ball, but still, if the only way we can score is through counter attacks after turnovers, we have big problems.

 

Baxus,You're right that our 4th centre back doesn't need to be a world beater, but really that guy should be Matip as he's so injury prone. We need our new guy to be good enough to stay in the starting XI.

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36 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

Our pressing game makes very little difference in games where we have 80% possession. What are we going to do, press ourselves? That wasn't the issue last night.

It absolutely is an issue against teams who have more of the ball, but still, if the only way we can score is through counter attacks after turnovers, we have big problems.

 

Baxus,You're right that our 4th centre back doesn't need to be a world beater, but really that guy should be Matip as he's so injury prone. We need our new guy to be good enough to stay in the starting XI.

Pressing for the remaining 20% of the time and make it more difficult for the opponent to have counterattacks. Also, 80% of possession last night wasn't due to pressing but to Burnley's decision to defend at all cost.

I agree that Liverpool lacks a viable plan B when plan A is not working. "Do the same, just more of it" has worked quite often but it's not working lately. One more thing that's annoyed me immensely is all the high crosses as if Bobby, Salah or Mane are going to score a header against Burnley. Even on corners there's a noticeable lack of players that can score a header. That's been a big part of Liverpool's game, and now it's not working there's no alternative.

The new guy wouldn't have to be option #4, and I would love it if we got someone who could stay in the starting lineup once our defense is back at capacity, but it's quite difficult to get someone like that in January and it's really important to get someone who's good enough now. Adding a world-class defender later on would be great, but it's not really mutually exclusive with signing a good enough defender in January.

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18 minutes ago, Raja said:

I have watched one youtube video of Odegaard and I now declare him a good signing. ( if he does sign for us)

Odegaard was excellent when he was on loan at Real Sociedad last season. It has not really worked out for him since returning to Real Madrid though.

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12 minutes ago, baxus said:

Pressing for the remaining 20% of the time and make it more difficult for the opponent to have counterattacks. Also, 80% of possession last night wasn't due to pressing but to Burnley's decision to defend at all cost.

I agree that Liverpool lacks a viable plan B when plan A is not working. "Do the same, just more of it" has worked quite often but it's not working lately. One more thing that's annoyed me immensely is all the high crosses as if Bobby, Salah or Mane are going to score a header against Burnley. Even on corners there's a noticeable lack of players that can score a header. That's been a big part of Liverpool's game, and now it's not working there's no alternative.

The new guy wouldn't have to be option #4, and I would love it if we got someone who could stay in the starting lineup once our defense is back at capacity, but it's quite difficult to get someone like that in January and it's really important to get someone who's good enough now. Adding a world-class defender later on would be great, but it's not really mutually exclusive with signing a good enough defender in January.

Yeah, the crossing is an issue. It works when we're playing teams who play higher up the pitch as there's space to put the ball into, but against buses we're wasting our time. Part of the problem there lies with Klopp, who has instilled a tactical over-reliance of TAA and Robertson. TAA started looking to cut inside more a bit yesterday, and was playing more hard, low balls into the box, which is probably going to be a bit more effective in those situations, but still, we shouldn't be placing so much of the blame on those two.

We need our forwards to actually do something; beat a man, create a yard or two to get off a shot (that doesn't piddle straight to the keeper!) I'm worried that this won't get any better until Jota returns. He's still probably a month away, and we'll be midtable by then.

Getting a stop-gap defender would just end up bloating the squad, and we're already pretty much at our limit for non-English players. While it would be nice to get someone, anyone, I don't think it's going to happen. Our recruitment tends to be either obvious upgrades or bargains, and I'm not sure there's much of either available at the moment.

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So Liverpool failed yet again to score. I mean how Origi blew that big one in the first half, that was almost an art form.

Also...

16 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Looks like De Bruyne's injury is more serious than initial reports suggested. 

 

Yes, we get it, this is United's year. We all ahve quietly accepted that United is gonna walk the league this year, with Liverpool's forward line unable to hit a barn, and with City accumulating injuries, and Fat Frank just not being able to even get minimum out of his squad.

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Odegaard would be a potentially excellent signing for Arsenal, even though it means they probably wouldn't get Buendia and that makes me sad.


 

3 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Rodgers has just confirmed that Vardy will undergo surgery on a persistent hip problem and will be out for several weeks.

 

They've done alright without Vardy last time he was out, but they're really gonna have to start doing something soon about getting backup and an eventual replacement. The one thing their transfer policy has failed at so far. No idea who it would be though.

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