SINCE the time of Rafa Benitez subsequent Liverpool managers have forgotten about defence.Brendan Rodgers never bothered to look into the Oxford Dictionary about "defence". His principle was attack is the best form of defence. Liverpool present manager, Jurgen Klopp have no clue about the back four. Scoring goals for fun without shutting the back door have no meaning. Against Tottenham yesterday our defence panicked too much without real pressure.. It is not too late to think about building Liverpool team from the back. Do you think Liverpool should go back to the drawing board and start to build the team from the back?
I think we should. I think the errors show players under pressure and not trusting the others around them and I just think we need to go back to basics. I think theres a balance issue. i think the midfield is weak and slow and not helping but we need calmer heads and to fill in the gaps and not gamble on positions.
Our team is clearly unbalanced. In fact it is the most "unbalanced" team in the league. One of the best attacks linked to one of the worst defences. The person who posted the car with front end of the Ferrari with the back end of clapped out Montego had it absolutely spot on. You might wonder how is it even possible? How does a Mignolet or a Lovren play in the same team as a Coutinho? FSG must be prepared to take a hit financially. Sell unwanted players: Mignolet, Karius, Lovren, Klavan, Moreno, Henderson, and bring on some young (and not so young) players with more potential. These days, even unproven players will cost huge amounts but unless the club takes a gamble we are not going to win the title, are we? Buying established top and certain talent like De Bruyne, Silva, Hazard, De Gea, Cavani, Benzema and the like is beyond us.
Reminds me of my son when he was very young. Would ask me dad "how does Skoda climbs the hill and would answer by himself by miracle". Liverpool finished 4th by miracle last year with the poor defence.
You can win games with a crap defence and a good attack but you have bugger all chance of winning titles. Teams that ship 50+ goals just don't win the title. Rogers went close in 2013/14 but he had Suarez and a very light workload (43 game season) but still came up short. The average goals conceded for the last 10 champions is 32.5. Only Utd in 2012/13 shipped over 40 with 43. We are halfway to that average after 9 games!!!
The fact is apart from a proper striker we already have to the front sorted, even if we lose Couts next summer. All the money in the next two transfer windows should be going on a goalkeeper and defenders (and a defensive mid)
This... I'm all for a manager preferring attacking football and sorting front first but our front was not terrible at any point in his tenure with the exception of some speed and width which he sorted. It's ignoring the defence/defensive midfield player situation that has driven me crazy. I gave him the first year to do the "let's see if I can improve the existing players"... it didn't work and not ebough effort was put into rectifying that with new players. I even understand the idea that you don't buy anyone jyst to say "look! We bought defenders" I just can't think that a top end club with all its knowledge and funding could only find one target ....a target that we never looked like getting. So...i want to see real effort in January with the understanding it's harder. But by God it better be resolved next summer!
Look lads hang on. Firmino is.not.good this year. Sturridge is toast. Origi is not.up to it Ings is done. Solanke.is a.kid. Hmmm all the.money on the back line? Nope. We need to be balanced in our approach. Coutinho out then Keita in... at best standing still. Reality is it's not like for like. We need a striker imo. We need a no 6. We need 2 cbs and a lb We need a gk. I reckon we should get that for 150mil net. Easy
I don't belive any manager truly builds from the back, or front. They try to build a team, usually adding three or four improvements to various parts of the team. Defending isn't just the keeper and defenders, nor is it those and the midfield. It's the whole team. The other team can't score is you have possession; a good midfield and attack is just as effective as quality defenders. However, having a shot defence negates the entire plan!
You have it right there. Milner had 3/4 yards on son and got run past for second goal. There's huge gaps. There was prob 30 yards between cbs on that second goal. Henderson as no 6 was further up that Milner and not central but he tried get back. Most of the time these guys are too far apart, too high up the pitch and leaving lovren with a gamble or a panic situation Lovren had only one guy up.. kane and decided to gamble on winning header. Missed it and took himself out of game and a 1 on 1... the son made it 2 on 1 but just running. There's a whole series of errors in that goal. 1. Can as cm in box on end of cross... no body else. 2. Moreno miles up pitch on opposite side from crosser 3. Henderson as no 6 in advanced cm role. 4. 30 yards between cbs and no midfield cover I mean it was an accident waiting to happen really.
The defenders don't trust the goalkeeper. They don't trust each other. They don't trust the midfield to cover. The defenders aren't helped by Klopp picking Migs and Karius almost at random. One sticks to his line like glue. The other rushes out at any opportunity. The defenders have enough to do without having to think is this a Premier League or Champions League game?
Think it was Henry that said it post game and it's been said on here before...no big characters or leaders. No big personality keeper or CB to grab Henderson and tell him "when I say stay in front of us for 10 you ****ing do it" Henderson as captain himself ..... Casper the ****ing ghost.. .who looks to him when we are under pressure? Same with other midfielders...you can only lead by example if the example is good. They hide. The individual mistakes are as much down to this lack of backbone as ability...too many ineffective passes with the ball risking interception and too much panicky decision making without the ball. We either freeze or race forward and fail. It's literally the same 2 bad decisions that all of our defenders, midfielders and keepers make at least a half dozen times a match....rave forward without awareness of the space and players around them or standing like a statue in frightened indecision. It's this mental weakness throughout the team more than ability that is killing us. Plenty of supposedly ****ter players in the league that have more awareness of their place on the pitch and make decisions accordingly. And while the majority of them are first team picks Klopps approach to the game will fail. These players just aren't up to it.
Well.. I thought Matip was half hearted coming over. Mingolet deffo lashed out at him and made it easy finish but lovren I dunno what he was looking at
I think transfer wise if you looked at how much we've spent on attacking players vs defensive players over the last couple of years then the fact that our attack is really impressive and our defence is pathetic is no surprise.
"last couple of years"? Why single it down to today's table knowing that he meant over the two years?, trying to hide how ****e utd were in the premier league last season maybe?
I was just about to put an addition to that. Not being nasty in any way, they were amazing last year and managed to drive you into 4th despite having the same defence as this year. I just think at the moment you are struggling up front without Mane.
We don't play with a recognised centre forward(unless Sturridge comes on as sub), so all in all we've done okay in Mane's absence and the loss of Lallana for so long. It's all conjecture but if we had those two playing along with Couthinho without the injury/Barca problems we'd have been winning 3-2, 4-3 etc and been 4th or 5th in the table. It's what we do when we're at full strength, nice attack and ****e defence.
I keep saying it but Lallana is a bigger loss than most people realise. He is key (along with Firmino) to the pressing game. He links the midfield and attack really well too. He is why I wanted us to sign a proper Mascherano style DM; let Lallana & Coutinho play behind Salah, Firmino & Mane
