Agreed; it will come with time and experience Klopp has an eye for these things....if he rates Neco over Hoever then who are we to argue?
Drab game with very little positive to be taken from it except R Williams performance . Thought Jones was pretty awful tbh and as for that rabona cross FFS just use your left foot . I really hope we get an offer for Origi as he seems to have totally given up on his LFC career .
agree on all. Jones was very very poor and that cross was a disgrace. When you are presented with an opportunity to deliver to the zone of most danger but instead choose to mess about and end up lofting a nothing ball to an arsenal player you have to ask serious questions. He then arrogantly slotted his pen with a terrible run up that sold the direction but acted again likes god's gift. He might not play for a while now on the back of that. Rhys williams stepped up from his lincoln performance. The lack of a striker for arsenal helped him but he still did very well. The issue for me out of this game is that the performance of minamino showed where his game is at and its not at the same level as firmino in leading the line. Salah actually lead the press last night, really intense and a good display but minamino was 5 yards off, started too late at times and only half went for it. Positionally that hurt us. The main issue is we created lats of chances but failed to take. We had clear chances not taken so only ourselves to blame. I would be worried as an arsenal fan given who they started that they were relying on leno to save them so much. Finally bye by wilson, bye bye grujic. Neither did "bad" but that was their shop window and any reasonable offer will be taken in the next 3 days.
Just think the press will always struggle when it is a makeshift team as the co ordination is not there to ensure that everyone is in position quickly enough to ensure the defence don't have an easy out ball .
After all the discussions on the topic over the last few days I can only reiterate that without Firmino we just don't click as well up front. It was all lacklustre, though nobody played badly as such - except Origi maybe. Having defended his languid style recently I'm coming round to the idea that he just doesn't care enough any more. Tbf to him, he's wasted here with the amount of game time he's getting - he should go somewhere where he'll be used more and he may regain his enthusiasm for the game. He's made some very important contributions over the years, but I think it's time to move on. Hard to judge some of the others on a limited showing, but Wilson doesn't contribute enough in open play and can't justify a start purely on the basis of his free-kick ability. Jones will be great as long as he doesn't get caught up in his own myth - I'm sure Klopp will be on to that. The midfield got more of a grip when Gini came on. All in all it shows why the preferred starters are who they are - we have a decent second string, but the first team are the dog's bollocks.
This is it, the last arsenal game was an illustration of when the press works perfectly. But it shows to have it work every player must know who and when to press. That takes alot of practice and drilling. You can't expect to change 5 of the 6 and expect the same level. Although the press was there, it was filled with hesitancy. At one point 3 of our players all ran to the same man, nothing to do with the quality of personal and all to do with familiarity with the system.
You'd think so. Of course the others need to be introduced sparingly in order to learn to fit in, but I've never been a fan of wholesale changes - whether it's team changes for specific games or the purchase of a large number of new players. But I'm old school in that regard. And probably most others.
that is really not true. watch back and see which player was sprinting in to close down. that is all. take a look and see, he can only press his area but he does so with all the intensity you'd expect in the league game.
I've read a couple of times on here about Salah leading the press in other games too - but that's not what I'm seeing. Firmino triggers the press imo, just one of the many things he does that often go unnoticed. Of course they all need to work together for it to succeed. The press was nowhere near high enough or persistent enough last night - in the league game we didn't allow them to get more than 10 yards from their goal-line before forcing them to play a speculative ball forward.
In the arsenal match the front 3, plus keita and the full backs all made the press. One of the biggest things missing last night, one or two would run in, but the follow up wasn't there.
A lot of bickering about nothing. Ultimately we wouldn't win this competition and yes its a shame its less exposure for the kids going forward, but we don't now have to play City in December? And potentially more in an already busy January. This competition must have been bottom of our priority. Having said all that, we still did enough to win imo.
I never saw him run, never mind sprint, origi moved about more when he came on. He might as well have had a sign round his neck saying "not arsed"
