Spence has definitely been getting it from Rennes fans for only bothering to play when the team is going forward The fact he's not just lost his place in the starting xi but is sometimes not making the matchday squad also sticks out, considering the line of thinking that Joe Rodon's loan there has been a flop post-WC yet at least he is still making the bench
On the midfielders, I think 1 of hjolberg and skipp would be excellent as the holder in a 3. The problem is they’re being asked to do the jobs of 3 players. If we had a 3 of hjolberg/skipp, bentanccur and bissouma I think that immediately helps us out as you’ve got hjolberg and skipp in their best role, bissouma can play like he did for Brighton and Bentancur can do what he was doing before injury. That leaves sarr and one of skipp/hjolberg as support plus the likes of Harvey white and Devine coming through. Then add a Maddison to come into the 3 when more creativity is needed or get him coming in off the wing like grealish would do. Willing to give Porro the benefit of the doubt at the moment until Romero either starts being a footballer again or we get someone who isn’t Sanchez or tanganga next to him.
Hojbjerg doesn’t really work as a 6, he doesn’t have the positional discipline. He is best when he can play in a midfield 3 in a team that presses. That makes the most out of his energy and he’s a really good pressing midfielder. Skipp is probably the best sitter, though Bentancur could do it too.
Reading through a few posts: I don't think anyone's writing/ written Porro off, it just unfortunately can't be denied that from a defensive viewpoint he's so far been awful and seems to genuinely lack understanding of what to do on the back foot, can barely fault him going forward, an assist and two goals is a solid return for a WB in their first few months. As for midfield, I'd say our best combination when all are fit is Bissouma and Bentancur with Skipp anchoring but even then it still lacks a specialised creative player, Bissouma and Bentancur are both capable of playing good passes but there's a difference in doing that and being a genuine playmaker, the latter helps to control the flow of the game (see Modric/ Eriksen). As for loading up the midfield to protect the defence, for sure it'd add a layer of protection but it still won't fully hide the ineptitude of our defenders and they'd still cost us regularly enough. You can put a towel around or a bucket under a leaky pipe, both may slow or reduce certain issues but the pipe will still leak and need to be fixed and that's the case with our defence, it needs fixing, not just protection.
Needs must, especially when there was still so much at stake (i.e. CL football). Instead, we've sacrificed ambition for the sake of caution - a theme that perhaps characterises us at the moment. Sarr should've been getting more game time the moment Bissouma joined Bentancur in the treatment room. More so once we'd crashed out of all cup competitions and the fixture list thinned out as a result. But having then also lost our more defensively capable options at wing-back in Royal and Sessegnon, the continued refusal to "risk" a 3-man midfield, especially when the third midfielder in question appears to be very capable, is madness imo. We now have a piss-poor defence given zero protection by its wing-backs and a midfield that cannot control a game. It's no wonder we've conceded more goals this season than all but 5 other teams. And if one of them gets injured, so what? Switch to a 2-man midfield again and utilise one of the youngsters (Matthew Craig or Nile John for example) as back up from the bench. Plenty of other teams do it, we just seem allergic to relying on youth after 4 years of Mourinho and Conte. Bottom line is we've sacrificed ambition in the name of caution and it has failed totally.
I'd prefer a deeper base of Bissouma-Bentancur with someone like Maddison operating between the lines further forward.
I think most would but not sure how desirable we might be now for Maddison. Would imagine he’d fancy going to a CL club and rumours are Toon and Utd are also interested. Of the three, I know who I wouldn’t pick if I were neutral.
We saw when we tried 4atb and a midfield 3 against Newcastle that the spacing was all wrong. Nobody knew where to play and what positions to take up. Some time on the training pitch is needed to fix that. 352 is an option but leaves us currently with no midfielders on the bench and somewhat nullifies our attacking threat which is the only good thing about the club at the moment. I could see Mason trying Kane as an actual 10 if he wants to change the system but he’s in a tight spot with injuries and time on the training pitch to actually make any real changes to playing style before the end of the season.
Sarr can certainly play the sitting role, too This is the thing about probably moving to a midfield three going forward: there's potential for variety in how we build our midfield, as we have Skipp and Sarr who can (and indeed have) played at the base of a three while Bissouma in theory can, we have Bentancur and Bissouma for the progressive role, plus the third role can be switched around either to a creative pairing of Bentancur & Bissouma, a Cautious Bentancur & Hojbjerg/Sarr, or a physical Bissouma & Hojbjerg/Sarr - plus the aforementioned options with Skipp, Sarr or potentially Bissiouma sitting
I think we'll have worked on three mids in training to be honest, under both Conte and probably Mason, ultimately I just see it having nowhere near the desired effect as some may think with regards to improving the defensive aspects of our game. We've got cannon fodder defenders, they're going to make mistakes regardless of system, formation or which/ how many personnel are in front of them. As for Kane as a 10, massive no-no for me. It's been mentioned on here before too but it's a flawed logic in my opinion to put one of the best finishers on the planet in a deeper position to accommodate a poorer finisher in front of him. When Kane played the hybrid role under Jose he had the freedom to do what he wanted, if you put him strictly as a 10 and presumably Richarlison as a 9, certain spaces in and around the goal will be occupied by the latter and I'd bet my house that our strike rate would decrease with Richarlison taking shots that Kane could/ should be on the end of.
People used to complain when we had Winks and Sissoko in midfield but I can't see much evidence that any of our signings actually work better in practice.
If our injury situation is the same against Palace, then he should use the same system. Drop Kulusevski, reintroduce Lenglet and play Davies at LWB with the Croatian at RW or LW.
Paul Tierney is being dropped for the next round of games. Not because his **** decisions cost us badly, but because Klopp cried. Turns out he was bullshitting too and Tierney's remarks were fine. He said that he felt Klopp deserved a red, but the 4th official said yellow. There's been uproar amongst the Scouse filth that they've only won 57% of games under Tierney. We've won 25% and that's up from something like 12% a while ago.
