How many times He doesn't track back when we lose possession! I'm not talking about the thirty or forty yard sprints we used to see five or ten years ago, I'm talking about when he or a teammate loses possession and he is only five yards away from the player that intercepts the ball. He turns his head / back on the play in disgust rather than helping his teammates. That is not a team player, that is not leading by example and its certainly not energetic, it is lazy or irresponsible! And I don't buy that it's a tactic or him preserving his legs, hence me pointing out I'm not referring to the old Gerrard. However, as I said above, I'm not blaming Gerrard despite him not playing particularly great so far this season IMO. The blame is always at the managers door; he picks, motivates and coaches the players, he selects the formation and he is responsible for everything that happens on the pitch!
Problem is I don't agree with the first part. I think I know the situations you are talking about and I see what he does differently. I'll try to look at it from your point of view this weekend and consider if he could or should track back more in certain situations. For your part consider if he is taking up the correct position to start the attacking play again, letting the defenders do the defending and not allowing the other team to push us too deep. You are saying lazy, I'm saying intelligent player knowing when to take up the correct position.
It was a really weird game. I'm in Dave's camp in that I thought we played well enough to deserve the win. We controlled a majority of the match and MUFC did not trouble us bar the goal and some long range shots. In addition, we attacked well in the sense that we took up some great positions and committed men forward. On the flip side, it was such a poor game technically - everyone's touch seemed to be so poor, Sturridge being the main culprit. In addition, despite getting men forward and attacking with intent, we just lacked that final bit of quality. Painfully becoming more apparent that without Coutinho, we lack that final killer ball and his return cannot come any sooner! Surprised with Luis - understandably rusty but grew in the game and looked better than I expected. Still harassing defenders and chasing lost causes, which resulted in a couple of chances. Also, I think Kolo needs to be in the centre of defence. His leadership and experience is painfully needed to organise everyone. Enrique was good defensively (awful going forward) but will be remembered for that one lapse in concentration. This is what is hurting us - Agger, Skrtel (of old), Enrique and Johnson are the biggest culprits when it comes to losing their man in the box.
One final point - I would like to experiment with Henderson and Allen in the middle. I know they're not as good as Lucas and Gerrard in terms of experience and natural ability, but I do think they are better suited to Rodgers's style. And I agree with Gez - one simple touch and you're away from Lucas/Gerrard and then you're at the defence. It's far too easy. Saw this from JA606 which I thought was interesting:
Not a great result obviously but I thought we played well enough. I actually really enjoyed the game as a whole. As much as we all hate losing to the mancs I'd rather have taken the league points than the cup win. Strangely I felt we played better last night than in the league game but that's football I guess. Positives: Suarez is back and we will start murdering teams again when he's up to speed. Another decent game for new boys Toure and Sakho. No midweek games should mean we are stronger and fitter come the back end of the season. MK getting some minutes under his belt. Negatives: We still lack goals when you take the usual suspects out of the equation. Corners and crosses are still absolute ****e. Probably the weakest part of our game for years and still never seems to improve. The substitutions were bizarre. Bringing Kelly on there brought nothing and Sterling seems to be offering less and less by the week. Another trophy chance gone and with no European footy that leaves us (being realistic) with one to fight for which is a shame. I guess we will have to start looking at top four as a trophy after all
I agree about the match - was entertaining and I think we deserved the win. A better team would have mauled Utd .. Sterling is frustrating - isn't contributing at the minute, and I rather see Ibe
Gerrez will agree with some of this but the highlighted part is just nonsense as the vast majority of his long range passing is right on the money and there are not many players that can consistenly make those balls.
Morning ****ers. I'll start with the most important point first. I don't give a **** what it says in the papers this morning. It wasn't a goal. Why wasn't it a goal? Because it wasn't a ****ing corner in the first place. It was a dead ball. The referee was ****ing ****e. As much as I like Henderson he squandered at least two, if not three chances. There's no doubt that Suarez will give his all in every game, but his touch last night was poor. He could have had two or three. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we deserved the win. We outplayed them for a large percentage of the game. Counter to Gerrez, I thought Gerrard had a good game, as did Lucas. However, in agreement with a number of other posters, we've GOT to do something about corners - both taking them and defending them. We're crap at both. I ****ing hate losing to united
Not sure its wise to leave it to the defenders when both FBs have gone forward, Lucas is level and we are in the final third of the pitch Sorry if I came across in the wrong way, I get frustrated that others can't see it when IMO it is glaringly obvious.
This is something I'd like to expand on, it seems people are falling over themselves to heap praise on Henderson, don't get me wrong I'm a fan myself and like his work rate I also think that he'll be a top player for us in years to come. I don't think he's the right player now though as he lacks the quality, his reading of the game can be poor and his choice of pass is at time terrible stopping attacking play and making a negative pass when there is a perfectly good forward pass available. Does anyone agree?
Not coming across the wrong way I'm just interested in the opinion of Gerrard, you are not alone in your thoughts but I just don't see the same thing. Imo Gerrad is to remain available and in space to get us on our way again and as I said prevent us from getting too deep I also think that he does a lot for the defence at times but again it seems to me that he tracks play and defends when he can see it's needed.
I understand the points made but I think they are also a bit harsh. Gerrard is effective in the deeper role and played brilliantly last season in that position, however I feel we need more defensively hence the lazy discussion. I understand the point about hollywood balls as his first thought is usually long but he is also very good at it. The problem is more about how often he does it. I bang on all the time about a team / player needing to be unpredictable, I think team's know that Stevie wants to hit those long diagonal balls for the forwards to chase or FB's to receive. He just needs to mix it up a bit. It doesn't help that the team have clearly been told to give the ball to Gerrard whenever they can, there are only two players that don't - Sturridge and Suarez! He is too far away from their goal for the Gerrard of old but can he still do the AM role as effectively? He very rarely shoots nowadays instead preferring to look for the assist, I can't remember the last time I saw him hit a shot first time from the edge of or outside the box. Also, if Gerrard is pushed further forward then Coutinho has to play from a wider position as does Suarez (good problem to have though). Watching the play and not tracking runners is another reason I say he's lazy. However, Lucas (or whoever else is in the middle) no longer tracks runners so I think this has come from BR.
Here are my views: Player Ratings [table="width: 500, class:grid"] [tr] [td]Name[/td] [td]Rating[/td] [td]Comment[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Mingolet[/td] [td]7[/td] [td]Did better than v southampton on the ball, perhaps less pressed, saves good, concentration good[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Henderson[/td] [td]6[/td] [td]largely ineffective going forward as wing back, missed a total sitter[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Toure[/td] [td]7[/td] [td]Led the line well, played well and recognized he was spare man so made positive forward contribution[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]skertl[/td] [td]6[/td] [td]Untroubled but average, why was he playing?[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]sahko[/td] [td]7[/td] [td]Played well again, looks assured, needs to not go to ground as first option[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]enrique[/td] [td]4[/td] [td]Terrible performance, all he could do was run, any time he had the ball he had to dribble at someone before passing, directly at fault for goal, very poor going forward[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Lucas[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]Unfit, why? really struggled rightly taken off.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Gerrard[/td] [td]6[/td] [td]not great, passed it well enough but in a 3 with rooney coming deep? out manned.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Moses[/td] [td]6[/td] [td]not fantastic by any stretch, not fit IMO[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Suarez[/td] [td]6.5[/td] [td]Worked reasonably well, if he gets things on target he has a chance, never got it on target and lost it a lot.[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]sturridge[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]didn't work well with suarez, didn't see the right runs to make didn't get to near post for what would have been a tap in on one occasion, spent half the time whining about frees rather than really playing[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Kelly[/td] [td]6[/td] [td]never touched it hardly[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Sterling[/td] [td]4[/td] [td]was awful really. too easy to push off it and looked out of it.[/td] [/tr] [/table] Tactics: This tactic worked better than the 4 CBs. That's a positive. Unfortunately it was a foolish one. Why? Well utd were awful but we played into their distinctly average hands. We allowed 3 players to mark one (who never got a kick until enrque let him run off at a corner and score) while rooney dropped off and out manned our midfield. Despite this we still managed to get into it and boss the game after 20mins. In short 3 cbs were a waste. The tactic itself might be useful later on in the year but why accommodate skertl in this way when it's clear that toure is your pick. Is rodgers bottling the decision to drop skertl again? We needed 3 in midfield to counter utd. We didn't get that and frnakly tuds wingers were awful so we just about got on top of things. Lucas needs to be an awful lot fitter and i am not raising my alert level from "waiting and seeing" to "getting quite concerned" about the midfield. I don't think he's the same player he was. finally Up front... suarez and sturridge were not working together... or should i say suarez could see the runs to make byut sturridge didn't. there was one glaring situation where we got in for the umpteenth time on the right side (buttner is useless) and suarez really wanted sturridge to run across the CBs to the near stick and for himself to go form near to far drawing defenders. Suarez went for it and checked cos sturridge stood statue like until the ball was played. when it was sturridge ran near post but the defender cleared. That needs work but overall was more positive was we were not carrying a passenger up there. The 3 were starved at times as the midfield couldn't cope... Tactically its ideal if you have ryan giggs trying to play as playmaker, he is useless at it. He is a winger not a pass maker. If rooney is deep in his own half to get a touch you know you are doing ok too... so overall we had their measure. Set piece We conceded by being sloppy right after half time. enrique was directly at fault. no excuse. Attacking set piece was awful. What i say was our player madly trying to get free in the box and the kicker at corners having no intention to play it. In short utterly pointless. I saw no good signal of "I'm going to kick it" bar one from gerrard which was more of a far post signal than anthing. The team need to get it together. sort out when the ball is to be delivered and when the really make your run. Again is saw one great far to middle/near post run that was totally unmarked occur and the ball was not even close to delivered. The run had to be checked and the guy was picked up again before the ball was ever put in. The ref He was there to not give a red or not give a pen basically. He missed a lot of stuff and let a lot of guys off with stuff. Kagawa had a dangerous raised boot early, henderson got away with one.. then 30 seconds later lucas is booked for nothing. That sort of stuff. Just pure determined to not make a big decision. then again it didn't affect us IMO. Missed chances Utd missed a few no question but we were largely untroubled. Our efforts were poor. The best was suarez free kick deflected onto the bar. toure missed a sitter, Henderson missed a sitter. Moses was a little unlucky but could have probably done a little better in firing the header higher or across goal rather than trying so hard to direct it back towards the near post. Suarez fired wide. Sturridge IMO missed two great chances in the first half when through and that change i talked about earlier was a clearance that should IMO have been an easy goal at the near post if he'd been clued in. I think we shot ourselves in the foot once again with toothless finishing. positives? I see 3. First the system used wasn't bad, some tweaking and i see: Mingolet Toure Agger sahko johnson Lucas Gerrard Cissohko Coutinho Suarez Sturridge As a feasible formation.... but only where you need 3 CBs, play that v a 4-4-2 for example and it'd be ok but rooney dropped off and utd outmanned our midfield... you also need effectvie wingbacks. Second sahko is showing that he's very athletic, and quite capable. I think pairing him and Toure will give us the best line up Third suarez returned and didn't bite anyone. We can play with 11 men now as a result.
Nice post MITO I agree that Toure and Sakho should be our central defence pairing - both speak French (help to ease Sakho in), both are strong and athletic. Also, Skrtel, Toure and Sakho are the only ones who move about in the box when attacking set pieces. The rest are static.
I thought it was a decent game, very even in fairness, a draw would have probably been a fair result. What I didn't understand was your system. You've been playing 4-3-3 & have looked really good in spells. However, he changed your entire system simply to make room for Rat boy which I found astounding tbh. IMO he should have maintained the same system he's been playing & if he wanted to start him, either have him as the central striker or as the wide right attacker.
