Our midfield of (Flannagan) Lucas, Gerrard, Henderson (Cissokho) got whoopa*sed by Arsenal's: 1. Out of the top 20 pass combinations in the game, all of the top 10 and 17 out of the 20 belonged to Arsenal . Ours were only 3 out 20 and all were Gerrard's (to Lucas, to Toure and to Flanagan) 2. Out of these 17 combos, 15 were combinations between midfield players (Ramsey, Arteta, Cazorla, Ozil, Rosicky) - only a mere two (Arteta to Sagna) and (Arterta to Mertesacker) involved defenders. 3. This spanking resulted in them making 238 passes in our third, while us only 132 in theirs. We got out-tackled despite Arsenal showing more ball: We disrupted them successfully by tackling only 27 times out of 42, (64% success rate), while Arsenal tackled us 34 times out of 45 (75% success rate) Tactically: Our 3-5-2 clusterf@ck scheme ensured that Sakho was quite redundantly overlapping with a confused Cissokho on the left, and that the 'five' in midfield were actually only three in an actual 5-3-2, given that our wingbacks were isolated and pinned back and more than Arsenal's fullbacks. Conclusions for this Saturday: 1. Play Allen! At the cost of Coutinho I guess. Not because Coutinho isn't playing well, but because we can't find a way to complement him somehow in games where our midfield is under pressure 2. Have Henderson play off Allen, make tackles AND play the ball 3. Put on Kelly if he's getting fitter or hope to god that Cissokho doesn't sh*t the bed nearly as bad as last time 4. Have Sterling drop deeper take on very significant defensive tasks. 5. Have SAS drop deeper and take on very significant defensive tasks. 5. Catch the rabbit-a*sed f**kers on the break!
I'm a bit annoyed at the 12.45 time of this. Arsenal are always lethargic in early kick-offs. Well, we're generally always lethargic in every first half of most games anyway.
No worries then, we only play in the first half! Good thread Livtor. Gonna be interesting with Coutinho and Allen btw. who plays?
I think Rodgers has made up his mind that he needs to start Allen. I would be worried if he didn't, as he should look back to our moderate success away at Chelsea and City. The question probably still lingering in his mind is whether in place of Coutinho, Sturridge or Sterling. Benching Sturridge for Allen would be a hard decision to make, but courageous IMO.
I felt disgusted about that game at the time. And now being faced with those stats again I actually felt like finishing it off and throwing up . Never f*cking again. Going from that performance, no wonder Wenger is smugly telling the press today he expects his team "to dominate Liverpool"
Wenger is right to expect his team to beat us especially when we will have Toure and Cissokho playing. If we were playing a team with them two in it I would be expecting us to hump them.
Sorry mate. You can look at these stats all day and they tell you absolutely nothing about what's going to happen this weekend. Firstly, neither side is going to set up as they did in the first game. Secondly, the psychology of both sides will be different. But I do agrre with you point 5. My gut feeling is that this could go the same way as the Everton match.
Their last 3 away games at Newcastle, Villa, and Southampton have been very tight affairs, drawing at the latter. We're not worse than those three teams are we...
Totally disagree with you there, Dave. For a manager, not drawing lessons from the most recent encounter is first-order blindness AND arrogance AND daftness AND disservice to the crest.
The last game shouldn't be used as a gauge IMO; Brod ****ed his own arse with a massive dildo by going three at the back and top up top
Well, the fact that we can't possibly f**k it up that badly shouldn't make anyone confident that we won't f**k it up moderately, should it? Moving the hell away from 3-5-2 goes without saying, yet we could still make similar mistakes with any 433/4231/4321 scheme that doesn't respect Arsenal's dizzying corousel in the middle.
Despite being at home, we should set up in a similar way to we did against Everton. Play counter-attacking football whilst putting them under pressure when they have possession. #givetotoSASAS
I agree. Press them in possession and break quickly. It's all about the midfield performance. We lose there and SAS are starved of supply and chances will be limited. Should be interesting to see how BR approaches this, tactically.
Really? You wouldn't bring Allen... As you know by now, I'm a big proponent of a 2 man CM partnership with Coutinho ahead of them. But the WBA performance dented my faith that Gerrard and Hendo can hack it alone against teams that press and pack the middle. So while we nurse our teething problems with that Plan A, I'd go for safety and reinforce the middle with Allen, with Allen sitting deeper than Henderson (unlike he was used at WBA coming on for Coutinho).
Chelsea played their defensive counterattack plan to perfection against City without needing their number 10. All of SASAS will be fielded, most likely. The question is do you go into this counterattacking gameplan with Allen or Coutinho?
