Not to take away from chris and his always brilliant match thread today but I wanted to make one point about today's game. Stoke, with due respect to their side and Pulis, lack the ambition that would see them come to anfield and have a go at us. They will be tactically conservative and sit back trying to hit o nthe break and of course playing longer balls. For me this means that we wont be able to pass it through them to get at their back 4 and when we push forward our players forward our CBs will have to cope It'll be a big tactical test to see if we can cope with this type of football, side sit back, so what do we do? rely on a bit of brilliance from suarez?
I agree it's going to be a test, but hopefully the Stoke midfield won't be able to cope with our passing game or Suarez!
We need to keep the ball moving and use our pace down the wings. I think we will turn them over today.
well I hope so... stoke should sit their midfield back and lump it long at us. so penetrating their defense will not be easy, we destroyed norwich as they came onto us as we passed it about and one pass took out half thier team creating lots of space for suarez.... stoke may not do that. also pace odwn the wing = great unitl the ball goes in and there's nobody there. I think we need to turn them and be playing it form the byline itno the danger area's low... a cut back to the edge of the box for gerrard for exmaple.... but all in all i have to wonder if we can hold a clean sheet... we don't seem able and if we over committ their long ball game could hurt us
oh and i am not sure have the palyers to actually get up and support that long ball quickly so our own tracking back needs to be good.
We have been making good progress in the last few games of getting players into the box from Midfield. Sahin especially
Take the chances that come is what I recommend. We get chances in games like this but have been failing to take them.
I agree this is a stern test. Will we play nicely, not score, and then they steal the points? I don't like their football but they are pretty good, and Pullis deserves credit in what he has managed to do their. They do have some genuinly good players now too and are dangerous. Hopefully Crouchy gets a good response, whilst Owen gets put hin his place.
