Good Signings but where is the Defensive Plan?

Christian Benteke, Roberto Firmino, Danny Ings, James Milner, Nathaniel Clyne, Adam Bogdan, Joe Gomez and the returning Divock Origi have all been added to the squad this summer in quick time. Great credit must go to the club for quickly bringing in their chosen targets. Whilst many will debate on whether these signings represent good business, the club have certainly backed Brendan Rodgers with his objectives.

The names above cry out goals. Goals from headers, goals from sublime skill, goals from pace, goals from hard work – goals, goals and more goals! That’s exactly what the fanbase and importantly Rodgers craved. Rodgers recently said:

So we are all ready to go now? Or are we?…

Rodgers importantly mentioned that the defensive side of things are also very important and that we needed to improve. The table below shows the number of goals we have conceded over the last three seasons and our ranking in the league based on number of goals conceded.

Goals conceded Ranking
2014/15 48 8th
2013/14 50 8th
2012/13 43 5th

The ranking illustrates how poor defensively Liverpool have been in Rodgers’ tenure with a large number of goals conceded. Unless Liverpool score a significant number of goals like they did in the 2013/14 season they will continue to suffer in the league – as shown in the 2012/13 and 2014/15 seasons.

So it is interesting to see Rodgers’ comments about improving the defence and witnessing the players coming into the club this summer. Whilst Joe Gomez showed great promise during the pre-season tour, it is only Clyne that will be a starter in Rodgers’ back line.

Significantly there have been no reinforcements in central defence. Mamadou Sakho showed his class last season but was injured several times. Martin Skrtel remains a main stay of the defence, however our defensive record shows that he has been an integral part of a poor defence for a number of years and shows no sign of leadership. Worse still, Dejan Lovren had a terrible season worryingly still looks a bag of nerves when he comes near the ball. It is therefore surprising that whilst the defence has been spoken about at length, no central defender has been brought in.

There is also still no sign of a defensive midfielder coming in to protect our rocky centre-backs. Chelsea have Matic, United now have Schneiderlin and Schweinsteiger, Arsenal have Coquelin, City have Fernandinho – it’s a key part of why their defensive ranking is far better than ours.

Lucas remains at the club, although he has shown in recent times not to have the pace or quickness of thought to return to his previous best. Henderson, Can, Milner and Allen have been touted as players who could play in a deeper role like Steven Gerrard did in the 2013/14 season, however, like Gerrard, they are not true defensive midfielders and their first thought is to go forward and contribute.

Alberto Moreno had mixed success at left-back and many will hope he improves after his debut season. However, we still have no one to challenge him apart from Jose ‘I love a selfie’ Enrique. It is a dangerous ploy given Moreno’s unconvincing start at the number of games we will have to play given our involvement in the Europa League.

So what is the plan?
Well – we have had a poor defence for years now. We haven’t strengthened at centre-back, left-back nor in the defensive midfield positions. We are now only days away from the first league game of the season so what is Rodgers’ plan to improve our defence?

Given he hasn’t brought in new players, I can only assume it comes back to fast pressing starts and aiming to outscore the opposition – similar to the 2013/14 season. This brought success but not the title and was led by a rampaging Luis Suarez.

The risk however is that we encounter similar problems that we have suffered in the past with an unbalanced squad with a lack of defensive shape and protection. Frankly, no one knows how this season will pan out and crucially we can only speculate how Rodgers will address our defensive frailties – I for one cannot wait to see how this season unfolds.

 

Sympathy post

 

Bookmarking this. Jimmy is praising the signings so far but this time next year they'll all be muck and the transfer committee will have failed miserably

 

Ha not my words mate - it's an article from a site. I didn't post the link cus I didn't want to be accused of promoting a site.

 

Rodgers clearly thinks the centre backs that we have will work and that with a better forward line we will dominate games more and ease the pressure on the defenders. Lucas being the only DM is a worry unlike some I think he's brilliant when fit but he does take time to recover and ve have no other options.
To me other than being class Sakho is a work in progress and his ability to improve and understand his role alongside Skrtel is key, Skrtel wont change and will attack everything, Sakho needs to cover him.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes but I'm not exactly filled with confidence at this point, we have too many player in some positions and selling players seems beyond us.

 

THE PLAN IS DON'T GET 6 IN V STOKE

seriously those stats are meaningless when you let 6 in by having 3 players not even trying a leg last day.

oh and shokc lfc 5th best club and end up 5th best defence wow....

 

You had the 8th best defence and ended up 6th

Chelsea 32
Southampton 33
Arsenal 36
United 37
City 38
Stoke 45
West ham 47
Liverpool 48

 

Read back to Jimmy comet which was not only laSt year.

Again take off 6 goals v stone and where does that stat end up? ???

Utterly pointless.

 

Worried about the CB situation mainly, it's ridiculous, we've bought so many in the last few years and still can't find a solid authoritative pairing

The outscoring the opposition philosophy isn't going to work either as we simply haven't got the team to do that anymore, can't believe that was 2 years ago

 

Yeah but there you go....

We have 3 simlar players as we've dicsussed several times this summer. skertl, lovern, sahko... we've toure who's been helf just to make up numbers around the squad. We have illori who has neve rplayed for us and hasn't get the world alight on loan due to successive injuries but is made out to be the messiah.

we've reloaned wisdom.

we've joe gomez.

The reality is we won' be signing another and another and another until something sticks. we have to shift these on first.

Anyone rememebr how long it took to get sami hyppia? I do. I can remember it being very very bad for 5 years really.

Even if you think back that since alan hanson retired we had mark wright who did nothing but get injured, bought fat ruddock, babb scales... played 3 at the back and none really stuck... rememebr staunton at CB???

Henchoz and hyppia purchsea was very good but it was wehn carragher was moved to CB with hyppia and a proper screen was put in place too that we really improved.

As of now the CBs are... reasonable. they are not top 4 but they are not bottom half either.


my view is the clubs done just about as much as is humanly possible in the priority areas this summer. we got the players needed badly. wanting even more is being unrealistic. We will though have to return to the area in the next windows.

 

The club haven't done everything they can. We still lack a competent partner for Sakho and a DM.

The defence has marginally improved which means we'll still concede 45 goals at least. Which then means we need to score roughly 80 goals plus to get top 4 - and I don't think we've bought enough goals.

 

WHERE THE F Y+DO YOU THINK THE MONEY COMES FROM!!!!

1. no RB I said last may we needed full backs, midfield and striker

2. No CM

3. no striker AT ALL

4. sterling always going

you've got handed a striker, another attacker a CM in milner and a RB in clyne... not to mention joe gomez on top.

We had NO ****ING STRIKER... what about this don't you get... what about balotelli being the worst every buy by lfc even topping caroll and keane?

We resorted to wingers at full back and Can there as we'd no RB.. don't give me johnson and manquillo guff either.

We replaced the aged gerrard with milner.. short term patch that may be but far more legs there

LFC have improved in the 100% top priority areas. we've 4 bloody CBs we can get buy and get 5th with those but with no striker we are headed for the bottom half.

He had a decent little RB there, we've a decent CB set up, we've a decent CM set up... is it top... no.. by no means but we've got a squad finally.

 

Where's the money? Well we sold Suarez and Sterling for £120m over the past 2 years.

We signed Lambert, Lallana, Markovic,Origi, Benteke, Balotelli, Firmino, Ings.

How much more money do you want to spunk on the attack?

Our manager is apparently some amazing attacking coach but we scored 52 goals last season after all the money he has spent.

 

And we haven't replaced Gerrard with Milner, unless we plan to use Milner as a holding mid.

 

well done jimmy...if we followed your plan we'd have no strikers this season and 6 defender son the pitch..

I noe you've neglected to mention that lovern, clyne, gomez, toure (free) moreno AND can all arrived in same period. given rodgers has had to fix his total nightmares that he is responsible for in lambert and badontelly its about even on attack and defence.

we will go into next season with Lallana, markovic (neither worth it) Origi (not ready) benteke, firmino and ings AND at the back we will have clyne, lovern, moreno all starting (just to rub that one in) and can in mdifield and gomez on the bench with toure being the dressing room joker.

I am willing to predict we will concede <45 goals this year... and score 60+ .... ALL LEAGUE/ I'd even say <40 is possible.

I think we will be 5th.

 

where did we put gerrard last season.

holding unitl he was blown off the pitch.

then 3-4-3 as one of the two in middle.... OR Right forward in cup and AM at times too....

In short he was put anywhere and everywhere....

I have said many times can will and should be used in midfield.... I would like to know just why given not one single preseason game has had milner and henderson as holding you have this worry?

Gerrard left, milner game in.. end of.. at least ONE of those can run.

 

But look at the proportion of spending between attack and defence - it's clear Rodgers is only concerned with one area.

And Gomez, Toure, Ilori were not bought for the first team right away.

 

Because this is Rodgers we're talking about. We know Milner and Henderson will start - these two need a DM or Can behind them.

If not, then we're f*cked.

 

so? whats to say there won't be given every game he's set up this preseason has had allen or lucas?

 

If that is the case then we're ****ed. Afterall, that is the whole point of football!!!