LFC Stats and Analytics

Change tactics yes, but we never moved away from working hard.

 

It's this simple.

If you give slides only 35% possession but you allow them free reign on that 35% to run at your back 2 you will concede goals.

By all means dominate possession, its the right thing. But don't do it by passing round the back line.

If we look at each goal in turn I wonder if a common denominator can be found?

Lack of fast press to win ball back?
Lack of an actual tackle on the ball?
High line being beaten for offside?
People fluffing clearances?

2 v Fulham
1 v palace
2 v utd
1 v Newcastle

 

Goals conceded analysis

Goal 1 V fulham. 31mins:30s Fulham play ball back to their keeper. We are very slow to press up. Bobby was in midfielder so joins in eventually. fulham keeper dallys on ball play out poorly to midfield. Fabinho heads ball forward to henderson who lets it bounce to beat himself and run forward. He tosses aimless ball into middle and is caught by fulham player with foot up. Fulham clear this aimless ball and now thiago, henderson anf fabinho are all forward around ball area (one laying down) one pass releases ball to fulham CM who runs forward.

Fulham RW sets off but is offside so robbo leaves him go. Robbo is half engaging the CM who ran with ball. he should'nt but theres no cm. Fulham RW checks run so now virgil is drawn towards RW and starts playing him on. Mitrovic is close to matip in the middle.

Ball goes wide to thier RW and robbo is chasing towards him. Matip is now running back to box and mitrovic is just taking stock. Trent is occupied by the fulham LW.

At this point the fulham RB is alos coming forward and theres no sign at all of diaz tracking, nor thaigo really.

At the point of the over lapping run we now find absolutely nobody picking up the full back and robbo already engaged by RW. Trent is marking their LW and mitrovic is now free but well away form pen area.

The over lapping run ball is played and robbo now sprints at that to get a touch. thaigo never got close to helping.

Trent is now seeing the LW run in and mitrovic is hitting edge of box free as a bird. no cm picking up obviously.

Trent lets the LW run go across matip (poor in itself)
Robbo deflects the corss a bit. (it loops)
Trent is switched off at back stick
Matip is dreaming in the middle
VVD is at the front stick

Mitrovic comes alive once the ball is played and smashes through trent who's switched off.

IMO you can give midfield at contributing factor here as thaigos not helped robertson one jot.

robertson's had two to defend so cutting that cross out was next to impossible

the defender sin the middle are asleep. Matip could be thinking where is mitrovic but he never looks. Trents left his man go and is at back stick and never jumps.

 

goal2: penalty awarded v VVD

LFC are pushing for winner.

matip is doing the usual stride on forward. he has zero cover. and i mean absolutely zero cover. But he strides on anyway. His pass forward is cuty out.

At this point: Henderson is in centre circle as no 6. elliott is ahead of the ball in the line of 4 CMS and milner advanced on the left side. henderson has not recognised the cb is going to run forward and moved to slot in.

Matip does'nt play to elliott whos actually in front of salh but sort of twoards salah and thier left midfield has just mvoed and cut the passing lane and snaffled the error up. Matip goes frward to try close down. Hederson belatedly runs back towards RCB.

Ball goes to slowest man on pitch (mitrovic) against vvd. VVd is goal side. He slows right up and does that VVD thing.

at this point you have to be thinking he's got this but hes slowed up at least 6/7 yards to the side of mitrovic rather than getting in front.

he then tracks the guy into the pen area rather than engaging outside. he now realsies he is not close enough as the shot on left foot is there and gets in a fuddle as mitrovic cuts back at him and bascially throws hismelf into vvd knowing he's got the guy dead to rights.

Blame?

a) matip for running forward and playing **** pass
b) henderson for not slotting in (fabinho does but its a consistent them with henderson at no 6)
c) vvd for being extremely lax and lazy in getting across at the only danger man there

 

Goal 3: Palace

LFC are pressing up.

thier keeper launches a high hoof out after a bit of closing down by us.

Trent is ina RCM sort of slot. Elliott is on the edge of box wide right. half our players are jogging out.

Trent has reacted late to this high hoof and goes to close down thier player who has time for the ball to drop.

Fabinho at this time is goal side and moves across towards it.

nobody at all form our side is picking anyone up or sprinting back or anything. Like a gamble we will win it.

Trent allows the guy to take it down and actually never tries to put a foot in. if anythign he runs away again.

Fabinho makes a half hearted run at the guy but hes got the ball at feet and doesn't have to do a thing to bat fabinho's **** move.

ref even waves advatnage to thier player at this point for a nothing contract.

At this point this guy now has the freedom of the park the only payer arsed to run back at all is robbo but theres 2 men in CM for palace free and zaha is engaging phillips, while this guy can now run at him as well.

phillips then gambles on offside while zaha goes. phillips hasn't exactly done this well as he's not decided ealry and is quite float footed

VVD is ahead of phillips so to have a little jog back he gets within the vacintiy but slows up like its too late and lets zaha open the angle a little.

Brilliant finish leaves alisson with no chance.

Blame?

theres zero depth to this defence.

Theres literally one guy covering midfield area, he's no where near their players. Its not as if the players wer eup on half way in a line or anything so there massive gaps.

No body bothered to close down anywhere. One cm is in their box pressing the GK. the other is RW. The right full is slotted about watching play and then slow to react to their only out ball the keeper hoofs it up in the air sort of at.

trent, phillips, vvd, fabinho. all lax.

Again imo, lack of depth of defense, lack of midfield presence.

 

Goal 3 Man utd.
(first one)

Its a rapid break down out left side.

Our team is quite out of shape. trent ran across the middle and is basically quite far out of his own slot. Nobody has bothered themsevles running back there.

VVD is drawn out to dover the left full slot as robbo is running back. clearly this means he is now out of the picture. rashford doesnt cross but recycles the ball.

not one solitary LFC player has bothered picking up fernande who plays it across. At this point our tream has got back a bit but there slot sof lads pointing about and not much real shape.



VVd hasn't been to arsed to get back in middle. Roob is there. Gomez.. not sure what he is thinking henderson is in an awful position if he is covering as that manc is in off the right ball. note milner here stood ball watching.

utd recycle this again at pace. we all start moving out. the ball goes back down our left and trent hasn't followed the runner out (maybe wisely) but the ball goes out wdie right for us and trent must go.


now look at milner. hes never picked that man up has he. Henderson has ran out of middle and robbo is still marking in vvds position.

Bascially theres going to be a 1-2 now. the ball wide is flicked to middle to free man who milners has left and then back out wide right around trent and into a really dangerous position.



As our line has never really got itself sorted out we are now really in bad shape.

milner has missed everything. henderson has moved from centre out to RCM slot for no real reason. Elliott chased up the part at the ball so was never in any sort of place. hederson as no 6... out of game.

Milner... can still sove this issue but must pick one. nobody marking on the edge of the box at all.

bit of a quality finish puts milner on his arse.

henderson is strolling in the box having vacated the middle chasing out side.

Again midfield shape. who is 6.

Where is the RCM? why is he chasing about like a winger or forward?

Wheres the urgency to get back in good shape?

 

finally goal 2 v utd

LFC have a throw.

Henderson is waving his arms about but not moving and robbo ends up lobbing it down the line. A most unuusal thing for us to do. Inevitably we lose this is a maze of man utd shirts. we press up a bit and elliott wins it back.

now henderson is again pushed on, just running on.

elliott under hits a pass towards salah and the manc LB plays it instantly forward

gomez cuts this out. great. plays it to trent who simply hoofs it towards the middle aimlessly. gomez has put rashford on his arse here.

this is a real bit of back and forth play, no control.

The issue here is this aimless thump forward comes when gomez is stood on the halfway line and vvd is miles over to the side. henderson just run about not really minding the central no 6 area.

Hednerosn continues jogging on wathcing this hoof and then thier cb clears it and henderson reacts... oh dear over his head and henderson someone construes to kick it right to to elanga?

VVD cant get a tackle. who knew your no 6 would pass it to the opposition eh?

gomes is now behind the line and rashford is in miles of space. gomez chooses to retreat at pace as he sees some danger while vvd shrugs and says ah **** it i'll have to trot a bit is suppose.

elanga beats this crap and slots the ball for rashford.

gomez then choses to give up running and stick his hand up leaving rashford all the time in the world to pick a spot.

Blame:

No control on game,
no midifeld shape.
Henderson being a donkey
Poor cb play again.


I think a pattern is fairly clear here.

1. there is no depth of defence.

2. there is something off in the CBs, particularly vvd in terms of urgency and running.

3. the midfield are not really tracking back or getting good shape.

Solutions:
1. a first goods step here is a massive kick in the backside to those CBs, get it together.

2. a second good step is to stop playing wingers (milner, elliott) as midfielders.

3. a third good step would be to get a double pivot in there. fabinho and thaigo.

4. a final good step would be to tel the full backs to stay wide and run both ways not jog.

why?
I'd like to see a double pivot midfield with elliott narrow and given licence to run himself legless pressing with the front 3, Eliott as a no 8 but central with 2 no 6 behind taking ball off those cbs and making play between the lines.

still 433 and not a 4231. i simply do not think gluing diaz and salah to wings will not work. we need them narrow between the lines of defence and midfield

drop henderson. the end. if thiago and artur are fit let them play.
drop milner. the end. 10mins here and there. hes not a cm, he is not covering the right slots.

but the full backs MUST provide width then. just open the full back/cb channel for runs if nothing else.

and the two no 6's must provide the depth of defense to allow us shut the breaks down.

 

TLDR

 

Totally large dick ramming...?

 

Can't believe you don't know this one...

Too long, didn't read.

 

You're right about distance - it's not really that important because players can literally jog to around 13km a game i.e. look at Milner. This stat is more for vanity rather than anything else. The sprints is the concern for me.

 

theres not enough time to jog about 13km in a match.... c'mon mate. messi trots about like gods gift and always has done. his running stats are tiny

they are stats that are related however and it does matter for midfield and returning to shape. the teams are out running us as they are moving well in good shape and closing the gaps and passing channels. we should expect to not be top of every single running stat but our midfielder and forwards should be up there if they are running back to get in shape.

Yes you are right the high intensity sprints are 100% important to our fundamental style of winning the ball back and getting beyond the lines. If you watch nearly every pay we make the second the ball is lost someone goes towards the ball, never away, as a midfielder.

Look at the goal i highlighted v man utd. players go towards that ball to win it back and this opens gaps so the movement MUST be intense. when you critique henderson you should do so from not being in the right place to cover these gaps.

 

Maybe not 13 but definitely 11+km. James Milner still runs that amount in games, and that is the problem. Anyone can run that much in 90 mins but it's futile.

 

The average needs to be about 12km.

You are right that the high intensity sprint is our core.

these guys guys need to run as CMs (and full backs) up and down all day and cover each others positions, but yes futile is a good description if you are not close to where you need to be.

Milner v utd was anywhere and everywhere he didn't need to be.
elliott as praised as he is runs off wherever and theres no cover nor thought of cover.
Fabinho even runs towards ball and no thought to cover behind that.

if the first high intensity press having lost the ball is not there at all we see goals like palace on. trent hasn't gone at ball, fabinho has not really tried as he should.

If the first high intensity press works like v utd for second goal. (won the ball not once but twice, midfielder first then Gomez) but some arse kicks it away (trent) then we have lost our shape and will be struggling as theres zero depth to the defensive line.

The other aspect of running is getting back into good shape and i am seeing a lot of jogging back or heart hearted efforts at getting good shape back. (man utd first goal prime example, utd recycle that ball 3 times before the goal scorer is free as a bird in the box)


I think this is about desire.

1. get back quick, good shape, block space. not happening
2. win the ball back with intensity. mixed results here. some doing some not.
3. making runs to hind half spaces. not happening. midfielders are stood in the defenders line easily marked.


roll on THIAGO!

 

He'd get injured




Predictable comment looming...

 

But why is sprinting down? It's been fundamental for Klopp since he joined? Is he tactically instructing the players to hold back (because of the hectic schedule due to WC?) Or are the players actually goosed

 

The same rapid press is present when we lose the ball. players go towards the ball and try win it.

We don't do the same hunting against teams knocking it about at the back though, its more covering passing lanes and waiting for the right ball to press on. evolution rather than heavy metal. eg. we let 2 cbs knock it about and we try cut the easy lane then we let the ball go back to keeper who might knock it out wide to a full back. Then the press comes alive and we go ahrd at the bouncing ball, the player with back to play etc... or we SHOULD. note trent and robertson failing to follow through on this sometimes.

Look at how lazy and slow the ball out from the back is. vvd has been EXTREMLY lax and slow get himself in a good position to take the ball from Alisson. we are not seeing players move out of the lines that set defences create. they don't expect quick ball and are not at it.

certinaly then salah and diz are mostly facing our own goal coming deeper rather than running behind etc. just not seeing the danger balls enough. we need verticality to the play. to get behind that first midfield line and then everything kicks off. Its rarely happening. they can run and will run but we have to speed that delivery forward up.

 

In the league Harvey Elliott has been dribbled past the most for #LFC (9) and has won just 18.2% of his attempted tackles.

So young elliott is doing well passing the ball and going sideways but in the scrap he is lightweight. If you watch he will close down but never put a foot in for a tackle.

theres even more shocking stats for milner of course.

theres a clear case now for a big formation shift cos we are simply set up to run at the ball to win it back quikc but are not even getting close. 433 which 2 men left back and every "pressing" is fine when the press is genuine and theres no lanes left open but when guys are half hearted or won't tackle then you get that first line breach and its like watching ukraininas chasing russians to the eastern border.

 

Yep, he’s been very good on the ball but off the ball is a real liability. Unfortunately, there really isn’t anyone else who can play there who can provide that stability.

 

no theres not you are right, so we need to change something big.

it seems to me either we really go hell for leather down the right and just lock the left side down or we change formation.

But tactically we need to figure out our "identity" again.

the ball needs to go forward much quicker and as nice as elliott looks on the ball in space he is not sending the ball forward quickly, he's dancing on it and as he's very left footed he is playing it inside and back.

We have however had two wake up goals. one v man utd and one v napoli where the side should be set defensively and the simples of recycled ball and 1/2 gets a man in behind trent and into our box.

the malaise is more than merely not tracking back imo.