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Does Eriksen still live in Denmark then and ride a pushbike home after training each day? Because it jolly well looks like it. Alternatively, did he use all of his energy negotiating the new contract?
While I would agree that we are looking more like neo-AVB, as we've tended to do when the team doesn't play well under Pochettino, in this case we ought to look at the sequence of events. We were playing our best football, then we had an international break, where our key players played twice a week or went around the world. Since then it's been more twice a week games with a mounting injury list. At this point the main problem is the squad is tired and wearing down. That ought to make them slow in the buildup and lacking in cutting edge, and it seems to have done exactly that. The high energy style Pochettino favors certainly plays a part. Fair to suggest we should have a lower energy Plan B, but it's also fair to say we very likely won't get one from Pochettino, and it's hard to argue with his results so far.
I'm afraid the real solution is to generate more income and buy more high quality players, which ENIC is working on.
There's certainly some truth to saying that at this point, but I wouldn't underestimate the advantages of no Europe and much less fixture congestion. It did wonders for Leicester last year, and it's really helping Liverpool and Chelsea now.
Funny.Once upon a time Spurs played on the Tottenham Marshes.Wonder what those players would think as today's players jump in a plane and are playing in Australia in,what?,48 hours?.......and the 'Ackney Ammers are now playing on the Hackney Marshes.
Life can be so strange!
Life can be so strange!
You've got to admire his tactical teeth, though.
Opens his mouth, blinds the keeper and scores a tap in. Genius.
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Uncanny resemblance.
Just thought about the whole lack of options thing and I think that I can see what we were trying to do in the summer.
If you consider that we had an obvious first XI at the time and were basically bringing in options, then it makes sense.
None of the new players (or Son) were supposed to break into the side straight away, in my opinion.
The starters were Lloris; Walker, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Rose; Dier, Dembele; Lamela, Alli, Eriksen and Kane.
That would leave us with Janssen, Son, N'Koudou, Sissoko, Wanyama and various kids and defensive options on the bench.
A holdup striker, a forward that can play various roles, two wingers and a holding player.
Presumably Winks, Onomah, Carroll and the like were supposed to provide creative options.
That seems balanced and pretty sensible, but the suspension to Dembele and various injuries have hurt us.
Some of our players have been chucked in and not immediately settled, while others are well off the pace.
The international break screwed our momentum too, which is wonderful, as we've got another one coming up.
If you consider that we had an obvious first XI at the time and were basically bringing in options, then it makes sense.
None of the new players (or Son) were supposed to break into the side straight away, in my opinion.
The starters were Lloris; Walker, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Rose; Dier, Dembele; Lamela, Alli, Eriksen and Kane.
That would leave us with Janssen, Son, N'Koudou, Sissoko, Wanyama and various kids and defensive options on the bench.
A holdup striker, a forward that can play various roles, two wingers and a holding player.
Presumably Winks, Onomah, Carroll and the like were supposed to provide creative options.
That seems balanced and pretty sensible, but the suspension to Dembele and various injuries have hurt us.
Some of our players have been chucked in and not immediately settled, while others are well off the pace.
The international break screwed our momentum too, which is wonderful, as we've got another one coming up.
The best thing about Firmino is most rival fans thought we'd bought a flop for 30mil...
Turns out he's one of the best players in the league
He's even on the front cover of Match Attax!
To be fair, a lot of Liverpool fans thought that you'd bought a flop, too.The best thing about Firmino is most rival fans thought we'd bought a flop for 30mil...
Turns out he's one of the best players in the league
He's even on the front cover of Match Attax!
People were expecting him to hit the ground running because of his price-tag, which doesn't really have much relevance.
Most players take some time to adjust to a new club. New leagues, countries and languages make it even tougher.
We'd known about Dembele the whole summer though. The plan was clearly to just make do with Dier and Wanyama until his return.
The problem with using international breaks as an excuse is that our closest rivals are sending just as many if not more players halfway across the world too. Arsenal and Liverpool have put together a formidable run of form that the break interrupted without ruining. it just isn't an excuse.
Dembele seems to be one player that we don't really have a replacement for, thus the 4-1-4-1, I think.
Other players are either too defensive, too lightweight or too inexperienced.
Liverpool have no European football, so they've got less issues with fatigue, in my opinion.
Arsenal have had a pretty easy run of fixtures and still struggled against Swansea at home on their return.
After narrowly defeating the Welsh, the faced Ludogorets, then drew with Boro, then played Reading, before traveling to Sunderland.
A lot of teams would fancy that run.
They've also had four home games, while we've had four away.
No Southgate either, playing crap football and running their players into the ground, as he didn't call up any backup.
Not that Allardyce or Hodgson were any better, mind.
Possibly some 'fair weather' fans, but the vast majority of fans that follow Liverpool daily (most on this site etc.) knew what we were getting. You only had to see how he ripped apart the Bundesliga (in a fairly poor team) to see what he was about.
It didn't even take too long for him to settle tbh. Klopp has massively changed his game as he's the perfect player for how Klopp sets up, he's a hard grafting forward.
People this season tend to talk about Coutinho and Mane more than Firmino, but imo he's the one that fit's the system best.
I think you're 1 player away from being a very similar team (consistently). I know you high pressed City and smashed them, worked very well too. We seem to play like that every week now. If you get a silky play maker like Coutinho, Silva, Ozil etc. you'd be consistently winning rather than huffing and puffing and getting draws week in week out.
Basically I'm not convinced by any of your summer signings.....yet.
We do lack a bit of creativity but we're looking pretty solid defensively, though we're missing Alderweireld at the moment.
Kane's a big miss up top too, of course, but his form pre-injury wasn't up to much, either.
We're not creating enough good chances and wasting the ones that we are. We look a bit flat, for some reason.
As for our summer signings, it's a bit early to tell, but I've been quite impressed with what Janssen brings to the table.
His holdup play's excellent, he's dominating defenders and bullying markers every time.
His finishing's been a bit off, but he's not getting enough good chances and people aren't picking out his runs or playing off him.
I think he'll come good, given the opportunity. That's as long as his confidence doesn't go.
The others? Wanyama's been superb, barring his mistake against Leicester for their goal.
He's been talked about for Man of the Match in virtually every game. Fitted in instantly.
N'Koudou and Sissoko have shown flashes, but haven't done enough and have had little impact, unfortunately.
RE Dembele, I've mentioned before that I legitimately don't see a direct or even remotely close alternative out there who we could've signed that can cover him adequately enough. The way he moves for a guy his size is unnatural and his all round play is just so unique. When we played Dier and Wanyama in the first four games, it really wasn't that bad, we ended with two wins and two draws, we just had to adjust without him.
We have enough quality in the squad to be able to work around a player's absence, the problem we've faced this season is that we've been missing a bunch of players (and key ones at that) to the point where it's disrupted our rhythm. Kane's missed five, Toby two, Dembele six, while the likes of Dier, Rose, Lloris and Lamela have also missed matches. Take Aguero, de Bruyne, Silva and Fernandinho/ Costa, Hazard, Matic and Azpilicueta/ Firmino, Coutinho, Henderson and Matip out of their respective sides for spells and I bet they'd struggle a lot more than us. We also have the problem in that some of the back ups aren't fully fit due to lack of pre-seasons with the club, Sissoko and GKN joined very late, Kev was injured throughout whiles others including first teamers who played in the Euro's joined late on and missed most of pre-season. It's been a nightmare start for us in terms of preparations and injuries so the sheer fact three points separate us and City is an absolute credit to Poch and in particular our back five plus Wanyama in that we've remained fiercely competitive throughout and not lost in the Prem.
What's also not helped is our creator in chief, Eriksen, is having his worst spell at the club. When your top creator isn't firing, creating chances becomes a lot harder and you're faced with a dilemma of either dropping him, which basically guarantees a lack of creativity, or carry him in games in the hope he gets back on form. Lamela and Alli are also ones we can rely on but they too haven't been at the races in recent matches. But with that said, we've actually still had a number of chances to kill teams off and that then brings up the whole clinical point again.
I still remain massively positive despite the problems though, the way I see it is Kane and Toby aren't far from returning, Dembele is still regaining full match fitness, Janssen's gaining more game time to settle while GKN and Sissoko still adjust to our tactics and team mates. I'm hoping that at one point something will just 'click' and when it does, it should be brilliant to watch, it's already partially happened in games against Stoke and City so we've had glimpses of what this side is capable of. Exciting.
We have enough quality in the squad to be able to work around a player's absence, the problem we've faced this season is that we've been missing a bunch of players (and key ones at that) to the point where it's disrupted our rhythm. Kane's missed five, Toby two, Dembele six, while the likes of Dier, Rose, Lloris and Lamela have also missed matches. Take Aguero, de Bruyne, Silva and Fernandinho/ Costa, Hazard, Matic and Azpilicueta/ Firmino, Coutinho, Henderson and Matip out of their respective sides for spells and I bet they'd struggle a lot more than us. We also have the problem in that some of the back ups aren't fully fit due to lack of pre-seasons with the club, Sissoko and GKN joined very late, Kev was injured throughout whiles others including first teamers who played in the Euro's joined late on and missed most of pre-season. It's been a nightmare start for us in terms of preparations and injuries so the sheer fact three points separate us and City is an absolute credit to Poch and in particular our back five plus Wanyama in that we've remained fiercely competitive throughout and not lost in the Prem.
What's also not helped is our creator in chief, Eriksen, is having his worst spell at the club. When your top creator isn't firing, creating chances becomes a lot harder and you're faced with a dilemma of either dropping him, which basically guarantees a lack of creativity, or carry him in games in the hope he gets back on form. Lamela and Alli are also ones we can rely on but they too haven't been at the races in recent matches. But with that said, we've actually still had a number of chances to kill teams off and that then brings up the whole clinical point again.
I still remain massively positive despite the problems though, the way I see it is Kane and Toby aren't far from returning, Dembele is still regaining full match fitness, Janssen's gaining more game time to settle while GKN and Sissoko still adjust to our tactics and team mates. I'm hoping that at one point something will just 'click' and when it does, it should be brilliant to watch, it's already partially happened in games against Stoke and City so we've had glimpses of what this side is capable of. Exciting.
The question is why have so many of the squad not delivered the regularity/level of
performance this season as they did last season, when they ostensibly do not all
reasonably have the excuses of fatigue / injury / flying all over the world on international
duty etc to use.
This is where Pochettino has to take off the coaching hat and put on the manager one.
Eriksen's the only player who I'd say is massively under performing and he's also the only one with no real excuse either. He didn't play in the Euros, had a full pre-season and as far as I'm aware hasn't been carrying any injury.
Lamela and Son's international travelling has stifled them at times, although the former should have been better in periods seeing as this is his fourth season now.
Alli returned late and missed a lot of pre-season but then so did a few players and most of them have been fine.
Janssen is still settling, just like GKN & Sissoko, the latter two didn't have a pre-season either so I'm more than happy to give them time, even if the latter should be able to adapt quicker seeing as he's experienced in the Prem.
I don't think there's much Poch can really do at the moment, for the most part he picks the sides we all want to see and with the amount of disruption we've had due to injuries he hasn't really been able to pick a settled side which never helps and because of those injuries, some have been thrown into the side when they perhaps could've done with more easing in.
An arm round the shoulder approach may work with some of the lads but I think he does that anyway, players have said in interviews he's like a father figure so I presume he's always there to have a chat with.
Since we are getting more points per game than we did last season, it bodes well for when we start paying properly....
Agree with all of that. Getting Eriksen playing to his best again should be top of Poch's in-tray. At his best, he is a special player in my opinion, just been really poor recently.