Its supposed to be a BR tactic, it was dire 2nd half last night, we were the cause of our own downfall, not pressin the ball, and defending far too deep, we gave Arsenal 2 goals. Its alright BR sayin he likes teams to press but so far this season our pressin side of the game has been pretty rubbish IMO. We need to start doin it instead of talkin about it
when we press and get the ball back quickly we look good to be honest, but do we see enough of it and for 90 mins, and for me no we don't sadly.
My honest opinion is two fold 1. our tactic was consistent i nboth halves.. to defend in depth and hit on the break. we were 4-5-1. 2. i also think the elgs went and we just didn't have anyone to come in you could depend on. I though lucas looked shattered on 60mins and gerrard though still game i have to admitt wasn't able to keep harrying thier midfield... this si why they got so much possession.
For once, it looked like we had a game plan which we executed very well for a majority of the match but ultimately paid the price during our lapses. We defended superbly and Carragher was at the heart of it (he likes a good scrap and this suited him), and we countered extremely well in the second half.
Pressing is a great tactic but last night our players got tired. It requires a lot of fitness, stamina and energy. When almost your hole team is either young (early 20's or late teens) or 30 plus they are going to struggle to keep it up for 90 minutes (though this is where Rodgers 'resting on the ball' tactic comes in). But by the time players like Henderson, Sturridge, Wisdom, Sterling, Allen etc reach 25 they will be great at it. This is another reason why we could do with some decent 25-27 year olds who are used to this style. Anger, Johnson and Enrique are fine because they are defenders. Pressing isnt really Downings style. Maybe bringing on Allen and Borini last night would have been a good thing.
jk... it was lucas and gerrard in the centre that tired most... rodgers might have looked at his bench and bottled sending allen on after his oldham debacle. For me I think arsenal had ZERO screening players for their back 4 and it showed.. we never marked carzola but followied whilshire round. for me we did ok but once we tired jsut enough to not be able to block off the passing and moving arsenal had a field day... gerrard was heroic in his efforts with wlacott but he just could only do so much so he used his head. arsenal passed us off the park and without sturridge the ball faield to be held up at all and we just lost it that way. We know that lucas as to build stamina and sturridge hardly kciked a ball for chelsea so thats reasonbale to say ok you guys did your best but downing? he was out of it but we were not tempted by borini or whomever either. I thought we could have won it with a few more suband equally we rode our luck and could have lost it too... Johnson for me was immense, wisdom decent, henderson might.. suarez world class on the left... sturridge effective as a man to hold it up and bring us up the pitch.... our midfield due did all they could be needed help form the bench and downing as per was the weakest link. Pressing is fine against weaker teams but you know rafa got us a long way with the stlye we played last night. we id press with 2-3 players MAX and got results off them first half but once sturridge went off it all went to pot.
Jack Wilshere was brilliant at it. Superb player with grace but also has the bite. We need more players like him in the team who can combine technique with physique and passion. Also, he;s incredibly difficult to disposses and this is a problem with some of the players in our midfield.
Wilshire looked superb but the closing down was from front to back. Walcott and Podolski didn't let any of our back four sit on the ball for long which stopped our regular possession (mainly amongst the back line) game. although our back five (including Reina) showed they have passing capabilities and the mental state to deal with it, it highlighted the lack of movement from the midfield for me. Arsenal were pressing but if you are a passing side then you just pass around them, there has to be players in space somewhere. We ended up hitting it long because they'd forced us back to Pepe who had little time on the ball.
I thought it was crazy that people questioned whether Wilshere would ever return to form after his injury. He will be England captain one day. We should sign him. It is clear that signing players from Arsenal is lucky.
The Barcelona style of passing from the back is misleading - pretty much every game I see, the opposition are so far back. It gives Barca their entire half to play the ball and ease any pressure. Hardly any team presses them high up the pitch. They believe you need to have 10 men behind the ball and just defend. Get in their faces and you will force mistakes. I know we're not as good as Barca but the same applies - put us under pressure and mistakes will happen. The same happened to Arsenal when we pressed them. We saw some of Pepe's brilliant long ball distribution last night
He has the foundation of being the perfect Number 10. So calm on the ball, passing, vision, fantastic technique, brilliant at keeping the ball and tackling. I'm hoping Suso and Coutinho can develop as well as Wilshere has.
Ha I was serious! But agreed - there were some shockers. On the whole, I thought he had a great game.
