Liverpool Discussion

[Devil]

23 minutes ago, Scouse_Mouse said:

A joke right?

I'm referring to the team of two seasons ago not Ajax as a whole who have produced some of the best players of all time. 

 

[Stan]

9 minutes ago, Devil said:

I'm referring to the team of two seasons ago not Ajax as a whole who have produced some of the best players of all time. 

 

Frenkie de Jong seems to be finding his feet now. 

[Devil]

12 minutes ago, Stan said:

Frenkie de Jong seems to be finding his feet now. 

Taken him nearly two years. 

[Scouse_Mouse]

1 minute ago, Devil said:

Taken him nearly two years. 

Very good player none the less.

You can't judge players on short periods of time Devil, just look at Mo at Chelsea.

[Scouse_Mouse]

7 hours ago, Rick said:

Henderson likely out for at least 4 weeks. Misses the Chelsea game & Leipzig second leg. 
 

Need Fab back pronto. I would like to see a change of system as well, maybe 3 at the back while we are struggling. 

I think that is where we have problems Rick, our success over the last couple of seasons is down to our pressing game, it's not easy to emulate otherwise everyone would be copying us.

The problem is we need world class players to accomplish it and right now that's where we are struggling, we can pull it off once in a while but without VVD, Fab and now Hendo we are struggling to play that style with any consistency.

[Dr. Gonzo]

I think one of the big issues this season is we’ve had so many injuries, and we’re a broken side, but we still keep trying to stick to our plan A.

And it just hasn’t been working at all.

[Rick]

16 minutes ago, Scouse_Mouse said:

I think that is where we have problems Rick, our success over the last couple of seasons is down to our pressing game, it's not easy to emulate otherwise everyone would be copying us.

The problem is we need world class players to accomplish it and right now that's where we are struggling, we can pull it off once in a while but without VVD, Fab and now Hendo we are struggling to play that style with any consistency.

Exactly, and that’s why there has to be a plan B for times like now. It’s not working with this side at all. It’s slow, predictable and has very little intensity. Teams can sit back, easily defend it and then hit us on the break. 
 

I really can’t believe that we have stuck to it so much, since the Palace game it’s been the exact same thing. Leipzig was a one off because they tried to play expansive against us, which plays into our hands. 
 

It’s times like now where you want to see some flexibility from the manager. We don’t have the tools to play like we want, so find another way. 

[Scouse_Mouse]

19 minutes ago, Rick said:

Exactly, and that’s why there has to be a plan B for times like now. It’s not working with this side at all. It’s slow, predictable and has very little intensity. Teams can sit back, easily defend it and then hit us on the break. 
 

I really can’t believe that we have stuck to it so much, since the Palace game it’s been the exact same thing. Leipzig was a one off because they tried to play expansive against us, which plays into our hands. 
 

It’s times like now where you want to see some flexibility from the manager. We don’t have the tools to play like we want, so find another way. 

I think some teams are built so they can tweak a "plan A" I think that was why we bought Thiago to use in those situations.

The way I see it we are so invested in Jurgen's pressing game that it's virtually impossible to abandon it without wholesale changes.

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

38 minutes ago, Scouse_Mouse said:

I think some teams are built so they can tweak a "plan A" I think that was why we bought Thiago to use in those situations.

The way I see it we are so invested in Jurgen's pressing game that it's virtually impossible to abandon it without wholesale changes.

 

I’d argue injuries have brought about these wholesale changes because the pressing game just isn’t working against low blocks anymore.

Like @Rick says, we are so easy to play against now.

With 2 of our front 3 way out of form... I do think maybe we need to have Salah up top alongside one of them (probably dropping Bobby because I’d argue he’s been worse, but they’ve both been very bad this season tbh).

I’m sure Klopp just wants to play our normal game and play our way back into form. And he’s probably right.

But I can’t help but think we’ve got to be trying something new. But I concede that Klopp knows more about football and this Liverpool side than me and I trust him.

[Scouse_Mouse]

15 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I’d argue injuries have brought about these wholesale changes because the pressing game just isn’t working against low blocks anymore.

Like @Rick says, we are so easy to play against now.

With 2 of our front 3 way out of form... I do think maybe we need to have Salah up top alongside one of them (probably dropping Bobby because I’d argue he’s been worse, but they’ve both been very bad this season tbh).

I’m sure Klopp just wants to play our normal game and play our way back into form. And he’s probably right.

But I can’t help but think we’ve got to be trying something new. But I concede that Klopp knows more about football and this Liverpool side than me and I trust him.

The high press worked pretty well last season. It's not a case of it not working anymore or other clubs somehow "sussing" us out. Last season everyone knew how we were going to set out our stall but that didn't help them because they couldn't counter it.

It's not working this season because we have missed the players needed to implement it, imho we get them back and its going to work just as well again.

[Rick]

1 hour ago, Scouse_Mouse said:

The high press worked pretty well last season. It's not a case of it not working anymore or other clubs somehow "sussing" us out. Last season everyone knew how we were going to set out our stall but that didn't help them because they couldn't counter it.

It's not working this season because we have missed the players needed to implement it, imho we get them back and its going to work just as well again.

The point is we aren’t going to have them back this season so let’s do something else. 

[Inverted]

Even without ditching the back 4 there's a lot you can do. You've played a flat     4-4-2, or a diamond, or a 4-2-3-1 at various points this season and it's brought some fresh performances. 

I think Klopp doesn't quite know how to coach a 3 at the back, or he doesn't believe in it - either way the result is, its off the table. He's been a manager for like 20 years and you can probably count the number of times he's played a back 5 or 3 on your fingers. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

1 minute ago, Inverted said:

Even without ditching the back 4 there's a lot you can do. You've played a flat     4-4-2, or a diamond, or a 4-2-3-1 at various points this season and it's brought some fresh performances. 

I think Klopp doesn't quite know how to coach a 3 at the back, or he doesn't believe in it - either way the result is, its off the table. He's been a manager for like 20 years and you can probably count the number of times he's played a back 5 or 3 on your fingers. 

Aside from this, which I fully agree with...

... we don't really even have the depth to be playing 3 at the back 

but yeah, I can remember about 10-15 minutes of us playing with a back 5 last season, and other than that... I don't really remember any us trying that at all. Honestly, and it's easy to say this with hindsight now that he's scored two goals on loan at Southampton, but I'd rather have kept Minamino over Origi for the tactical flexibility to try to salvage things this season.

Origi's a cult hero, but he's pretty far removed from the Barca heroics or the hilarious derby winner. With the poor form of the front 3 though, I could really use some Origi in good form to help us out again. Unfornately, even including his heroics against Barca and scoring in a CL final, he's never really been quite the same player since his first bad injury. Which is a shame because it looked like he was developing into quite a good striker.

I feel bad for Klopp, tbh, it's a pretty shit situation. He's got to change things up, but with all of the injuries his options on how to change things up are really limited. I'm hoping that lad we've signed from Preston is actually fairly decent, because he's here permanently and we can soon be playing a back 4 of defenders and get Fabinho back into the midfield when he's healthy. Without him or Henderson in the midfield, our midfield has really lacked intensity and we've really struggled.

Having this many players either injured or woefully out of form is pretty fucking shit for sure.

[Scouse_Mouse]

 

5 minutes ago, Rick said:

The point is we aren’t going to have them back this season so let’s do something else. 

It's obviously not completely broken, we are still having a measure of success playing a high press. I can see us tweaking things but can't see a radical change of tactics.

3 minutes ago, Inverted said:

Even without ditching the back 4 there's a lot you can do. You've played a flat     4-4-2, or a diamond, or a 4-2-3-1 at various points this season and it's brought some fresh performances. 

I think Klopp doesn't quite know how to coach a 3 at the back, or he doesn't believe in it - either way the result is, its off the table. He's been a manager for like 20 years and you can probably count the number of times he's played a back 5 or 3 on your fingers. 

It's certainly not a case of Jurgen not knowing how to coach a back three, more a case of accommodating our two attacking full backs into a system that works.

[Dr. Gonzo]

6 minutes ago, Scouse_Mouse said:

 

It's obviously not completely broken, we are still having a measure of success playing a high press. I can see us tweaking things but can't see a radical change of tactics.

See this is what separates me, a natural pessimist, from you, a natural optimist 

It might be a measurement of success, but if you're only as good as your last game (and if we pull that out over the course of a month) - most weeks you'd probably have to call us shit over that last month. So yeah you can measure the success, but I'd argue it doesn't measure too highly.

[Scouse_Mouse]

5 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

See this is what separates me, a natural pessimist, from you, a natural optimist 

If I had a quid for every time I've heard that Id be a wealthy man I've always been more of a glass half full kind of guy.

5 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

 

It might be a measurement of success, but if you're only as good as your last game (and if we pull that out over the course of a month) - most weeks you'd probably have to call us shit over that last month. So yeah you can measure the success, but I'd argue it doesn't measure too highly.

I was talking about the whole season, or more accurately since things went pear shaped at the Goodison derby. We have been shite since the Burnley loss but had more than a few good wins prior to that.

Personally I'd like to see us crack on with the pressing game rather than try to make more radical changes to our tactics.

[Dr. Gonzo]

18 minutes ago, Scouse_Mouse said:

If I had a quid for every time I've heard that Id be a wealthy man I've always been more of a glass half full kind of guy.

I was talking about the whole season, or more accurately since things went pear shaped at the Goodison derby. We have been shite since the Burnley loss but had more than a few good wins prior to that.

Personally I'd like to see us crack on with the pressing game rather than try to make more radical changes to our tactics.

I've got faith Klopp will figure out how to get us playing better sooner or later...

I just hope it's sooner rather than later because it is pretty disheartening going from last year to seeing this injured, out of form side that just looks out of confidence and every 2-3 games we have to worry about how whoever is playing at CB is going to get injured.

[Scouse_Mouse]

1 minute ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

I've got faith Klopp will figure out how to get us playing better sooner or later...

I just hope it's sooner rather than later because it is pretty disheartening going from last year to seeing this injured, out of form side that just looks out of confidence and every 2-3 games we have to worry about how whoever is playing at CB is going to get injured.

Its a job for life mate, injuries have been unprecedented in spite of what some would have us believe. 

All we can do is finish as high as we can and hope we don't  get taken to the cleaners too badly before the season is over.

I've supported this club for a very long time, I can't ever recall feeling that Id want it to be over with so many games still to play.

Roll on August.

[El Profesor]

Wasn´t Klopp´s stint at Borussia Dortmund kinda similar? If I recall correctly, after BVB won the Bundesliga twice and reached the Champions League, they really hit a wall.

Could it be that Klopp´s style of football is too demanding from a physical standpoint? Maybe it´s fatigue. 

 

 

[Mpache]

7 minutes ago, El Profesor said:

Wasn´t Klopp´s stint at Borussia Dortmund kinda similar? If I recall correctly, after BVB won the Bundesliga twice and reached the Champions League, they really hit a wall.

Could it be that Klopp´s style of football is too demanding from a physical standpoint? Maybe it´s fatigue. 

 

 

Good point yeah, they even fought relegation in his final season if I recall correctly.

[Scouse_Mouse]

1 hour ago, El Profesor said:

Wasn´t Klopp´s stint at Borussia Dortmund kinda similar? If I recall correctly, after BVB won the Bundesliga twice and reached the Champions League, they really hit a wall.

Could it be that Klopp´s style of football is too demanding from a physical standpoint? Maybe it´s fatigue. 

 

 

I will have to check but I'm pretty sure that Jurgen's Dortmund team were quite a bit older than his current Liverpool side. I might be wrong but I seem to remember too many players the wrong side of 30.

[LFCMike]

6 hours ago, El Profesor said:

Wasn´t Klopp´s stint at Borussia Dortmund kinda similar? If I recall correctly, after BVB won the Bundesliga twice and reached the Champions League, they really hit a wall.

Could it be that Klopp´s style of football is too demanding from a physical standpoint? Maybe it´s fatigue. 

 

 

It's not really comparable in that they just kept losing their best players to Bayern Munich. Not sure what their injury situation was either. Always thought it was a lazy comparison anyway

[Mpache]

8 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

It's not really comparable in that they just kept losing their best players to Bayern Munich. Not sure what their injury situation was either. Always thought it was a lazy comparison anyway

Yeah but their squad wasn't bad enough to fight relegation, yet they did anyways, so I disagree with that notion.

[LFCMike]

11 minutes ago, Mpache said:

Yeah but their squad wasn't bad enough to fight relegation, yet they did anyways, so I disagree with that notion.

Well of course it wasn't but they did end up with Europa League qualification. It's still a lazy comparison unless you know the ins and outs of both teams seasons

[Mpache]

7 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

Well of course it wasn't but they did end up with Europa League qualification. It's still a lazy comparison unless you know the ins and outs of both teams seasons

Yeah went on a great run at the end, but I think El Professor made a good point how his football can be a bit demanding, especially in a COVID calendar.