We lack composure / leadership

Liverpool Football Club - General Discussion

Postby damjan193 » Tue Aug 26, 2014 5:58 pm

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Tue Aug 26, 2014 4:56 pm wrote:Even though the back 4 has changed we are still finding it hard to shake that habit of conceding at least 2 goals against any half decent side. It wasn't as if City had us under the cosh for most of the game either.
We conceded goals in pre season and now another 4 in just our opening 2 games. Why the hell do we concede so many?

I think that's just it yakka. There have been constant changes in our back 4 and the defenders just can't gel properly. Last year we had all kinds of combinations. First it was Toure and Agger in the back 4, then it was Toure and Skrtel, then Skrtel and Agger, then Skrtel and Sakho, then Skrtel and Toure again and finally Skrtel and Sakho again. Add to that we first had Enrique at LB for a bit, then we had Cissokho and then finally Flanagan. Johnson was unfortunately our most standard defender.

This time I think we should try to stick with a single partnership as often as we can. Lovren had a bad game yesterday but I think he can be better and improve as he gets used to his teammates, so he's my first choice. I'm not yet sure who should be our second CB considering we have Skrtel, Sakho and Agger (even Toure and Coates) at our disposal but Rodgers must pick partnership as our regular and let them gel.
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Postby ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Tue Aug 26, 2014 6:29 pm

damjan193 » Tue Aug 26, 2014 4:58 pm wrote:
ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Tue Aug 26, 2014 4:56 pm wrote:Even though the back 4 has changed we are still finding it hard to shake that habit of conceding at least 2 goals against any half decent side. It wasn't as if City had us under the cosh for most of the game either.
We conceded goals in pre season and now another 4 in just our opening 2 games. Why the hell do we concede so many?

I think that's just it yakka. There have been constant changes in our back 4 and the defenders just can't gel properly. Last year we had all kinds of combinations. First it was Toure and Agger in the back 4, then it was Toure and Skrtel, then Skrtel and Agger, then Skrtel and Sakho, then Skrtel and Toure again and finally Skrtel and Sakho again. Add to that we first had Enrique at LB for a bit, then we had Cissokho and then finally Flanagan. Johnson was unfortunately our most standard defender.

This time I think we should try to stick with a single partnership as often as we can. Lovren had a bad game yesterday but I think he can be better and improve as he gets used to his teammates, so he's my first choice. I'm not yet sure who should be our second CB considering we have Skrtel, Sakho and Agger (even Toure and Coates) at our disposal but Rodgers must pick one regular partnership and then let them gel.


You could be right mate, the best defences have tended to have players who know each other's games inside out.
Our problem is that we have plenty of CB's but none of them really make themselves indispensable, they all seem to play well up to a point but just as you think one of them is the answer they drop a clanger.
It's easy enough for us to say just pick a back 4 and stick with it but who should be in it?
I mean is Skrtel any better than Sakho? Is Lovren really good enough to be the man our defence is built around? Everyone just seems to be assuming he'll deffo be one of the two CB's but he's got weaknesses in his game too. A couple more performances like yesterday's and he could easily find himself on the bench.
Is Agger (when fully fit and firing on all cylinders) the best of the lot? Also why are we loaning Ilorri out? Shouldn't he be given a chance? If he can walk away with the MoM award in a game where he faced down the likes of Messi, Neymar, Alexis Sanchez et al then surely he's good enough for the prem?
There seems to be more questions than answers surrounding our back 4 ATM.
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Postby devaney » Tue Aug 26, 2014 7:13 pm

Hyyppia and Henchoz - Hansen and Lawrenson come to mind. Henchoz and Lawrenson were nothing like as good as their partners but as partnerships they were fantastic. Understanding is vital and it doesn't happen overnight. Hopefully Lovren and Skrtel will get better in terms of understanding each other. Agger is a fine player but his injury record is a serious problem and he cannot be relied upon to form a regular partnership which is an unfortunate problem and one of the reasons in my opinion why he isn't automatically on the team sheet when he is fit.
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Postby aCe' » Tue Aug 26, 2014 8:01 pm

I'm not sure I agree with the general sentiment. We lack quality. All over the pitch and not just the back 4. If anything, I think the proven quality we currently have in the side is largely concentrated in the deeper positions but we are yet to see a strong partnership develop at the back and the fullbacks/setup will always make our CBs look worse than they are.

The proven quality players we have imo are: Lovren, Sakho, Gerrard, and to a lesser extent Sturridge.
The likes of Sterling, Balotelli, and (from the very little I have seen) Markovic could move up to the higher bracket if they develop/continue to develop.
Outside that, the side is largely made of promising players (Moreno, Coates, Llori, Ibe, Origi, Can), specialty players (Henderson works, Lambert holds), and over-hyped, average, or inconsistent players.
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Postby ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Tue Aug 26, 2014 8:32 pm

aCe' » Tue Aug 26, 2014 7:01 pm wrote:I'm not sure I agree with the general sentiment. We lack quality. All over the pitch and not just the back 4. If anything, I think the proven quality we currently have in the side is largely concentrated in the deeper positions but we are yet to see a strong partnership develop at the back and the fullbacks/setup will always make our CBs look worse than they are.

The proven quality players we have imo are: Lovren, Sakho, Gerrard, and to a lesser extent Sturridge.
The likes of Sterling, Balotelli, and (from the very little I have seen) Markovic could move up to the higher bracket if they develop/continue to develop.
Outside that, the side is largely made of promising players (Moreno, Coates, Llori, Ibe, Origi, Can), specialty players (Henderson works, Lambert holds), and over-hyped, average, or inconsistent players.


I'm not sure I necessarily agree with your breakdown of the squad there ace, IMO Gerrard's powers have waned sufficiently enough to disqualify him from that top bracket and I can't see how you rate say, Sakho and Lovren higher than a rising star of the game like Sterling. If we put Raheem on the market the biggest clubs in Europe would be clamouring for his signature, I'm not quite sure the same thing would happen if we put Lovren up for sale.
The squad may lack a genuine superstar like Gerrard (in his day) or Suarez but there is a hell of a lot of potential there.
Teams with far weaker squads than ours manage to make themselves hard to beat so I'm not sure it's a question of quality.
Maybe the system needs some tweaking?
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Postby jacdaniel » Wed Sep 17, 2014 11:10 am

Again last night... got the goal with just 10 minutes to go. 
just have to Knock it about at the back, keep composure and discipline and see it out.

Not this Liverpool team   :D   

Fullbacks and Midfield bursting forward in the  90 min
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Postby damjan193 » Wed Sep 17, 2014 10:24 pm

jacdaniel » Wed Sep 17, 2014 12:10 pm wrote:Again last night... got the goal with just 10 minutes to go. 
just have to Knock it about at the back, keep composure and discipline and see it out.

Not this Liverpool team   :D   

Fullbacks and Midfield bursting forward in the  90 min

Exactly. No discipline and organization, the midfield and the back 4 all over the place for their goal. There was no need for the fullbacks to be so forward while the midfield and the CB's were not active at all, bar Henderson. Had this happened in say Mourinho's team, the players would have been whipped.
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Postby LFC1990 » Thu Sep 18, 2014 7:49 am

I think it might have something to do with the loss of Carra at the back. Good old jamie would pick players up and put them where they were supposed to be and tell them they are a kunt at the same time.
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