Liverpool FC Forum

[bigmick]

There's actually an arguement that when you have attacking fullbacks, having a good holder enables you to be MORE attacking as it means the team as a whole can bomb forward. Chelsea were beneficeries of this when they had the excellent Makeleli, and as Magus said Arsenal were an excellent team with Viera, as were the Mancs with Keane.

I do think though that while sacrificing one players offensive input for the overall good of the team is fair enough, two holders is overdoing it in most cases in England. This particularly applies when you have Derek Kuyt wide right as we did most of last season, so you end up really with only three offensive players on the pitch (not a criticism of Kuyt, just an observation on how he plays at right midfield). If  for instance you had two wingers bombing up and down the touchline, perhaps one of whom was a Ronaldo or something, then the two holders would have more value. With our players though, the Lucas/Masherano axis simply didn't provide the team with the right balance. That was THE major reason I think why we lost so many matches.

[stmichael]

I'm still sure Lucas was playing under restrictive instructions at times last season. He certainly was a more attacking before he came here and we only really saw his more attacking side in the Europa League games towards the end of the season. He was outstanding against Lille and Benfica in a surging role from the middle of the park.

[Thommo's perm]

Last season we had many under-achievers.
They werent happy with the formation, the tactics, the style, the system, the manager, each other. You name it.
Hopefully Red Roy will see the positives and play to our strengths.
This is not a bad team. Mark my words

[LFC2007]

I'm still not convinced Alberto can do the job in the hole consistently, I don't think he has the pace or mobility to do it week in week out. He's a bit of a stroller for me, clever enough to do it but I'd want a player who can dribble a bit, attack space for the ball over the top when necessary as well as pull the strings.

I agree with that. Over a long period of time to successfully play in the hole you need to be comfortable playing with your back to goal (Keane struggled with this big time, IMO) and that means being quick enough and strong enough to find a bit of space in between the lines and hold off all the challenges that inevitably come your way, and then do something it when you manage to pick it up. Hold it up, turn it round the corner, whatever the situation demands, but you're playing in tight spaces without a lot of time to think so you need to know where to be and what to do with it as soon as you pick it up. He isn't a wily behind-enemy-lines type like Tevez for instance is. His best position would seem to be deeper than that - not so deep that he can't influence the play higher up (we saw signs of that against Portsmouth and Benfica, gets into the box, looks to link play), but not  so high up where he'd be off the striker and easy to deal with. Elusive but influential.

[Owzat]

You need your Mascheranos against a lot of the so-called lesser teams - he's been very important against the bitters in recent seasons, and especially the Boltons of this world. You need some steel in the team or you'll get bullied off the ball - just like Roy Evans' side of the '90's - that's the main reason we signed Paul Ince, remember?

wow a rarity... someone who talks sense on here...


Arsenal's invincibles had Viera, The mancs had Roy Keane. These are key players in championship winning sides. We don't need to play 2 DM's example Masch and Lucas, but we need to play 1 very good DM which is Masch.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, good players shouldn't be 'bullied off the ball'. I haven't said you don't need a player who can put in the tackle, but there are players who aren't one dimensional, much like you two's thinking. So it worked for two teams, funny how the mancs won the title three years in a row without needing an out and out DM.................... But then you wouldn't look for counter examples would you

I'm sure the only reason we beat the BITTERS and BOLTON, creme de la creme that pair of powerhouses, is because of Mascherano. That's as provable as claims that there is some link between us not winning a trophy and the signing of Kuyt/Mascherano/Torres/take your pick, or indeed the association I'm about to make which has more substance than claiming we need a DM to beat two mid-table sides for a whopping six points.

We need more goals, not heavy duty defensive cover at the expense of them. I know the old line about needing to win the ball, well we did a good job of losing 1/3 of our games with Mascherano 44 out of the 56 games (lost 31.80% with him in the side in 09/10) But let's stick with the ultra defensive DM system which didn't prove itself last season and see if we can't head on down the table so that beating the bitters and bolton will be seen as an achievement instead of a given.

[Owzat]

There's actually an arguement that when you have attacking fullbacks, having a good holder enables you to be MORE attacking as it means the team as a whole can bomb forward. Chelsea were beneficeries of this when they had the excellent Makeleli, and as Magus said Arsenal were an excellent team with Viera, as were the Mancs with Keane.

But that argument is flawed when the DM is by-passed and the CBs exposed because they are dragged wide and out of position. If you note the three England goals, the RB position was fully exposed. So the theory about the DM providing the cover is nice theory, but in practice you expose yourself to crosses if there is noone in the full-back positions to defend against them. If you can persuade the opposition only to run at the centre of your defence, or just to the left or right of centre, then all fine and dandy, but it still works out only three defenders against X attackers and all three will be more central.

Vieira and Keane were much better balanced midfielders, more CMs than out and out DMs. I'd have both (at their peak/same age as JM)in an instant over Mascherano. Those two teams also had better full-backs than we do, nobhead Neville and Irwin were way better than ours in their prime. Arsenal has changed so much I forget who were their full-backs at the time, but bound again to be better defensively and quite probably going forward

Of course this is a typical example of a thread were someone makes a point and it gets taken completely out of context. I didn't say don't have a player who can put in a tackle, you've then taken two players who could win the ball and put them in the same pot as Mascherano. I never said we shouldn't have a ball winner in the midfield, I said we don't need a DM. Or are people so fixated with this DM concept that they ignore the fact that CMs are allowed to tackle too, and it doesn't mean they can't be any good at it............................?

[Reg]

I take it we lost a few posts here when the forum collapsed?

[metalhead]

I take it we lost a few posts here when the forum collapsed?

Prob

[maguskwt]

Lost my post   and big mick's

[bigmick]

Lost my post   and big mick's

Mine was sh!t anyway  .

[Sabre]

I take it we lost a few posts here when the forum collapsed?

Prob

That's perfectly normal, just in case someone is thinking badly. When a database fúcks up, the only way to recover is to do a roll back proccess, which basically consists on recovering the database in a previous state, that is, losing a few posts (sometimes even a whole day of posts)

Nice to see the LFCadmin is there!

[Scottbot]

There's actually an arguement that when you have attacking fullbacks, having a good holder enables you to be MORE attacking as it means the team as a whole can bomb forward. Chelsea were beneficeries of this when they had the excellent Makeleli, and as Magus said Arsenal were an excellent team with Viera, as were the Mancs with Keane.

But that argument is flawed when the DM is by-passed and the CBs exposed because they are dragged wide and out of position. If you note the three England goals, the RB position was fully exposed. So the theory about the DM providing the cover is nice theory, but in practice you expose yourself to crosses if there is noone in the full-back positions to defend against them.

Course it also depends on how quickly you move the ball forward and how good you are at keeping it. England's play is often frenetic and our players often risk (rather than retain) possession. We attack quickly, the full-back bombs on like a crazy horse, we lose it, and then, BANG, we've been turned round, the oppo have the ball and half our players are running back towards their own goal.

[Owzat]

England committed too many players forward, the defence lapsed in concentration and left a wide open space to run into.

Balance is better, if we get a decent creative left-winger who scores a few, and some creativity in midfield instead of the DMs system, then the full-backs won't need to push forward so much or so far. Nothing wrong with Johnson bombing forward from time to time, but he needs to hang back a bit more if the RM is wide and depending where the ball is at the time. For the third England goal he was just STOOD level with the right corner of the box with the ball being lost on the opposite corner. How did he expect the ball to get to him there? He was effectively ball watching, he should have been jogging back to the halfway line to make himself available for if the move broke down, either to rush back to defend or to open himself up to the ball played crossfield. Perhaps he needs someone just to sit down with him in a classroom and go through tactics and positioning, if there is one thing I think Woy might bring it is that positional discipline. Make sure everyone knows their job and I doubt he'll stand for players constantly napping or out of position

[puroresu]

Anyone not too bothered if Aquilani was sold?  I just dont see this guy becoming the player we hoped.

[Benny The Noon]

It certainly is a big season for him - he showed glimpses of a lot of talent during the last few games he played last season .