Liverpool FC Forum

[Eagle]

While I think Shaqiri will fill that number 10 role on occasions when we’re facing particularly defensive teams, I think Lallana will be the main stay there just like he was in the 16/17 season. Unless we sign Fekir or an alternative. We lose far too much offensively when Clyne plays at RB so for it’s a case of continuing to play Trent and allowing him to develop.

                          Alisson

Trent          Matip          van Dijk     Robertson


                                   Fabinho
                     Ketia
                                 Lallana


         Salah                               Mane
                          Firmino

[woof woof !]

While I think Shaqiri will fill that number 10 role on occasions when we’re facing particularly defensive teams, I think Lallana will be the main stay there just like he was in the 16/17 season. Unless we sign Fekir or an alternative. We lose far too much offensively when Clyne plays at RB so for it’s a case of continuing to play Trent and allowing him to develop.

                          Alisson

Trent          Matip          van Dijk     Robertson


                                   Fabinho
                     Ketia
                                 Lallana


         Salah                               Mane
                          Firmino

Not sure where you're going with the slightly skewed line up

BUT

Do agree, a fully fit Lallana would probably find a place in Klopps starting eleven.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

Lallana flatters to deceive for me, for all his cruyff turns and neat footwork there's no end product.

[damjan193]

Agreed to an extent with you yakka on Lallana, BUT it's when he plays in midfield that he finds his full usefulness IMO and has always been good at helping the good players look even better. He's always giving 100% as well and he'll press and run all day if need be.

Eagle's line-up looks good to me. Don't like the line-ups with too many attackers in them, I prefer this one which looks more balanced.  Not a huge fan of Lallana but if he can get back in form he'll probably be the most useful in that thrid midfield slot. Ideally, it would have been Oxlade Cahmberlain, a real blow that injury of his

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

Yeah Chamberlain was not only playing well he was working his @rse off too

[Ghost of Shankly]

Lallana flatters to deceive for me, for all his cruyff turns and neat footwork there's no end product.

I agree. I'm gutted the Ox is now out. He could have been a big player for us this season.

Lallana or Wjnaldum or Hendo or Shaqiri in there with Keita and Fabinho in midfield. It all depends whether Klopp wants to be more attacking or defensive in the middle of the park, is the compelling factor...

All depends on the opposition and how we assess risk in matches I guess.

Maybe more defensive in games versus Man City with Keita, Fabinho and Milner. Or against terms like Burnley and West Ham, who Park the bus, we play Lallana, Keita and Shaqiri!?

That looks to me how it will pan out etc.

Bring it on!

[parchpea]

Alisson

Robertson
Lovren
Van Dyk
Trent Arnold

Fabhino
Keita
Shaqiri

Mane
Firmino
Salah

Shaqiri was a Fekir alternative and Couthino is the player he is replacing. To me that signals he will play in that role in our most attacking line up. In behind the front 3. A very versatile line up of course, every player popping up all over the pitch.

[Klopptomaniac]

Alisson

Robertson
Lovren
VVD
TAA

Keita
Henderson
Fabinho

Mane
Firmino
Salah

Henderson does a lot of leg work that often goes unnoticed/unappreciated (I myself am one of his critics) but we need him in there to keep things ticking over (that old football cliché).

Everything else picks itself.

[aCe']

I don’t think Shaqiri would start. Defies the purpose of getting him in the first place which is having a decent option to bring on from the bench. Him and Sturridge are our ‘game changers’.

I can see us rotating the RB slot ala Tottenham this season if both TAA and Clyde are fit.

Midfield 3 will be Fabinho, Keita, Henderson/Lallana. I’m almost certain klopp will start Henderson until he’s able to trust Fabinho in that single pivot. If Keita or Fabinho don’t hit the ground running I can see them losing their place in the starting 11. I have concerns over Fabinho’s ability to adapt and wouldn’t be surprised if he sat on the bench for long stretches in the first half of the season.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

I hope Jurgen picks aggressive line up's this season, last year draws killed us, only City lost less games than us but we finished 4th because we had 12 draws.
Only 3 teams in the entire division had more draws and they all finished in the bottom 6.
Those 12 draws meant we took 12 points out of a possible 36, you are not going to win the league these days when you only accumulate 12 points over a third of the season (12 games is basically a third of the season).
When you are going for the title a draw is pretty much as good as a loss these days, especially when you are up against a team like City who only dropped 3 points over the first half of the season.

Number of draws last season

City - 4
United - 6
Spurs - 8
Liverpool - 12
Chelsea - 7
Arsenal - 6

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

I don’t think Shaqiri would start. Defies the purpose of getting him in the first place which is having a decent option to bring on from the bench. Him and Sturridge are our ‘game changers’.

I can see us rotating the RB slot ala Tottenham this season if both TAA and Clyde are fit.

Midfield 3 will be Fabinho, Keita, Henderson/Lallana. I’m almost certain klopp will start Henderson until he’s able to trust Fabinho in that single pivot. If Keita or Fabinho don’t hit the ground running I can see them losing their place in the starting 11. I have concerns over Fabinho’s ability to adapt and wouldn’t be surprised if he sat on the bench for long stretches in the first half of the season.

I can see him starting Shaquiri as an AM or at least I hope he does, particularly at home.
I think one of our biggest challenges this season will be breaking down packed defences, teams know we have strengthened in the transfer market so they will be even more wary of taking us on toe-to-toe, they also know that last season we struggled to break teams down who defended deep and got numbers behind the ball.
Given the bookies have installed us as second favourites to win the title at just 4-1 I think teams will see a point against us as a decent result. Packing our midfield with DM's like Fabinho/Henderson or uncreative AM's like Lallana won't achieve anything, we already know Mo, Bobby and Sadio struggle against packed defenses, we saw it all last season, they need help from midfield and before you say Keita he said himself in his first interview for LFCTV that he is primarily a defensive minded player who can get forward on occasion.
IMO our season will hinge on wether we can find a AM who can break down packed defences like DeBruyne does for City.
Wether that man is Shaquiri, Fekir or whoever we need to find someone if we want to genuinely challenge City.
Even though teams set up uber defensively against them and defended deep and in numbers City only had 4 draws out of 38 games last year, that's because De Bruyne broke them down, who is our DeBruyne?

[Ghost of Shankly]

Teams are going to come to Anfield This new season and park the bus, probably playing five at the back or in midfield with a sweeper.I can see this being the case.

We have to find a way of breaking them down and Shaqiri could be that man. He is one of the few players we have who can shoot/score from outside the box, that's why I think he could be the KEY man. Him and Keita. I'm unconvinced that Lallana can do any better in such situations.

If we cannot break these teams down, we could end up drawing games again.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

Teams are going to come to Anfield This new season and park the bus, probably playing five at the back or in midfield with a sweeper.I can see this being the case.

We have to find a way of breaking them down and Shaqiri could be that man. He is one of the few players we have who can shoot/score from outside the box, that's why I think he could be the KEY man. Him and Keita. I'm unconvinced that Lallana can do any better in such situations.

If we cannot break these teams down, we could end up drawing games again.

We are having a debate wether to risk playing with an out-and-out AM when City play with 2!
Last season they had a front 3 of Sane, Gabriel Jesus and Sterling and behind them they had De Bruyne and David Silva, that put a lot of pressure on Fernandinho but he was obviously up to it given they broke the all time points record for the English top flight.
We thought we scored a lot of goals but in the league City scored 22 more than us. 22!
Fair dues to Guardiola and City, yes they are a petro-dollar club but they are brave in the way they set up, Chelsea had money but they set up the other way (they made sure they were defensively solid).
For me playing at least 1 out-and-out AM should be a no brainier, I think we've all become gun shy because we have shipped so many goals over the last 5 or 6 seasons but that was down to poor keepers, poor defenders and poor DM's. This is a different team now, let's not carry our hang overs over onto this team. If we are going to beat a team like City over 9 months we need to be brave ourselves.

[aCe']

I don’t think Shaqiri would start. Defies the purpose of getting him in the first place which is having a decent option to bring on from the bench. Him and Sturridge are our ‘game changers’.

I can see us rotating the RB slot ala Tottenham this season if both TAA and Clyde are fit.

Midfield 3 will be Fabinho, Keita, Henderson/Lallana. I’m almost certain klopp will start Henderson until he’s able to trust Fabinho in that single pivot. If Keita or Fabinho don’t hit the ground running I can see them losing their place in the starting 11. I have concerns over Fabinho’s ability to adapt and wouldn’t be surprised if he sat on the bench for long stretches in the first half of the season.

I can see him starting Shaquiri as an AM or at least I hope he does, particularly at home.
I think one of our biggest challenges this season will be breaking down packed defences, teams know we have strengthened in the transfer market so they will be even more wary of taking us on toe-to-toe, they also know that last season we struggled to break teams down who defended deep and got numbers behind the ball.
Given the bookies have installed us as second favourites to win the title at just 4-1 I think teams will see a point against us as a decent result. Packing our midfield with DM's like Fabinho/Henderson or uncreative AM's like Lallana won't achieve anything, we already know Mo, Bobby and Sadio struggle against packed defenses, we saw it all last season, they need help from midfield and before you say Keita he said himself in his first interview for LFCTV that he is primarily a defensive minded player who can get forward on occasion.
IMO our season will hinge on wether we can find a AM who can break down packed defences like DeBruyne does for City.
Wether that man is Shaquiri, Fekir or whoever we need to find someone if we want to genuinely challenge City.
Even though teams set up uber defensively against them and defended deep and in numbers City only had 4 draws out of 38 games last year, that's because De Bruyne broke them down, who is our DeBruyne?

City have a completely different style of play though so I'm not sure the comparison is valid. They play possession football which allows them to get as many 'ball players' on the side as possible. Their midfield 3 of Fernandinho, De Bruyne, and D.Silva are as good as anything you'll find anywhere for how they want to play. They have good awareness down both ends and they dont lose possession in silly areas. Shaqiri never was and will never be a CM. You can play him in a central role but he'll offer nothing going back. You'd essentially be playing 4 in attack with 2 behind them.

It would be open season on our defenders once opposition get out of that initial high press (we rely heavily on the 3 in midfield bailing out Salah and Mane when they dont track back).

I agree that we need to find better solutions against sides that park the bus but I think the likes of Lallana and Keita will have a slightly different role to play in those game. Also the fullbacks are often key in tight games and ours have failed to make an impact for a while now.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

I thought the CL final just about summed Lallana up, the moment he came onto the pitch our performance level dropped significantly. I put him in a similar bracket to Ings and Solanke, they are all nice enough lads but when they are on the pitch our attack misses something, we just don't click.