Liverpool FC Forum

[Stu the Red]

Having seen some of our performances recently we look absolutely electric going forward.

To be quite honest, I'm shocked at how good Suarez and Coutinho have been at times this season. The two of them are absolutely breath taking.

However, I do worry about our defensive game plan. When we lose the ball, at present, we seem intent on a high pressure game and winning the ball back high up the field. Which is fine, its a hard style to implement but when it works, its difficult to play against. What worries me is when people break beyond this pressure. There doesn't seem to be a plan.

I'm curious as to what people, "primarily match goers" think is our defensive plan B... if you like.

The full backs almost seem to allow crosses into the box at will, but the centre halves and goal keeper aren't the best at dealing with them so for me you're asking for trouble doing that. The full backs also often look like they don't know whether to force a wide man inside or force him down the line, there doesn't seem to be a set role for them to perform which is a reason why they're occasionally diving in and conceding free kicks in silly areas.

I think we're lacking slightly in this area and while its clear we still need a right back and centre half, I do think the lack of a plan beyond pressure is a bit of an issue.

Granted, I am slightly nit picking as I'd like us to play perfectly, but its an area where I believe we need to improve if we're to reach the next level.

[Greavesie]

I agree, I always expect us to concede, in fact during this run we've been on we've conceded in nearly every game and the goals we've scored have masked a potential problem. Skrtel yesterday looked liable to give away a penalty on at least one occasion. I can't say I'm certain as to what the fix is because admittedly I haven't been able to watch the full 90 minutes all season due to changing jobs so I've been a little busy. I expected Sakho to be a dominant figure at the back but it seems he's at least one mistake in him through 90 minutes

[stmichael]

It's been strange really. At the start of the season it was almost as if Rodgers has abandoned his philosophy in order to make us harder to beat, perhaps understandably with no Suarez. We won our first three games 1-0 but it wasn't as if we were creating chances at will.

Now it's almost as if we're just banking on the fact that we'll outscore most teams we play against. As entertaining as the Everton game was it was a laughably open football match whereby Mignolet saved 3 one on ones as we got opened up at will. We went to Arsenal and stood off them and they played around us at will. Then we go to Spurs and our tactics completely change, we press them and we dominate the entire game.

I do wonder if we actually work on defending set pieces though. We don't have players who's natural instinct is to attack the ball. Johnson's form has completely deserted him and Skrtel always has an error in him. Agger has his weaknesses but the stats bear out that we have a far better defensive record when he's in the side.

[7_Kewell]

It's been strange really. At the start of the season it was almost as if Rodgers has abandoned his philosophy in order to make us harder to beat, perhaps understandably with no Suarez. We won our first three games 1-0 but it wasn't as if we were creating chances at will.

Now it's almost as if we're just banking on the fact that we'll outscore most teams we play against. As entertaining as the Everton game was it was a laughably open football match whereby Mignolet saved 3 one on ones as we got opened up at will. We went to Arsenal and stood off them and they played around us at will. Then we go to Spurs and our tactics completely change, we press them and we dominate the entire game.

I do wonder if we actually work on defending set pieces though. We don't have players who's natural instinct is to attack the ball. Johnson's form has completely deserted him and Skrtel always has an error in him. Agger has his weaknesses but the stats bear out that we have a far better defensive record when he's in the side.

Agger and sakho should be our central 2...I just don't trust Skrtel because - as you say - he always has a mistake in him. Sakho's size and Agger's ability to play the ball would work well in my view and improve our defence no end.

[metalhead]

Definitely lacking a commanding presence in our defence, our GK also needs to do a bit better with the communication (Reina excelled at it) and we need to close down those crosses more often, we are conceding lots of goals in set pieces and we need to figure how to stop that!

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

It's been strange really. At the start of the season it was almost as if Rodgers has abandoned his philosophy in order to make us harder to beat, perhaps understandably with no Suarez. We won our first three games 1-0 but it wasn't as if we were creating chances at will.

Now it's almost as if we're just banking on the fact that we'll outscore most teams we play against. As entertaining as the Everton game was it was a laughably open football match whereby Mignolet saved 3 one on ones as we got opened up at will. We went to Arsenal and stood off them and they played around us at will. Then we go to Spurs and our tactics completely change, we press them and we dominate the entire game.

I do wonder if we actually work on defending set pieces though. We don't have players who's natural instinct is to attack the ball. Johnson's form has completely deserted him and Skrtel always has an error in him. Agger has his weaknesses but the stats bear out that we have a far better defensive record when he's in the side.

Agger and sakho should be our central 2...I just don't trust Skrtel because - as you say - he always has a mistake in him. Sakho's size and Agger's ability to play the ball would work well in my view and improve our defence no end.

skrtel has probably been our most consistent defender all season though, mind you he does have to watch out against city, since the cardiff game practically every pundit and sports journo has been talking about his habit of grabbing forwards shirts so you can bet your bottom dollar that the ref on thursday will be watching out for it.

[Kenny Kan]

However, I do worry about our defensive game plan. When we lose the ball, at present, we seem intent on a high pressure game and winning the ball back high up the field. Which is fine, its a hard style to implement but when it works, its difficult to play against. What worries me is when people break beyond this pressure. There doesn't seem to be a plan 

This happened a lot last season and opposing midfielders and attackers found themselves in acres of space between our midfield and defense, and we looked vulnerable every time this happened. This season, it doesn't seem as apparent - primarily because we've only just started pressing again recently. We were playing different (deeper & more compact) at the beginning of this season. But once this pressing is in full flow, or when teams start to expose it again I don't know if there is too much to be done apart from playing a higher defensive line to close the space down.

Maybe, the theory is, if you press your opponents well enough their midfield drop deeper to collect the ball so perhaps there is an attack in numbers when they break over the top. I don't know, and I've never seen Rodgers mitigate this 'in play' or really address our dodgy set-piece issues. In post interviews these issues seem irrelevant almost to him as he's largely always praising the way we go forward or move the ball around. I think he could do with a hand someone of the ilk of Steve Clarke to whip the defense back up into shape. Do that and we'd be a serious outfit, not that we aren't already but you get my drift.

[jacdaniel]

I think Skrtel is a liability to be honest.  If we just wanted to play a deep lying back 4 he would probably do well in those circumstances.
But if we ever try to play a high line, an offside trap, zonal marking he nearly always fails at some point during the game.
Not to mention the WWE display he produced in our box which should have seen Cardiff get a pen. 

He just seems to make too many mistakes.  OG's, stepping back when he should be stepping forward, poor passing at the back, wrestling opponents in our box, no leadership skills.

As for the team in general... we need to work on set pieces.  I'm terrified everytime we concede a corner or free near our box.
Against sides like Chelsea and City we could dominate the whole game and end up losing or drawing if we fall asleep for set pieces.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

i`m hoping that mingolet has a good game on thursday, reina was great for us but he did seem to get the wobbles whenever we played city, i remember him flapping at a cross at anfield that kelly miscontrolled which led to a cheap goal and i also remember him letting a speculative long range aguerro effort bounce under his body which broke the deadlock in an otherwise close game.
then there was his rush of blood at the etihad last season when he went running off towards the corner flag. that was a proper wtf? moment.
mind you he`s not alone, skrtels injury time back pass which cost us 2 points was another calamitous piece of defending against city.
we need to cut out the mistakes and kamikaze defending against city and stop gifting a very good side easy goals.

[Stu the Red]

For me at the minute I think the best way to defend is for the full backs to mark fairly tight and try to force wingers inside towards Lucas, the only problem with that is Lucas has a serious lack of mobility to track runners from a deep position so generally sits very deep and tries to mark space which is fine against some of the lesser sides, but not so clever against the good sides. He tends to be too far away from full backs so if the full back is beaten by coming inside the wide player can usually spot a pass or take a shot. We need to sort this out in the next two games or we could find ourselves in big trouble. We're scoring loads of goals, which is great, we're effectively half way to becoming a good side.

We are poor at conceding crosses and this has to change. Its far to easy to whip balls in from dangerous areas against us. We need to stop this happening. I also think at times the two centre halves are too far apart which allows midfield runners to exploit the space they're leaving. For me, Agger has to come in for Skrtel and we need to play a slightly higher line with an offside trap. That would however need a new quality centre half with pace and there aren't many of them out there.

It will be interesting to see if Rodgers can see these issues and fixes them because if he does, I think we could become a very good team.

[The Good Yank]

"Half way to becoming a good side". 

Wow, turn back the optimism there Stu.

Everything else you said is pretty much obvious to anyone who has watched a game this year.

I will argue it would be better to play Toure and Sakho against City instead of having Agger in there.

[Stu the Red]

"Half way to becoming a good side". 

Wow, turn back the optimism there Stu.

Everything else you said is pretty much obvious to anyone who has watched a game this year.

I will argue it would be better to play Toure and Sakho against City instead of having Agger in there.

Doesn't seem to be obvious to the manager though does it.