Liverpool FC Forum

[red37]

Fuckin ell boys don't let Militia Rusher see this thread... he'll have a field day.

I was actually hoping that you would give some of your own input here stu. (Which BM and one or two others kindly did). Fwiw im no lick ar5e - but you are bang on with your footy stuff mate. Im listening to it....even if others seem hell bent on causing another 'situation'

I dont even begin to understand the complexities of evolving a system around a set of players, who may or may not take on board its ideas well enough to prove it a successful one.

Thats why i opened the thread, so people like yourselves can offer something to the rest of us. Who are in no doubt at all completely in 'love' with the game...yet (i speak for me) wish to learn a little bit more than the kind of experience playing FM/CM can provide.

It certainly wasnt intended to come over as pompous or condescending at all. The majority of the posts i do in here are written in the same way....its called using the language i natively speak, whats so weird about that?  Sorry to bore everyone like!

I guess ill adopt a 'less is more' policy in future. Text speak is taboo so it'll have to be the occasional sarcastic 'grunt' or even better - just let everyone else have a go. Which most likely seems the safest bet. (as more and more posters appear to be doing of late, sadly)

But i would appreciate your opinions on the subject nonetheless, along with everyone elses valued input.

[Sabre]

What's this? a 4-5-1? a 4-4-2? a 4-3-3?

It depends. A 4-4-2 might be many things depending on what are the instructions the player have and what players you choose. When we played Luis Garcia you had to put somebody solid behind him and who doesn't go forward often as he really didn't play in the wing, but between lines. Luis Garcia did often what we call a movement of rupture, best illustrated in this pic



Kuyt is a better player for this kind of movement than was Morientes. We do this often.

Why does Rafa have their strikers outside the box often?



To achieve this when the opposition is deep, if the centre back takes the bait an Alonso pass for our right winger can become in a one on one. We call that A movement of support, because you try to drag your man in order to make a favour to another player.


What do we do well in LFC?



The covers. It's really difficult for the opposition to find one on ones against us, there's always someone behind, in this case the 15. One of the Alonso's best part is this.


And now a question for Stu:




What are we watching here? 

[RedBlood]

i think some of you have spent to much time on champ manager

[JoeTerp]

Excellent thread!  I LOVE reading about the more in depth side of football.  As someone who never watched football until this year, All I knew was it was good when we had the ball better when the ball was closer to the goal and best when it went in.  I grew up playing American football my whole life and I am quite obsessed with the tactics in that sport and have already gotten involed in coaching youth teams.  Anyway in American football teams will spend a great bit of time in the flim room studying their last game and their next opponent trying to learn tendencies in certain situaitons as well as strengths and weakness.  Does this happen in football as well or is it mainly  just a job for the manager?

In the begining of the post red 37 mentioned something about the difference between an out and out striker and an old fashioned centre forward, I hope someone could expand on that.  I have a feeling that the out and out striker would play more forward and I am guessing that it might also means that the person would be a lone striker?  Also, is there anyway to just look at a player based on size, strength, speed, etc and be able to tell which position the player belongs?  Who are some examples of players that are top out and out strikers

Also thought the comment on how someone has noticed a change from more specialized positions to more versatile players that are just plain good "footballers".  I think that is a very interesting trend because the exact oppposite seems to be happening in other sports (american football, baseball, basketball)

Please keep this thread going I love learning about this stuff

[peterc1992]

Too much writing for me there,too complicated so il go with the simple answer:

RAFA OUT!!

[peterc1992]

What's this? a 4-5-1? a 4-4-2? a 4-3-3?

It depends. A 4-4-2 might be many things depending on what are the instructions the player have and what players you choose. When we played Luis Garcia you had to put somebody solid behind him and who doesn't go forward often as he really didn't play in the wing, but between lines. Luis Garcia did often what we call a movement of rupture, best illustrated in this pic



Kuyt is a better player for this kind of movement than was Morientes. We do this often.

Why does Rafa have their strikers outside the box often?



To achieve this when the opposition is deep, if the centre back takes the bait an Alonso pass for our right winger can become in a one on one. We call that A movement of support, because you try to drag your man in order to make a favour to another player.


What do we do well in LFC?



The covers. It's really difficult for the opposition to find one on ones against us, there's always someone behind, in this case the 15. One of the Alonso's best part is this.


And now a question for Stu:




What are we watching here? 

Are u benitez in disguise? ? ? ?

[stmichael]

This holding midfielder is a new phenomenom I think - I always think back to past (successful) Liverpool teams and I dont recall our centre mids ever being in the "holding" role.

For example, Steve McMahon was a great defensive midfielder, but he never played a holding role.
We got by mighty fine then.
I dont subscribe to this "yea, but the game today..." b0llocks.

Don't like the whole concept of "holding midfielders" really. It's the product of ultra defensive coaches. I would rather have a sweeper or just two quality all-round midfielders anyday of thw week. It seems to have become an obsession in the modern game. What your basically saying is that your two centre halves aren't good enough and need some form of protection.

[Stu.Murph]

And now a question for Stu:




What are we watching here? 

Firstly I fully intended to post in this thread and still do. I just wanted something to feed off. I tend to ramble alot and not be good at starting topics, I'm better when I have something to develope rather than start... The Militia Rusher comment was meant in a humorous way, nothing offensive or nasty.

On the subject...

The final one is simple Sabre and I'd be suprised if you're asking seriously....

A basic attacking overlap frmo a right sided full back with a switch of play involved from left to right wing, there are obviously variations on this... This is actually so basic the kids would use this at under 12's/13's level. Basics like this are how tacitcs are perfected.

The light blue arrows are the proposed path of the ball with the other arrows that are attached from the players the players "proposed" movements.

Despite how basic that move is its extremely popular and SLIGHT variations are used by all premiership sides. These sort of "in game moves" are perfected by teams over periods of times. Other teams will have more moves than others and some will use very few but excute the ones they do perfectly. Occasionally teams like Barcelona will have in their locker, but just do what they feel is right at the time, which can either be brilliant or horribley disjointed. Under Houllier these moves were often far to basic and far to easy for the opposition to spot which is alot of the reason we often looked flat. The other some of them were over complicated...

Under Benitez you can see that they are alot better, if not perfect, we just don't have the players to pull certain ones off regularly. People don't realise the planning into these games.

The left back collects the ball, moving slightly towards the keeper, the centre half nearest will push further forward, ideally alot higher up... he's then looking to turn and play the ball to number 4, who is in turn quickly looking to get the ball to the left winger... either via the other centre mid, centre half or just a simple turn and pass...

At times in premiership and european games these sort of moves and patterns in play are often spotted by opposition hence the reason teams will simply just keep possession before trying the same thing again... Carrying on anyway...

When the ball is played to the left winger... number 7 in that case he's looking for the right winger to have made a run inside to take away the left sided midfielder and hopefull make the left back tuck into a narrow position, which should (doesn't always work) be leaving the full back with oceans (as shown) to get the ball down leaving him with a simple cross frmo the inevitable switch of play.

Basically you are trying to suck the players out to the left, to switch the play from left to right. When the ball goes to the left back, the more ideal formation will be narrower and with a higher line. When the ball is moved into midfield, then the full back will then start his run into a wider position.

You would then look to have one player attacking the far post, one attacking the near and one holding back/attacking the ball. IE you're two strikers and right winger.

Under Houllier Liverpool often used a style of going forwards, out to the wings, then backwards, to invite pressure on the ball while retreating to suck their opponents out and then allow an attack with either a long pass from whoever was in the "anchor role, usually Gerrard" to Owen/Heskey or a quick break. However, teams stopped following Liverpool out and cottoned onto this eventually. Luckily Owen was that good that even if you knew how to play against him he was nearly impossible to stop.

There are many other formations, moves, tactical plays.

Some of the defensive ones are great. They're also a hell of a lot easier to understand.

To be honest, am absoloutely knackered and want to talk about this in detail, but my brain just isn't turned on so i'll leave it there.

[Stu.Murph]

Basically players have level's of ability. These moves can dictate how you get the best out of that ability and is what defines a players "potential". A player with potential is already a good player, can pass, tackle, shoot etc. Players don't learn to do things... Momo Sissoko will never learn to pass... but he'll learn moves like these that will get the best out of him. Correction, players don't learn to do these things after about 16. They are usually developed more or less and its about there abilities transfering from being a boy to a man.

Thats the difference in a raw and complete player.

Its often the reason players like Lampard, Carragher and Terry are made out to be players they aren't. Simply because these moves suit them and are used regularly to get the best out of them... IE you wouldn't use that particular move if you had a full back who couldn't cross, you'd look for your full back to run infield, your wide player to start narrow and to make his way out to that position...

[red37]

Some great input here lads...keep it going. Its all good.

[Sabre]

Good morning.

Children! to the playground!. Grown ups will talk some football in this thread.

Quite frankly I don't understand some of the criticism to this thread. If I go to a bloody forum of my branch of knowledge I expect to read both basic and advanced and guru level topics. If it's too boring for someone, keep away, it's as simple as that. But if we can't talk about tactics in the general discussion about LFC, then I'd be dissapointed. BTW the level reached so far isn't guru, only slightly advanced, so if this is too difficult to someone, it's time to accept for him that after all this year he knows fúck all about this game. I had to realise of that myself many years ago.

Football is like chess, you have to control the middle of the board and once you see a decent amount of games you need to learn more. The more you learn, the more you realise you know nothing, and the more you want to learn.

In Spain people tend to laugh of the Japanese when it comes to football: "Look, , the know fúck all about football, they say ooooohhhh, aaaaaaah, when they see  a dribbling". But in all honesty when you hear a Spaniard talk about football you realise they don't know their stuff neither. My knowledge of football is quite basic. I've learnt all I know by talking and reading to people who know more than me, and that's what I'd like to keep doing in this thread. I personally find much more boring the "Rafa doesn't grasp the english game" threads which have few football, and a lot of prejudices.

Good thread Red37. And Stu, Of course it's a basic concepts, I just provided you an opportunity to rant I'll come back later.

[66-1112520797]

What are we watching here?   

--------------

Andy fecking Gray by the looks of it.

[Scottbot]

Under Houllier Liverpool often used a style of going forwards, out to the wings, then backwards, to invite pressure on the ball while retreating to suck their opponents out and then allow an attack with either a long pass from whoever was in the "anchor role, usually Gerrard" to Owen/Heskey or a quick break. However, teams stopped following Liverpool out and cottoned onto this eventually. Luckily Owen was that good that even if you knew how to play against him he was nearly impossible to stop.

Spot on. If you watched Houllier's Liverpool it was very rare that you saw the fullbacks overlap the winger which was for the most part, because of this tactic.

[Scottbot]

These sort of "in game moves" are perfected by teams over periods of times. Other teams will have more moves than others and some will use very few but excute the ones they do perfectly. Occasionally teams like Barcelona will have in their locker, but just do what they feel is right at the time, which can either be brilliant or horribley disjointed. Under Houllier these moves were often far to basic and far to easy for the opposition to spot which is alot of the reason we often looked flat. The other some of them were over complicated...

Under Benitez you can see that they are alot better, if not perfect, we just don't have the players to pull certain ones off regularly. People don't realise the planning into these games.

Patterns of play are immensly important in football and as you say they are practiced by ALL teams to varrying degrees. From what we have read about, and seen from Benitez it is clear that he does a great deal of work on patterns particularly considering he often mixes up the formation from game to game. Our style of play is more pragmatic (as is chelsea's) than than some of our rivals and i would imagine that united and Arsenal spend less time on set-plays and patterns than our lads do. You wouldn't call our style of play free-flowing as such over the last 2 seasons but there have been many occasions where we have played sharp, incisive football and you can see that much of it is rehearsed.

Of course, becoming familiar with the patterns and movements of a new team is another obstacle that faces every new signing. The likes of Stevie, Kewell, Alonso and Finnan etc know exactly what is expected of them within a number of given situations during a game/formation. What runs to make? What ball to play? should they run to make space or run to attack space? Tuck in or stay wide? It is perhaps hardest for the forwards to come in and adapt and we saw Cisse often getting criticised/subbed by Benitez because he simply could not carry out the duties required (which were very different to his time at Auxerre) of him in his position. The same can be said for Kuyt and Bellamy this season. Both are new players and both have a whole set of new patterns and movements to learn to the point where they are second nature. Obviously this takes time (more for some than others) and it's clear that Bellamy is being asked to play quite differently at LFC compared to last season at Blackburn. He's run very hot and cold but i have not give up him although it's likely he could be on his way out this summer now that the boss has some cash to splash.

I use some fairly basic patterns of play with my college first team. It's fairly simple stuff but we practice them every week so all the players know their runs and movements. I woulld draw them up on here but i'd need a blank one of those Andy Gray tactic boards that Sabes was using in his post.

[Lando_Griffin]

The was I see it, assuming you have to right players, 3-5-2 is the system I would use.

Most teams have two strikers. If you employ 4 at the back, that means there's a constant threat of central 1-on-1's, due to the fullbacks being occupied at all times by the opposition winger. (CB1 vs Striker1 andCB2 Vs Striker2.)
In a back 3, there is always the spare man, who can then act as a sweeper/defensive midfielder when the threat/opportunity arises.

"Ah, but that means that the opposition's wide players have more time and space on the ball..."

Yes it does, but the wingbacks deal with the opposition wingers first and foremost, and the attacking midfielder on that particular side slots in to combat the fullback:


                                                GK

    RB                   CB                                              CB                      LB


       RW                      CM                         CM                          LW

                          ST                                          ST
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                              ST                                ST

     
               AM1                                                                    AM1

                                                  DM
WB                                                                                                     WB
                       CB                                               CB
                                                  CB

                                                  GK

Here, AM1 would move out left to cover the fullback, and obviously the same in reverse for AM2.

It's simple, but it's suprising how many supposed top pros fail to grasp that concept. Just look at Fat Frank when England played that system - the only way that c*nt can recognise a tactic is when it's dressed in a McDonald's hamburger wrapper.

I'll go into more depth when I'm not p*ssed.