Liverpool FC Forum

[Sabre]

I've read many threads about players, and about signing ups, but the comments about how actually Liverpool plays could be read here and there in different match threads.

I always thought that Rafa was not a defensive manager as the press stated in the second year. He always played 2 strikers --making them work-- but never quite used a double holding midfielder as for instance Madrid used last year -- and for that Capello was sácked. It's true that Rafa always looked for a balance and defensive rigour, but I'd never consider his gamestyle in Liverpool defensive.

I've read to some mates in some post threads that this year we seem to attack more the opposition. IMHO, the style has been as attacking as other years, it's just that being more effective and the confidence that brings it to you makes the whole difference. If you spend 65 mins to score a goal, chances are that you try to keep the treasure of the 3 points, if you score 2 soon enough instead, you look for the third and so on.

For me this year we're not seeing the result of a more attacking mentality, but more effectiveness, more confidence, and more gelled players, as the ones playing right now have played together for a while. But this is just my view, and I opened this thread to read yours so, questions ala Ace1983


1) Are you happy with the style of football watching?

2) Do you consider the mentality this year is more offensive than other years? Do you consider Rafa defensive?

[Sarge]

imo, it really depends on whom are we playing, the style of game we played one or two matches before that game, the league (premiership, FA, or CL). Overall, I would say this season we are a tad more to the offensive style of football.
Only one thing that bemuses me is why on earth we cannot play full 90mins of attacking if we are 2 or 3 goals up and that often jeopardize the team integrity in that match.
As for the style of play, I LOVE IT! We have most flair this season compare to other teams. Just ask abramovich

[club_Levis]

Answer 1: I am happy with the football we play nowadays...combination of pace, skill and sheer brillance...the one typical of him in the Valencia era.

Answer 2: He has been justifiably been defensive ( Ac Milan Cl final) and unnecessarly and shockingly been overdefensive esp away games in the league last year. Used to think a lot about not losing first rather than winning.This year I have seen mentality changing to more attack.

[mungi]

i agree that we have always been attacking, its just that this year we have the ability to be more effective and this people are noticing it more. i feel we do play better football in CL then in premier league coz in the prem it tends to be more hit the long balls where in CL we play from the back.

i pose another question

would you rather play like /unattractive football ala chelsea and win the prem or play attractive one touch football ala barcelona and arsenal but win nothing

[66-1112520797]

1) I'm chuffed with the style we're watching especially our last game against Derby, maybe other sides would of made it harder to play against but still the quick passing and the ball on the deck stuff was a pleasure to watch. I suppose the only positive to not having Crouch in the team is the urge to go route one, Hyypia is the main culprit of this but Carra and Agger dont mind on occasions to pump the ball long. Last season watching that irritated me, not only does that method by-pass a world class midfield, but more often than not nothing comes of them.

So yes with the games we've played this season I'm very happy with the way we've played, although at Villa we should of killed them off, to enable us to knock the ball round with confidence rather than being on tenderhooks with a one goal lead to which we nearly paid the price for.

2) Yes I consider the the team more offensive, and thats soley down to the fact of our summer signings. Last year we didnt have Babel, who is yet to find his feet properly in the side. But yet from him its clear his game and mindset is on attacking teams, and is quite direct. Same with Torres, having him in our side uptop makes us look a completey different outfit ... A more offensive one. Although we havent seen too much of Yossi he again is another player who makes us look more offensive.

And although Sabre said he thinks we were just as offensive in past seasons (or last to be exact) which we possibly were. To make that offensivenss effective for me it comes down to 'end product', ball in the back of the net. No ifs buts or maybes for me there.

Do I consider Rafa "defensive" initially I'd say yes, well more so anyway. I think back over the last few years and especially when we've played "bigger" teams Rafa IMO has worried about how to stop the opposition from playing than rather trusting his players to go out there at let the opposition worry about us. Picking Kuyt week in week out would be another little factor he must be the best defensive striker of all time. No but seriouly with the players he's bought in before, its always looked as though he's buying players to solidify the team. But the flip side of the arguement would be, players made available in the transfer market, and the prices on their head not forgetting that its just as important to get the defensive side of the team sorted, first as a kind of foundation to build your team on.

But whether he's finally realised that the team of last year could not go out and beat teams simply because they were not creative or offensive enough, possibly had a major factor to this summer's siginings who knows. Or that it was his intentions all a long to add the "flair" nearer the end of a solid foundation.

But to play Alonso and Mascha as a central midfield pairing is quite negative IMHO.

[muzodziwa]

worthy thread there mate;

Rafa is a football philosopher, and the way we are playing at the present moment reflect this, football is an expression of life. I will look at the second question first; we are playing to win, and we are doing it with the belief that we can actually win. There is a difference there because the previous seasons we played to win a match but we also knew our limitations and this was shown at the pre-match interviews from the manager, the players and even the supporters.

The basics of football tell me that you have to move the ball in such a way that you score as many goals as possible and minimising the opposition from outscoring you. Football, like chess, revolve on a fine balance between attack and defence and how this is achieved demonstrates the management philosophy of the manager. It is easy with other managers to link them with the two extremes i.e defensive or offensive minded but it is difficult to put modern successful managers into the two extreme brackets; more so Rafa.

We are slowly playing Rafa's football "increased possibilities through movement", and to dispel the notion that we have always played defensively I will just suggest zonal marking. Though zonal marking is a defence strategy it is concerned more with the movement of the ball rather than the players and hence enables us to mobilise forward movement once the danger of attack has been quelled. Zonal marking enables us to move the ball from a defense situation in the same way that we would if we were attacking hence increase our 'possibilities (chances)??? ' of a meaningful forward movement. This is being achieved with the understanding of the players core to this ie the midfield and the defence; which is why young Arbeloa is a rising star, he seems to understand the whole essence of defensive movement as if he mental link with Rafa.

Liverpool simply organise around forward movement; whether we are in possession or not. We looked as if we were defensive in the last two seasons ( and at times we were ) mainly because we did not have clarity of the system such that when we regained possession we did not have greater options to effectively turn this into a meaningful forward movement. A major factor that influenced this was the change in managerial philosophy on the players; we had a core of good players who now experienced something that they had never before and their survival in the new regime depended on how willing they were to learn and change. I believe every player that Rafa allowed to leave the club was not willing to adapt to the new way of doing things Cisse for example. Now the core of the players understand this i.e Carra, Finnan, Agger, Gerrard, Alonso, Sissoko, Reina; Pennant,  Rafa has gone ahead and signed what he considers clever players i.e players who are willing to learn and adapt ie Torres, Benayoun and Babel and you can already tell from the interviews the new signings have had that they are learning a lot from Rafa. This has enabled us to be more productive in our forward movement hence seemingly more offensive this term.

Hence it makes it easier to address the first question; our style of football is a joy to watch. For the first time in a long time I love to see footie with the most harsh of Liverpool critics; I have the chance to gloat, not vain die hard attitude support but real sense of pride especially when its the critics who do the appreciation. Most people say Arsenal are fantastic to watch well I differ, they are good to watch but we are so purposeful in our forward movement that I am almost like watching a Gary Kasparov chess move; and to imagine Babel, Youssi, Masch, Torres, Voronin are just bedding in. WOW!

[stmichael]

This whole notion that "Rafa is defensive" is a complete myth. I mean I'd hardly call the Valencia team that came to Anfield a few years back defensive. They gave us a footballing lesson that night. In the past, I don't think we really had the personnel to be as attacking as we would have liked anyway. In his first season, we had one fit striker (Baros) after Cisse broke his leg and wide players who were playing out of position (Riise, Garcia). That doesn't change the fact though that in certain games, the team selection was very negative. I made the point after we played Villa away last season. It was one of the worst games of football I've ever seen and after the game I looked at the side and it was this:

Reina
Finnan
Carragher
Agger
Aurelio
Gerrard
Mascherano
Sissoko
Riise
Bellamy 
Kuyt

Now if you look at that lineup, there's 8 defensive minded players. Only Gerrard, Bellamy and Kuyt can be considered attacking so it was hardly any surprising that we were so poor away from home last season.

This season I've seen a marked improvement in our performances away from home especially in that Rafa's team selections and tactics have been pretty positive. I think the squad is finally getting close to the one he had at Valencia where their main attacking threat came from the wings. We're far more of a threat in wide areas now. We didn't play two conventional wingers away from home much last year did we?

Onwards and upwards. No changing of tactics this weekend at Pompey. Be positive from the off and let them worry about us.

[Emerald Red]

You are dead on when you said we have been no more attacking this season than we had last season, Sabre. Last season we all seen a Liverpool side (apart from those with blinkers on, and there's a few on the forum) the outplayed a lot of teams in games we lost or drew, peppered the goal, and had serious pressure on them for long spells in games. The only trouble was, we had no end product. Be it down to luck, or just players who couldn't hit a barn door, thing is, we were bloody unlucky and should have had far more points than we ended with.

Our style of play has not changed, IMO. We still command games, and look assured and comfortable in our passing on the ball.

The only difference between this season and last is that we have tones of width, and that the new signings have gelled into the team as if they've been playing since Rafa took over.

The understanding of the front men this season is key too. There just seems to be a ballance there that wasn't when Bellamy and Fowler were still here, and the left side of the mid is doing a hell of a lot more damage now that dead wood like Zenden and Gonzalez are gone. We've just got that little bit more ballance that we lacked to give us that edge. We can now hurt teams all over the pitch.

[Sabre]

Thank you all for your answers, I'd love to read more of that. Some good answers from well known posters, but I always like to acknowledge the new posters that write decent stuff, like (let me see again, the nickname is difficult) muzodziwa

We are slowly playing Rafa's football "increased possibilities through movement", and to dispel the notion that we have always played defensively I will just suggest zonal marking. Though zonal marking is a defence strategy it is concerned more with the movement of the ball rather than the players and hence enables us to mobilise forward movement once the danger of attack has been quelled. Zonal marking enables us to move the ball from a defense situation in the same way that we would if we were attacking hence increase our 'possibilities (chances)??? ' of a meaningful forward movement. This is being achieved with the understanding of the players core to this ie the midfield and the defence; which is why young Arbeloa is a rising star, he seems to understand the whole essence of defensive movement as if he mental link with Rafa.

That's refreshing because I hadn't thought of that never. Interesting. IMHO in the zonal vs man-to-man debate (or mixed) you can't truly say what's better, as there are some well known good things and problems about them.

One of the good things of Zonal marking is that it enhances anticipation in defence, and to play an attacking style with many men on front of the ball and just one midfielder to cover backs, anticipation is a must. So we use zonal marking because it suits us best, and it's a must for what we do.

One of the bad things of zonal marking is that creates troubles when two men invade the zone of a defender and the opposition wins the initiative. Another bad thing is that it requires a lot of solidarity and compenetration between defenders, and few teams can do that well. So I agree for different reasons that zonal marking speaks well about Liverpool's gamestyle, you have to be spot on as a team to use it, and Liverpool does that.

As for the mate that rises another question, in my book, a win is a win, and if you lose you've made mistakes. So I'm a bit of the "give me points and call me numpty" school of thought. If you require ugly games to be solid, then so be it. Sevilla was ugly and tough first in their way to become what they are now. The "nice to watch" football came later. So first things first, and the shows, secondary target.

[yckatbjywtbiastkamb]

one of benitez`s greatest achievements was turning the rubbish played under houllier into the stuff we are watching now in under 3 seasons.
when you look back and see how houllier played the likes of murphy, diao and biscan as wide midfielders no wonder we were devoid of creativity.

[hello_red]

About our improvement over the last three seasons especially considering the rubbish that Houllier bought but one thing springs to mind when thinking of our team now and thats how Rafa has turned a player like Carra who was mainly in the full back position into one of the best pure defenders in the world! And not to mention Steven Gerrard who is well Stevie!

Saying that I feel the style of footbal we will see this season is what Rafa has been trying to create since he got here and thats pressing/passing/wing based football. He has Gerrard, Alonso and Mascha at his disposle to basically control the midfiled against any team and he can bring on Sissoko to calm things down break up play if needs be. This creates a seamless blend of defence and devestating attack becasue he has Kewell, Pennant, Babel and Yossi to use on the wing and these players are attack minded and in Pennants case an out and out winger who will get 20 assists a season easy in my opinion. Then you have Babel, Yossi and Kewell who will glide down the wing and create havoc because they will get into goal scoring positions. Now you have our attack which is easily the most varied in the premier league. Torres and Kuyt are my prefered partnership because they will always want the ball to there feet and Liverpool with the current attacking set up will destroy almost any team with this type of play. Look at Derby and Chelsea (granted we drew but we could of won that game without a problem) now Crouch i like him as a player but in my opinion when he is played we lose something in our play be it our passing game which at the moment is brilliant. Play the ball to his feet he is good but not the runner that our system requires so i think Rafas partnership of Kuyt and Torres is the way to go, especially in the league.

So in conclusion our midfield has the balance just right between defence and attack because we do have the best midfield in the world, any team would have our midfiled in an instant! And our attack has finally taken shape, 4 hard working goal scorers that can be used in different ways within our team set up. The ability to mix and match is great to see because of last season the midfield and 1/2 the attack have all played together while using rotation so they know each others game.

And the defence is solid as usual which means we play defensive attractive attacking football!

Its probably still a work in progress though. All teams are.

[RichardLFC1]

In the last transfer window Rafa identified where we was weak or needed cover and brought in the right players i.e Torres Babel and Benayoun. The gamestyle has been much more positive hence Gerrard starting in CM against Chelsea and Villa. Also what has made me happy about our gameplay this year is even if we are 2-0 up Rafa has brought on another striker on the 75+ minute. I.E Villa Chelsea Sunderland and Derby. Where as last year he would have probably put on another defender or a defendin midfielder

[stmichael]

About our improvement over the last three seasons especially considering the rubbish that Houllier bought but one thing springs to mind when thinking of our team now and thats how Rafa has turned a player like Carra who was mainly in the full back position into one of the best pure defenders in the world! And not to mention Steven Gerrard who is well Stevie!

Saying that I feel the style of footbal we will see this season is what Rafa has been trying to create since he got here and thats pressing/passing/wing based football. He has Gerrard, Alonso and Mascha at his disposle to basically control the midfiled against any team and he can bring on Sissoko to calm things down break up play if needs be. This creates a seamless blend of defence and devestating attack becasue he has Kewell, Pennant, Babel and Yossi to use on the wing and these players are attack minded and in Pennants case an out and out winger who will get 20 assists a season easy in my opinion. Then you have Babel, Yossi and Kewell who will glide down the wing and create havoc because they will get into goal scoring positions. Now you have our attack which is easily the most varied in the premier league. Torres and Kuyt are my prefered partnership because they will always want the ball to there feet and Liverpool with the current attacking set up will destroy almost any team with this type of play. Look at Derby and Chelsea (granted we drew but we could of won that game without a problem) now Crouch i like him as a player but in my opinion when he is played we lose something in our play be it our passing game which at the moment is brilliant. Play the ball to his feet he is good but not the runner that our system requires so i think Rafas partnership of Kuyt and Torres is the way to go, especially in the league.

So in conclusion our midfield has the balance just right between defence and attack because we do have the best midfield in the world, any team would have our midfiled in an instant! And our attack has finally taken shape, 4 hard working goal scorers that can be used in different ways within our team set up. The ability to mix and match is great to see because of last season the midfield and 1/2 the attack have all played together while using rotation so they know each others game.

And the defence is solid as usual which means we play defensive attractive attacking football!

Its probably still a work in progress though. All teams are.

Good post mate.

If you look at the last few years, a lot of the time we were unable to break down a defence and I don't think it was necessarily an issue of individuals or rotation - our attacking play was too rigid, nervous and predictable. Infact it reminded me of England during the World Cup at times. Of course it didn't help that our best creative players (Alonso, Garcia) were way below par and injured respectively.

Our attacking options seemed to be:

1: Shoot from long range.

2: Engineer the move into an oppotunity to cross the ball in from the top edge of the area for someone's head....... and then try to get on the resulting second ball.

3: Play the ball along the floor behind the full backs for the winger to get on the end of and hit it across or maybe the winger just tries to beat the full back to do the same.

4: Try to release a striker (Bellamy) on a quick counter.

And that was it. There were times when I thought surely there has to be more options going forward than this? Last year we scored 57 goals in the League while Chelsea got 72, Man U 72 and Arsenal 68.

If we were scoring 2 or 3 a game, the frailties of our defence would not seem so important. Were we too focused on our defending or were we just not very good at attacking? Certainly we weren't devoid of making chances in games. I mean against Everton away we had 20 shots to their 4 and lost 3-0. Against Blackburn away Friedel had the game of his life. We should have beat Chelsea away. Put simply, we lacked a cutting edge.

The additions Of Babel and Torres has changed this for the better. I see Babel as a striker in the long term but the raw talent of the kid is there for all to see. As for Torres, after all the supposed strikers who were the "missing piece" (collymore, diouf, cisse, morientes), this kid is the real deal and provided he stays fit will be a star.

[burjennio]

Emerald Red Posted on Sep. 12 2007,18:17
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You are dead on when you said we have been no more attacking this season than we had last season, Sabre. Last season we all seen a Liverpool side (apart from those with blinkers on, and there's a few on the forum) the outplayed a lot of teams in games we lost or drew, peppered the goal, and had serious pressure on them for long spells in games. The only trouble was, we had no end product. Be it down to luck, or just players who couldn't hit a barn door, thing is, we were bloody unlucky and should have had far more points than we ended with.

Our style of play has not changed, IMO. We still command games, and look assured and comfortable in our passing on the ball.

The only difference between this season and last is that we have tones of width, and that the new signings have gelled into the team as if they've been playing since Rafa took over.

The understanding of the front men this season is key too. There just seems to be a ballance there that wasn't when Bellamy and Fowler were still here, and the left side of the mid is doing a hell of a lot more damage now that dead wood like Zenden and Gonzalez are gone. We've just got that little bit more ballance that we lacked to give us that edge. We can now hurt teams all over the pitch

The big difference for me is this season we are hurting other teams when we have possession. Alot of flak was thrown at the strikers last year when truth be told our build up play was at times pedestrian and 1 dimensional (hoof it to Crouch, look to got on the 2nd ball) This year we have players in many positions who are comfortable with possession, good going forward and creative, and with an eye for goal.

I still think Saturday will be a stern test of how far we've come, Fratton Park is a place the Reds have slipped up at a few times in recent seasons, so lets go at them from the off and show them who we are   

[CardinalRed]

Slowly but surely Rafa has edged his way towards a more attacking style.... That's not to say he wanted to do this all along but that he maybe didn't have the tools ie: players, to do it with. The introduction of Kuyt and Mascherano last year and now Torres, Voronin and Babel has brought Pace and Power. Look at Ronaldo, Rooney, Drogba and the now departed Henry.... they are extremely fast and powerful players and that is what the Premiership demands nowadays, I know Derby are poor but the way we blew them away wouldn't have happened last year..... What's not to like about our "new" style?