Liverpool FC Forum

[damjan193]

Not that he didn't have a bad game today, but these defensive problems that we're having are not his fault. We can't defend as a team. We're not setting up well and we have no plan on how to defend once the high pressure thing doesn't work. Once the opposition passes the half way line, the players are on their own and we rely on the their individual play instead of a team plan.

As for the Bony header goal, I don't think it was Skrtel's fault. Bony had a free header which had an unfortunate deflection by Skrtel, who was marking a different player. Agger was the one that should have been marking Bony.

[maypaxvobiscum]

It seemed a hard-luck story. Martin Skrtel, who scored twice at the right end in Liverpool’s 5-1 win over Arsenal, applied the final touch when the ball entered the Anfield net again.

He could plead misfortune as a deflection off his shoulder defeated Simon Mignolet and gave Swansea their second goal, yet the worry should be that this was not a one-off because Skrtel's set-piece marking has been a cause for concern for much of the season.

On this occasion, he was caught in no-man’s land as Bony eluded Glen Johnson. Newcastle’s Paul Dummett and Manchester City’s Vincent Kompany have both previously exploited lax defending from the Slovakian to score.

At other times, Skrtel has gone to the other extreme, grappling with the men he is supposed to be tracking. Having escaped without conceding a spot kick on other occasions, on Sunday he was penalised when he wrestled with Bony as Daniel Agger headed away Nathan Dyer’s cross. If it is the sort of penalty that is invariably described as soft, perhaps past offences caught up with Skrtel.

It was, then, a match to highlight his shortcomings. Tall central defenders who are supposed to be excellent in the air tend to be charged with stopping the opposition’s best header from free-kicks, corners and crosses. It is a task Skrtel struggles with all too often. He is a man who can be a danger in both boxes.

If Kolo Toure’s recent catastrophes catapulted Skrtel into the position of being, by default, Liverpool’s most reliable central defender, he also erred when Kieran Richardson scored for Fulham 11 days earlier.

There is a school of thought that this has been a rehabilitative season for a player who lost his place to Jamie Carragher last season.

In actuality, in between some fine displays, Skrtel has illustrated why Liverpool still require a more redoubtable character to take on the mantle of the long-serving local as the Anfield defensive linchpin.

http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/thematch/id/1990?cc=4716

[Stu the Red]

Another typically awful display from the liability.

[killerp]

Just watched the Swansea game... Wow our defence is a freak show. I swear Skrtel is a magnet for bad luck, bad decisions and own goals. Cara before he retired had the defence organized and I felt confident when he played, quite the opposite with Skrtel, sheer fooking terror when he is defending.

No apologees, Skrtel is *****. It's not the team, it's not our tactics, he is just a ***** player who is unable to lead or Organise the defence. You put a retired cara in there I'm sure we would be better organized defensively and let in fewer goals.

There needs to be a clean out if this is the best we can do defensively, we are heading back into Europe's top flight football lets not look like an amatuer club that feeds the big clubs points. We could be playing teams like Bayern, Barcelona, psg, Madrid etc... They will viciously rape us with this defence.( Too early to talk about next season? Give me a break we are so close can't help but be excited!)

As far as defensive players not up to the CL quality standard that stand out, Toure, Skrtel, Lucas, Johnson, jones, cissohko  ... All can go.

We should spend anywhere up to 60 million pounds on the defensive side of our team in the summer.

In order of what I think we need and why

Defensive mid - Lucas is injury prone now and not the same player we all slowly grew to accept. Our midfield is very weak and needs a player who is both physical and talented in possesion without conceding too many fouls in key areas.

Left back - Enrique is long term casualty we might not see him for a while & cissohko almost non existant

Right back - Johnson is a poor defender and overpriced for what he does. We can do better. Get the same defending or better for less money.

Center back. - Skrtel is an accident waiting to happen, Agger injury prone. One has to go for an expensive quality player to come in. Hopefully a defender that knows how to defend set pieces & corners better than what we do now which is not at all.

Anyway that's my rant, top 4 we are here to stay.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

I'm not sure why Skrtel is taking so much stick, for the first goal we had 7 outfield players goal side of Shelvey but not one of them went out to close him down, in fact out of those 7 players Skrtel was the only one picking anyone up, he had hold of Bony but the rest (like Gerrard and Hendo) were just standing there.
For the second goal Skrtel was marking Flores, Johnson was marking Bony but lost him, Bony has a free header which he powers at Skrtel from about 2 yards away, Skrtel didn't have a clue what happened, he was wrestling with Flores then next minute the ball hits him, no way was that his fault.
And the third no way on gods green earth is that a pen.

[RedAnt]

People should remember the term 'defend from the front'. Once upon a time, way back in the history of football, there was no such thing as a defender. You had a GK and a load of guys trying to score. But those guys also had to stop the other guys scoring (in fact originally there wasn't even a 'keeper). The idea of positions came later. Someone once said "here's an idea, you hang back and if they get the ball, you're already back there". It didn't suddenly become that mans job to stop the other team scoring. He was there in case. It's still the job of the team to defend. Goalkeepers too were an added tactic. If the guy at the back (what's now known as a defender) didn't clear the danger, he wasn't blamed. He was a last resort anyway. It's the teams fault for letting the ball get up there. Of course the more times the team fails to stop the ball getting up there is more times the guy at the back has to deal with it. Some players are better at defending than others, but it's still a team game and need to take the pressure off our defence higher up the pitch.

Skrtel's not a bad defender. None of them are. We need the team as a whole to reduce the amount of situations our defenders need to deal with. Dosent matter who our defenders are, no defender can be expected to deal with the amount of attacks ours deal with and be expected to remain error free.

[SouthCoastShankly]

People should remember the term 'defend from the front'. Once upon a time, way back in the history of football, there was no such thing as a defender. You had a GK and a load of guys trying to score. But those guys also had to stop the other guys scoring (in fact originally there wasn't even a 'keeper). The idea of positions came later. Someone once said "here's an idea, you hang back and if they get the ball, you're already back there". It didn't suddenly become that mans job to stop the other team scoring. He was there in case. It's still the job of the team to defend. Goalkeepers too were an added tactic. If the guy at the back (what's now known as a defender) didn't clear the danger, he wasn't blamed. He was a last resort anyway. It's the teams fault for letting the ball get up there. Of course the more times the team fails to stop the ball getting up there is more times the guy at the back has to deal with it. Some players are better at defending than others, but it's still a team game and need to take the pressure off our defence higher up the pitch.

Skrtel's not a bad defender. None of them are. We need the team as a whole to reduce the amount of situations our defenders need to deal with. Dosent matter who our defenders are, no defender can be expected to deal with the amount of attacks ours deal with and be expected to remain error free.

Not sure I agree with that.

A large element of our playing philosophy (this season) has been counter attacking football. When you playing a counter attacking style you openly invite attacks and pressure in the knowledge that when they make a mistake or possession switches you can capitalise with pace.

I prefer Rodgers stance that our defence are making the wrong choices that lead to mistakes.

[devaney]

The quality of our defence is simply not the same standard as our attack. Obvious statement I know. I just wish people would accept that and appreciate that the entire team is a work in progress. Some areas have developed a lot faster than our defence. Rodgers know what he has got to do.

[RedAnt]

People should remember the term 'defend from the front'. Once upon a time, way back in the history of football, there was no such thing as a defender. You had a GK and a load of guys trying to score. But those guys also had to stop the other guys scoring (in fact originally there wasn't even a 'keeper). The idea of positions came later. Someone once said "here's an idea, you hang back and if they get the ball, you're already back there". It didn't suddenly become that mans job to stop the other team scoring. He was there in case. It's still the job of the team to defend. Goalkeepers too were an added tactic. If the guy at the back (what's now known as a defender) didn't clear the danger, he wasn't blamed. He was a last resort anyway. It's the teams fault for letting the ball get up there. Of course the more times the team fails to stop the ball getting up there is more times the guy at the back has to deal with it. Some players are better at defending than others, but it's still a team game and need to take the pressure off our defence higher up the pitch.

Skrtel's not a bad defender. None of them are. We need the team as a whole to reduce the amount of situations our defenders need to deal with. Dosent matter who our defenders are, no defender can be expected to deal with the amount of attacks ours deal with and be expected to remain error free.

Not sure I agree with that.

A large element of our playing philosophy (this season) has been counter attacking football. When you playing a counter attacking style you openly invite attacks and pressure in the knowledge that when they make a mistake or possession switches you can capitalise with pace.

I prefer Rodgers stance that our defence are making the wrong choices that lead to mistakes.

Point taken, and yet why play counter attacking football with a team that can't absorb attacks? And even with counter attacking, the midfielders should be dropped back, putting on pressure to trigger the counter attack whilst the back line should remain a tight line. With a good defensive unit, it should be midfielders putting in the tackles so the defenders don't get drawn out and leave space. We've missed Lucas. Never thought I'd say that. But we need someone pressing so the defenders can pick up the loose ball and either A) look for the long ball counter attack (we don't have the personnel) or B) play it into Gerrard who will hopefully be able to use it productively.

Out of Lucas, Gerrard, Allen and Hendo, only Lucas is a natural ball winner, and I said in pre-season we should reinforce that position.

A lot of attacks against us are from counter-attacks, which will often place a defender against a striker in a one on one, and this is where Skrtel often gets caught out. But he often wins them too.

Overall though, I'm not sure Skrtel fits our overall vision, and I suspect he'll be gone in the summer. But for now he's what we have and isn't doing too bad a job in my eyes.

If he leaves in the summer, I'd consider him to have been a pretty good servant to us in his time here. And if he stays, there'd be no arguments from me.

[SouthCoastShankly]

People should remember the term 'defend from the front'. Once upon a time, way back in the history of football, there was no such thing as a defender. You had a GK and a load of guys trying to score. But those guys also had to stop the other guys scoring (in fact originally there wasn't even a 'keeper). The idea of positions came later. Someone once said "here's an idea, you hang back and if they get the ball, you're already back there". It didn't suddenly become that mans job to stop the other team scoring. He was there in case. It's still the job of the team to defend. Goalkeepers too were an added tactic. If the guy at the back (what's now known as a defender) didn't clear the danger, he wasn't blamed. He was a last resort anyway. It's the teams fault for letting the ball get up there. Of course the more times the team fails to stop the ball getting up there is more times the guy at the back has to deal with it. Some players are better at defending than others, but it's still a team game and need to take the pressure off our defence higher up the pitch.

Skrtel's not a bad defender. None of them are. We need the team as a whole to reduce the amount of situations our defenders need to deal with. Dosent matter who our defenders are, no defender can be expected to deal with the amount of attacks ours deal with and be expected to remain error free.

Not sure I agree with that.

A large element of our playing philosophy (this season) has been counter attacking football. When you playing a counter attacking style you openly invite attacks and pressure in the knowledge that when they make a mistake or possession switches you can capitalise with pace.

I prefer Rodgers stance that our defence are making the wrong choices that lead to mistakes.

Point taken, and yet why play counter attacking football with a team that can't absorb attacks? And even with counter attacking, the midfielders should be dropped back, putting on pressure to trigger the counter attack whilst the back line should remain a tight line. With a good defensive unit, it should be midfielders putting in the tackles so the defenders don't get drawn out and leave space. We've missed Lucas. Never thought I'd say that. But we need someone pressing so the defenders can pick up the loose ball and either A) look for the long ball counter attack (we don't have the personnel) or B) play it into Gerrard who will hopefully be able to use it productively.

Out of Lucas, Gerrard, Allen and Hendo, only Lucas is a natural ball winner, and I said in pre-season we should reinforce that position.

A lot of attacks against us are from counter-attacks, which will often place a defender against a striker in a one on one, and this is where Skrtel often gets caught out. But he often wins them too.

Overall though, I'm not sure Skrtel fits our overall vision, and I suspect he'll be gone in the summer. But for now he's what we have and isn't doing too bad a job in my eyes.

If he leaves in the summer, I'd consider him to have been a pretty good servant to us in his time here. And if he stays, there'd be no arguments from me.

I guess it's one of those balancing acts. We have a sh!t hot fluid attack and a defence that isn't quite up to the pressures of that type of intensity.

Like Devaney said, work in progress.

[RedAnt]

I'm a little concerned that Rodgers seems to aim directly for entertainment and nice attacking football, whereas most build the defensive base and evolve from there. A bit like learning to walk before ya crawl. Only difference is that once you can walk, crawling is a doddle. But once you can attack, still got to learn to defend.

[devaney]

Ant - I don't think we have to learn to defend. We have to learn to defend better. Sakho came from PSG. Agger has been linked with Barca. Skrtel is being linked with City. Basically those clubs have the resources to almost do what they want. Our defence isn't actually full of no marks as some people seem to believe. It simply hasn't got the equivalent of Suarez,Sturridge,Coutinho and Sterling. That is an exceptional attacking force that probably any team in the world would be happy with. Our defence will improve and it won't necessarily take a mountain of cash to achieve that outcome.

Lawrenson wasn't a world class defender but next to Hansen he became part of one of the greatest defensive partnerships of all time. It is about getting players to work together and understand each others game. As yet we haven't achieved that with our defence. Carragher in the second half of last season did some very impressive work leading the back four. Agger as vice captain is not at that level yet. Gerrard's new role puts him in a better position to lead the defence or at least have considerably more of an input. As the defence develops the players will become more confident. Let's face it this season it has been all over the place and a lot of that has to do with injuries.

[bunglemark2]

I for one would bring that Ilori back for preseason training and plan to make him first choice with Sakho for next season. Let them room together on the summer tour. Let them go to the poxy cinema together. Sightseeing in Liverpool together.
But form a partnership for the future.
And Skrtel as backup for one or the other.

[maypaxvobiscum]

People should remember the term 'defend from the front'. Once upon a time, way back in the history of football, there was no such thing as a defender. You had a GK and a load of guys trying to score. But those guys also had to stop the other guys scoring (in fact originally there wasn't even a 'keeper). The idea of positions came later. Someone once said "here's an idea, you hang back and if they get the ball, you're already back there". It didn't suddenly become that mans job to stop the other team scoring. He was there in case. It's still the job of the team to defend. Goalkeepers too were an added tactic. If the guy at the back (what's now known as a defender) didn't clear the danger, he wasn't blamed. He was a last resort anyway. It's the teams fault for letting the ball get up there. Of course the more times the team fails to stop the ball getting up there is more times the guy at the back has to deal with it. Some players are better at defending than others, but it's still a team game and need to take the pressure off our defence higher up the pitch.

Skrtel's not a bad defender. None of them are. We need the team as a whole to reduce the amount of situations our defenders need to deal with. Dosent matter who our defenders are, no defender can be expected to deal with the amount of attacks ours deal with and be expected to remain error free.

Not sure I agree with that.

A large element of our playing philosophy (this season) has been counter attacking football. When you playing a counter attacking style you openly invite attacks and pressure in the knowledge that when they make a mistake or possession switches you can capitalise with pace.

I prefer Rodgers stance that our defence are making the wrong choices that lead to mistakes.

Especially when BR seems to like his defenders to play the ball around near our box. It's quite clear that most managers now on would be instructing their forwards to simply put pressure on the defenders when they have the ball as there's a high chance they'll lose it.

[RedAnt]

Ant - I don't think we have to learn to defend. We have to learn to defend better. Sakho came from PSG. Agger has been linked with Barca. Skrtel is being linked with City. Basically those clubs have the resources to almost do what they want. Our defence isn't actually full of no marks as some people seem to believe. It simply hasn't got the equivalent of Suarez,Sturridge,Coutinho and Sterling. That is an exceptional attacking force that probably any team in the world would be happy with. Our defence will improve and it won't necessarily take a mountain of cash to achieve that outcome.

Lawrenson wasn't a world class defender but next to Hansen he became part of one of the greatest defensive partnerships of all time. It is about getting players to work together and understand each others game. As yet we haven't achieved that with our defence. Carragher in the second half of last season did some very impressive work leading the back four. Agger as vice captain is not at that level yet. Gerrard's new role puts him in a better position to lead the defence or at least have considerably more of an input. As the defence develops the players will become more confident. Let's face it this season it has been all over the place and a lot of that has to do with injuries.

That's my point, mate, that the players aren't bad. Something isn't clicking and all too often players like Skrtel end up sticking out like a sore thumb and people pointing fingers. Defenders aren't expected to beat stickers in one on ones. If they do, it's a bonus.

Despite what BR says, "individual errors" can in fact be caused by the system we play, or by forcing our defence to knock it around to each others feet.