Liverpool FC Forum

[jacdaniel]

From Roy:

"We don't play with wingers. The way he plays and the way Joe Cole plays, we think (playing wide midfield) is more than suited to their qualities.

"We saw evidence of that in the game because they often got into situations where they received and turned with the ball - especially in the first half. I think we can get some use from Raul Meireles there with his passing ability."

A lot of fans have been very critical of Maxi, Jova, Babel etc.  I said it before and now Roy has confirmed it...we don't play wingers.  We essentially have wide/central players. 
This makes our play VERY narrow and puts pressure on the LB and RB to contribute to attacks.  (2 of our most criticized positions this year).

Ged used to use similar tactics.  What do people think of this?
Id personally prefer to see Raul playing in CM with Gerrard an Cole in the hole.

[Ciggy]

Why he has Merellis on the right an 11 million pound central midfielder is anyones guess the lads wasted out there escpecially when we have two of the same crabs in midfield Lucas & Poulson.

He was asked was Torres better with another striker upfront he said I dont know FOL.

And I cannot believe he said our B team about Babel, Maxi, etc what happened to the arm around the shoulder?

The B team is always the reserves. He comes out with some absolute rubbish.

[Greavesie]

I'm not sure we have wingers that are of good quality to be honest. Babel's hot and cold, Cole's better in the middle, Kuyt isn't a natural winger by any means, Jova likes to go narrow, Miereles is better in the middle and I'd rather have Gerrard in the middle anyway. It's probably down to not having a natural winger more than anything IMO. Unless I've missed anyone?

I wouldn't mind trying Johnson there and seeing what happened mind

Lucas left wing?

Missed Maxi - do I even need to say anything about him tho?

[Roger Red Hat]

Lucas left back...     on the bus. deport the t@sser back to Brazil.

[Ben Patrick]

We dont have any wingers so cant play with them.
But we play people out of position out wide to suit a formation that isnt working anyway 

I have said for ages we should be playing 4-3-3.

                               Torres

              Cole                              Kuyt

                      Gerrard  Merieles

                      Lucas or Poulsen

[Octsky]

We dont have any wingers so cant play with them.
But we play people out of position out wide to suit a formation that isnt working anyway 

I have said for ages we should be playing 4-3-3.

                               Torres

              Cole                              Kuyt

                      Gerrard  Merieles

                      Lucas or Poulsen

formation looks good.
same formation played by Holland under Van Basten.
i see babel prospering in this formation.

[Ben Patrick]

We dont have any wingers so cant play with them.
But we play people out of position out wide to suit a formation that isnt working anyway 

I have said for ages we should be playing 4-3-3.

                               Torres

              Cole                              Kuyt

                      Gerrard  Merieles

                      Lucas or Poulsen

formation looks good.
same formation played by Holland under Van Basten.

For me it gets the best out of what we have at the club at the moment.
If roy fancies 4-5-1 or 4-2-3-1 however you interpret it then he needs to get players in that fit that system.
At this moment in time we dont have these players.
Playing Meireles right midfield is a waste of his ability and the team looked all over the place last night.

[aCe']

He was asked was Torres better with another striker upfront he said I dont know FOL.

FCK OUR LIVES !!

   

[mart]

It can work fine without wingers, if the players and manager know how to use that formation. Its a common tactic with some big teams. What we really do wrong is that we sit extremely deep and just wait for the other team to come to us. We let them play as they want to. We dont press. If we lose the ball high up on the pitch, particularly if the LB/RB is bombing down the wings, we need to press hard to retrieve the ball or at least disrupt their play. While masch did a great job here, our current DM's dont. Our CB's are too slow and afraid to push up with the rest of the team. There is too much space between defenders/midfield/striker. We especially lack the link between torres and the rest of the team.

In summary we give the opposing team a lot of space and time to play they way they want to. Even at anfield we play like a small club away from home hoping to grab a point. If that was not enough there doesnt seem to be any plan in the way we attack. We cant use the fullbacks properly. Torres is so isolated up top he is practically not involved in the game at all.

[bigmick]

Shock horror we don't play with wingers. Over the last era we've had Jermaine Pennant and Jose Antonio Nunez who I would count as wingers, but it hasn't been a favoured style for us since McManaman fecked off. Quite why it is such a shock for some people when Roy states the glaringly obvious I don't know. What have their misconceptions been shattered by the news that Kuyt isn't Stanley Mathews or something, FFS get a grip.

The question of Mereiles or Cole playing out there is a bit more worthy of debate. In the case of Cole, he has played the majority of his career as a wide midfielder, both internationally and at club level so I'd be surprised if even the posse had a problem with that. Mereiles on the other hand was and is a central midfielder or so we are led to believe.

I think in his case, the "problem" is understandably Roy wants to play Gerrard and Poulsen in there, probably because he thinks that AT THIS STAGE Mereiles is a bit flimsy for a central role. All that said, I would play Mereiles in there myself, but when Roy doesn't do it I'm not "fecking fuming" about it, nor is it a ridiculous decision either. Lets get things into perspective here, we're not talking Peter Crouch on the left wing or anything of that nature.

[crim cram]

This is the way Brazil have played for years, but requires a team to have several types of players that, unfortunately, we don't have atm:

1. Super Bada$$ bombing wing backs who can pinpoint a cross- think  Roberto Carlos, Cafu - you get the picture.

2. An animal holding down the back of midfield - Dunga or our very own Mascherano - He was perfect for this as he could move into the space vacated by the bombing wing backs.  gone now



3. Central Defenders with at least a little bit of pace - do we have any? No.  This system is vulnerable to counter attack and requires, as others have already stated, a high defensive line.  You need pace in the center of the defense to pull off this tactic.

This is a tried and true method of breaking down defenses but you have to have the right personnel, I think Roy brought in Konchesky for this reason as he does seem to be able to make a run down the wings, and does possess a bit of pace.  With all the holes in the squad however(Poulsen  , slow in defense , etc...)we can't hope to run this formation effectively.

[Madmax]

We have no wingers - Hence no width..

Makes us very one dimensional against teams who park the bus..

Its a fecking joke!

[maypaxvobiscum]

----------Lucas OR Poulsen

         Gerrard------------Meireles

                    Joe Cole

                 Kuyt----Torres

[crim cram]

We have no wingers - Hence no width..

Makes us very one dimensional against teams who park the bus..

Its a fecking joke!

Do Brazil play with wingers? Barca? Chelsea?

None do and they all play against teams who park the bus.  A team doesn't need wingers to break  a team down but they do need the the right personnel  regardless.  And we don't have that at the moment. 

I Prefer Natural Wingers, Steve Heighway, Macca, Overmars, etc... it makes for exciting football and The Liverpool I loved played that way and I want to see it played still, but it looks like Roy is trying to use wide attacking players (Cole and ?) in the mold of Cristiano Ronaldo, Messi, Kaka - And use the full backs to pick up the slack in the wing play (Konchesky, GJ).  Its not too different to the way Rafa played, at least Rafa understood you couldn't play that system sitting deep.

It makes me wonder if this was the pitch made to Cole when he was being courted this Summer.  "C'mon son, You'll be playn' the Messi role for us!"  what roy didn't say was "We're going to hoof it forward and you'll have win the header before we can start an attack."

[PabloAimar]

13 replies and not one mention of riera
people often speak about losing alonso being critical to our failure last season - i think having a natural winger in riera on the pitch stretched the opposition which we haven't been able to do since he acted like a t1t and had to be bombed out. the bit that p1sses me off is when we can all see these things but the managers cant and they patronisingly try to justify their decisions. see the above posts for roy and for see rafa beginning/middle of last season talking about the good 'balance' of playing lucas, masherano and gerrard in the middle even though we were dropping points all over the show.
i'm no football manager, but i'd guess picking a team to score 1 more goal than the opposition would be the general idea? football's a terribly simple game.