Liverpool FC Forum

[redshade]

We all know we've got injuries that are screwing us badly at the moment, however,there is no excuse for losing against bottom clubs. The players on the pitch should be doing their jobs. It just seems like teams have worked us out and Glady give us the ball knowing that we will do fek all with it.
Defense has not been a real issue,it just seems our machine is just not functioning right. Having our Mid at CB is not helping the cause but like I said the lads who are on the pitch should be getting the job done.

What is worse about the Brighton match is that they attacked more compared to the others whom we lost points to. But we still couldn't do much...

I want to use this thread to discuss our current problems we are facing.

[Welsh wizzard 13]

Thing is we have played unbelievable football for the last 2 to 3 years and we can't just keep doing it injuries has taken its toll. Losing your 3 main centre backs for the season is un heard of. Add to that manne Keita jota injured hasn't helped.
Likes of Origi, Ox, are past it not good enough to change things need rid of. We also could do with a plan b target man to bring off bench who bullies defenders and holds ball up to break down these defensive teams.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

Given the age of the likes of Hendo, Gini, Mo, Sadio, Bobby, Milner etc it’s not a problem that’s going to get better with the passage of time either, don’t get me wrong if we’d had everyone fit and available (Virgil, Jota, Naby etc etc) we’d probably be top now but you do get the sense that we have a team who’s best days are behind it, not a team who’s best days are ahead of it.
The injuries we’ve had would disrupt any team but you do sense that day a rebuild becomes absolutely necessary is looming ever closer on the horizon.

[Lallana in Pyjamas]

Allison
VVD
TAA
Gomez
Matip
Fabinho
Keita
Henderson
Thiago
Ox
Jota
Mane


Those are the players that we have had out injured at some point - only two players from the first time haven’t missed games due to injury - Robbo and Bobby

The players are physically broken and it’s affecting the mental strength of the players


No team has had that level of injuries in my lifetime- especially on key players and that’s going to have an affect on the players


The fact we are still up there is testament to the squad and the manager and maybe we should take a step back and not be so critical - it was always going to be a long tough season and injuries made it harder

This team should be judged when it can have those key players playing week in week out.

[Reg]

Good post Lallana, where've you been mate?

[Lallana in Pyjamas]

It’s been a busy time with Covid and the lack of being able to go to the games has left football a bit souless tbh

[Lallana in Pyjamas]

To show how bad our injuries have been this should hopefully highlight

[Cool Hand Luke]

There is nothing particularly secretive or innovative about the way Klopp sets up his teams so I don’t buy the idea that having collected 99 points last season and 97 points the season before, teams have all of a sudden “worked us out”. Clearly right now the machine isn’t functioning as well as it has these past two years. But it’s completely normal that the more key components you take out of a well-run machine the more the performance will drop.

Against Brighton, we had Alisson missing in goal, van Dijk, Gomez and Matip missing at CB, Fabinho missing at DM, Henderson having to play at CB, Keita not available as an option in midfield, and Mane and Jota not available in attack. Imagine if Ederson was missing in goal, Dias, Stones and Laporte missing at CB, Fernandinho missing at DM, Rodri playing alongside Ake at CB, Gundogan not available to cover in CM, and Sterling and Mahrez not available in attack. Do you really think City would be doing what they’re doing right now? They had their injury problems last year (not as bad as ours this year) and they ended the season with 81 points.

The number of injuries also means Klopp hasn’t been able to rotate as much as he’d like so fatigue is a factor. One of the features of last year was rotation in midfield. We were pretty much changing at least 1 midfielder each game to provide freshness. I think the Brighton game was one too many for Gini, Thiago and Milner as they were out run and out muscled. In hindsight it might have made sense to bring in either Ox or Jones to add some freshness.

When we signed Kabak and Ben Davies I sort of assumed after a couple of weeks of settling in to training and learning our tactics Kabak would go in alongside Fabinho/Henderson and Davies would only really be used as a better option than Rhy Williams and Nat Phillips if there were injuries to Kabak and Fabinho. But now I think once we have the Man City game out of the way, we just go with Kabak and Davies as our CB partnership and they’ll have to develop and learn on the job. It’s a riskier strategy then Klopp would normally go for, but the trade-off is having Fabinho, Gini, Henderson and Thiago available as our 4 key midfielders. And with Jota looking like he’ll be available soon that will give us Firmino, Mane, Salah and Jota as our 4 key attackers. This will give us the option to make a change in both midfield and attack each game without a significant drop off in quality. Yes we might see a few struggles from our new CB partnership but they will benefit from having our first choice midfield in front of them, especially Fabinho at DM.

[Reg]

Excellent post CHL, well thought through and expressed.

[damjan193]

It's something that most of us realize but it's nicely explained in this video. This, and all the other injuries contributed for us to be where we are right now. In fact, as someone else said, with so many injuries to key players for a prolonged period, it's a mirracle that we're still in the top 4.

The Premier League is gone for us IMO, but we're still in the fight for the CL. Considering it's not the bigger teams but rather the lesser ones that are our problem right now, and also the fact that the CL is the only thing we have left to play for, I think we can go all the way.

[redshade]

Good vid that, explains it very well also good posts on this thread.

Yup it is evident that all these injuries are messing up our system has destroyed our chance of success. I still feel when we have 75%+ possession we should be doing more with the ball. We've got attacking players on the pitch who should be playing better, sadly seems some of them are off form as well, which is exacerbating our problem.

[7_Kewell]

Good vid that, explains it very well also good posts on this thread.

Yup it is evident that all these injuries are messing up our system has destroyed our chance of success. I still feel when we have 75%+ possession we should be doing more with the ball. We've got attacking players on the pitch who should be playing better, sadly seems some of them are off form as well, which is exacerbating our problem.

I said a while back that losing Gomez and VVD had fecked up ability to play out from the back. And that video sums up the importance of our team play.

Hopefully this is a wakeup call to the board and coaching team about our lack of squad depth in defence.

[eds]

We rode our luck this season going in with only 3 recognised CBs.

In hindsight this was very foolish knowing the injury records of Gomez and Matip and the amount of games being played in a condensed season.

When we lost Van Dijk, not only did we lose our colossus at the back but our whole game plan and structure crumbled as highlighted by a number of great videos out there and in depth analysis on how the team is set up to play from the back.

Klopp made an uncharacteristic silly mistake to play Jota in that pointless CL game and unfortunately this has also impacted the front 3 staying fresh, as Origi, Minamino and co aren't really good enough to have in our squad.

Too add to this we have had key players out of form for some parts of the season like Alexander-Arnold, Firmino and Mane.

Despite all of this, we are still in the top 4 and in the CL. We have two new CBs to incorporate into the team and Jota returning at some point this month. Klopp may have to tweak the tactics to try and salvage something respectable but we can only see things getting better.

At the end of the season we will need to move a number of players that I think we are carrying like Oxlande, Origi and Keita. Hard decisions will also need to be on Firmino and Matip. But if there is anyone that can turn this around, its Klopp.

[Eagle]

Might have had some bad injuries in the past, but up until getting injured on international duty in November, Gomez hadn't missed a game through injury for over a year and a half.

[Reg]

Alarm bells should be ringing fkg loud.

The club have woken up to find their XI has been run into the ground and they happily stood back during transfer windows and didn't reinforce positions, specifically RB/LB and up front. Bobby is a superb player, he had some magic touches last night but he's simply worn out. Trent can't get his crosses over knee height, slips of concentration are now letting players past him. Same with Robbo. How many times now is Trent giving the ball away? Even now I can't name Trents RB back up? The Greek is Robbos replacement but he looks out of his depth so he's not an effective replacement.

They're still great players but they're worn out and it will only get worse as the season progresses. We sat back again during this window, we kept our incompetent players who we knew we should have sold and failed to bring in suitable replacements. I hope we limp over the line in 4th, but it could just as easily be 7th.

I don't want to say we've imploded but when the players have blank expressions on their faces you know you have a serious problem.