Liverpool FC Forum

[Kharhaz]

When peewee critisises everything other than rafa or the formation then there is the answer ! Even the most cynical can see its down to the players at the end of the day, and the players just seemed to bottle it.

[LFC2007]

I think there's a fair degree of validity in your opening post Mick, in terms of tactical analysis, although I think you overanalyse the tactics a touch - which for you is uncharacteristically 'Rafa style' 

For all of these tactical nuances, players occupying gaps etc., you also have - focus, effort, and desire that define performances to the greatest extent. If all is equal between the teams on these three fronts, then you can point to tactical nuances and differences in quality. This wasn't the case when we played them on Sunday, our focus wasn't there - Skrtel, Carra and Reina made sloppy errors that cost us. I'd actually say that the difference in quality, in terms of how dynamic their forwards, wingers as well as Evra were*, is a more pertinent point than the ineffectiveness of our formation. It was a combination of our sloppiness, lack of focus/lack of nerve, in tandom with their attackers who know hot to seize an opportunity primarily because of their quality and instinctive nature, that led to our downfall.

*Dynamic teams, in today's footballing climate, are often the best teams.

[maguskwt]

good thread and alot of good points already covered...

what I'd like to add is, yes we were outplayed and most of our players came short one-on-one against their players. but we were also unfortunate to concede a goal from a set piece because of mistakes by reina and skrtel. Were we to hold out 0-0 until half-time and were we to have 11 players, I have no doubt in my mind that we would have been able to put pressure on them in the second half just as they've put pressue on us in the first half with this same line-up and formation and conditions (well a few inspired subs wouldn't hurt )

IMO, this 4-2-3-1 or a variant of 4-5-1 is flexible in a sense that it can apply more pressure to the opposing team than 4-4-2 (with 4 players attacking) as well as soak more pressure from the opposing team. if the team is soaking up pressure it will rely on fast counter attacks to quickly reverse the pressure. since both team fielded a similiar formation, it becomes inevitable that it was gonna be like a boxing match, going to and fro, applying pressure and soaking pressure. In the first half they were spending more energy applying pressure on us which couldn't have gone on for 90 mins. we were trying to soak up this pressure but our breaks weren't happening and this made it look like we were being outplayed or we were negative. If in the second half we went in without a man down, I have no doubt that it will be our turn to apply pressure on them whether or not we were 1-0 down. Even with 10 men we showed a spell where we could dictate the play. But having conceded a goal and having one man sent-off majorly screwed up rafa's plans.

So yes, no way we should bin this formation yet.

[poolboyuk]

I've notbeen convinced despite us winning 7 on the bounce. Gerrard and Torres apart what have we got attacking wise. bugger all I think. I think it was simply a case of a good team coming up against a great one. Whilst ever we only have two attacking players of real class we will ultimately struggle against the big boys. Kuyt isnt upto scratch, Babel is improving but at the end of the day is he really effective? No.

The team has not looked balanced all season - the 2005/06 team was the best we had under Rafa and he promptly dismantled it. Also if Kewell was on his way out why buy someone who doesnt want or look like an out and out winger. Babel may develop but he's clearly never going to be a long term bet for outside left.

Football Focus Online Blog

[ConnO'var]

Battle was lost in the middle of the field, simple as that. Anderson and Carrick had too much for Alonso and Mascherano on the day.

True mate..... but theres a bit more to it then that methinks.

You have to look at why Anderson and Carrick, who imo are inferior to our own Alonso and Masch, won the battle....

For me, it's simple really.... Man Utd have 4 outlets down the flanks in attack while we have none of real quality. As such when we were defending, their 2 lads had more options to move the ball and move it quickly.... conversely, when we were attacking we had none of that which restricted the options for us and hence allowed them to press our guys, causing us to lose possession in midfield quickly and hence put our defense under immense pressure from their pacey attackers. That pressure had to be released and our boys did that by hoofing the ball upfield which starts the whole vicious circle again.

Against the weaker teams, barrelling through the midfield works fine as our quality far outstrips theirs but with similar strength or better teams? .... to quote rafa...."We need options...no?"

Of course the fact that Alonso still is not at his best and Masch got himself sent off played a significant part as well. But we'll do well to remember that we were already under the cosh from the off... well before we lost a man. If we had gone in with all 11 men.... I've no doubt that Rafa would have done some modifications to the set up but this time around, his hands were tied and about all he could really do... was damage control.

and Mick... FWIW... I don't think that we had set up as a true 4-5-1.... Kuyt, Gerrard and Babel were a little too far upfield for it to have been anything but a 4-2-3-1 imo. As I said in another post earlier, in hindsight, we'd probably have been better served with Riise and Babel instead of Babel and Kuyt. As Babel would have been better equipped pace wise to handle Evra and Giggs. Pull stevie back a tad and we'd have had a real 4-5-1 with options to hit them on the break with the pace of Babel and Torres and with Stevie trailing behind them.

[bigmick]

Some intersting points. One or two kind of got the wrong idea in that I wasn't actually saying we lost BECAUSE of the formation by any means. I was merely pointing out the obvious in that it didn't work for us on the day and wondering why. Now clearly one of the reasons is quite simply that too many players didn't play well enough, didn't show enough aggression, they were too good etc etc but IMHO there are other nuances which had a major effect. It's funny sometimes when people constantly accuse you of only ever going on about one subject, and then when you move the discussion onto football people don't want to talk about it

The point I'm making is if we were to get to the Champions League final and play against the Mancs, is the new formation a busted flush with our current group of players or could we go for it again with a few modifications. My view is that we probably could, and also that although I agree there were some obviously poor performances throughout the team, it would be a huge mistake to go in again against them next time and just say "ah well lets just hope we play better this time" or "get stuck in more, show some passion FFS!", there's more to it than that.

  I agree with Neil that we miss Agger, although as we've seen with the return of Alonso it's easy to fall into the trap of longing for an injured player, thinking he will cure all ills. Agger would though definately be happy to step into the hole and allow Alonso to step forwards twenty yards. I really can't overstress how improtant I think this would have been to our overall shape and performance.

LFC is right of course in that we didn't really "show up". Other posters alluded to this as well, and I guess since Rafa hasn't been criticised for a while it's fair to ask the question as to whether or not he is slightly to blame for that. Similarly, the tactical nuances and Masherano seemingly being unaware of Bennetts more eccentric tendencies. I would think though that Rafa would be fairly blameless in that while the system has been a success for us, it's the first time a team has had a chance to kind of know what we were going to do before we did it so to speak, and set up accordingly (kind of the only positive reason for mass rotation I would have thought, nobody knows what the feck you are going to do  ).

Conn's point about us actually playing 4-2-3-1 is an intersting one, as I kind of think we were playing 4-4  1  1 before masherano's sending off (and the lack of hyphons is deliberate) and then 4-4-1 afterwards, which kind of explains how we were able to make them a little anxious while it was still 1-0. Interestingly around that time we got a couple of free kicks and although we wasted all but one with bad delivery, the one we actually got into the box could have fallen to Torres on a different day and we just might have sneaked something. I guess that rafa was strongly contemplating bringing Crouch on and hitting it long into him and Torres almost exactly at the moment Ronaldo scored the second, which kind of summed his day up really.

It was just one of those days I'm sure. The key now is that unlike previously in the season we bounce back and quickly, and also that we learn the tactical lessons form the questions Man Utd posed. Everton and Arsenal will set exactly the same exams.

[SupitsJonF]

People need to remember there is a difference between not showing up, and being shut down.  It was a mix of the two I thought.

[maypaxvobiscum]

i think we should rotate the formation   we have loads of good central midfielders so i dont see the harm in having gerrard on the right side with alonso and mash in the centre and riise on the left. babel in the creative role and torres. or torres and crouch. im unsure of any of the liverpool defenders are actually great at set pieces currently. hyypia seems the most natural and despite his lack of pace, i would choose him for intelligence.

rafa's current system would work against teams with less flair and pace. and like conno'var said, its more like a 4-2-3-1 then a 4-5-1.

[account deleted by request]

I don't like the new formation and I think its going to let us down against most of the better teams. However I thought we were beaten tactically rather than because of the formation on Sunday. All the negatives of the new system were highlighted because the mancs took us on and beat us were we are supposed to be strongest ....... midfield.

For me the new formation and system is a good system for Europe(especially at home) and against teams that put men behind the ball, but against teams that push forward, I think we will have problems.

They were happy to drop or pass back when in possession and build from deep because with only Torres up front we couldn't apply any pressure. While when we had the ball Scholes and Anderson pressed up on Mascherano and Alonso, giving us no time to settle on the ball and no room to build anything. Evra was able to raid forward at will, knowing that Kuyt would drop deep to help out our defence, infact Kuyt finished up almost playing wing back rather than winger.

I honestly believe the people who are saying we lost because our "big players didn't perform are fooling themselves. Our big players didn't perform because they wern't allowed to. Its been the same for the last few games we have played against the mancs.

Fergie played Anderson in the "Sissoko role", breaking up play and pressurising high up the pitch, with the added advantage that Anderson can pass as well.

I still say that for 4-2-3-1 or 4-5-1 to work well against the better teams you need to build play rather than the way we play getting the ball forward as quickly as possible. Which is possibly why it has been so successful in recent weeks against the poorer sides, who defend by getting men behind the ball and giving us time and space to build our attacks. I still think we lost the game because we lost the tactical battle rather than it being the formation that let us down......... but the formation certainly didn't help.

[RedBlood]

i dont think it was the formation.. key players did not perform and playing with ten men in the second half meant we couldnt get back in the game

this formation works and with some quality players added it could be even better... i hope rafa sticks with it

[whylongball?]

i dont think it was the formation.. key players did not perform and playing with ten men in the second half meant we couldnt get back in the game

this formation works and with some quality players added it could be even better... i hope rafa sticks with it

thats what i think as well..so many key players didnt perform(SG, Alonso), were nervous (Reina: timing, throwing; Cara: bad clearance) and obviously some are not good enough like Kuyt

[redtrader74]

I'm not really a big fan of the current formation, and although results have been good, i didn't think the performances have been. In this formation, against a very good defence, the striker can easily become isolated if the midfield and wingers don't get involved, and we don't have exceptional wingers. I very much doubt that Rafa has planned the formation for the long term, IMO it has been used to get the players familiar with it, because he intended on using it for the remaining CL games, where it can bear fruit because the first instinct is not to attack, but to not concede.

That said we never really got to see how it would have worked over the 90, because we were down a man, and a very influential one, yeah the mancs were on top in the first half, but without a basic error from Reina, it would still have been 0-0, and going into the 2nd half with all 11 players we may have a better grasp on how well it could have worked.

[Rockthekop]

We won our previous 5 league games against teams we were expected to beat.  The 4-2-3-1 formation was never really tested until the Utd game.  Torres was isolated, Gerrard was nullified and the Mancs had a field day.  It's not just the formation though, it was the lack of threat from the rest of the team.  They knew that all they had to do was nullify Gerrard and Torres.  Kuyt was never going to worry Evra on the right.  We need more quality, match winners, that's the problem.  The team isn't good enough to win the league, simple fact.

[bigmick]

Just to come back on the point about the two central midfield holders being pre-occupied with Anderson and Scholes, with both wide midfielders (Giggs and Ronaldo) being happy to come infield, I watched the game again last night (well the highlights anyway I aren't quite that sad) and the first goal was an intersting one. Somebody alluded in the match thread to the fact that arbeloa hadn't prevented Rooney getting the cross in, when in fact it was Carragher who was dragged out right over to the left touchline (our right) with Rooney, leaving Skyrtel on his own to deal with the cross.

I remain convinced that it was the responsibility of the centre half to head the ball away rather than duck underneath it, regardless of whether or not he recieved a shout from the goalkeeper. I did have another look at the "Brown climbed all over him" shout and to be honest in my view there isn't a case to answer. Brown simply attacks an area and the confusion between the goalkeeper and the defender let him, there was no foul.

Unfortunately I feel Skyrtel was at fault as well for the second, along in equal measure with Alonso and I think to a slightly lesser extent Reina. Skyrtel is busy wrestling with Tevez while Ronaldo heads it from his zone. Alonso's attempt to block off the goalscorer is desperately weak, and I think Reina spots the danger but just doesn't quite get there in time to avert disaster. The one redeeming factor for Alonso would be that I'm a little confused as to why he is asked to mark Ronaldo. Among his annoyingly many talents the little ponce is good in the air and despite his tendency to go down like a sack of sh!te, is strong as well. I would have thought Gerrard would have been a better pick for the task, perhaps it all had to be re-jigged after the sending off of Masherano but you'd have to have a really good look to know one way or the other.

To quickly revisit the Masherano sending off, although he was stupid to give Bennet the opportunity, the more you look at it the worse it looks as far as a display of bad refereeing goes. The clips which somebody kindly posted up of the Andy Gray/Jamie Redknapp debate where you got the full facial shot of mash smiling at the ref as he's talking really do make the Argentine look as though he's been very unlucky. To think he'll now probably get a three game ban as well is a massive injustice.

The other thing which came out of watching it again is that we had our moments and probably weren't as bad as was the first impression.

[Sabre]

Interesting thread this. It surprises me a bit though the "new" adjective that the system has. New was yesteryear in Liverpool. It wasn't used testimonially neither, it was used in the latter stages of the Champions league, and against Arsenal too, I'm talking without consulting in google (correct me if I'm wrong). My point is that it's not exactly new and that it actually has been tested against big teams. It's not untested before this season.

After reading the thread and giving the recovery of the blow a couple of days, I'll watch the game more calmly now before sleep, I cannot retain much details in big tension games the first time I watch the game.