Stu the Red » Thu Feb 06, 2014 3:35 pm wrote:You play your best players in their best positions. Its as simple as that. You play a player like Suarez in his best position where he will touch the ball as many times as possible in dangerous area's. You don't want him having to track over lapping full backs to the edge of his own box. If he has 80 touches in a game and 40 are on the wing.. instead of in the opposition half or area, then you're negating his influence.
i'm gonna butt in here as well. so prepare your "in all honestys" and your "quite simply know nothing about the game's" now stu.
you play your best players in their best positions. quite true and completely logical. but what happens when you have two players who, on current form, lay a claim to being the best goalscorer? rodgers has two options (three if you inlcude your 'bench sturridge' option but lets gloss over that one) - play suarez central and sturridge out wide, or play sturridge central and suarez out wide.
if you play sturridge out wide he is not going to track back anywhere near as well as suarez does. suarez always goes deep hunting for the ball, whether he's playing central or not. its just what he does. sturridge is also not going to create as many goals for the man playing central as he's always likely to cut in and shoot for himself. suarez will happily create when its the best option too. the fact is he always roves all across the front line anyway.
suarez form has not dipped in the slightest but the emphasis of his game has shifted. if it wasn't for the width of the coat of paint on the post he'd have 3 or 3 more goals to his name from recent games. meanwhile sturridge has been feeding off his (and coutinho's and sterling's brilliance) and been scoring a hat full of goals. in this system suarez and sturridge complement each other, swap them over and you minimise that potential. its a team game and rodgers has foind the best way to set out the team with these players. if sturridge wasn't scoring then we could see it as a problem - but he is and it isn't.