Liverpool FC Forum

bigmick wrote:Also I think it's worth pointing out that one of the differences between football in england as opposed to the rest of Europe, is the brute force of teams in the way they attack balls aerially into the box. I've no doubt at all that if Cahill played on the continent, every time he contested a header it would be a foul to the opposition. Heskey and Crouch both have the same problem when playing for England, Ferguson had it for the "ifithadnerbeenfer" goal at Villareal, and such a free kick given against Shearer probably cost us the World Cup a while back.

I'll probably be on my own here, but I think Cannavaro would struggle in the Premiership from set pieces. You need a more rugged approach, and sheer size. Hyppia, John Terry, Vidic and the like are they types you need.

I agree totaly english game is about power nowa days you need that force in air that sort of thing where the defender makes a statement "you ain't getting nothing if its near me" sort of thing.

Mancs have it every game they look impossible almost to beat in air.

Look at arsholes there defence is so weak in air they are finding it very hard to cope this season Expect them to strenghten for next season.

I just see we have 3 of intercept and pass defender and 1 aireal type defender in team and he can't play every match.

s@int wrote:I heard we were interested in the CB off Fulham, but £10million would be a big slice out of our transfer budget I would imagine.

Hangeland? Would be a lot of money, I'm not convinced we need to keep splashing cash on CBs. We've got four, we spent around £6m on the last two and perhaps the problem isn't the CBs but the team defending crosses and set-pieces in general. I'm just not convinced many of the outfield players like defending crosses, doesn't matter how good your CBs are in the air if there are only two players plus one or two others prepared to fight to win the ball in the air.

Going to try this temporary locking idea while I sweep up some of the off-topic stuff in here.  I'll re-open this in a minute or two and will ask that people stick to talking about our CBs.

As you were (except for the irrelevant bitching part ).

Owzat wrote:

s@int wrote:I heard we were interested in the CB off Fulham, but £10million would be a big slice out of our transfer budget I would imagine.

Hangeland? Would be a lot of money, I'm not convinced we need to keep splashing cash on CBs. We've got four, we spent around £6m on the last two and perhaps the problem isn't the CBs but the team defending crosses and set-pieces in general. I'm just not convinced many of the outfield players like defending crosses, doesn't matter how good your CBs are in the air if there are only two players plus one or two others prepared to fight to win the ball in the air.

I remember the Liverpool v Blackburn game a few years back, We drew 1-1 that day at anfield. Mccarthy's goal was from poor defending in our part, it came from a cross that BOTH Carragher and Agger missed, landed on Mccarthy and he scored. Hyppia would have dealt with that, it wasn't really high to begin with, but Agger and Carragher didn't deal with it.

Bad Bob wrote:Going to try this temporary locking idea while I sweep up some of the off-topic stuff in here.  I'll re-open this in a minute or two and will ask that people stick to talking about our CBs.

Except I was editing a reply and got a "thread locked" message so I now lost everything I was posting thinking it had been permanently locked.....................

Judge wrote:i had a CB once, rubbish. had to learn a new language

14 for a copy good buddy     

mkingdom wrote:I don't think there is too much wrong with our CBs, and I would certainly rather spend any cash elsewhere in the team, like another world class CF and a top class RW.

I think chopping and changing the back 4 doesn't help.  The OP compared us to three of four years ago...the difference is that in those times we rarely changed our line up, so good bad or indifferent they knew each other, the system etc.

Now we have a different back four nearly every game which can't help...especially when one of them is Dossena.

We need to decide who are best four are (preferably without Dossena) and stick to it for a period of time...then see how good or bad we look.

In the meantime, just sign David Villa.      

Perhaps part of the problem is where the rest of our team came from. Apart from Gerrard, Carra (youth) Mascherano and Benayoun, the rest of our players came from overseas. That may or may not contribute to our defensive woes from crosses, but I don't think it's helped.

The mancs may not have signed huge numbers from the Premiership, but maybe key that Ferdinand, Van Der Sar, Carrick, Rooney and Berbatov were on top of homegrown Fletcher, Scholes, Giggs, O'Shea etc. Also helps that Ronaldo and Vidic are strong in the air.

From a piece done by Football Focus a while back, Arsenal were weakest of the 'big four' from set-pieces and everyone knows how lacking they are in English players. Are any of their signings from English clubs? Even the youth players were pinched off overseas clubs. Chelsea have Terry, Cole and  Lampard off the top of my head who have English based upbringing in football. Maybe it's that you either need strong aerial players like Sami or experienced players in the English style of game