Liverpool FC Forum

Madmax wrote:

tonyeh wrote:4-5-1 worked for a few games last season...that's all and that's only because Gerrard and Torres were firing on all cylinders. Also, I think Torres caught a lot of teams by surprise last season.

It's no reason at all to believe that it'll work in general this year.

But it's clear that it leaves us struggling for goals every time it's used, because the mid section aren't able to support it. They don't move up with the ball, therefore there's nobody in the box, except the lone striker who's usually marginalised out of the game. So far this year, we've seen it with Keane, Kuyt AND Torres.

I don't care if Rafa wants to play 4-5-1, but for fecks sake, it has to be instilled in the mid section to attack, otherwise they're p!ssing against the wind.

I'm not saying 4-4-2 will offer garrunteed results, but at the very least it will force the oppositions defence to split their attention and make it possible for one of the strikers to make a break.

As for Babel, I'd never play him as a LM, because he clearly isn't one. On top of everything else he lacks in that position, he's a right footer, which means he's absolutely destined to turn inside. In fact, I would have tried him out up top with Torres in a 4-4-2 and played Riera in his natural position, even it was only for the last 30 minutes when we should have gone for the throat.

We may have played better (if only in the 2nd half) than we did in the last Everton game, but as I said, on Sunday Liverpool were chasing the game. I'd rather see Liverpool play like they did midweek and win, than play like they did on Sunday and still come away with a draw.

Regarding Kuyt, I don't believe he does do a better job than Benny, he has just had more games. I consider both of them as nothing players to be honest and would be more than happy to see them both gone and the funds used to buy a proper RM player. Kuyt has absolutely no product. He reminds me of a hamster running in a wheel. Lots of energy being used but utterly pointless and useless.

The problem that we could have with the 4-5-1 as you have emphasized is the mid section. We only have gerrard supporting torres whoes actually almost playing a striker role. In that formation i think you need your wide players to be attacking and a mid section player to support gerrards runs. Riera on the left is good but our achilles heel the right pos is the problem. Not a genuine player to contribute with an attack.
Mid section problem we have is with alonso and macha, they tend to play to deep.
If we could adopt a formation that would leave one player as a defensive mid and 4 attacking mids supporting torres, i think would be more effective.
Its a formation legbarnes posted on one of the threads.
Would go something like this

               Riena
Arba      carra  skrtel/agger    Dossena/aurelli

                 Mascha


kuty/benny  Alonso    gerrard   Riera/babel?

                 Torres

4-4-2 is a good formation but i still am not convinced that we are good at it. This season we have not played particularly well. Only way around that formation is if we find a prolific striker that could work well with torres and a class right mid player.

Also going back on dirky boy i think at the moment his the best option we have got at right mid. You said benny is in the same boat as him. I would agree but considering our options i think i would take kuyt over benny.
Until we sort out our right mid were stuck with kuyt..

Bad Bob wrote:

Madmax wrote:

tonyeh wrote:4-5-1 worked for a few games last season...that's all and that's only because Gerrard and Torres were firing on all cylinders. Also, I think Torres caught a lot of teams by surprise last season.

It's no reason at all to believe that it'll work in general this year.

But it's clear that it leaves us struggling for goals every time it's used, because the mid section aren't able to support it. They don't move up with the ball, therefore there's nobody in the box, except the lone striker who's usually marginalised out of the game. So far this year, we've seen it with Keane, Kuyt AND Torres.

I don't care if Rafa wants to play 4-5-1, but for fecks sake, it has to be instilled in the mid section to attack, otherwise they're p!ssing against the wind.

I'm not saying 4-4-2 will offer garrunteed results, but at the very least it will force the oppositions defence to split their attention and make it possible for one of the strikers to make a break.

As for Babel, I'd never play him as a LM, because he clearly isn't one. On top of everything else he lacks in that position, he's a right footer, which means he's absolutely destined to turn inside. In fact, I would have tried him out up top with Torres in a 4-4-2 and played Riera in his natural position, even it was only for the last 30 minutes when we should have gone for the throat.

We may have played better (if only in the 2nd half) than we did in the last Everton game, but as I said, on Sunday Liverpool were chasing the game. I'd rather see Liverpool play like they did midweek and win, than play like they did on Sunday and still come away with a draw.

Regarding Kuyt, I don't believe he does do a better job than Benny, he has just had more games. I consider both of them as nothing players to be honest and would be more than happy to see them both gone and the funds used to buy a proper RM player. Kuyt has absolutely no product. He reminds me of a hamster running in a wheel. Lots of energy being used but utterly pointless and useless.

The problem that we could have with the 4-5-1 as you have emphasized is the mid section. We only have gerrard supporting torres whoes actually almost playing a striker role. In that formation i think you need your wide players to be attacking and a mid section player to support gerrards runs. Riera on the left is good but our achilles heel the right pos is the problem. Not a genuine player to contribute with an attack.
Mid section problem we have is with alonso and macha, they tend to play to deep.
If we could adopt a formation that would leave one player as a defensive mid and 4 attacking mids supporting torres, i think would be more effective.
Its a formation legbarnes posted on one of the threads.
Would go something like this

               Riena
Arba      carra  skrtel/agger    Dossena/aurelli

                 Mascha


kuty/benny  Alonso    gerrard   Riera/babel?

                 Torres

4-4-2 is a good formation but i still am not convinced that we are good at it. This season we have not played particularly well. Only way around that formation is if we find a prolific striker that could work well with torres and a class right mid player.

Also going back on dirky boy i think at the moment his the best option we have got at right mid. You said benny is in the same boat as him. I would agree but considering our options i think i would take kuyt over benny.
Until we sort out our right mid were stuck with kuyt..

I really don't think that the formation matters at all in these situations.  Our established problem, going back several seasons and very apparent this season, is breaking down teams that sit deep and look to get numbers behind the ball.  In these situations, most of our players end up being camped in the opponent's half so it's not like Torres is getting isolated up top or anything like that.  In most cases, we look like this:

           Carragher                            Skrtel
----------------------Centre Line-----------------------------

                  Alonso                Masch

Arbeloa                                                               Dossena

        Kuyt                      Gerrard                       Riera

                               Torres

               ---------------------------------------
                             Opponent's  Area



What we lack has nothing to do with the formation and everything to do with the type of player needed to break teams down.  We lack someone with the guile and creativity to work in congested spaces around the "D" and play the likes of Torres and Stevie and Riera in with nice little through balls.  We also lack fullbacks who can consistently get around the back of the opponents and put in dangerous balls into the box.  In short, we have a personnel problem, not a formation problem.

Against deep defences, our forwards (mainly Torres) are stuck fixing the position between the central backs outside the box or receiving on the wing, he never help the midfield keeping the ball back to the goal (it allows to the midfield line and the fullbacks go ahead). Another problem is with our hold midfielders (Mascherano and Alonso), they never go forward, they have no mobility. Look at Anderson at United, he has mobility, it breaks the defences. If our hold midfielders are fixing their position that´s good for not conceding goals but it´s impossible to beat "ten men behind the ball".

We have no mobility, our forwards doesn´t help the midfield, and we played too direct. We have good enough players to beat Stoke, West Ham, Fulham and bitters ten times in a row. Our problem is not the lack of quality players.