aCe' » Wed Aug 01, 2018 3:20 am wrote:I don’t think Shaqiri would start. Defies the purpose of getting him in the first place which is having a decent option to bring on from the bench. Him and Sturridge are our ‘game changers’.
I can see us rotating the RB slot ala Tottenham this season if both TAA and Clyde are fit.
Midfield 3 will be Fabinho, Keita, Henderson/Lallana. I’m almost certain klopp will start Henderson until he’s able to trust Fabinho in that single pivot. If Keita or Fabinho don’t hit the ground running I can see them losing their place in the starting 11. I have concerns over Fabinho’s ability to adapt and wouldn’t be surprised if he sat on the bench for long stretches in the first half of the season.
I can see him starting Shaquiri as an AM or at least I hope he does, particularly at home.
I think one of our biggest challenges this season will be breaking down packed defences, teams know we have strengthened in the transfer market so they will be even more wary of taking us on toe-to-toe, they also know that last season we struggled to break teams down who defended deep and got numbers behind the ball.
Given the bookies have installed us as second favourites to win the title at just 4-1 I think teams will see a point against us as a decent result. Packing our midfield with DM's like Fabinho/Henderson or uncreative AM's like Lallana won't achieve anything, we already know Mo, Bobby and Sadio struggle against packed defenses, we saw it all last season, they need help from midfield and before you say Keita he said himself in his first interview for LFCTV that he is primarily a defensive minded player who can get forward on occasion.
IMO our season will hinge on wether we can find a AM who can break down packed defences like DeBruyne does for City.
Wether that man is Shaquiri, Fekir or whoever we need to find someone if we want to genuinely challenge City.
Even though teams set up uber defensively against them and defended deep and in numbers City only had 4 draws out of 38 games last year, that's because De Bruyne broke them down, who is our DeBruyne?