ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Fri May 04, 2018 10:14 am wrote:We had a lot of joy with the early ball over the top in the first leg at Anfield and I think it went to the players heads, they seemed to automatically assume that the same tactic would work again. At Anfield though Roma played with 3 at the back, on Wednesday they changed formation.
The game just illustrated the lack of game intelligence in our midfield for me, the direct approach was clearly not working in fact all it was doing was giving the ball back cheaply to Roma yet for some bizarre reason we kept on flogging the same dead horse.
Where was the on field leadership? Why didn't someone say 'look these are building a head of steam up here and they are eating into our lead but if they haven't got the ball they can't score".
The game just illustrated the lack of game intelligence in our midfield for me
I'm with you on that Yakka .
I would add that given the players we have, tactically our only options seems to be a "Blitzkrieg" attack or a "Dig In" defence.
Our Midfield is "workman like" i.e. fairly solid and very hard working , unfortunately there is a desperate lack of creativity .
I'm not sure that tactically a 3 man midfield will allow us to include a creative player that can be given the freedom to roam and express himself.
Perhaps more flexibility needs to be included in our approach to to some games, a flexibility that would allow us to put a bit more flair into our midfield without surrendering our defensive ability ?
It's a hard one.
First of all we'd need a player who could see and thread a pass, i.e, a Gerrard, Alonso or Coutinho
If we had that , for some games only I'm wondering about the pro's and cons of 3-5-2 formation
E.G. (if all fit)
...................................Karius
......................Lovren.....Virgil......Matip
TAA........Oxlade......... ??creator? ...... ......Lallana .... Robertson
.......................Salah ...............Firmino
some subs ? a GK, Klavan (or another CB), Milner, Henderson, Wijnaldum, Mane,