ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:23 pm wrote:Doeboy » Sat Aug 12, 2017 3:18 pm wrote:Completely agree with Carra here...
Carragher replied: 'You talk about Van Dijk and yeah, he's a good player, but it comes from the sides of the pitch and the way Liverpool set up.
'They play so high and wide that they have a centre-back exposed there all the time. One player's not going to change that.'
He added at full-time: 'Liverpool lose the ball and their centre backs are exposed, even if you have Franco Baresi there you are going to get exposed.
'It's almost impossible. What defenders can do that?' Van Dijk will improve it, yeah, but one man can't change it all.'
'If you want to challenge for the Premier League then you need to concede 30 or 35 goals, so they need to take 15 goals away. The manager has been there 18 months now but there has been no change.
'It's not rocket science how Liverpool concede goals, set-pieces and counter attacks. It's not just players making one mistake, the whole system looks wrong and set-pieces are a mess. They have been for a long time.'
Interesting her makes the point about Klopp being there 18 months yet we still have the same defensive frailities.
It's not the system its the personnel, Spurs play exactly the same way we do but they had the second or third best defence in the country last year. In fact their fullbacks arguably play further up the pitch than ours do, the difference is that they have 2 rocks in Wanyama and Dier screening their defence whilst we have Hendo + another.
I do agree with Carragher though in the sense that I don't think Virgil Van Dijk will be the one man solution to all our problems, Matip and Lovren are actually not that bad, it's not often that they lose one-on-one duels in the air or on the floor it's just that they get very little protection.
We need to find our own versions of Wanyama and Dier, it's a pity Sakho is persona non grata, he might of filled one of the spots in our midfield.
More likely it's a combination of both to be honest mate. With our attacking game, we do leave ourselves very open defensively. Redknapp was going about how if we had Van Dijk out there today he would have cleared the danger for their first goal as he is a real physical presence while forgetting that Matip at 6'5 is hardly a dwarf.
On the spurs comparisons, they usually have Wanyama and Dembele playing in there with Dier as a 3rd centreback or sometimes coming in to rotate with Wanyama. I agree they are very good, especially Wanyama at filling in the holes at the back when they push forward. I think Keita would have been that kind of player for us but seeing as Leipzig don't seem to be budging, we have to look elsehwhere. However, having two rocks in front of our defence does not resolve our issues with conceding at set pieces. The below doesn't make good reading at all..
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHCKcb7XoAABn9a.jpg