THE Lucas thread

[wiw]

It's also about ability, or used to be until we became obsessed with systems.

I'll leave you with a quote from RAWK:

Lucas is a better central midfielder than Gerrard.

Good night.

closes thread

[cream]

It's also about ability, or used to be until we became obsessed with systems.

I'll leave you with a quote from RAWK:

Lucas is a better central midfielder than Gerrard.

Good night.

Lol

Lucas passes the ball 5 metres and Rawk turns into a wankfest.

[Exiled_red]

Maybe those trying to protect Lucas for the sake of it can come up with some reasons why he deserves his place in a Liverpool team instead of using these vague excuses about systems and departed players. He's either good enough or he's not.

The two are not independent issues, I believe Lucas is not playing his natural game, we are trying to get him to play Xabi's role, which doesn't suit him. I believe if he were allowed to play his natural role, he would perform better. For me you can't judge if he is good enough or not until he has had a regular run in his natural position. If you were to only play Mascherano in Gerrard's position you would come to the conclusion that he wasn't good, but if you play him in the role he regularly plays in he obviously would be ... the same is true of Lucas.

[Exiled_red]

Football is all about systems these days.

There used to be a time when a CM was a CM and that was it. Now days there are more specialist roles about.

Lucas is not a bad player, he is just not good enough to play in the role he has been given. If we played a different system he may well be ready to play first team football, not that this helps us much I understand.

I seem to be agreeing with you alot in this thread...

[cream]

The two are not independent issues, I believe Lucas is not playing his natural game, we are trying to get him to play Xabi's role, which doesn't suit him. I believe if he were allowed to play his natural role, he would perform better. For me you can't judge if he is good enough or not until he has had a regular run in his natural position. If you were to only play Mascherano in Gerrard's position you would come to the conclusion that he wasn't good, but if you play him in the role he regularly plays in he obviously would be ... the same is true of Lucas.

What makes you think he isn't been allowed to plays his natural game?

[DannyMan2006]

I meant that Alonso too had problems or questions were asked about his ability to play under pressure, I agree that Lucas and Alonso are completely different players, Alonso is a play maker and Lucas isn't. I've been saying for a while that in order to get the best out of Lucas we need to let him play his natural game not try to force him into copying Xabi's game and trying to make him into Xabi mk2

The bit not in bold first: I understand Alonso struggled early doors. He was poor at times hence the reason he was nearly sold before. But what is upsetting people now is that we have ten players in our first team who are capable of winning the title, this was proved last season as it ended. The one grey mark is the loss of Alonso and whether the team could manage without him. People will look at the results of late and draw their own conclusions.

The bit in bold: I agree, but Lucas has to have the confidence to express himself on the game and tell players around him how to make the best use of him.

For instance Niall Quinn would have told Kevin Phillips to get in front of him and feed of the balls that he won in the air. If Kevin Phillips had stayed alongside Quinn or dropped deep it would have looked like Quinn was not doing his job and instead wasting possession.

Lucas has been in and around Melwood long enough to know how other players in the system play their game. What he needs to get across is how he will play in this system. Maybe he could tell Mascherano to stay deep and cover his forward runs.

[Liverpel]

That's not true at all, Plessis has made several first team appearances and frankly, if you think Lucas is bad.....

[tomasjj]

Maybe he could tell Mascherano to stay deep and cover his forward runs.

At least two ways of looking at that.
Usually I think Lucas is good at timing his runs and deciding when to get forward.
Tonight though, I thought he was a bit of a headless chicken, like he couldn't really decide what to do. The result being he went forward at the wrong times and far too often in fact.
Many times the result was, we lost the ball, villa countered, and Mascher had a lot of room to cover.

That said, I like Lucas getting forward, and the wast space offered to villa was a result of rafa's continuous fear of getting caught out on the counter by pace...like at spurs. So our d sat too deep and our team was stretched.

This stretched team business also meant that lucas and mascher didnt get the help they needed against a 3 man midfield, neither from the attackin mids, nor from the defenders as there was too much space for us to cover to win the ball. Result being our lightweight midfield was bossed again, like palacios and huddlestone did a week ago.

[DannyMan2006]

What makes you think he isn't been allowed to plays his natural game?

Maybe the fact that he has only ever been played in such a role at LFC.

In Brazil where he was rated so highly and for the Brazilian teams he played more as a box to box midfielder.

I guess the only argument of any relvance that would be completely fair is whether or not Lucas is capable of becoming a first team player in the system Rafa tends to favour.

Is Lucas capable of adapting his game long term to adapt to this system?

[Exiled_red]

It's also about ability, or used to be until we became obsessed with systems.

Are you saying that systems don't matter? Surely watching any form of football you see that systems are important, you need the ability to play the system well, as it's a case of playing to your strengths. Just having the best players won't win you anything with out the system. Alot of teams have success by not having the best players but having an effective system, how else would the 'park the bus' mentality work?

[DannyMan2006]

Are you saying that systems don't matter? Surely watching any form of football you see that systems are important, you need the ability to play the system well, as it's a case of playing to your strengths. Just having the best players won't win you anything with out the system. Alot of teams have success by not having the best players but having an effective system, how else would the 'park the bus' mentality work?

[Guest]

Torres was absolute pants today. And to be honest, he's been absolute pants since the start of the season. Start a thread about him.

[calvoboy]

Lucas did alright tonight apart from the own-goal (which was just one of those things that happen from time to time - ask Carra!). Kuyt and Gerrard were woeful.

Overall though, I honestly don't think we were as bad as the scoreline suggests. An own goal, a goal from a corner that was never a corner, and one of the most ridiculous, stupid, gifts of a penalty you'll ever see from Gerrard. That's all they had. At the other end, for all our faults, Friedel was arguably man of the match. We'll play worse than that and win, and everyone will be all smiles and complimenting the players.

[cream]

Torres was absolute pants today. And to be honest, he's been absolute pants since the start of the season. Start a thread about him.

Torres is a world class player, has been world class for us and will be world class in the future. People are sick and tired of waiting for Lucas to come good.

[MrMichael]

At least two ways of looking at that.
Usually I think Lucas is good at timing his runs and deciding when to get forward.
Tonight though, I thought he was a bit of a headless chicken, like he couldn't really decide what to do. The result being he went forward at the wrong times and far too often in fact.
Many times the result was, we lost the ball, villa countered, and Mascher had a lot of room to cover.

That said, I like Lucas getting forward, and the wast space offered to villa was a result of rafa's continuous fear of getting caught out on the counter by pace...like at spurs. So our d sat too deep and our team was stretched.

This stretched team business also meant that lucas and mascher didnt get the help they needed against a 3 man midfield, neither from the attackin mids, nor from the defenders as there was too much space for us to cover to win the ball. Result being our lightweight midfield was bossed again, like palacios and huddlestone did a week ago.

Tend to agree with that analysis