Our style of play

[Doc_Piptorious]

Firmino - 24 starts, 16 goals, 8 assists
Salah - 25 starts, 23 goals, 6 assists
Coutinho - 17 starts, 12 goals, 8 assists
Mane - 16 starts, 7 goals, 6 assists

Normally the stats for the other three would look very impressive, but Salah's makes the rest look a bit average.

Must see if I can find the minutes played in all comps for that quartet and see how their G and A stats match up.



EDIT: Found it for the PL


Firmino - 1499 minutes played - 9 goals and 4 assists - roughly a goal or assist every 115 minutes
Salah - 1597 minutes played - 17 goals and 5 assists - roughly a goal or assist every 73 minutes
Coutinho-1116 minutes played - 7 goals and 6 assists - roughly a goal or assist every 89 minutes

Mane - 924 minutes played - 4 goals and 4 assists - roughly a goal or assist every 116 minutes



Interesting that Mane's goal/assist output is almost the same as that of Firmino's despite him looking below par

[baitman]

can was trying his best to make himself invisible yesterday, he has fell a long way off his perch and i dont think anyone dreams of a team of emre cans any longer.

when we are going forward he is too far back and leave the midfield vacant.
when the opposition has the ball he is too far forward so he is too easily bypassed. henderson does this too...
can just looks 'lazy' and maybe already dreaming of his summers in italy.

can did get it right a couple of times but these are supposed to be professional players and there is one of the best coaches watching him and it still goes on game after game...

all this 'give and go' isnt being implemented correctly.
it became more obvious from when joe allen came into the team and still persists.
a player receives the pass and plays the ball to a teammate and then blindly runs forward. maybe the thinking is that a defender will follow the runner, but often they are just running into an area already occupied by another defender so do not take a defender with them to open space nor make themselves open for a return pass.

with teammates playing a pass and running away the only options left are a hopeful long ball or a sideways or back pass and its not progressing our play.
the modern game means even the lesser teams will be pressing us when our team has the ball in defence so having lads pass it and run away is so defeatist it makes me swear at the tv...
we need to be playing the little triangles if we are being pressed as most teams wont be pressing with many of their forward players and it still creates better options to go left or right, forward or backwards so we can quickly build the play again.

[Shaggy]

I think it's clearly pretty difficult to perform when your head is elsewhere, for some anyway. VVD no good for Southampton, Sanchez stinking the place out at Arsenal. Can's performances have been mostly crap this season.

Didn't affect Suarez or Coutinho obviously, but still. I wish we were in a position where we could leave Can out more often than not cos he's been ****e.

[Doc_Piptorious]

I think it's clearly pretty difficult to perform when your head is elsewhere, for some anyway. VVD no good for Southampton, Sanchez stinking the place out at Arsenal. Can's performances have been mostly crap this season.

Didn't affect Suarez or Coutinho obviously, but still. I wish we were in a position where we could leave Can out more often than not cos he's been ****e.

Yeah he is playing like a guy whose move has already been confirmed behind closed doors and as such does not feel he has to put himself in the shop window or that he is just going through the motions to keep fit and avoid injury.


Would not be surprised to see an official announcement of his summer move to Juve or elsewhere made very early in January.



As you say, it is just a shame that we do not have enough quality available to us in the centre at present so we could afford to bench him

[Exiled_red]

I think it's clearly pretty difficult to perform when your head is elsewhere, for some anyway. VVD no good for Southampton, Sanchez stinking the place out at Arsenal. Can's performances have been mostly crap this season.

Didn't affect Suarez or Coutinho obviously, but still. I wish we were in a position where we could leave Can out more often than not cos he's been ****e.

I think that it is a different situation for attacking players than defensive players if you are a Suarez or a Coutinho you aren't relying on concentration so much, a few moments of individual brilliance are 'all' that is required, those not only help the team but help your cause. For a Can or VVD you need to focus for the entire game to look good and I would imagine that is more difficult if your mind is elsewhere.

Although this doesn't explain why Sanchez is **** so maybe nonsense

[BG1973]

I think that it is a different situation for attacking players than defensive players if you are a Suarez or a Coutinho you aren't relying on concentration so much, a few moments of individual brilliance are 'all' that is required, those not only help the team but help your cause. For a Can or VVD you need to focus for the entire game to look good and I would imagine that is more difficult if your mind is elsewhere.

Although this doesn't explain why Sanchez is **** so maybe nonsense

I believe It’s because Suarwz and Phil both had/have agreements with the club that they can move on after extra year.

Everyone knows where they stand - so can forget the speculation and pull together for one last season.

[Shaggy]

I believe It’s because Suarwz and Phil both had/have agreements with the club that they can move on after extra year.

Everyone knows where they stand - so can forget the speculation and pull together for one last season.

Probably spot on that, good point.

[Exiled_red]

To be honest Can has never really proved himself to be a good player for me. He's never really established himself as a regular in the first 11. He's has runs of games and has looked good at times, but for me our midfield had not been good enough for a while and he should have been able to establish himself as the dominant force in there and he's never done that. He might go on to be a great player elsewhere but to be honest what I've seen of him for us I don't think he'll be missed. The most frustrating thing for me is that despite his crap performances he's still getting so much game time. That's a fairly damming enticement of the other guys in there.

[BigChief]

I believe It’s because Suarwz and Phil both had/have agreements with the club that they can move on after extra year.

Everyone knows where they stand - so can forget the speculation and pull together for one last season.

Possibly. But I think it's more to do with world cup years. Forcing both to stay on one more season knowing they would never underperform due to the upcoming summer competitions is understated genius from us. Top money and one more free season.

[Red_Polo]

I believe It’s because Suarwz and Phil both had/have agreements with the club that they can move on after extra year.

Everyone knows where they stand - so can forget the speculation and pull together for one last season.

[labourRed]

I don't watch much of Arsenal but caught the Palace game at a club and Sanchez certainly wasn't ****. But it can't be fun when your team mates can't even be arsed celebrating with you.

[Shaggy]

I don't watch much of Arsenal but caught the Palace game at a club and Sanchez certainly wasn't ****. But it can't be fun when your team mates can't even be arsed celebrating with you.

First good performance for ages, he's been dire.

[EwarWoo]

First good performance for ages, he's been dire.

You can hardly blame him. No matter how much brilliance he puts in his team mates **** it up for him.

Him and Ox were the only ones who looked ****ed start of the season then Ox was sold.

He's given up.

I think it's why he wants our rather than being caused by him wanting out.

[Fosterbloke]

Hopefully Arsenal will fade into obscurity next season.

[Fuzzy]

[ame]https://twitter.com/TheAnfieldWrap/status/950842230499135490[/ame]

Having just signed Van Dijk, and supposedly also wanting another CB (Akanji), who do you think should leave us? We'll have too many players there, especially if we start thinking about Gomez as a CB too...

Van Dijk
New potential CB
Matip
Gomez
Klavan
Lovren...

Personally I know I want us to keep Klavan, he's one of those players that every top club should have, an experienced, reliable and quality player (also cheap) that can step in when necessary, but he's probably 4th or 5th in line. So right now it doesn't look that great for Lovren's future with all of his insane moments, although I really like him as well, not that great of a defender, but a very passionate nutcase that definitely has some clutch moments in him.

Then again we might not sign another CB, and Gomez could still play RB next season. If we get a new goalkeeper to calm everyone down, would you be happy with the current four CB's going into next season?