Our style of play

[baitman]

I think we'll be mostly trying to play a midfield triangle with two at the back until Lucas is back. None of the available CMs can really do the deep job on their own but Allen and Gerrard can I feel work together to give a lot of midfield control. The issue is getting Gerrard to judge his balance of long balls to simple passes or runs forward better.

something like...

--------back four--------

----gerrard-----allen----

----shelvey or sahin-----

-------front three-------

to me it looks like the front three are too isolated.
i know they dont have to sit up top waiting for the ball, but the worry is that they will...

[baitman]

it has been good watching sahin take more of the play and some of the burden from steve, allowing him to do his thing. we have seen steve looking better with sahin doing his share.

some decent players with more game intelligence allows suarez to play better, as he must be more confident that other players are more aware of where hes going and what hes doing.

the defence is surprisingly looking a little disjointed

[baitman]

wing backs, attacking full backs...

imho, this leaves us a little susceptible to the counter attack.

in tonights game Vs. udinese glen was caught out of position a couple of times...
its always going to be struggle for glen or anyone else to play as a wing back. you bomb forward, then possession is lost. the ball is quickly played out and you are caught out of position.

its all fine and dandy when the wing back/full back does something funky up the other end but its only a matter of time before you are going to criticise them for being in the wrong place.
you will always be vulnerable to the fast counter attack playing this system.

i know the manager wants us to do well in the europa, its not like he doesnt care if we go out.
so why not try and be a little more solid...
surely a 4-4-2 will allow us to be a little tighter through the middle.

[RichC]

We miss Lucas, we empty the midfield too much and there is often a ball on that can be played behind our midlfielders due to the pressing.

[dom9]

I'm getting a bit worried. Not panicking, but there is concern.

Early days and all that, and we are playing some lovely football, but...

The games are far too open. Every single one of them. The possession game is fine, but there has to be tactical defensive discipline and a structured shape once the ball is lost. To me it seems that the defensive tactics are simply to close down the ball and win it back as fast as possible. Trouble with this is that opposing teams just seem to cut right through us when we lose the ball, with alarming regularity.

Players will make mistakes, there will be misplaced passes in every game. That is life. But what are we doing to minimise the damage caused when those mistakes happen? If anything, we seem to be maximising the damage.

I'm starting to pine a bit for Rafa's tactical organisation, and suffocation of the game. In many ways, quite opposite to the current regime's philosophy.

Can you see this team going to Juventus or Barca and grinding out a nil nil draw? I can't at the moment, but worryingly, I can't see the progression to getting to that level.

Early days, and I hope I am wrong.

[BigChief]

It is a high risk system, but then Barcelona have played it for 6 years so its obviously high reward too. The key is personnel. If individuals keep making mistakes then you have no chance, whether you're Liverpool, Barcelona or Swansea.

This is where our youngsters come in. There have been hardly any mistakes with them yet they are excelling in this system. Look at the list of major brain-farters so far: Reina, Agger, Skrtel, Johnson and Gerrard. All of them established internationals.

We must not revert to a defensive style just because these overpaid millionaires are deciding they're all billy big bllocks and don't need to concentrate for 90 minutes. We now have a very effective style in place. The necessary personnel will come to make this style a success. Its still headed in the right direction for me.

[dom9]

It is a high risk system, but then Barcelona have played it for 6 years so its obviously high reward too. The key is personnel. If individuals keep making mistakes then you have no chance, whether you're Liverpool, Barcelona or Swansea.

This is where our youngsters come in. There have been hardly any mistakes with them yet they are excelling in this system. Look at the list of major brain-farters so far: Reina, Agger, Skrtel, Johnson and Gerrard. All of them established internationals.

We must not revert to a defensive style just because these overpaid millionaires are deciding they're all billy big bllocks and don't need to concentrate for 90 minutes. We now have a very effective style in place. The necessary personnel will come to make this style a success. Its still headed in the right direction for me.

I pretty much disagree with all of that.

I think that Barcelona are extremely disciplined defensively. Yes, their attacks flow with mesmerising passing and movement, but not many teams get through their midfield and defence. There is a discipline which underpins their stylem which gives them the platform to express themselves. That bit is missing with us right now.

It does not matter if you are Lional Messi, Steven Gerrard or Stewart Downing, you will give the ball away at times. You can not have 100% pass completion. Impossible. So you need to mitigate the risk when it does go wrong. That doesn't mean reverting to a defensive formation, but it does mean getting the tactical basics right.

Whether players are overpaid or not is completely irrelevant. They are all carrying out the instructions given to them by the manager.

And no, I'm not sure the style is effective at getting results. It may become so, but right now it is reasonably ineffective imo.

[dww]

I pretty much disagree with all of that.

I think that Barcelona are extremely disciplined defensively. Yes, their attacks flow with mesmerising passing and movement, but not many teams get through their midfield and defence. There is a discipline which underpins their stylem which gives them the platform to express themselves. That bit is missing with us right now.

It does not matter if you are Lional Messi, Steven Gerrard or Stewart Downing, you will give the ball away at times. You can not have 100% pass completion. Impossible. So you need to mitigate the risk when it does go wrong. That doesn't mean reverting to a defensive formation, but it does mean getting the tactical basics right.

Whether players are overpaid or not is completely irrelevant. They are all carrying out the instructions given to them by the manager.

And no, I'm not sure the style is effective at getting results. It may become so, but right now it is reasonably ineffective imo.

I share much of your concern. That said I think it is a mistake to always use Barcelona, rather than Spain as the model for what we are trying to do.

Part of the problem at the minute seems to be that the basics of tactics in the new system are different to those (at least some, probably most of) our players have been bought up with. There are questions for me as to a/ whether we can overcome that n time and b/ whether the tactics work as well in a higher tempo environment such as the PL.

Another thing which I've found interesting in the past is how Barcelona press hard for a while before effectively bluffing it. It seems to be part of a long standing strategy but on occasion it has led to real problems (I remember a CL game against Arsenal in particular where Walcott came on to change the game). I wonder if we have a problem getting the balance right at the minute or coordinating all our players. In particular the way Pacheco pressed on his own against Young Boys seems to indicate that different players are either a/ getting different messages or b/ learning at different rates.

[baitman]

some good points with regards to how we should proceed once we lose possession. chasing the ball and running into thin air like headless chickens doesnt work. their needs to be a more disciplined approach.

there has to be a middle way, not every man chasing the ball down, not every man behind the ball like sir Woy

we need the back four to fill the defensive positions. if a full back is out of position then a midfielder needs to cover.
the forwards and attacking midfielders can chase the ball and close down the oppo players in possession and the options for a quick pass. this still gives us the option to quickly win back possession.
once we have tightened up at the back, rather than continuing to sit deep we can start to push out and press the game again.

this should give us some solidity at the back, and still allow for some of the team to press the ball to give the defence time to fall back to the trenches.

[dom9]

I don't know what the answer is as I am a tactical onion, but I hope BR does, and that he starts to successfully implement it soon.

How is it possible to dominate every single game with 60% - 70% possession, but yet ship an average of more than 2 goals per game? Bonkers.

[baitman]

I don't know what the answer is as I am a tactical onion, but I hope BR does, and that he starts to successfully implement it soon.

How is it possible to dominate every single game with 60% - 70% possession, but yet ship an average of more than 2 goals per game? Bonkers.

this is the 64,000 euro question...

shows that possession alone isnt the holy grail.

would be interesting to see the possession stats from rafa's reign, maybe we did better at putting the ball away, but were less concerned about how much of it we had, but we just made it count better when we had it.

there were games when we were happy to have less of the ball, play a solid defensive game, and hit teams on the counter.
almost anti-tika-taka [< copyrighted] but nevertheless very effective...

[Buzzo]

I think that though attractive for us, right now, BR's tactics are inherently flawed. I don't think we have the ability to knock it about at the back under pressure (few teams do) and it was doing this for about 10 mins that brought Udinese onto us, as we sank deeper and deeper.

The fact is we are not Barcelona, Real Madrid, Spain or Swansea. It is Liverpool that BR manages now and I'd suggest we need to have a solid platform defensively to build this expansive passing game onto. I think BR is being given a greater amount of time to fit in than any manager I can remember at a big club, and that is laudable, however it is results we are interested in and they need to improve also. I wonder what his credentials for defensive coaching are, for the last goal the position of our back 4 and midfield when the ball went in was atrocious. Perhaps he needs to bring someone into the team who specialises in defensive coaching?

Not anti-BR at all, (I agree with Dom's concerns) and have been starting to warm to him, but have not been warming to losing so many games and winning so few

[dom9]

this is the 64,000 euro question...

shows that possession alone isnt the holy grail.

would be interesting to see the possession stats from rafa's reign, maybe we did better at putting the ball away, but were less concerned about how much of it we had, but we just made it count better when we had it.

there were games when we were happy to have less of the ball, play a solid defensive game, and hit teams on the counter.
almost anti-tika-taka [< copyrighted] but nevertheless very effective...

Yep, I do think the style under Rafa was almost the opposite of what we have now.

I remember him saying once that the idea was to pressure the opposition and condense the play as much as possible with the inevitable outcome that the ball would go loose quite a bit. From there, having superior players would mean that they use the ball a lot better than the opposition. And we did too. We had the best midfield in the world. It really was ours for a couple of years.

[danperkins]

I think that though attractive for us, right now, BR's tactics are inherently flawed. I don't think we have the ability to knock it about at the back under pressure (few teams do) and it was doing this for about 10 mins that brought Udinese onto us, as we sank deeper and deeper.

The fact is we are not Barcelona, Real Madrid, Spain or Swansea. It is Liverpool that BR manages now and I'd suggest we need to have a solid platform defensively to build this expansive passing game onto. I think BR is being given a greater amount of time to fit in than any manager I can remember at a big club, and that is laudable, however it is results we are interested in and they need to improve also. I wonder what his credentials for defensive coaching are, for the last goal the position of our back 4 and midfield when the ball went in was atrocious. Perhaps he needs to bring someone into the team who specialises in defensive coaching?

Not anti-BR at all, (I agree with Dom's concerns) and have been starting to warm to him, but have not been warming to losing so many games and winning so few

completely agree.

Noticed this in several games this season where one of our defenders (Reina included) gets the ball in a tight space, in a defensive position & with opposition closing them down. You can see that they just want to boot the ball out of danger & try a long ball but Rogers clearly doesn't want or allow that, so we can see these nervy,heart in mouth moments with us fumbling around the back trying to pick a short pass and play the ball out of defense tika taka style. Skrtel,Reina & of course Carra seem to be really struggling with this.

We need a solid backline first and foremost and then let everyone else worry about this tika taka side of things. IMO sometimes you just need to hoof the ball and get it out of dodge!! Barca are an exception to this as they have players that can do this, whereas Rogers is forcing this upon LFC players that have been playing a certain way for years and now all of a sudden they have to change their game completely & this is showing. We look so uncomfortable in possession at the back.

Also IMO we really are changing our backline far too much. Obviously Reina has been poor for awhile but surely having different guys infront of you & switching the likes of Johnson around the place can't really be doing any good for the communication side of things.

We are great to watch, very entertaining but also "very open & very vunerable". Allen is great in possession and tries his best with the defensive sides of things... but he is not an out and out defensive midfielder, nor is Henderson, nor is Gerrard, nor is Shelvey. We need that buffer infront of an already leaky defense and goalkeeper.

Our form at Anfield though is nothing short of embarrassing, has to be sorted. Hope he chewed the bollocks of some players for their lack of concentration and laziness. I don't think i can remember a Liverpool team making so many individual errors, it's bordering on ridiculous at this stage.

Lot of positives but some really worrying concerns too.

[dom9]

I think to say that we need a solid backline is far too simplistic. The midfield and defence need to dovetail much better. That's not necessarily just by having a better defensive midfielder like Lucas. The whole midfield needs to function as unit and seamlessly link to the defence and attack. This is basic stuff, right?

I think a lot of the goals we have conceded have been the result of the defence being completely exposed when the ball is given away, even as far up the pitch as the opposition area (see the Arsenal game).

Again to compare and contrast with Rafa, he would typically play with two holding midfielders. Masch, Didi, Sissoko were able to play in those positions. At the moment, it seems to be down to Allen to that job on his own without much in the way of support. Swap Lucas for Allen, and the level of exposure we have now will still be there.