Liverpool vs Man Utd - Premier League (20/21 - Game 18)

[rodo]

That for me was the perfect advert for fan free football. Without the passion there's nothing.

I know we all love footy, and need something to cheer us up / take our minds off the pandemic.......but it is a bit **** without fans isn't it??

It`s ****ing awful and my interest is dwindling by the week

[RichC]

The problem with Hendo and Fabinho at the back is not having them in midfield. They both had great games.

Massive loss in midfield, the loss of our regualar CBs has had a bigger effect on us that just having to play makeshift defenders back there.

[RichC]

I know we all love footy, and need something to cheer us up / take our minds off the pandemic.......but it is a bit **** without fans isn't it??

I've struggled with it from when we first came back from lockdown last season, even though we were winning the league it was all a bit flat and it's not improved at all; just so hard to feel invested into it at the moment, having the fans in stadiums makes it for me.

[spud_gun]

Massive loss in midfield, the loss of our regualar CBs has had a bigger effect on us that just having to play makeshift defenders back there.

So much of our good attacking play in recent seasons came from Virgil's 'hoofs' up the park.

[RichC]

So much of our good attacking play in recent seasons came from Virgil's 'hoofs' up the park.

I think it's disrupted our pattern of play as well tbh and probably a bit of confidence across the team.

Hopefully we get one into the back of the net in the next game and it all starts to click again.

[Exiled_red]

That for me was the perfect advert for fan free football. Without the passion there's nothing.

I know we all love footy, and need something to cheer us up / take our minds off the pandemic.......but it is a bit **** without fans isn't it??

There's no way that we have a game against Man Utd that flat if there's fans there. Watching the game yesterday you wouldn't know that there was a rivalry.

Our games really lack pace at the moment they feel like training sessions and you feel that wouldn't be the case if there were fans present be that at Anfield or away, but to be honest I think that is only part of the problem (slow plodding moves are easy to defend against, teams can get back into their shape etc), perhaps a significant part but still there are a number of issues that need to be addressed.

[Paul12]

I think it's disrupted our pattern of play as well tbh and probably a bit of confidence across the team.

I don't buy this. We miss his height at set pieces, but we have got into a position where we rely on the strikers and the fullbacks for our creativity (note, not the midfielders) and they as a group have gone off the boil.

[Buzzo]

Decent article here.

Jürgen Klopp’s tepid attack is feeling ripple effects of a drained defence

Last year’s free-scoring champions were blunted by Manchester United but all blame does not lie with Mohamed Salah and co

Barnay Ronay

Of course it was nil-nil. Liverpool came to Anfield for the most spiteful, razor-edged derby in elite-level English football having scored in their last 42 Premier League home games. They took to the field without a single specialist central defender against a free-scoring Manchester United. The week had been shot through with hopeful talk of title charges, Judgment Days and the usual final countdown waffle.

At which point, welcome to the more mannered world of Covid-era football, a stage show that is required to generate its own pulse and where players are asked to alchemise from the empty air the kind of heat and fire that tends to make the difference in a game like this.

So of course it was 0-0, just like United versus Chelsea, United versus City and Chelsea versus Tottenham before it. It turns out these have been real ghost-game casualties of this strange season, collisions between top-of-the-table teams that seem just a little more careful, a little more controlled without the added derangement of voices and shared life from the stands.

There was also a little more to this than just caution. United will see a point gained and another little ratchet up towards whatever this team’s ultimate level might turn out to be. For Liverpool there will be satisfaction too as Jürgen Klopp fielded a defensive rump of midfielders stacked upon midfielders, with Jordan Henderson and Fabinho both having fine games in the Virgil van Dijk-shaped space between the full-backs.

There is, though, something off with Liverpool. The symptoms are clear enough. A 0-0 draw here made it three league games without a goal. And this is not the same Liverpool right now, not the same champion team that was able to sprint through these games, strangling its opponents in midfield, pulling apart the stitching on the flanks, every collision, every surge of passing a weakening of their opponents’ will.

It would, though, be wrong to lay the blame on a lack of edge in attack, even if Mohamed Salah in particular looked a little cobwebbed, and Roberto Firmino was at his most frustratingly ponderous just when something ruthless was required.

It has taken a while for the effects of Liverpool’s defensive crisis to filter through this team. But they were present here in a kind of cascade from back to front. This was cause and effect in a very obvious straight line. Take out the defence and replace it with the midfield. Take out the midfield and replace it with another style of play altogether, an entirely different set of rhythms.

The indirect victim of all this flux is the front line. Klopp has often spoken about the way his hard-pressing midfield is in effect a creative force, with its ability to steal the ball, to suffocate an opponent in dangerous spaces.

Without that pressure the forward line is required to play a different way, presented with opponents in more settled positions, no longer gasping for breath. By the same process the full-backs, the team’s most creative force, have less space, less cover, less licence to keep on surging into dangerous areas.

Much has been made of Van Dijk’s influence, the way one relatively orthodox but hugely assured centre-back can make the rest of this team work. Well, here it was, written in fidgety, brittle passages of attacking play, in chances almost made, in a match where things kept on almost happening.

For the opening half-hour Thiago Alcântara appeared to be running this game. His start in English football has been so bitty it is easy to forget quite how good he is. Which is, to be clear, very good. This is, lest we forget, Pep Guardiola’s one-man shopping list at Bayern, an aristo of the modern possession game for whom a home debut at Anfield is simply another episode in his deep, loving and very personal relationship with the ball.

For a while in that first half Thiago was so good that United’s own free man, Bruno Fernandes, went and stood next to him to shut down his space. And Fernandes was disappointing at first, completing just three passes in the opening 22 minutes.

Alongside him Paul Pogba was installed in another new and exciting role as a meandering right-winger. He did his best out there, but most of the time Pogba-as-right-winger looked like a throwback to one of those pre-substitute games where some game but dazed centre-half ends up wandering about on the flank, head swathed in brown paper and Vaseline, just trying to make a nuisance of himself.

For a while in the second half Fernandes began to come into the game on the left. Finally United were pressing their thumb into those tender spots in the centre of this makeshift Liverpool team, weaknesses Thiago’s mastery of possession had disguised.

They were let down by Marcus Rashford’s poor showing as a centre-forward. In the first half Rashford touched the ball eight times and only ever really seemed to be involved in that weird dead time spent waiting for the raising of the offside flag.

Liverpool did press with some conviction at times. Chances were missed. Firmino repeatedly clogged the final point of attack with a heavy touch or a poor pass. But this felt like what it was, a Liverpool team learning to play another way on the hoof, and configured into different shapes. The goals will return for the league’s top scorers. But the source of that current mini-drought is, most likely, something deeper.

[Scratch]

I don't buy this. We miss his height at set pieces, but we have got into a position where we rely on the strikers and the fullbacks for our creativity (note, not the midfielders) and they as a group have gone off the boil.

Not having Henderson in midfield is a big part of that, he allows the full backs more freedom, dropping in to cover when they get forward, keeping the ball ticking over etc. With Matip back alongside Fab, we should hopefully improve, but when Matip is out I expect to see Hendo at the back again, he's done the job, it's just unfortunate we lose him from the midfield, but one of the other players needs to step up and play that role instead.

[fabinho]

Smoke being blewn up the arses of Utd this morning. Ray Houghton going overboard, disussing Luke Shaw being the best left back in the league, and how great the defence is. Making out that limiting us to just a couple of chances was amazing, completely ignoring the fact that the figures of shots and "shots on target" of ours was pretty much replicated against Newcastle, WBA and Southampton.

I really do think we're going to be in a battle to make the top 4 this season now though, (if we don't recruit this window). Whilst the main contenders struggled with consistency at the start of the covid campaign, they seem to be getting things together now, whilst we seem to we having a multitude of issues. We've been pretty poor all season so far, with the odd exception.

[Buzzo]

One thing, Man U were not good in the first half. Given they are the 'form team' we totally nullified them. In the old days this would have resulted in a goal (or 2) the crowd going bezerk and us seeing the game out. We obviously dont have the crowd, and our reliance on the front three is obvious.

The worry is Mane, say what you like abut Salah, but he has chipped in with 13 goals. Mane has been miles from his best, and other than a brief burst of form after his Spurs goal so has Bobby. We dont have Jota, or Virgil who is a threat from corners, or Matip who chips in with one or two goals from corners also. Ox is a goal threat but needs a few games to get back into form, and Keita gets goals when he plays.

So from our attacking Arsenal, we have only really had Salah on form this season.

We need some solutions fast, and I think Klopp has to start trusting the likes of Minamino who just began to show a glimmer of form against Palace and hasnt been seen since. Other than the front three Klopp is tinkering constantly with the midfield and Centre backs which must be affecting rthym. Yet the area that is an issue remains constant every game.

Sticking with this misfiring front three game after game is a mistake as things stand.

I definitely want to see Ox get some game time to find form and think we miss that sort of thrust from midfield. Thiago showed in the first half what could be gained from beating a man.

Its the first time in, what, three seasons that questions have been asked and we havent delivered answers, and even that isnt resulting in any excess losses. We are just not turning draws into wins.

Burnley is a 100% MUST win. We have to get back on form and quick.

[Exiled_red]

I think it's disrupted our pattern of play as well tbh and probably a bit of confidence across the team.

Hopefully we get one into the back of the net in the next game and it all starts to click again.

I think it has probably affected confidence in that we don't believe we have that same solid defence behind us. I suspect that the make shift CB pairing is at least partially responsible for the downturn in form of the fullbacks, I think that they have become more aware of their defensive duties and as a result we have lost something from the attacking side of their game. The issues are more having to play other players out of position are also having an effect. Henderson in particular is a huge loss in midfield. If we had been able to put a CB pairing of 2 from Matip, Gomez and Fabinho out every game I think we'd have been ok, we might have taken a few games to adapt and regain some of that confidence but I think that those guys are capable of doing the job Fabinho and Matip are capable of playing those VVD passes out from the back.

The issue of having either a constantly changing CB pairing and/or an inexperienced CB such as Phillips, Williams or even Henderson (he is an inexperienced CB even if he is a very inexperience and capable player) has the side walking on eggshells.

All that being said if we had been able to score at least 1 goal in a couple of our last three games things would be looking alot better...

[rodo]

Bobbi`s form and goal return is definitely a cause of concern 14 goals in a season and a half now and his link up play has also gone to ****

[Buzzo]

The most telling moment in the first half was when he refused to play Robbo in, he was on acres with an easy chance of a shot or to play the ball across goal. Bobby instead took a shot into a crowd of players.

He was sooo indecisive last night.

Also the chance when Mo lost control of the ball. He just needed to smash it. Instead a powderpuff shot on goal...

Very frustrating.

[wiw]

To me, the fact that United **** out of having any sustained possession against a team with no recognised defenders in tells you everything about where the teams are still. There is no big power shift going on. United aren't great all of a sudden. We are just MILES off where we were the last 2 seasons. The absolute bedrock of our team has been ripped out from us and we're seeing the result of that slowly come home to roost.

Van Dijk doesn't just defend; he dictates a huge amount of our tempo, how we play, how high we play, how we confidently and comfortably press, the confidence of the other defenders, the confidence of the midfielders, where Fabinho plays, how high the full backs (confidently) go, the psyche of the opposition, the forwards (the forwards ffs!) actively look for passes from him. He is unreal.