Arsenal at home Sunday 31st August 430pm

[BG1973]

****ing facts, always getting in my way.

[RedReet]

I'm shocked we're that bad tbh. I thought we did a bit better 2nd half of season. With Virg in the team though, we really should be doing more.

[Doc_Piptorious]

We're joint bottom and considering we would have more setpieces than those around us, I'd say we are officially the worst.

I did think we were quite bad last year, just never really checked the stats.

What always seemed strange to me, from the outside anyway, about us and set pieces is that we have a number of players that were quite good at direct free kicks, corner taking etc at their previous clubs.

Be it VVD, Szobo etc. However we seemed to have it written in stone that TAA and to a lesser degree Robertson took almost all the corners, and in the case of direct free kicks the former took a lot of them despite not having a great strike rate.

Our free kick conversion rate, direct and indirect, is pretty awful though.


Would be very curious what we are like compared to other teams when it comes to conceding from set peices. Would imagine that we might be a little higher than a lot of teams simply because we are harder to break down from open play than most teams so set pieces would be the best chance a lot of teams would have against us.

[RedReet]

Probably more a reflection of me, but at times last year and certainly under Klopp, whenever we conceded a corner, my first reaction was, this is a good opportunity for us to counter, once we clear it.

This year I've felt like I did in the 90's, expecting to concede with every setpiece. Will be curious to monitor this new deeper approach, discussed above. Hopefully, like when Rafa first introduced zonal marking, it felt like we were conceding big chances because it was different to what we were used to, but the reality was we actually weren't.

[RedReet]

What always seemed strange to me, from the outside anyway, about us and set pieces is that we have a number of players that were quite good at direct free kicks, corner taking etc at their previous clubs.

Be it VVD, Szobo etc. However we seemed to have it written in stone that TAA and to a lesser degree Robertson took almost all the corners, and in the case of direct free kicks the former took a lot of them despite not having a great strike rate.

Our free kick conversion rate, direct and indirect, is pretty awful though.


Would be very curious what we are like compared to other teams when it comes to conceding from set peices. Would imagine that we might be a little higher than a lot of teams simply because we are harder to break down from open play than most teams so set pieces would be the best chance a lot of teams would have against us.

Was looking for similar myself the other day, but best I could find is https://theanalyst.com/articles/prem...t-pieces-stats

If my calculations are right, we had conceded 10 when article was written, 2 less than Arsenal.

[little dave hedgehog]

From Athletic...

'Liverpool advertised for a specialist set-piece coach last summer but unable to find a suitable candidate it was decided that it would become part of Briggs’ responsibilities.'

Surely there is someone, somewhere?

not even in football manager is there a good set piece coach even tho you can hire one.

[Kenneth]

Sounds like Bradley is fit to play.

[Buzzo]

And Macca!

[Mark79]

[ame]https://twitter.com/lfc/status/1961350731145121933[/ame]

[frank the tank]

Huge test. Kind of nervous about it

[Doc_Piptorious]

Huge test. Kind of nervous about it

Think in some ways it will be easier (though not easy) than our first two games purely through it being a game against a direct rival and how we seem to get more up for such games.

Compared to our opening pair of games that were against two good well organised teams that no doubt were far more up for us than we were for them.

Think we will have more moments of control and better chances against Arsenal than against the other two as Arsenal will push back against us more and as such leave a little more room to play into.

[Buzzo]

[ame]https://twitter.com/indykaila/status/1961409189126852901[/ame]

[BG1973]

That's precise.

Must involve the Arteta offsetter.

I.e he's 100% fit.

[Sus]

Woke up thinking about this match

Think this will be arsenals best chance in a while to beat us at Anfield, and if we can come out of this with 3 points, no matter the performance, that will be quite the statement in a season where Arteta HAS to win one of the major trophies

This feels like the game where Wirtz announces himself to the league

[danperkins]

Bradley and Mac back in the side is great news. Feels like a huge game already.... gonna be feisty.