Jürgen Klopp

[Irishnev]

It's about concentration. That's all it is.

I think our defenders are prone to lapse's in concentration too often and we need more reliable less error prone ones.

[Irishnev]

Ha ha

[ame="https://twitter.com/anfieldnation/status/912780505866801152"]https://twitter.com/anfieldnation/status/912780505866801152[/ame]

[danperkins]

Is this system working? Not only tonight but this season and last season the balance in the midfield and striker just seems all wrong. Firmino frustrates me so much but isn't he being asked to do a job that he s not really accustomed to? We don't have a top striker so we are relying on guys that aren't clinical enough to get the goals.

We create so many chances that ffs we would be out of sight if we had an actual striker that would convert them. Aguero, Kane, Lukaku, Morata every team needs one.

People have gone on about Firminos work rate, defending from front and it's great but he isn't the answer up front. He will score goals but not enough... And he may very well score on the weekend but he is it the answer up front. Is it his fault? Nope buck stops with Jurgen. Same as buck stops with him for not addressing the other weaknesses in our side.

I really like Klopp but I find myself talking about the same things over and over again. Sturridge was shut when he came on but he is a striker, he is a quality striker. I just don't that, I also do t get the Robinson situation and I don't get why Mig is not in goal every week as even thougg I'm not a fan, he is infinitely better than the other options available.

[Irishnev]

Don't think we can blame Jurgen for all the misses Dan or the defensive howlers but he is culpable for not buying better defenders.

I've started to see people now question if there is any substance to Jurgen or is he all fist pumps and motivation. For me he has been responsible for some of the best attacking football I've ever seen us play.

[Gibbo]

Really happy to see Klopp getting ****ed off.

They need a bollocking - must be so frustrating.

[danperkins]

Cannot blame Klopp for the missed chances or individual errors from defenders and goal keepers that keep leading to goals but this is nothing new to us. We all knew the positions that needed to be addressed and they weren't. When you pick the same guys over and over again that keep making the same mistakes over and over again..it gets to the stage when maybe something has to give. Why keep playing them!?

I don't get why Karius should ever start. We chop and change so much at the back it is a joke. Same thing with Moreno and Robertson..what is going in there? How can we build a settled defence when there is changes in every game, no team can do that and expect to develop continuity back there. Sturridge is a clinical striker, one if the best when on form, he need games and we need goals.

It just seems like we have the same personnel issues and problems on the pitch and we display season. Teams sit deep and for one reason or another we can't beat them.

[Slinky Skills]

Is this system working? Not only tonight but this season and last season the balance in the midfield and striker just seems all wrong. Firmino frustrates me so much but isn't he being asked to do a job that he s not really accustomed to? We don't have a top striker so we are relying on guys that aren't clinical enough to get the goals.

We create so many chances that ffs we would be out of sight if we had an actual striker that would convert them. Aguero, Kane, Lukaku, Morata every team needs one.

People have gone on about Firminos work rate, defending from front and it's great but he isn't the answer up front. He will score goals but not enough... And he may very well score on the weekend but he is it the answer up front. Is it his fault? Nope buck stops with Jurgen. Same as buck stops with him for not addressing the other weaknesses in our side.

I really like Klopp but I find myself talking about the same things over and over again. Sturridge was shut when he came on but he is a striker, he is a quality striker. I just don't that, I also do t get the Robinson situation and I don't get why Mig is not in goal every week as even thougg I'm not a fan, he is infinitely better than the other options available.

Maybe you're turning into a Parrot mate? lol

All jokes aside I agree, it's down to Klopp really. He's failed to address many glaring weaknesses.

No decent GK brought in, no decent CB brought in. Left back has been purchased but isn't being played, no decent striker which we desperately need.

I love Klopp, absolutely love him but he's firmly to blame for all of the above. I know we tried for VVD but he should have identified suitable alternatives.

I really hope we go in for Timo Werner as we need someone like him. Why weren't we in for Morata? We could have got Costa on loan if we'd tried.

Infuriating really.

[danperkins]

Feel like im a parrot with this Liverpool side man. What galls me is it is the same things over and over again and you just think here we go again. Frustrating as ****.. of course the season isn't a write off it's so early but you do get that feeling of us going through the motions.

[Maxiedge]

There's not much we can do about the defence till Jan so I think we need to concentrate on getting the midfield/attack right

IMO Klopp has the squad now to rest and rotate for CL and PL. The game seems to be so much about fitness/ first to the ball/ second ball/ physical strength and we seem a bit off the pace at them moment in regards to this compared to the other sides in our bracket. Is it the fitness regime?

Whatever it is, with Coutinho back, Klopp now has the option to keep the midfield and attack fresh.

The only 2 players I would try and fit in week in week out would be Henderson and Mane.

[marcus50bucks]

Klopp’s pressing problem

JONATHAN NORTHCROFT
october 1 2017, 12:01am, the sunday times

As his side face Newcastle today, Liverpool manager must galvanise his players

I think it is his most fundamental idea,” says Alberto Moreno, so it’s where we should start with Liverpool. There are other questions you could ask about the Premier League’s most contradictory team. Like, how, in their last six games, could they manage 126 shots yet score just seven times? Or, how could they ship 19 goals in 11 matches across this campaign when, in all but one, they held control?

But let’s stick to Jurgen Klopp’s “fundamental” . Pressing. Few are looking at it in the discussion of Liverpool’s curious start to the season — but they should.

Moreno reiterates there is no change in the key instruction given to players: “The manager has always remained pretty faithful to the way he wants to play the game... as soon as we lose possession, do everything we can to surround the ball and get it back as quickly as possible.” Pressing. “The best playmaker there is,” Klopp once said.

So, consider this. Analysis using data provided by InStat, the global service for sports professionals like scouts and coaches, suggests a remarkable drop-off in Liverpool’s pressing game since the start of 2017-18. If results are mediocre then so is the performance of Klopp’s side’s core activity.

The InStat data was analysed by CIES Football Observatory to produce a table showing the average seconds in possession allowed to the opposition by every Premier League team. How long a side lets you have the ball before winning it back. In 2016-17, Liverpool were virtually top of this table — neck-and-neck with Tottenham and Manchester City as the team allowing foes the least time on the ball. In 2017-18, Klopp’s men have fallen back dramatically. They’re joint ninth in the rankings alongside West Ham and lowest placed of all the “big six” clubs.

While City and Spurs have honed their pressing games further, Liverpool have suddenly relaxed their efforts. You now get an extra 3.6 seconds per possession against Liverpool compared to Manchester City. A lot can happen in 3.6 seconds on a football pitch.

You have to be careful with stats, of course. In a sport as multi-faceted as football, taking one measure from one source and drawing definitive conclusions is dangerous. So The Sunday Times went seeking further information.

Opta, the Premier League’s official data partner, provided some. Liverpool are down, down in terms of running numbers, covering less distance overall and making fewer sprints than in 2016-17, when they were the competition’s hardest-working team.

Anfield Index is a respected platform that, for several seasons, has analysed Liverpool’s pressing in obsessive detail. AI reported that in the first four games of 2017-18, Liverpool’s overall volume of “pressing actions” was down 15%, and instances of “group pressing” down 50%.

We then sought anecdotal evidence and here is a verdict from inside the camp of a side who have faced Liverpool this season. “It was easy-oasy. We had a nice afternoon.” The team in question came braced for the kind of full-throttle test they’d endured in their previous meeting, at Anfield, but found the game rather “flat” and felt Liverpool had nothing like the “legs” they did before.

Could there be deliberate reasons for Liverpool’s shift? Are Liverpool trying to join the counterattackers? Perhaps there’s something in this, for AI have found a big improvement in a good metric: Liverpool pressing actions leading to shots. Maybe Klopp is also trying to conserve players, mindful of their mid-season tiredness in 2016-17, and that there are now Champions League games to play. But you go back to Moreno: “We’re trying to remain faithful to the ethos [Klopp] has had from the beginning.”

It seems likeliest that Liverpool are just having a “dip”. A period where confidence is lacking, and they’re carrying out none of their fundamentals with enough conviction. Pressing is also very much a collective effort, and selection has been disrupted by several factors: new signings, Sadio Mane’s suspension, the Philippe Coutinho saga, injuries, rotation.

Finally, there is the significant absence of Adam Lallana. Identified by Klopp as his “leader” of the high-press, Lallana has long had one of the best individual stats in the league for quick ball recoveries. Klopp will have been as cheered as supporters by Lallana’s Instagram post on Thursday, showing himself back at Melwood. Out since pre-season with a thigh injury, Lallana raised hopes he could even return for Liverpool’s first game after the international break, against Manchester United.

It will be Klopp’s 700th game in management and next Sunday marks his second anniversary at Liverpool. Today he meets a predecessor, Rafa Benitez, which seems another reason to take stock. Benitez won the European Cup and produced Liverpool’s strongest starting XI (in 2008-09) in almost 30 years, but it wasn’t enough to hold on to — forget England — football’s truly impossible job.

“The reality is, the teams that have won the title, probably 90% of the time are the teams with the most money,” Benitez says. And yet managing Liverpool is about winning the title. “You have to build a team that is good enough to compensate for the difference,” Benitez concludes.

And do your basics brilliantly. So much — defending, scoring — will come easier again if Liverpool reboot their pressing.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/s...blem-x53dq6zhh

[labourRed]

That point on pressing comes as absolutely no surprise.

You can tell in first ten minutes how on point that is. What would have been interesting is a comparison of how we press when Lallana is playing vs when he isn't as he's the one that tends to set the tempo for pressing.

[danperkins]

Yeah it's pretty blatant that our pressing is nowhere what it was and what it should be. That the basics of defending and being more clinical are obvious problems we need to address.

[danperkins]

It's not working Jurgen.

No matter who he puts into the side..we simply did not address the blatant problem areas.

[BigChief]

It's not working Jurgen.

No matter who he puts into the side..we simply did not address the blatant problem areas.

I don't want Klopp to go. But I want Klopp to change, if not then go. Is that a weird position to be in?

A week or so ago I cryptically mentioned everyone knows the truth they just can't handle the truth. I can bet over 50% of those asking what the hell that meant now understand.

[Fosterbloke]

If we beat Man Utd, the pressure is off for a while, lose and we're really in the **** for the season.