Trent Alexander-Arnold

[Fredo]

Its a bit of a worry that this is happening and there is not much change of tactics from klopp.

Lump it behind their lines?

Half time you could see the instructions worked last night, for 15 minutes we were very good but could not press our domination at that point in goals.

[danperkins]

You can clearly see this as a strategy used by opponents now - people are closing him down all the time and his ability to playmake from RB is being compromised. The amount of aimless lofted balls he played last night was shocking for such a renowned passer

it's got so predictable. Aimless sideways and backwards passes & that punt over the top is infuriating (Hendo and Trent both guilty of it). Mo has suffered this season as Trent is not getting as high up the pitch as he used to. Robbo is getting to the byline several times in most games but teams are just packing the box, but has been our best player this season. He looks sharp and fit whereas Trent looks lazy and lethargic.

Teams have figured out how to stop our fullback outlets which seems to be a majority of our creativity & our front 3 look blunt, we need to look to having more creativity in from other others of the pitch. I think that's why Jota had such a huge impact as he was an unknown and is so unpredictable. Trent's defensive frailties were always overlooked because his offensive output was off the charts. Now that he is not producing anything going forward, it has put the focus on his weaker aspects.

[wiw]

You can clearly see this as a strategy used by opponents now - people are closing him down all the time and his ability to playmake from RB is being compromised. The amount of aimless lofted balls he played last night was shocking for such a renowned passer

Good point. I did notice that our centre backs are being pressed a bit more as well. Seen this especially at Newcastle, but that might have been due to Phillips playing there, so our building up play wasn't great.

Southampton had so many bodies in their own penalty area last night that I think we ran out of ideas to play through that and rushed our crosses and passes.

Teams know how dangerous we are once we bypass a press or play quickly, so their main aim is to stop that - either through high pressing or sitting back. Both happen and both are effective against us at the moment. We're having to work really hard to build any kind of attack. It's not helped by the other team seemingly having free reign to take turns hacking us down and/or wrestling us without being punished.

I've seen it referenced quite a few times how players say "give it to Fabinho and he'll sort it" or words to that effect - he's an excellent CB but I think our play through midfield is really suffering without him being there. Seen loads of people mention this too, but I don't think we can underestimate how much we're missing Van Dijk's ability to ping it to Salah's toe from 60 yards as well. All of these things add up. I'm still pissed off at Everton to be honest

[wiw]

Its a bit of a worry that this is happening and there is not much change of tactics from klopp.

One thing I love about our coaching staff - be it a gap in the squad, a problem with our playing style etc - if we as fans are aware of it, they sure as **** are too and working on fixing it

[baitman]

One thing I love about our coaching staff - be it a gap in the squad, a problem with our playing style etc - if we as fans are aware of it, they sure as **** are too and working on fixing it

Im sure the coaches have seen how teams are better organising themselves to cope with our game plan and snuffing us out.
Now we need to see some better variations to our in game tactics rather than just continue to bounce off the other side.
The chipped crosses to salah and firmino are very unlikely to produce anything and scream of desperation.

[wiw]

Im sure the coaches have seen how teams are better organising themselves to cope with our game plan and snuffing us out.
Now we need to see some better variations to our in game tactics rather than just continue to bounce off the other side.
The chipped crosses to salah and firmino are very unlikely to produce anything and scream of desperation.

I'm sure we will see improvement.

[Irishnev]

Teams know how dangerous we are once we bypass a press or play quickly, so their main aim is to stop that - either through high pressing or sitting back. Both happen and both are effective against us at the moment. We're having to work really hard to build any kind of attack. It's not helped by the other team seemingly having free reign to take turns hacking us down and/or wrestling us without being punished.

I've seen it referenced quite a few times how players say "give it to Fabinho and he'll sort it" or words to that effect - he's an excellent CB but I think our play through midfield is really suffering without him being there. Seen loads of people mention this too, but I don't think we can underestimate how much we're missing Van Dijk's ability to ping it to Salah's toe from 60 yards as well. All of these things add up. I'm still pissed off at Everton to be honest

I still blame ****ing T-Rex for most of our problems this season

[Fierce]

Strikes me Thiago and Jota, looking at what they bring to the team, were specifically bought to give us an alternative attacking threat

We've said for years that we lack creativity in the middle of the pitch. Having insanely fast and aggressive wide forwards has gotten us where we are now, and as they're almost impossible to stop it stands to reason that opposition teams would try and not let them get the ball

I think Curtis Jones has done really well but if you have a luxury player like him or Thiago, you need both an all rounder and a more defensively minded midfielder. Ie Henderson or Fabinho. Neither of whom, like Thiago and Jota, have been available anywhere near enough this season

[El Diego]

Just needs a break to be honest, I would be playing Milner for a while.

[Pablo]

I see Klopp has now confirmed he had covid in pre-season. Until now it was just a rumour, although pretty obvious.

Same applies to Alison IMO.

I really do think there could be something in the long-covid idea, 1 in 10 suffer from it.

Anyway rest him now ahead of the Man utd game on Jan 17th.

[BigChief]

We have so much luck (and corruption) against us. How we still managed to get a league title is unreal. CB injuries and thuggery not enough we also have our players falling to a fecking pandemic as we were about to rule the world for longer. There is definitely something not right about TAA and Mane. Maybe Salah too?

[Doc_Piptorious]

Strikes me Thiago and Jota, looking at what they bring to the team, were specifically bought to give us an alternative attacking threat

We've said for years that we lack creativity in the middle of the pitch. Having insanely fast and aggressive wide forwards has gotten us where we are now, and as they're almost impossible to stop it stands to reason that opposition teams would try and not let them get the ball

I think Curtis Jones has done really well but if you have a luxury player like him or Thiago, you need both an all rounder and a more defensively minded midfielder. Ie Henderson or Fabinho. Neither of whom, like Thiago and Jota, have been available anywhere near enough this season

Yep That would my thinking. They were brought in to offer alternative ways of progressing our play and make it more difficult for other teams to shut us down as a result.

Losing our two starting centre backs, both of whom are great at bring the ball forward be it through excellent long range passing (VVD) or speedy advancing woth the ball (Joe), and losing our stability/solidity in the centre in Fab when he moved to the back line, on top of Thiago and Diogo both being out meant we had no real quality and incisive transistion of play up the centre of our team forcing our play to go through the full backs more and more and allowing other teams the luxury of having less avenues of progression to block.

Put Joe and VVD back into our team and push Fab back into the centre and suddenly we have players that create space and that will force the other team to move men into other channels and then we can switch between ging down our flanks and/or through our centre with the other team not being able to overload or press in numbers for fear of allowing our quality to hurt them down the other flank or through the centre.


I think Klopp has been horribly unlucky in that he had already figured out how other teams were going to try and stop us and brought in the players he needed to counter that, only to lose his new players through injury and lose a crazy number of our otehr first teamers either through injury or having to play them out of position. All things considered, Klopp and his team have done so well this season to be in the position they are currently sitting in.

[Mr Pink]

All things considered, Klopp and his team have done so well this season to be in the position they are currently sitting in.

We are in a great position- at the top of the league and topped the CL group... when you consider the injuries we have had, that’s amazing...

BUT.... the frustrating thing is that we should have one hand on the league by now... when you look at our hard games on paper- chelsea away (before they crumbled), arsenal at home(before they crumbled) Everton away, city away, spurs at home... we were the better team in all them (maybe the city one is debatable), played with real champions form... then look at the games where we’ve been dropping points, and you’d say that our injury list is no excuse... I think we can still go on a run and pull it out of the bag but if we don’t win it, we’re gonna be cursing the games against Fulham, west brom, Brighton etc etc etc...

[Fredo]

I see Klopp has now confirmed he had covid in pre-season. Until now it was just a rumour, although pretty obvious.

Same applies to Alison IMO.

I really do think there could be something in the long-covid idea, 1 in 10 suffer from it.

Anyway rest him now ahead of the Man utd game on Jan 17th.

I don't think it would be a long covid issue with him. I mean, physically he looks fine. He's had a bit of a stop / start season due to missing pre season and getting a thigh injury, so probably needs games to get his mojo back.

[vlahka]

He doesnt look tired. He's just playing ****. There were a few times in the previous game where someone made a run forward, Salah or Firmino cant remember, and instead of passing upwards which was a clear through on the side, he passed back. Theres too much caution. Even Robertson is passing back almost every time he gets the ball.