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Featured: Gerrard and Lucas partnership poser for Rodgers (ESPN article)


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As Philippe Coutinho and Glen Johnson both edge closer to a first team return, Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers will soon have a full complement of players to choose from for the first time this season.

Assuming he persists with the present system then Liverpool should soon be looking very strong in all areas of the pitch. Well, almost all. There is the small issue of the centre of midfield of course.

The combination of Lucas Leiva and Steven Gerrard should work. You've got arguably the club's greatest ever player (and current England captain) partnering a man who has just been recalled to the Brazil squad. You need to be able to play a bit to get a game with the Samba Boys so Lucas is clearly no mug. And whilst Gerrard is not the marauding, rampaging force he was throughout his twenties, there's still plenty left in the tank and he showed last season what a great player he still is. Luis Suarez apart, the skipper was the Reds' best performer in 2012-13. Yet put the two of them together and, well... there's just something not quite right.

So far this season Liverpool have not dominated the middle of the park in the manner they often did last year. There were games last season -- especially early on -- when the opposition could barely get a kick of the ball. Possession didn't always translate into points due to the lack of quality in the final third (until Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge arrived at least), but there was a clear blueprint for how Rodgers wanted his team to play.

This year, there have been games when the Reds have barely been able to string more than three or four passes together. The second half displays at Aston Villa and Swansea being prime examples of that. Whilst it would be unfair to pin those failings entirely on the midfield, it's not unfair to state that this is an area of the field that has not been functioning how Rodgers would like.

Yet despite Liverpool's midfield issues they currently sit joint top of the Premier League table, which begs the question: is the central midfield position really that important?

Read the full article here.

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Guest Numero Veinticinco

I don't like option one. At all. I'm an option two or four man, myself. Switch the formation back to 4-3-3, then buy somebody in January. 

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We're not joint top. We're second.

 

And Gerrard is either shot or saving himself for the World Cup. He did a bit of that before the European Championships, in my opinion, so I won't be shocked if he dials in the performances between now and the end of the season.

 

I'm suspecting the same thing, which is why we need Allen fit. Stevie has been on the pitch for every minute of the season, that doesn't necessarily mean he played.

 

We need more running in midfield - Lucas can't and Stevie doesn't.

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I would mix it up a bit depending on the opposition. There's no reason why we can't change to a 4-3-3 or 4-3-1-2 when we need a bit extra in midfield. The only problem would be deciding which of the centre halve miss out since they're all playing so well (Agger excluded I suppose, on the basis of his injury.)

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Option two.

 

Henderson and Lucas as the midfield two. Gerrard further forward as the third central player, or on the bench.

Never going to happen, Gerrard for some strange reason would rather be a merely good central midfielder than a truly outstanding attacking midfielder.

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I don't think midfield matters massively if the rest of your team is strong as fuck.

 

I've rarely heard of a team with brilliant gk, defence and attack who struggle to win games.

 

On the flip side, I've heard of plenty of possession teams with lovely passing who end up not scoring enough goals, or conceding silly goals, and even getting relegated.

 

I've very seldom heard of a team who get all aspects right, but those that do are magnificent teams who win fucking everything.

 

In terms of our midfield, I want runners, gap fillers even. I do think that we have an issue with Gerrards lack of ground covered over 90 minutes, and we also have an issue with Joe Allens treatment table addiction. However, I think I'd rather buy a quality wide attacker perhaps even another forward before I spent on central midfield.

 

As it happens, I think we only need to tread water for 12 months and then reassess Coady, Rossiter and Brannagan, all are young and fit and able to press, and after all, isn't that the main thing we want from our centre mids?

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I was telling the whole summer that we need some top class midfield enforcer, I even started couple of threads about needing a new CM, preferably defensive one.Stevie is still good player but he is....not top class anymore. He can make a bit of magic, but for the rest of the game he is average...But even in this state he is still good enough to start for us in central midfield.......but....

 

Not with Lucas. I´ve never rated him, and I think that he had only one good season and it was 2010/2011 an the start of 2011/2012 until he was injured. He was a laughing stock in previous seasons...And after his return from injury he is poor to say it politely with the odd relatively solid game. He is slow as fuck, can not pass longer than 10 yards, wouldn´score a goal to save his life. His only positives were his engine and tackling (but only in seasons mentioned above). N

 

But now he seems to be lazy, or he has awful postioning, but he never seems in te right place, and his tackling is like watching Paul Scholes, almost every tackle from Lucas is a foul and he is giving them almost always in dangerous positions.

 

I like him as a guy, but never rated him as a player, critiicized him for couple of years, then stopped it when he seemed to be the flavour of the month, but even if everybody was singing love songs about him I have never seen the praised quality from him, but stopped to criticize him, because I was usually called a cunt who knows fuck all about footy.

 

But now I can say, that with Lucas as a main Defensive midfielder we are fucked. If Brendan wants to play Stevie as a part of central midfield, then he needs an massive upgrade on Leiva, someone like Essien 3 seasons ago, but not Lucas. He is the second most overrated current LFC player behind Danny Agger, and I woul have Henderson instead of him in his position in an heartbeat

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I definitely agree with the article with regards to Lucas' form just before he got injured. I thought he was incredible and gave him MotM three games in a row. If we get that Lucas back I'll be happy and to be fair we are 7 games into the season. As I said earlier, maybe we are better off not try to manage Lucas and Gerrard through 90 minutes but rather instruct them to go all out in shorter bursts and then subbing them.

 

As Gerrard, I think we need to get a system that releases him to be more of an attacker as he (imho) is one of the best finishers in our entire squad and I think that more value than his racking cross field passes.

 

Basically, have a holding midfielder that is tasked with winning and recycling the ball.

Have one of the wingbacks to tuck inside when we don't have the ball.

Have the entire back line push a few yards further up the pitch.

Compress the gaps in midfield and give Gerrard licence to join the attack with late runs.

 

Do that and I think you'll see the best of Gerrard without exposing the rest of team.

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I see others have beaten me to it, but I absolutely think that Gerrard has been coasting somewhat because he wanted to make sure he was fit for these 2 England games.  I hope England win tonight and then we can see the proper Gerrard back.  I just hope the foot doesn't come off the gas towards the end of the season then.

 

I know the above sounds disrespectful, but I can assure you that it's not meant that way.Taking your foot even slightly off the gas in this league can leave you way of the pace.  I don't think Gerrard would ever do anything that he thinks could be negative to Liverpool Football Club, but just by taking a little more care of himself it's meant he's been a passenger in far too many games.

 

Hopefully that will change after tonight.

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The problem with the partnership  is that both Gerrard and Lucas share the same weakness (lack of mobility) and we're a bit embarrassed when we're hit by a quick break.

 

 I think the main choice for now is either stick with 3 at the back (which might well come unstuck when we meet the better sides) or switch to a diamond formation with Lucas holding and Gerrard and Henderson behind Coutinho.   

 

Our transfer priority should be buying a class central midfielder..

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Lucas last game before he was injured against Chelsea away was the best performance I have seen from him but that was like two years ago and he hasn't returned to that level.

 

We need a player like masch badly, someone with his kind of energy, if gerrard is to play as one of the two CMS we need a monster next to him who can do all the defensive duties.

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I'm not even sure how we got Masch, it was like we won the lottery.

 

But, this is a big club, you could take any of those Southampton lads out of their comfort zone and bring them here and 9 times out of 10 you won't get the same player in our shirt as you did for them.

 

I vote that we keep the central midfield in-house and just promote from the U21's. We need them to be functional, we don't need them to be skinning players and taking the net off from 30 yards. It's a fools errand to think you can base your midfield around obtaining a brilliant player who can win games on his own. Sure, it's lovely to have a Lampard or a Fabregas, but (a) they cost a fucking fortune, and (b) there aren't enough of them to go around the big clubs, and © your gameplan is fucked if you lose that player for a game.

 

Before Xavi was heralded as a genius, he made his name by just being functional as fuck. Hamann for us, functional. Alonso, functional. Doing the right things at the right time and covering the ground to be in the right place. I think Lucas does it already, I don't think Gerrard does it.

 

I think Coady can come in and do a great job for us. Forget the Sheff Utd thing, it's not relevant. A lot of people were happy with Jay Spearing but bemoaned his size. Well, here's Coady, a big Jay Spearing, I think that's a compliment. He's 6'1", that's a lovely height for a centre midfielder who loves to get stuck in and bleeds red.

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Not having that. Lovely goal though, but I didn't think much of him in the middle of the park really, him and Carrick were both found wanting at times, Poland could have driven a bus through the middle on the counter.

 

Besides which, even if you wanted to paint a pretty picture of his display, and many will, but the occasion itself wasn't your usual PL occasion. Someone like Gerrard can get himself well up for any game, but he's experienced many, many great occasions down the years and you can't blame him for not getting as up for Southampton at Anfield in September as opposed to Poland at Wembley in a 'must-win' game in front of 80,000.

 

I hate it when people use very small sample sets and try to convince people it's a pattern.

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