Mohamed Salah

[TheHowieLama 10,839]

There were at least a half dozen balls across the face of goal today that a "striker" would have got on the end of. Whether they would finish them or not I don't know but Salah whiffed on two of them.

In an open game our front three are a terror for anyone.

[Trojan1892 60]

Thought the exact same thing, if we had someone like Kane, Lewandowski or Haaland today they’d have bagged 2/3 easily those balls put in by Robertson and Trent first half were deadly.

[Joey8FrogsLegs 768]

Spurs parked the bus at Anfield, and they’re better at it than West Brom. We more or less ripped them apart, and should have scored at least three or four.
 

Today we hardly created proper chances.

 

The system was the same, and we’ve been winning consistently against those tactics with this system for a few years now.

 

The difference today in my opinion was the lack of intensity, energy, aggression and movement. Same as a number of other games this season, Brighton, Fulham, Villa the most obvious ones. We were also not brilliant against Sheffield United or even Palace for the majority of the first half. 
 

We’re poor against the weaker teams, and I believe it’s because we approach those games with a different mentality, or a lack of the right mentality if you like.

 

It’s not so much about system and individual performances, far more about installing a proper, sustainable winning mentality and culture over time.

[TheHowieLama 10,839]

I have to disagree pal -- in the first half they played 6-4-0 all within 30 yards of their own goal, much of it with 8 in their own area. It was honestly the most negative half of league football I have ever seen - that includes cup games against lower divisions.

Spurs never played like that.

The disappointing thing is they actually took it to us in the second half straight from the kick off and we didn't respond.

[3 Stacks 2,461]

14 minutes ago, Joey8FrogsLegs said:

Spurs parked the bus at Anfield, and they’re better at it than West Brom. We more or less ripped them apart, and should have scored at least three or four.
 

Today we hardly created proper chances.

 

The system was the same, and we’ve been winning consistently against those tactics with this system for a few years now.

 

The difference today in my opinion was the lack of intensity, energy, aggression and movement. Same as a number of other games this season, Brighton, Fulham, Villa the most obvious ones. We were also not brilliant against Sheffield United or even Palace for the majority of the first half. 
 

We’re poor against the weaker teams, and I believe it’s because we approach those games with a different mentality, or a lack of the right mentality if you like.

 

It’s not so much about system and individual performances, far more about installing a proper, sustainable winning mentality and culture over time.

Pretty much. We may well change up the tactical setup before Klopp is done at Liverpool at some point, but there's no reason why the current setup shouldn't specifically work against very defensive teams. The truth is, it has. The problem is, if you look at who we've dropped points to and the context surrounding those games, it's been against shite teams, in the middle of cramped schedules when we're trying to manage energy and still get results, but we fail.

 

Last season before lockdown, pretty much everything went our way and we won plenty of games against bad teams, not playing very well. This season though, with the injuries and that little bit of motivation lost, we're dropping points in these games, instead of winning them at the death. That's not a Salah, Mane, Firmino problem, it's a mentality problem. 

 

I will say though, if we sell either Salah and Mane in the near future, I'd probably replace them with a "real" striker and creative player. I think change will be good at some point. 

[TheHowieLama 10,839]

Pretty sure they mentioned today that we had never dropped points to a promoted side at Anfield in Klopps tenure.

I am probably wrong but it could be. Listless performances I think have been away.

 

[AngryofTuebrook 18,241]

1 hour ago, coachpotato said:

Probably get negged to fuck for this but here goes.
The nearest thing we have to a proper striker is Jota.

Salah, Firmino and Mane are forwards, class forwards at that, but the three of them miss too many chances to be called strikers in the same way that the likes of Aguero, Vardy or Henry are called strikers.

 

I've got to say I'm not arsed if people call them strikers, bus drivers or homeopaths - as long as they're creating and scoring goals I don't give a fuck. 

[coachpotato 462]

8 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

There were at least a half dozen balls across the face of goal today that a "striker" would have got on the end of. Whether they would finish them or not I don't know but Salah whiffed on two of them.

In an open game our front three are a terror for anyone.

This is my point really, we are brilliant in so many ways with the front three attacking in a more open game, probably the best in the world, yet when teams deliberately sit back we don’t seem to anticipate chances and are caught on our heels or snatching at them. Some very good points made to my original post thanks, not least that we don’t take enough shots on outside the box either. As to my figures being wrong, I’ve watched enough football to say that there are strikers who only need a couple of chances a game to convert at least one into a goal. In some games we can do that, however, there are many more games where we create far more chances than goals taken. I accept however that we usually get the points when it matters, yesterday we didn’t and that’s happened more times this season already than I was hoping to see.

[Wicket 389]

10 hours ago, coachpotato said:

Probably get negged to fuck for this but here goes.
The nearest thing we have to a proper striker is Jota.

Salah, Firmino and Mane are forwards, class forwards at that, but the three of them miss too many chances to be called strikers in the same way that the likes of Aguero, Vardy or Henry are called strikers.

Class strikers take one goal in two chances or one in three chances average.

I bow to anyone that can show our three are in that category.

I know they’ve scored shitloads of goals between them and we’re Champions, but it still irks me at the wasted chances we see, fuck me, we’d have been so far away from everyone else if the conversion rate was better. 
 

“ Puts on tin hat”
 

I’m inclined to agree with you but I’ve just had a quick scoot at our chance conversion rate and it appears that we’re second only to Leicester this year, and finished second last year on the same metric. I genuinely dont know what this means as like i said, I agree with you that we seem to miss a lot of chances (id say Mané  and to a lesser extent Bobby are guilty of this) or fluff them due to poor decision making (Salah is a definite candidate due to his desire to predominantly use his left foot) 

 

the one thing I’d love to see us do sometimes is swap Mo and Mané and see if that has an effect, simply just to see if being on their natural side can bring the odd dividend, and unlock games likes last night where we had a ridiculous amount of the ball but weren’t doing anything except swinging in hopeful crosses to players that generally weren’t there. Mo shooting across a keeper from the left would have maybe been more effective than him cutting inside and having 3 players in front of him blocking.  

[Code 883]

13 hours ago, coachpotato said:

Probably get negged to fuck for this but here goes.
The nearest thing we have to a proper striker is Jota.

Salah, Firmino and Mane are forwards, class forwards at that, but the three of them miss too many chances to be called strikers in the same way that the likes of Aguero, Vardy or Henry are called strikers.

Class strikers take one goal in two chances or one in three chances average.

I bow to anyone that can show our three are in that category.

I know they’ve scored shitloads of goals between them and we’re Champions, but it still irks me at the wasted chances we see, fuck me, we’d have been so far away from everyone else if the conversion rate was better. 
 

“ Puts on tin hat”
 

Okay, Salah is a winger, but not because he misses too many chances.

 

You have to wonder how some of our so called supporters would treat Salah if he had a conversion rate from big chances like the top strikers like Calvert -Lewin, Kane and Vardy.

 

 

[Herp McDerp 2,625]

19 minutes ago, Code said:

Okay, Salah is a winger, but not because he misses too many chances.

 

You have to wonder how some of our so called supporters would treat Salah if he had a conversion rate from big chances like the top strikers like Calvert -Lewin, Kane and Vardy.

 

 

Do penalties count as "big chances"? Wouldn't that skew the stats given that Salah has scored 5 and Fernandes 4?

[coachpotato 462]

55 minutes ago, Code said:

Okay, Salah is a winger, but not because he misses too many chances.

 

You have to wonder how some of our so called supporters would treat Salah if he had a conversion rate from big chances like the top strikers like Calvert -Lewin, Kane and Vardy.

 

 

At least they are figures that can start to answer what I was trying to say in the original post. One thing though, do they include penalties? I suspect they do, so I’d like to see the same applied without penalties, which should be scored anyway by anyone who can strike a ball properly.

[Code 883]

46 minutes ago, Herp McDerp said:

Do penalties count as "big chances"? Wouldn't that skew the stats given that Salah has scored 5 and Fernandes 4?

Penalties needs to be scored.

 

We are lucky Mo Salah is one of the best around to do exactly that. 

[Captain Howdy 979]

4 minutes ago, Code said:

Penalties needs to be scored.

 

We are lucky Mo Salah is one of the best around to do exactly that. 

Correct, Shearer was a penalty taker and nobody doubts how lethal he was, as you say they need to be scored.

[Code 883]

57 minutes ago, Herp McDerp said:

Do penalties count as "big chances"? Wouldn't that skew the stats given that Salah has scored 5 and Fernandes 4?

Penalties needs to be scored.

 

Not everyone will do exactly that, these are Mane( missed 1 out of 1 PL), Vardy (missed 5), Kane (missed 3) and Aguero’s(missed 5) stats.

 

 

[Jairzinho 23,025]

Get in, Code. Fuck Mane, the useless cunt. 

[Code 883]

5 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

Get in, Code. Fuck Mane, the useless cunt. 

Mane is pretty good, but pretty bad at penalties. 

[Jairzinho 23,025]

Mane is the best forward in the league. 

 

Someone else can take penalities.

[Herp McDerp 2,625]

Looking at those stats the one thing that stood out is just how lethal Son has been so far this season, he's scored 11 goals from 26 shots with none of them being penalties. Salah has scored 13 from 50 shots with 5 of those being penalties. Before you jump on my back Code that's not a dig at Salah, just something I thougjt was interesting, hopefully his conversion % falls off as the season progresses and Spurs suffer as a result.

 

Another surprise was that Fernandes has only scored 4 penalties this season. Could've sworn he'd be into double figures by now.

[Jairzinho 23,025]

I suppose the type of chances they have are very different though. Son's are almost always on the break. Salah's will be considerably more varied. Same with Mane. 

 

 

[3 Stacks 2,461]

Finishing is variable and kind of a crapshoot. Despite Son's freak conversion rate this season, in reality he's not a significantly better finisher than any of our forwards.  

[Code 883]

39 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

Mane is the best forward in the league. 

 

Someone else can take penalities.

Oh dear.

 

Mane is a very good player, one of many good players in the PL.

 

Salah is on the other hand is on another level, a level you only see once a generation. Henry and C.Ronaldo are the only players close to Salah in the PL, but he’s better than them, he score and assist more.

 

We are extremely fortunate to have him, some of our fans dont deserve him though, but you have idiots everywhere I suppose.

 

Unless he is assaulted he’s never injured either, a skill Liverpool supporters really should recognize. 
 

In other words, he’s so superior to Mane its not even funny. 

Salah:

PL: 122 games - 86 goals, 31 assist

CL: 39 games - 22 goals, 9 assists

Total: 161 games - 108 goals, 40 assists

 

Mane:

PL: 141 games - 69 goals, 18 assists

CL: 38 games - 17 goals - 4 assists

Total: 179 games - 86 goals - 22 assists

 

[Jairzinho 23,025]

I'm not disputing he's a good penalty taker.

[Herp McDerp 2,625]

16 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

I'm not disputing he's a good penalty taker.

 

Good point, well made and I am in full agreement. Remove the penalties and pace goals and it's clear Mane is the better player. Any idiot can see that.

[Jairzinho 23,025]

Just now, Herp McDerp said:

 

Good point, well made and I am in full agreement. Remove the penalties and pace goals and it's clear Mane is the better player. Any idiot can see that.

What about power goals?

 

I thought Mane's yesterday was a power goal. Not sure Salah can do power goals. Doesn't seem fair to say Mane is better. 

 

Can't wait until we sell both of them, by the way.