Do we have chronic and insurmountable defensive issues?

[Dave D]

Chronic?

 

Insurmountable?

 

 

Ummmmmm.

 

No.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Well, I thought we defended very well for the most part. Yes, we were a bit open at the back and Mig spazed up after a good game.

[Ranxerox]

problems? Yes

 

insurmountable? No

[Gnasher]

We were fucking gash, against little more than a pub side. They should've scored 2 or 3. Lets all stick our head in the sand.

[Baltar]

We need more protection for the defence. The midfield offers absolutely zero protection. Get a decent defensive midfielder in there and we'd be okay.

[Iceman]

We've solved half of it because our full backs are of a good standard now and will develop further. I would like to see Lovren/Skrtel or Skrtel/Sakho. I'm not sure if Lovren/Sakho is a goer. Also. how the fuck is Gerrard being asked to do a 90 minute shift? It's madness I tel ye.

[Gnasher]

Football> winter. Cricket>summer. That's the way it is, unless you want to fuck off over the good ol U S of A and watch racketball.

[Reckoner]

We need more protection for the defence. The midfield offers absolutely zero protection. Get a decent defensive midfielder in there and we'd be okay.

yep i think when new players bed in,ideally,  it would then be the time to start resting Gerrard more frequently. For now he is the rock keeping the identity of the team together.

His influence in the dressing room is something Rogers needs to keep onside in order to succeed,  I think he believes this anyhow.

[Gnasher]

We need more protection for the defence. The midfield offers absolutely zero protection. Get a decent defensive midfielder in there and we'd be okay.

The centre half and keeper shouldve prevented their goal, though i take your point, Gerrard should've cut down the space.

[sir roger]

As well as the well-made points in this thread re lack of midfield cover & ever-changing back fours, we are also shockingly naïve at times.

 

I couldn't believe what I was seeing tonight. We struggle all night & finally get ahead with 10 minutes to go & then in the last 5 minutes Sterling loses the ball near their area & Moreno is 5 yards in front of him. Then we go ahead in injury time & Manquillo is asleep near the halfway line & Lucas not covering & we concede a stupid corner in the 93rd minute.

[Paco]

1 clean sheet in 11 or something.

[stringvest]

As well as the well-made points in this thread re lack of midfield cover & ever-changing back fours, we are also shockingly naïve at times.

 

I couldn't believe what I was seeing tonight. We struggle all night & finally get ahead with 10 minutes to go & then in the last 5 minutes Sterling loses the ball near their area & Moreno is 5 yards in front of him. Then we go ahead in injury time & Manquillo is asleep near the halfway line & Lucas not covering & we concede a stupid corner in the 93rd minute.

 

The youngsters have plenty of time to learn.  This will have been a big learning experience for the fullbacks, and for Sterling.  The less said about Lucas the better.  

[sir roger]

Wasn't picking on anybody particular, it was a general point that we don't seem to know that you play differently when you are 4 0 up or chasing a game , than you do when you are supposed to be keeping tight to see a game out.

[Morning Glory]

And yet it is our right back who is furthest forward pressing in their penalty box in the 93rd minute who gets us the penalty. At the moment, there is no in-betweens.

[Coro]

Mignolet isn't very good. Sakho is unconvincing. The full backs are inexperienced.

 

All this is giving Lovren/Skrtel the heebie jeebies.

 

Signing Valdes can't come quick enough.

[Iceman]

Rodgers needs to find our most solid defensive formation and just drill the team to switch into that formation whenever we need to see out a game or if we're under a shit load of pressure and we need to soak it up for a few minutes. Looking to score your way out of trouble doesn't always work and resting in possession only works if you keep it. In the CL, if you give the ball away, it's death, and tonight we gave the ball away so cheaply it was shocking. A decent team would have stuffed us tonight. 

[Ranxerox]

Rodgers needs to find our most solid defensive formation and just drill the team to switch into that formation whenever we need to see out a game or if we're under a shit load of pressure and we need to soak it up for a few minutes. Looking to score your way out of trouble doesn't always work and resting in possession only works if you keep it. In the CL, if you give the ball away, it's death, and tonight we gave the ball away so cheaply it was shocking. A decent team would have stuffed us tonight. 

 

These are the kind of goals we conceded last year though, no adjustments were made then, rather we relied on outscoring the opposition. I don't see him changing his approach, more likely he will focus extra attention on trying to improve the attack. 

[Iceman]

Only way right now I can see that working when Sturridge is injured, would be to make our quickest player, Sterling, the focal point and put Balotelli on the wing, otherwise our attack isn't rapid enough to exploit the breakdown in the opposition's attack. Tonight we had no pace. 

[Tyler Durden]

The way Gerrard bollocked Mignolet in the first half shows you what he thinks of him, he was screaming his head off at him (can't remember what for except he should have came for the ball and instead left it near costing a chance), Sakho and Lovren had to usher him away.

[Paco]

The way Gerrard bollocked Mignolet in the first half shows you what he thinks of him, he was screaming his head off at him (can't remember what for except he should have came for the ball and instead left it near costing a chance), Sakho and Lovren had to usher him away.

where were gerrard henderson and lucas in the build up to their goal? 3 of them marking no one with a couple of mins to go and we re defending a 1 nil lead. their no 10 role player has so much time and space to deliver the through ball.

 

yes mignolet makes a bad decision but the problems started long before that.

 

the one when they hit the post was similar and mignolet cant be blamed for that.

[skend04]

We bought a shed load of midfielders but not the one type that could have really pushed us on this season and helped our defending. Gerrard has never been the best defensively when played in the middle why that would develop when in his 30s I can't fathom! Even last night if he had played in the Coutinho role he would have been infinitely better even if a bit knackered after 60 minutes. We won't improve at the back until we have someone to sit in there, track runs, break up attacks and then play it simple.

[eeyore]

where were gerrard henderson and lucas in the build up to their goal? 3 of them marking no one with a couple of mins to go and we re defending a 1 nil lead. their no 10 role player has so much time and space to deliver the through ball.

 

yes mignolet makes a bad decision but the problems started long before that.

 

the one when they hit the post was similar and mignolet cant be blamed for that.

Agree with the goal lucas and Gerrard as much to blame as mignolet, moreno and lovren. Was just a clusterfuck of a goal from the whole team.

 

But didn't the post effort come from Sakho trying to do keepy uppys with his knee on the edge of the box and losing it? Inexcusable defending as it was against villa.

 

 

 

 

[ZonkoVille77]

I don't trust any of our centre backs. But they can't all be terrible can they? So it comes down to the system and lack of protection from midfield. Gerrard has done well in that position simply because he's Gerrard. But if we are to stick with that style and formation them Gerrard needs to be moved and a more mobile lad takes his place. It's the only way we will improve imo.

[Jose Jones]

I don't trust any of our centre backs. But they can't all be terrible can they? So it comes down to the system and lack of protection from midfield. Gerrard has done well in that position simply because he's Gerrard. But if we are to stick with that style and formation them Gerrard needs to be moved and a more mobile lad takes his place. It's the only way we will improve imo.

 

I think more of pure defensive midfielder would make a difference, but perhaps not too much.

Likewise I think Gerrard would be fine there if we played a more tight formation with the other two midfielders; Hendo, Allen, Can, Lallana, or whoever pressing and less gaps between the lines.

 

A lot of the best teams in the world don't play pure defensive midfielders.  Real Madrid had Alonso with Modric and Di Maria.  Barca had Busquets with Xavi and Iniesta.  Juve have Pirlo with Pogba and Vidal.

 

All of those three are probably better positionally than Gerrard, but also slower.  Juve's other midfielders are more powerful than our two, but the rest aren't.

 

Rodgers has obviously decided to play spaced out so that we have room to create and score goals, which leads to space in front of our defence.  A nutter defensive midfielder could do a better job at covering the space, but so would making the team more compact.  Both ways though we would probably score less. 

 

I reckon if we can learn better when to keep it compact when needed we will be better.  Play the same defence for a lot of games and we'll improve too. 

[Lee909]

Juve's other two are not more powerful?

 

I'd say Vidal, Pogba are far more powerful than ours