Our midfield

[Carvalho Diablo]

1 hour ago, Strontium said:

Henderson, Milner and Fabinho are finished, Elliott has barely begun, Thiago is a luxury we can't afford, Keita is working his notice, Arthur is the 99p toy you buy to shut up the kids that breaks after 5 minutes, and Ox is Ox.

100% accurate.

[Babb'sBurstNad]

The loss of Diaz has hit us hard. He really helped ignite something when he came in. Then, the knock on effect of Mané finding form centrally, and even with Salah below par we had enough to trouble any team offensively.

 

Losing Mané, Diaz, and Jota has hampered that attack, and exposed the already widening fissures elsewhere.

[3 Stacks]

3 minutes ago, Babb'sBurstNad said:

The loss of Diaz has hit us hard. He really helped ignite something when he came in. Then, the knock on effect of Mané finding form centrally, and even with Salah below par we had enough to trouble any team offensively.

 

Losing Mané, Diaz, and Jota has hampered that attack, and exposed the already widening fissures elsewhere.

The thing is though, we're still creating loads of chances. Granted, Salah and Darwin aren't taking them, but the attack is not an issue, even with Diaz and Jota out. We'd be able to steal more results from having their quality to use, but they wouldn't offer an actual solution because the problems are massively elsewhere. 

[TheHowieLama]

13 minutes ago, 3 Stacks said:

The last part is not it. What we were doing last season is tactically not much different than what we're doing this season. We're just doing it infinitely worse and with only one real change in the squad, being Nunez for Mane. 

 

 

And no Diaz or Firmino.

[an tha]

The problems we are seeing now were there last season, especially in the 1st half of the season when our form was a bit patchy at times and our midfield was changing game to game - we never seemed to be able to put out a settled side.

 

We improved quite a bit in the 2nd half of the season results wise to be fair and our line ups were more settled.

 

But teams were walking through our midfield - Alisson had (and had to have) a phenomenal record of making big 1 on 1 saves.

 

The revolving door in midfield has been a problem again this season.....Fact is our most effective midfield remains Fabinho, Thiago, Henderson it was case last season too and our results were better once those 3 finally became relatively settled and played together - other combinations are just frankly a bit shit and do not really work.....but that 3 really struggles to string together games and find it hard  physically to maintain the levels to play 2/3 games a week week in week out.

 

We won games often last season without looking all that good because we we were better up front last season. We even had a few goals on bench from Origi and Minamino who i think contributed 16 between them.....

[TheHowieLama]

8 minutes ago, Babb'sBurstNad said:

The loss of Diaz has hit us hard. He really helped ignite something when he came in.

Far better defensively than what we have there now.

[Babb'sBurstNad]

1 minute ago, 3 Stacks said:

The thing is though, we're still creating loads of chances. Granted, Salah and Darwin aren't taking them, but the attack is not an issue, even with Diaz and Jota out. We'd be able to steal more results from having their quality to use, but they wouldn't offer an actual solution because the problems are massively elsewhere. 

 

Fair point. I think we're creating somewhat different chances now though. Diaz - Mané - Salah brought pressure in a way that was harder to handle, and mitigated the deficiencies in midfield.

 

Diaz could hold the ball wide, and Mané was more like a nine and a half. Across our front line the opposition would double up on at least one player, and often drop a midfielder deep. Diaz in particular would have the fullback on his side less likely to commit to counters. That had a knock on for our midfield.

 

We're still creating chances, but teams aren't scared of us being clinical, so will - for example - press into our midfield more rather than worrying about our wide players. 

[Babb'sBurstNad]

7 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

Far better defensively than what we have there now.

 

This is also true.

[Lee909]

Ive decided 3 of Kouadio Koné, Khéphren Thuram,Enzo Le Fée or Andrey Santos for under 100ml. Let Keita,Milner,Ox Bobby walk

 

[an tha]

Some stats....this season v last (this 1st)

 

We are down on goals per game

 

Down on expected goals

 

We are letting more in

 

Our expected conceded is higher

 

We are having less attempts on opposition goal

 

The opposition are having more attempts on our goal.

Goals per game: 2.00 v 2.47
xG per game: 1.72 v 2.502
Goals against per game:  1.21 v .68
xG against per game: 1.39 v .98
Shot per game: 17.14 v 18.97
Shots allowed per game: 9.86 v 7.82
Possession: 62.1 v 62.7

[stringvest]

Mane is our biggest miss.  He gave us so much offensively and defensively.  Diaz showed in fits and starts - he was often peripheral.  Jota a bigger miss than Diaz.

[Joey8FrogsLegs]

1 minute ago, an tha said:

Some stats....this season v last (this 1st)

 

We are down on goals per game

 

Down on expected goals

 

We are letting more in

 

Our expected conceded is higher

 

We are having less attempts on opposition goal

 

The opposition are having more attempts on our goal.

Goals per game: 2.00 v 2.47
xG per game: 1.72 v 2.502
Goals against per game:  1.21 v .68
xG against per game: 1.39 v .98
Shot per game: 17.14 v 18.97
Shots allowed per game: 9.86 v 7.82
Possession: 62.1 v 62.7

What is missing is pressing and intensity. It hurts every aspect of our game, defencively and attack,

 

The midfield is the main reason, but I do believe Mane and of course Bobby were important to our pressing game as well.

 

Klopp’s Liverpool without the intensity and pressing is like a Gin Tonic without the gin. 

[an tha]

2 minutes ago, Joey8FrogsLegs said:

What is missing is pressing and intensity. It hurts every aspect of our game, defencively and attack,

 

The midfield is the main reason, but I do believe Mane and of course Bobby were important to our pressing game as well.

 

Klopp’s Liverpool without the intensity and pressing is like a Gin Tonic without the gin. 

Yup

 

The press from the front was dead important and it triggered us to be able to pen teams in and really squeeze game.

[3 Stacks]

4 minutes ago, Babb'sBurstNad said:

 

Fair point. I think we're creating somewhat different chances now though. Diaz - Mané - Salah brought pressure in a way that was harder to handle, and mitigated the deficiencies in midfield.

 

Diaz could hold the ball wide, and Mané was more like a nine and a half. Across our front line the opposition would double up on at least one player, and often drop a midfielder deep. Diaz in particular would have the fullback on his side less likely to commit to counters. That had a knock on for our midfield.

 

We're still creating chances, but teams aren't scared of us being clinical, so will - for example - press into our midfield more rather than worrying about our wide players. 

 

Yeah, I do think a difference is that, if you have Diaz out wide and Mane in the middle, you're not playing as direct through the middle because as you said; Mane is playing in a 9 and a half role, he's not playing on the shoulder. Like, with Darwin the whole gameplan is to send him through with direct service and when you try to do that a lot, the game goes up and down, you've got more transitions and you have to defend the transitions, which our midfield simply can't do.  

 

But while we've stacked up the quality in the forward line recently, I don't think the whole setup has been thought through particularly well. Even when Jota and Diaz come back, I don't really see them as additions that will help our shape, rather we'll just have two good players again who can come up with something. I do think the width Diaz brings is generally helpful, though, and we'll see what Gakpo brings from a tactical perspective. 

 

[Red74]

17 minutes ago, stringvest said:

Mane is our biggest miss.  He gave us so much offensively and defensively.  Diaz showed in fits and starts - he was often peripheral.  Jota a bigger miss than Diaz.

Diaz was more effective coming off the bench as the season wore on as he was our only game changer against tiring teams compared to starting and running out of ideas. Still feel he needs to offer a lot more than before he deserves some of the praise he gets. 
 

Would defo have benched him for Paris

[diamondjoe]

We haven't been playing well since Feb 21. We've been papering over the cracks left ,right and centre. It looks endemic in the team to me and  has the whiff of end of days that we've seen before with Houllier and Benitez. I hope to god I'm wrong and Klopp can steady the ship but I'd take finishing top half this season. I'd also take a decent offer for Mo, Van Dyk, Tiago and a few.others. 

[Bobby Hundreds]

I'd tell Thiago to look round before he tries to pass the ball through the eye of a needle to make sure there's cover to deal with it being intercepted. 

 

Our system is shit I'm starting to think it doesn't matter what our midfield is because teams have learnt to deal with counter pressing better even though we aren't doing it and one long pass and we are ruined. Cross the ball to the far post and trent will watch it go over his head to the player behind him. It looks like game after game we are completely blind to our weaknesses. We go again... shit we conceded a chance again!

[AngryOfTuebrook]

16 hours ago, Strontium said:

Henderson, Milner and Fabinho are finished, Elliott has barely begun, Thiago is a luxury we can't afford, Keita is working his notice, Arthur is the 99p toy you buy to shut up the kids that breaks after 5 minutes, and Ox is Ox.

An excellent summary.

 

I mean, I really, really wish it wasn't, but it just is.

[El Rojo]

14 hours ago, stringvest said:

Mane is our biggest miss.  He gave us so much offensively and defensively.  Diaz showed in fits and starts - he was often peripheral.  Jota a bigger miss than Diaz.

 

Sadio's a huge loss. One of the best attackers in world football. He was absolutely brilliant for us. He was banging them in last year too despite there being a line of thought that his legs had in some way gone. As you say, his defensive work was great too. 

[Manny]

I think the midfield issue is a physical one. We play a style of football that gets width from full backs and that plays with a front three, all generally playing direct. The midfield is supposed to cover a lot of ground: front to back and left to right, in order to block off passing lanes and shut down counter attacks quickly. Fabinho, Milner and Henderson could do that but they're starting to show their age by the looks of things. Thiago, Curtis, Carvalho and Elliott are good footballers but they weren't bought or brought through for their athleticism. Naby and Ox are fit and fast enough but too injury prone and inconsistent.

 

I don't know what Arthur Melo is.

 

So what are we genuinely trying to do? If we want players like Harvey and Thiago to thrive we need more players covering for them, which means an end to such enterprising full backs and a direct attacking front three. If we want those things, we need more physicality and pace in the middle. We've got round holes, and yet we're seemingly stocking up on square pegs whilst refusing to re-drill the round holes.

 

Gakpo may be a bit of a wildcard, although how effective it'll be is questionable. I do wonder if we'll see Gakpo play centrally, rather than out wide, but in a deeper role - he seems to have played there quite a bit for the national team in particular. So we'd see something along the lines of:

 

Nunez  Salah

      Gakpo

MF   MF    MF

 

That was starting to show promise pre-World Cup with Firmino in that role: Nunez and Salah stretching teams with pace which would give defenders a decision to make - to push up and give them space to run into with Gakpo to find them, or to sit deeper and give the midfield some room. But we'd still be looking for those three midfielders to be plugging gaps even if they have more time on the ball, and I just don't think we've got the right players in house these days.

[Jairzinho]

1 hour ago, El Rojo said:

 

Sadio's a huge loss. One of the best attackers in world football. He was absolutely brilliant for us. He was banging them in last year too despite there being a line of thought that his legs had in some way gone. As you say, his defensive work was great too. 

 

Personally, I thought that pretending Mane wasn't very good when he left was the smarter move.

[Bobby Hundreds]

The best thing you can say about Mello is he's an Ox to Ox midfielder. On the Job training for the medical and physio staff.

[Aventus]

Real Madrid are going to absolutely dry bum us to death in midfield. 

[No2]

6 minutes ago, Aventus said:

Real Madrid are going to absolutely dry bum us to death in midfield. 

They're midfield is older than ours.

[TheHowieLama]

Mane was a force. He took every challenge personally and refused to lose physically even when he wasn't on his game.

Gini was quietly similar. Our left side was ferocious.