Is Trent Really Worth It?

[joe_fishfish]

This article was talked about in the video as well, it's really good too.

 

https://medium.com/@stirlingj1982/what-is-relationism-c98d6233d9c2

 

Anyone who remembers Liverpool under Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish will recognise the sort of play in the gifs in there. I'm not old enough to have seen it live myself but I've watched plenty of old Liverpool footage and this is exactly the sort of thing we used to back in the late 70s / early 80s, the sort of attacking play that most other English sides then didn't even attempt.

[No2]

Having watched a few Fluimese clips I'm afraid the answer will disappoint. Initially I thought the right back was just shit and they wouldn't pass to him under any circumstances, then when they switched halves it was the left back. Conclusion is the manager is as blind as a bat and needs the game played right in front of him.

[Saintslfc13]

6 hours ago, Jose Jones said:

 

Trent's defending at right back was perfectly fine for years.  This season a combo of team defensive issues and him definitely not giving as much of a shit has seen him be way worse.  He also didn't have a single assist all season, until he started pushing into the centre then he had one a game.

I reckon it's a bit tactics, but mostly Trent's head.

Nail on the head for me. He's was legitimately the best right back in the world a few seasons ago, in my opinion anyway. He had some defensive flaws sure but generally you'd bet on him to get back and make it difficult for the opposition if not outright kill their attack. Problem is, he doesn't seem to care too much about that anymore. There was an interview that went round either early this season or late last one where Trent himself basically says "I've changed the game so I can't be held to the old standard". So that says he thinks he's above it all and that's all well and good from a confidence perspective but if he can't be bothered to do the job as a right back I'd personally hate to see him try to cope with our midfield work. We've been crying out for able and willing bodies in midfield all season. Trent is definitely able, but I'm not sure he's willing.

This hybrid role works to a point with everyone fit but I have my doubts that it works consistently over a season with players coming in and out of the side. I also think we can only use it when Trent is fit enough to play, if he's hurt or needs rest then we would likely have to change the way we play.

[VladimirIlyich]

12 hours ago, The Guest said:

I thought he was going to be far more of a liability in midfield than he has been.  He can take it on the turn and is very comfortable under pressure and being closed down.  His passing in there is as good as it has even been at right back.

 

He still gets waltzed past in midfield once or twice every game but I think that’s far less of a problem with other players behind him and if we had an actual back four that didn’t include him there it would be even better.  I’m sick to death of him doing that mindless attempt to cut out a pass that he’s got about 5% chance of success when the winger has ran off him.  I’d happily never see him play right back for us again.

 

I might be completely off here and I hope I am but I doubt we will attempt to sign a right back.  I think this weird hybrid formation is now the plan.  It’s been spoken about on the Podcast a few times how it surely can’t be the case because we can see how lopsided things are and how once this sort of thing is figured out by the opposition then that will be the end of it.  I think the other side of it is the impact on the rest of the team.  Do Konate/Matip find the energy to keep covering the whole side of that pitch for counters week after week and month after month?  Do the midfielders and Salah have it in them to be acting as the wide player with one less option out there.  We’ve already seen how narrow things have gotten after the initial few games of it.

 

It’s extremely short sighted if it is the case.  Klopp has a real blind spot for Trent at right back.  It’s like Benitez levels of pig headedness.  Everything is pointing at him being a club/season destroying liability at right back and has the talent to play as an outright midfielder yet we still haven’t tried it fully for some reason.  How bad could it have been to just put Gomez at right back and let’s see how Trent plays with options both ways and no worry of getting into the back four when we don’t have the ball?

 

I can personally see us heading into next season playing this formation, struggling and the club hitting the panic button at the end of the window and trying to sign one in embarrassing fashion because we don’t seem to have the right plan anymore.

I think you could well be right. We dont spend massive money so shuffling the pack allows Klopp to target his own area of most concern with one or two biggish signings. Europa League money will also dictate this as a possible solution.

[Barrington Womble]

3 hours ago, TD_LFC said:

 

We still play 433 (as much as 433 is a thing), and we still play 4 at the back in the same way as we previously did, those fundamentals haven't changed. 

 

The tweaks are mainly in the make up of things like the rest defence (players left over when attacking) and who makes up the attack all when in possession.

 

We used to play a 2-3 defence with two centre backs and three midfielders with the attack comprised of the two fullbacks and three attackers, we now play a 3-2 defence (and have experimented with the 2-3) with 2 centre backs, two full backs (one in a double pivot and one on the left of the defence) and the #6 with the attack made up of the three attackers and both #8's.

 

The irony is, despite Guardiola taking much of the credit for inventing this, most of the principles date back to the 1920's and the creation of the W-M formation popularised by Herbert Chapman.

 

Funnily enough I was looking at the W-M formation when we started doing this. And I agree with you, this is what we play now with different names for the positions. 

 

 

[TD_LFC]

Yep, the nomenclature has changed and the roles have been adapted over time but it's no new fangled system.

 

I guess the main change is that would be our in possession shape rather than our starting position and I have no idea if that was a concept back then.

[TheHowieLama]

59 minutes ago, TD_LFC said:

 

 

I guess the main change is that would be our in possession shape rather than our starting position and I have no idea if that was a concept back then.

 

Ask @stringvest

[VladimirIlyich]

23 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

 

Ask @stringvest

Take a look at this and find out.

 

 

[Paul]

By a mile, the most talented Liverpool player since Suarez. He’s rarely injured, he’s won every one of the biggest trophies and has redefined a position; plus the best years of his career are still to come. The real question is why would you not build a Liverpool team around a sensation like him? 

[johnsusername]

The team should have been built around Salah. 

[dave u]

On 02/06/2023 at 00:06, TD_LFC said:

If people think the wider centre backs covering the full back spaces when playing three at the back or players playing in different positions in defensive and attacking phases is a weird concept then what Fernando Diniz is doing at Fluminese would blow peoples minds.

 

Stu Monty, is that you?

[dave u]

On 01/06/2023 at 16:07, Lario said:

KDB my arse!

 

He plays the ball into areas that the other players are coached to run into. He doesn't have to look up. Just play the ball deep to the back post and someone is coming in on it.

 

Trent is a better picker of passes IMO.

 

This is actually a really good point that I hadn't really considered before. It is true that most of the brilliant passes from De Bruyne are put into an area for people to attack rather than looking up and landing one on a sixpence. That doesn't mean he can't do the other stuff, but maybe he doesn't really need to because of how they play?

[dave u]

This is a really good thread by the way, lots of interesting points being made on both sides of it.

 

Plus Stringvest is in here shoehorning his anti-Hendo agenda. Larry the Lahm was funny though, kudos for that!

[Kevin D]

Do you not know how to use the multi-quote feature on your own forum?

[dave u]

I make the rules. I don't need to obey them.

[Kevin D]

[TD_LFC]

1 hour ago, dave u said:

 

Stu Monty, is that you?

 

Is this where I get outed for not reading articles or keeping up with podcasts where its already been said?

[redinblack]

In the glory days i always thought we had the nucleus of a team. Suarez was the outlier, the exception, he was just far and away better than the rest (apart from Gerrard) and would have dragged them over the line whilst shouting at them " you fucking useless cunts". The nucleus idea is a vision, we have a group of 4-5 exceptional players and the ancillaries welded on. That might be unreasonable now as the ancillaries command top dollar now. Suarez was a once in a lifetime opportunity, a bit like Napoli with Maradona but we had Rodgers who didn't have the intelligence to recognise that. Rebuild will take a bit longer as I'm not seeing another Suarez

[The Guest]

On 02/06/2023 at 16:09, Paul said:

By a mile, the most talented Liverpool player since Suarez. He’s rarely injured, he’s won every one of the biggest trophies and has redefined a position; plus the best years of his career are still to come. The real question is why would you not build a Liverpool team around a sensation like him? 

He’s an unbelievable passer of the ball.  I’d have said Fowler or Garcia were the most two footed players we’ve ever had but neither of them could hit 40/50 yard passes like Trent seems to do with ease on his weaker foot.  “The most talented player by a mile” though?  Absolutely no chance.  We’ve had Mane, Salah, Van Dijk, Thiago here in that time.  They’re all far more complete players with at least equal “talent” on whatever metric you want to put in there.  The major flaw in his game is just so massive that you can’t put him in that group because none of them have something like that.  None of them are perfect obviously but it’s just so stark with him.  When he can’t be bothered to run we are a mess and it was happening in parts of nearly every game.

 

I’m not buying this redefining a position thing either.  Klopp has played him at “right back” when possibly no other manager in world football would have done it and persevered with it.  He’s provided ridiculous attacking stats but so has Robertson on the other side.  The difference being one actually has defensive instincts and a good attitude to defending and doesn’t cause a 10th of the problems on his side of the pitch.  He plays the position with little care for defending which gives him the opportunity to create.  It’s not him it’s the manager giving him a kamikaze role.  This season it’s been found wanting.

 

The only reason he’s got away with it previously is because of Klopp’s set up and how well the rest of the team worked for so long.  There’s a very good argument that it’s all been worth it because we won the league and champions league.  I fall on the side of it costing us more.  I think if we play a lot of the big games last season with Gomez at right back or even better signed an actual right back we beat Real and even win the league as well.

 

In terms of building the team around him.  The argument for doing it because “he’s won loads of trophies” sounds a lot like the people who try to tell everyone Scholes is better than Gerrard.  It just words that don’t have any substance to them at all.  I’ve never liked the idea of building around a player anyway.  It’s a stupid idea.  We didn’t build the team around Gerrard or Suarez even as good as they were.  We signed as many good players as we could and then played them wherever they could fit to help the team and because they were that good it worked.

 

Building a team around a massively flawed player like Trent would be mind boggling because building around him is accommodating him.  At the moment that involves this mental formation where everyone is learning a job to cover for him.  What suddenly happens if this formation doesn’t work out and we’ve signed players to build around it?  What if he gets injured and our whole tactical plan is built around it.  Klopp isn’t that stupid.

[HolyHank]

Move him to midfield and buy a decent right back. 

[Paul]

17 hours ago, The Guest said:

He’s an unbelievable passer of the ball.  I’d have said Fowler or Garcia were the most two footed players we’ve ever had but neither of them could hit 40/50 yard passes like Trent seems to do with ease on his weaker foot.  “The most talented player by a mile” though?  Absolutely no chance.  We’ve had Mane, Salah, Van Dijk, Thiago here in that time.  They’re all far more complete players with at least equal “talent” on whatever metric you want to put in there.  The major flaw in his game is just so massive that you can’t put him in that group because none of them have something like that.  None of them are perfect obviously but it’s just so stark with him.  When he can’t be bothered to run we are a mess and it was happening in parts of nearly every game.

 

I’m not buying this redefining a position thing either.  Klopp has played him at “right back” when possibly no other manager in world football would have done it and persevered with it.  He’s provided ridiculous attacking stats but so has Robertson on the other side.  The difference being one actually has defensive instincts and a good attitude to defending and doesn’t cause a 10th of the problems on his side of the pitch.  He plays the position with little care for defending which gives him the opportunity to create.  It’s not him it’s the manager giving him a kamikaze role.  This season it’s been found wanting.

 

The only reason he’s got away with it previously is because of Klopp’s set up and how well the rest of the team worked for so long.  There’s a very good argument that it’s all been worth it because we won the league and champions league.  I fall on the side of it costing us more.  I think if we play a lot of the big games last season with Gomez at right back or even better signed an actual right back we beat Real and even win the league as well.

 

In terms of building the team around him.  The argument for doing it because “he’s won loads of trophies” sounds a lot like the people who try to tell everyone Scholes is better than Gerrard.  It just words that don’t have any substance to them at all.  I’ve never liked the idea of building around a player anyway.  It’s a stupid idea.  We didn’t build the team around Gerrard or Suarez even as good as they were.  We signed as many good players as we could and then played them wherever they could fit to help the team and because they were that good it worked.

 

Building a team around a massively flawed player like Trent would be mind boggling because building around him is accommodating him.  At the moment that involves this mental formation where everyone is learning a job to cover for him.  What suddenly happens if this formation doesn’t work out and we’ve signed players to build around it?  What if he gets injured and our whole tactical plan is built around it.  Klopp isn’t that stupid.

Yeah. I disagree with all of that. 

[TD_LFC]

9 minutes ago, Paul said:

Building a team around a massively flawed player like Trent would be mind boggling because building around him is accommodating him.  At the moment that involves this mental formation where everyone is learning a job to cover for him.  What suddenly happens if this formation doesn’t work out and we’ve signed players to build around it?  What if he gets injured and our whole tactical plan is built around it.  Klopp isn’t that stupid.

 

Plenty of posts on here explaining why that is bollocks, we've played variations of this formation without Trent moving into position and there's plenty of evidence both in the PL and across Europe of teams adopting the same system and approaching it in a number of different ways.

 

This system isn't built around Trent, it's built around creating a midfield set up that allows you to overload that position based on a system that has been used for a century.

 

 

 

[VladimirIlyich]

18 hours ago, The Guest said:

He’s an unbelievable passer of the ball.  I’d have said Fowler or Garcia were the most two footed players we’ve ever had but neither of them could hit 40/50 yard passes like Trent seems to do with ease on his weaker foot.  “The most talented player by a mile” though?  Absolutely no chance.  We’ve had Mane, Salah, Van Dijk, Thiago here in that time.  They’re all far more complete players with at least equal “talent” on whatever metric you want to put in there.  The major flaw in his game is just so massive that you can’t put him in that group because none of them have something like that.  None of them are perfect obviously but it’s just so stark with him.  When he can’t be bothered to run we are a mess and it was happening in parts of nearly every game.

 

I’m not buying this redefining a position thing either.  Klopp has played him at “right back” when possibly no other manager in world football would have done it and persevered with it.  He’s provided ridiculous attacking stats but so has Robertson on the other side.  The difference being one actually has defensive instincts and a good attitude to defending and doesn’t cause a 10th of the problems on his side of the pitch.  He plays the position with little care for defending which gives him the opportunity to create.  It’s not him it’s the manager giving him a kamikaze role.  This season it’s been found wanting.

 

The only reason he’s got away with it previously is because of Klopp’s set up and how well the rest of the team worked for so long.  There’s a very good argument that it’s all been worth it because we won the league and champions league.  I fall on the side of it costing us more.  I think if we play a lot of the big games last season with Gomez at right back or even better signed an actual right back we beat Real and even win the league as well.

 

In terms of building the team around him.  The argument for doing it because “he’s won loads of trophies” sounds a lot like the people who try to tell everyone Scholes is better than Gerrard.  It just words that don’t have any substance to them at all.  I’ve never liked the idea of building around a player anyway.  It’s a stupid idea.  We didn’t build the team around Gerrard or Suarez even as good as they were.  We signed as many good players as we could and then played them wherever they could fit to help the team and because they were that good it worked.

 

Building a team around a massively flawed player like Trent would be mind boggling because building around him is accommodating him.  At the moment that involves this mental formation where everyone is learning a job to cover for him.  What suddenly happens if this formation doesn’t work out and we’ve signed players to build around it?  What if he gets injured and our whole tactical plan is built around it.  Klopp isn’t that stupid.

Good post. I tend to disagree with Paul on almost everything on the GF regarding films and tv and while I do agree Trent is talented I don't think his talent is in the same league as Gerrard or Suarez. Maybe it will come to that in a few seasons but not yet. His passing flourished because he was at right back and the space is more available out there. He's played a bit more central and his passing has been highlighted,especially his assists,but he still has some of the same faults as at right back and they are just the same. Is the Trent glass half empty or half full is the question?

[The Guest]

1 hour ago, TD_LFC said:

 

Plenty of posts on here explaining why that is bollocks, we've played variations of this formation without Trent moving into position and there's plenty of evidence both in the PL and across Europe of teams adopting the same system and approaching it in a number of different ways.

 

This system isn't built around Trent, it's built around creating a midfield set up that allows you to overload that position based on a system that has been used for a century.

 

 

 

You can dress it up however you like.  We’ve shit the bed all over the pitch this season and there’s all manner of explanations for it.  The result has been getting the best passer in the league who’s fucking shocking defensively into midfield but instead of just doing what anyone else would do we’re still weirdly playing him right back.  We absolutely wouldn’t be doing this if the player playing right back was the right sided equivalent of Robertson.  We are doing it because of Trents profile.  I probably wouldn’t got as far as saying we are doing it because Klopp doesn’t want to make a tit of himself after his comments to Southgate about playing the best right back in the world in midfield but I’m pretty close.

 

While it’s working I’m genuinely not arsed.  I wouldn’t be doing it going forward for the reasons I’ve put forward but if I’m wrong then great.  The fundamental problem for me all season has been width.  It’s been getting progressively worse over the years and not being addressed.  The hybrid formation is making the situation even worse really but is somehow getting us results.  I don’t think it will last.  It feels like when Rodgers switched to the back 3 with Can.  We went on a great run and then it got figured out but we just carried on doing it until it became completely untenable.  If that happens here what is Klopp going to do?  Put Trent back at right back again and we are back to square one.

 

With Sadio going it’s ended up with Robertson being out on the left permanently on his own.  He’s not a tricky winger, he needs to link up and overlap.  With no foil to work with it felt like 95% of his passes were recycled back inside.  On the opposite flank Trent would hardly ever overlap Salah so it ends up with Salah being occupied by multiple players.  It’s mad because the odd time he would we would look dangerous but it was like it’s as beneath him as tracking a runner is.  I think it’s the main reason Salah has had such a poor season.  If we had a right footed Robertson I think Salah finds his best form again and that should be the priority.

 

[Captain Turdseye]

The Guest has neatly articulated a lot of the things there that I was unable to in the OP.