Liverpool FC Forum

by **Sean** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 10:52 am

Last night our players constantly gave away easy possession. Despite bringing in better players during the last few years it has been a feature of our play during Benitez's reign that we are not comfortable on the ball in the way Arsenal and Man u are. Benitez seems to like players who will simply work hard for the team when the opposition have the ball (e.g. Kuyt) but we lack creativity and imagination and our players simply look uncomfortable when in possession. Not only is this frustrating but it doesn't make for attractive football.

by **Leonmc0708** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:01 am

Over rection this one Sean.

One game we play bad in and you think we lack ability ?

Arsenals style of football is great to watch, but is not effective all the time, look at the peaks and troughs oveer the last ten years for them.

At times it can look like they want to pass it into the net.

by **Sean** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:05 am

Maybe I am overreacting but the mantra at Liverpool during our decades of success was "if the opposition don't have the ball they can't hurt you". I just reckon our passing game has been poor for a few years and we cough up possession far too easily. I'm not suggesting that we sack the manager or anything.

by **bigmick** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:28 am

Yeah I'm not sure I agree with you Sean really. Keeping posession of the football depends on lots of things, not least of course as you've pointed out how good the players are. It also depends on the opposition of course, how well they press the ball and how much they allow you to play. Mostly though, it depends on what you are trying to do with it. If you are content to simply pass the ball along the back line, chances are you'll win the posession stats at the end of the game. If however you show intent when you have the football, it stands to reason as you press forward you increase the risk of losing posession.

Liverpools difficulty in maintaining posession last night in the bits of the game that I saw were largely due to there too often being a lack of a simple pass on. This was partly due to some fairly clever closing down from the Home team, due to a greater extent to fairly lacklustre displays from our two central midfielders (for probably legitimate reasons in both cases) but mostly because Pennant got sent off. It's very hard to ask players to get clost to the front men when you are down to ten, with them knowing that they're probably going to have to bust a gut to get back. The tendency is then to hit the front men from distance and not support, making retaining posession increasingly duifficult. Of course as fatigue sets in, the problem feeds on itself.

In the case of Arsenal (who incidently do play some lovely stuff it has to be said) they support the man in posession very effectively and move with a fluency, intricacy and invention which is unparallelled amongst english teams. They rarely play a pass beyond twenty yards or so but move teams around with the speed and precision of the interplay. It is lovely, but as Leon points out can be disrupted by teams filling in the spaces and getting close to them. In their halcyon days, Henri would dig them out of tricky situations with a moment of genius, whereas Vierra would compete physically. Now though, my suspicion is that come the colder weather, heavier pitches and more physical opponents tht they will find it hard to continue their current excellence.

This Liverpool team is a really good one in my opinion, by any historical standards. If Rafa trusts them, cuts down on the tinkering and lets them go, you will see posession football from this lot that will make you very happy in my view.

by **Ciggy** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:55 am

We keep possession more than any team I know, it was just last night we didnt which was a rarity.

It wont happen again for a long long time.

We just wasnt at the races last night.

And they still didnt score against us only with the pen, not to @rsed we will destroy them at Anfield.

by **account deleted by request** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 12:30 pm

To a very limited extent I agree with Sean, over the last few years we seemed to have stopped playing the little triangles of the passing game that Arsenal and to an extent Chelsea for example delight in. We tend to always either be looking to play it forward or when we do play it backwards it tends to go all the way back to our CB's who then give it the long ball treatment. Presumably this is because we tend to look for the quick break more often than most teams. The Mancs rarely use the passing triangle as they too always seem to look to play it forward.

by **Ace Ventura** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 12:38 pm

Like the others have said mate think this is a knee jerk reaction.
We have dominated posession in every other game so far this season, we did struggle last night. And it wasnt just one player, right through the team we were poor.
I am not concerned though, its the first game in a long time that i have seen it happen.

by **GRAHAM01** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:01 pm

not sure why is wasn`t working last night, think it something to do with the way they started they are out of the blocks before we were out of the changing room

they closed us down very quickly and did not give us any time on the ball, i think this is what lead to pennents first yellow he just couldn`t get hold of the ball and when he did get it they took it off him in seconds he got frustrated and lashed out ( same sort of thing for the second )

steve never had the best of games and i think that rubbed off on a couple of others, defence was solid though so that was something

i can`t see us being anything like that this w/end

by **Owzat** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:46 pm

Honestly it reminded me of England vs Portugal and our inability to retain possession and their inability to do FA with it. By that measure a draw was predictable, I said to one of my colleagues I reckoned it would be 1-1 or 2-1 either way.

by **yckatbjywtbiastkamb** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 10:48 pm

you get games like that were no matter how hard you try or no matter what you do passes just seem to go astray.
for me the biggest concern is when we are struggling to get a foothold in a game and its obvious we just need to keep the ball for a while and try and get some sort of fluidity into our passing game, we have a tendancy for either reina to attempt ambitious long throws/ kicks or for the back four to just put their foot through the ball and welly it upfield.
surely when you just need to calm everything down reina is better advised to roll it out to a player and build from the back.
i`ve noticed this against portsmouth and again last night.
to dominate a game you need to have the ball.

by **dawson99** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:14 pm

Well first off i wouldnt say it is deliberate.

Our last two games we have looked stale, dunno if tis due to travelling or what, but apart from these 2 games our possession has been awesome so i wouldnt qworry too much right now

by **LittleHobo** » Wed Sep 19, 2007 11:41 pm

We were a great passing team under roy evans strangely enough

these days we aint a great passing team but eh if it wins us the title i wont mind

Liverpool FC Forum

Inability to maintain possession - Is this lack of ability or deliberate

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