Liverpool FC Forum

Anyone think we might switch to this in a few weeks time?  We need both Suarez and Sturridge in central positions as they are both devastating.  Henderson's pressing and energy are fantastic and IMO he should always be in the first 11.  An unspectacular but very useful player.  Coutinho is a fantastic player and possibly our most creative / inventive.  Should always start.  We need lucas for his defensive abilities and we need Gerrard on the field also.  How do we fit them all in though?  Perhaps with the below formation?

                               Mignolet
                       Toure           Sakho / Agger
Johnson                                                       Enrique / Cissokho
                                  Lucas
                        Gerrard      Henderson
                                 Coutinho
                     Suarez                Sturridge 

Coutinho gets to play in his best position.  We keep SAS central.  We keep Hendo's workrate / pressing.
Less chance of getting overrun in midfield... which happens us a lot.

I've left Skrtel out due to his inability to play a high line or pass the ball out from the back. 
Only weakness I see to this is the lack of width.  A lot would be expected of the LB + RB

jacdaniel » Tue Oct 29, 2013 2:01 pm wrote:Anyone think we might switch to this in a few weeks time?  We need both Suarez and Sturridge in central positions as they are both devastating.  Henderson's pressing and energy are fantastic and IMO he should always be in the first 11.  An unspectacular but very useful player.  Coutinho is a fantastic player and possibly our most creative / inventive.  Should always start.  We need lucas for his defensive abilities and we need Gerrard on the field also.  How do we fit them all in though?  Perhaps with the below formation?

                               Mignolet
                       Toure           Sakho / Agger
Johnson                                                       Enrique / Cissokho
                                  Lucas
                        Gerrard      Henderson
                                 Coutinho
                     Suarez                Sturridge 

Coutinho gets to play in his best position.  We keep SAS central.  We keep Hendo's workrate / pressing.
Less chance of getting overrun in midfield... which happens us a lot.

I've left Skrtel out due to his inability to play a high line or pass the ball out from the back. 
Only weakness I see to this is the lack of width.  A lot would be expected of the LB + RB

Play like that against any team with decent wingers, a centre half and full backs and you'll probably lose about 10-0.

Condense the space in the middle buy pushing right up the pitch and overload the flanks and you'll out number any team that plays that formation in wide area's all game while stopping them playing through the middle because the high line will mean all the centre of the park becomes congested. The only ball Liverpool would have out would be over the top (which might work because of Suarez's movement) but if you have decent defenders who can read it and head and even worse are quick... you could pin Liverpool in their own half for the entire game.

Not for me.

Can't see it happen to be honest. Rodgers has heaped praise on Skrtel, I hardly see him being dropped on Saturday at that. 

The benefit of playing three CBs is that you gain width from your wing backs. Your system is far too narrow, the full backs would not be afforded the luxury or pushing forward and leave 2 CBs exposed.

The only way I see our 3-5-2 system changing is if we lose either Sturridge or Suarez to injury or suspension, in this case I expect us to revert to a 4-3-3 at home (with a central striker) and 4-5-1 away.

^^ Cr*p post. We've played that before and have never lost 10-0.

As long as we go to four at the back, we'll be better off. FWIW, I pretty much agree with the OP formation. 

SouthCoastShankly » Tue Oct 29, 2013 2:11 pm wrote:Can't see it happen to be honest. Rodgers has heaped praise on Skrtel, I hardly see him being dropped on Saturday at that. 

The benefit of playing three CBs is that you gain width from your wing backs. Your system is far too narrow, the full backs would not be afforded the luxury or pushing forward and leave 2 CBs exposed.

The only way I see our 3-5-2 system changing is if we lose either Sturridge or Suarez to injury or suspension, in this case I expect us to revert to a 4-3-3 at home (with a central striker) and 4-5-1 away.

So WHEN Suarez gets suspended you think we'll go back to a 4-3-3?...

Agree, just hope that when he returns he isn't bunged out wide.

SouthCoastShankly » Tue Oct 29, 2013 8:11 am wrote:Can't see it happen to be honest. Rodgers has heaped praise on Skrtel, I hardly see him being dropped on Saturday at that. 

The benefit of playing three CBs is that you gain width from your wing backs. Your system is far too narrow, the full backs would not be afforded the luxury or pushing forward and leave 2 CBs exposed.

The only way I see our 3-5-2 system changing is if we lose either Sturridge or Suarez to injury or suspension, in this case I expect us to revert to a 4-3-3 at home (with a central striker) and 4-5-1 away.

Totally agree with you mate.  There were a lot of narrow minded views (not on here, just in general) that playing 3 CB's was a sign of setting up shop and being too defensive minded.  I don't think that is the case.  It allows our wide defenders to bomb forward and create our width.

As long as Suarez gets me 34 Fantasy points every week I'm totally happy with it 

The 3-5-2 is actually working quite well so far.  I thought it looked much better with Henderson in for Moses.
Henderson has a great work rate and is very good at pressing high up. And he helps keep possession better than Moses.

The problem with the 3-5-2 is that we can't fit both Henderson and Coutinho into the team.  And I think they both deserve a spot in the first 11. 

If we drop Henderson, we could miss that workrate and his pressing. 
If we drop Coutinho we miss having a class player in the side with great creativity. 

Probably a nice dilemma for Rodgers to have though.

, Another "Football Manager" thread.

I'll go with (if fit) 4-1-3-2

.                                                Mignolet

. Johnson           Toure/Skrtel                           Agger/Sakho              Enrique     

.                                                Lucas


                    Henderson            Gerrard            Coutinho


                               Suarez                     Sturridge

Hats off to you if you can beat that line up .

jacdaniel » Tue Oct 29, 2013 3:02 pm wrote:The 3-5-2 is actually working quite well so far.  I thought it looked much better with Henderson in for Moses.
Henderson has a great work rate and is very good at pressing high up. And he helps keep possession better than Moses.

The problem with the 3-5-2 is that we can't fit both Henderson and Coutinho into the team.  And I think they both deserve a spot in the first 11. 

If we drop Henderson, we could miss that workrate and his pressing. 
If we drop Coutinho we miss having a class player in the side with great creativity. 

Probably a nice dilemma for Rodgers to have though.

i agree with your analysis in the OP mate, someone has to make way for coutinho, it`s certainly not going to be either suarez or sturridge and our midfield gets over run at the best of times so we cant really afford to weaken that area of the team any further.
we are currently playing with 3 CB`s and considering most teams cope with 2 i`d say the back 4 looks the most likely area to change.
atm though my CB pairing would be skrtel and another, he`s been our best CB this season imo.

That's a bad formation which won't work because of reasons that have already been mentioned. It's a very interesting formation and I've thought that we might play like that myself, but it's really not a very good formation.

But the question still stands; now when Coutinho is back, do we sacrifice Henderson or maybe Coutinho should fight for his place like Agger? Or is there a way to play both of them?

If we do sacrifice Henderson then we also sacrifice our midfield. We'll obviously miss his energy. The lad is capable of tracking every player on the pitch and he helps us raise numbers be it in attack, midfield or defense.

On the other hand, Countinho is our third most dangerous player in our team and possible the most creative one. We've seen that he has a great partnership with Sturridge and now adding Suarez to that partnership will add a great deal of firepower in our attack. The opposition will have to look after 3 great individuals who just happen to work great as a team as well. When on form, that attack will be practically unstoppable.

So which do you prefer? Do we add firepower to our attack but sacrificing the numbers and energy of our midfield in the process, or do we stay with the same midfield and hope that SAS will do their job?

I personally prefer our line-up with Countinho in it because he can do a good job as a midfielder as well, but for this particular game (Arsenal) I'd start with the same line-up as with WBA and bring Countinho later on (if needed).