Liverpool FC Forum

[crim cram]

It looks like Rogers' tactics seem to be evolving to me.  There isn't the "sterile domination" thing going on near as much as I thought there would be.  It's much more direct and, if like today, there's an early goal we play compact and break on the counter.  I noticed Barca had a 63% to 37% possession advantage against Bayern, but were trounced.  The possession stat [can be] one of the most deceptive stats in assessing a match.  You need players who can pick a lock.... (Coutinho    ) especially if teams are compact and defensive.

[kartiek]

It looks like Rogers' tactics seem to be evolving to me.  There isn't the "sterile domination" thing going on near as much as I thought there would be.  It's much more direct and, if like today, there's an early goal we play compact and break on the counter.  I noticed Barca had a 63% to 37% possession advantage against Bayern, but were trounced.  The possession stat [can be] one of the most deceptive stats in assessing a match.  You need players who can pick a lock.... (Coutinho    ) especially if teams are compact and defensive.

Yes I mentioned this somewhere else, but it seems that Rodgers has abandoned his initial obsession with possession football. When we're dominating, we seem to give Reina a lot more opportunity to lob the ball out and catch players in good positions. When we're under pressure, we seem to start quieting down the opposition by keeping hold of the ball and passing it out slowly starting from Reina. This is the way to go!

[red till i die!!]

the total possession notion was killing us at the start of the season. everything was slow and laboured and under pressure too many errors were made with costly results, so im not surprised rodgers allows a little more freedom now especially in reina's case. his distribution and vision is second to none and he sets up a lot of counter attacks this way, where as before the longest he was passing it was either to enrique or johnson.

[damjan193]

When Rodgers came in this club one of the first things he mentioned was that he likes his players to put a lot of pressure on the opposition when we're defending. So far this has been working great. We've made a lot of chances by stealing the ball or by intercepting a bad pass, all because of the fact that we're pressing very high and we force the opposition to make a mistake, mostly in their own half. For me, this is one of the main benefits of Brendan's tactical approach. Today we scored at least one goal because of this.

[Eagle]

You can only move the ball quicker up the pitch when you have the sort of movement between the different lines of the pitch that the likes of Coutinho and Sturridge have bought to the team, opposed to the static ball watching you get from the likes of Sterling, Downing and Assaidi when the ball is 50 yards behind them.

[maguskwt]

This team still has alot of questions and I hope Rodgers can answer them and improve it next season:

1. Sturridge seems to be the most effective when he leads the line, but do we have space in the team for both Sturridge and Suarez? Will Suarez be less effective as a striker playing wider?

2. Coutinho's talents seem to be very well suited as a quintessential number 10 (and he does wear number 10) , a playmaking forward/ second striker who can unlock defenses like Bebeto, Roberto Baggio, etc. Again where does that leave Suarez? Or should Coutinho be playing as the more foward attacking midfielder in Rodger's 3-man midfield.

3. Henderson has improved leaps and bounds but is he still Liverpool standard if we are fighting to be top 4 next season. Where is his best position? An attacking midfielder which Rodgers seem to be playing him as right now or as a more withdrawn midfielder?

4. Lucas is a good holding midfielder, but he is still a very one dimensional DM. Do we need a better DM, a more athletic, a better passer and a better all around player like Yaya Toure?

5. Where does this leave Gerrard?

6. Do we or do we not improve our RB position? Johnson was one of the best players early in the season, but in the 2nd half of the season he has been a liability. It is not unfair to say that we lost alot of points because of his positioning and defensive inadequacies .

7. How do we improve our CB positions? Do we or do we not improve on Skrtle and if we do, who is a suitable candidate?

[RedHands]

This team still has alot of questions and I hope Rodgers can answer them and improve it next season:

1. Sturridge seems to be the most effective when he leads the line, but do we have space in the team for both Sturridge and Suarez? Will Suarez be less effective as a striker playing wider?

2. Coutinho's talents seem to be very well suited as a quintessential number 10 (and he does wear number 10) , a playmaking forward/ second striker who can unlock defenses like Bebeto, Roberto Baggio, etc. Again where does that leave Suarez? Or should Coutinho be playing as the more foward attacking midfielder in Rodger's 3-man midfield.

3. Henderson has improved leaps and bounds but is he still Liverpool standard if we are fighting to be top 4 next season. Where is his best position? An attacking midfielder which Rodgers seem to be playing him as right now or as a more withdrawn midfielder?

4. Lucas is a good holding midfielder, but he is still a very one dimensional DM. Do we need a better DM, a more athletic, a better passer and a better all around player like Yaya Toure?

5. Where does this leave Gerrard?

6. Do we or do we not improve our RB position? Johnson was one of the best players early in the season, but in the 2nd half of the season he has been a liability. It is not unfair to say that we lost alot of points because of his positioning and defensive inadequacies .

7. How do we improve our CB positions? Do we or do we not improve on Skrtle and if we do, who is a suitable candidate?

Good questions. I think over the summer, the number one priority should be finding a starting center back. If we get rid of Skrtel, I think we need two center backs. Second priority should be looking to add a more athletic, bigger, defensive midfielder (exactly like YaYa Toure) who is good in the air to help protect the defense and help out on defending corners (which we've been so Sh*t at defending against this year). I think if a large bid comes in for Suarez 35m+, we take the money and say thank you for your services and reinvest it into the squad. I think Henderson will hold onto his starting spot next year- having someone in midfield that can run forever is a huge asset.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

no way should we sell suarez, i think people are getting a bit carried away by one result against a team that had about as much defensive organisation as an ale house side.

[Benny The Noon]

You do realise if Suarez did get sold for a big fee that the club will be ok - we could even use the £40mil plus to really strengthen the squad.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

You do realise if Suarez did get sold for a big fee that the club will be ok - we could even use the £40mil plus to really strengthen the squad.

depends what you mean by okay. we got huge money for the likes of torres, alonso and mascherano and look whats happened since they left.
as a general rule of thumb you dont sell your best players, when someone is performing for your club you keep them because the transfer market is a lottery and there is no guarentee you can replace them.

[Benny The Noon]

And we in the past have sold lot better players and moved on.

When players like Masher and Xabi were sold it went wrong not because they were sold but because they werent replaced correctly because the owners used the money to pay debts.

Keeping Suarez is also no guarentee that things will get better.

Suarez is an outstanding player - but if he did leave then we would get a very good fee and that one player could be replaced by 2 or 3 very good players

Just we did when we sold Rush and replaced him with Barnes , Beardo and Aldo.

The world wouldn't fall apart if Suarez was sold.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

And we in the past have sold lot better players and moved on.

When players like Masher and Xabi were sold it went wrong not because they were sold but because they werent replaced correctly because the owners used the money to pay debts.

Keeping Suarez is also no guarentee that things will get better.

Suarez is an outstanding player - but if he did leave then we would get a very good fee and that one player could be replaced by 2 or 3 very good players

Just we did when we sold Rush and replaced him with Barnes , Beardo and Aldo.

The world wouldn't fall apart if Suarez was sold.

it`s a totally different situation, when we replaced rush we had been the dominant force in english football for not far off 2 decades, we could pick and choose who we wanted, it was practically unheard of for anyone to turn us down.
when we signed beardsley and barnes we were picking the `best of the rest`, it would be akin to us buying bale and rooney these days.
clubs in our position dont improve by selling their best players. we already need a bit of luck in the transfer market to find a top center half and CM, why make that even harder by adding a top striker to that list?

[Fowler_E7]

We need to find a way to have Suarez, Couthino and Sturridge on the pitch without being defensively awful because those 3 will get the goals we need guaranteed. Like others have said we need some athletic presence in Central midfield as Lucas isn't good enough and neither is Henderson, a dominant Centre half is also an essential purchase.

[Benny The Noon]

And we in the past have sold lot better players and moved on.

When players like Masher and Xabi were sold it went wrong not because they were sold but because they werent replaced correctly because the owners used the money to pay debts.

Keeping Suarez is also no guarentee that things will get better.

Suarez is an outstanding player - but if he did leave then we would get a very good fee and that one player could be replaced by 2 or 3 very good players

Just we did when we sold Rush and replaced him with Barnes , Beardo and Aldo.

The world wouldn't fall apart if Suarez was sold.

it`s a totally different situation, when we replaced rush we had been the dominant force in english football for not far off 2 decades, we could pick and choose who we wanted, it was practically unheard of for anyone to turn us down.
when we signed beardsley and barnes we were picking the `best of the rest`, it would be akin to us buying bale and rooney these days.
clubs in our position dont improve by selling their best players. we already need a bit of luck in the transfer market to find a top center half and CM, why make that even harder by adding a top striker to that list?

No one is saying that we need to sell etc

But when he does go it won't be the end of the world - we will find a way to replace him.

We sold Torres and we werent the dominant force.

There will be players out there that can come in and do well for us.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

if we have any sort of pretentions of being the dominant force in english football again we have got to keep hold of players like luis.
this policy of selling your best player and trying to replace him with another top player is just russian roulette.
keep your best players, sell your poor ones, you`ll be amazed how far a club can go doing that.