The Bigfooty Liverpool Army

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
May 1, 2013
Posts
9,218
Likes
5,946
AFL Club
Carlton
Other Teams
ATV Irdning
In his defence that thing was a ****ing rocket from close range at a difficult height and the cross was still very much on as well so it is not like he could just cover the near post. It was a bloody good goal
It was a rocket, but his technique was awful and always looks pretty awful. His left hand moves 2-3 feet towards the ball while his right hand (which just brushes the ball) moves about 20cm. I can only really remembering him making maybe one or two good saves. Migs makes them on the regular and sometimes they're world class. Plus Karius recently complained about the Kop yelling at him. I prefer Mignolet's confidence in himself despite the criticism.

Maybe Mignolet has complained about the rotation and so Klopp is disciplining him. Otherwise it's hard to see a reason for the change. Klopp not giving Ward a look-in seems to be odd too. If Karius is somehow smashing it in training, but struggling under the public glare, you'd hope they had a good approach to that rather than just giving him X games in a row to get it out of his system.
Klopp has an excellent track record for spotting talent. He saw something in Karius.
Klopp played as a forward and as a defender. I don't think he's even been a GK.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Posts
34,989
Likes
68,350
Location
Burn City
AFL Club
Port Adelaide
Other Teams
Liverpool FC
C'mon Emre - please re-sign. I think if he had a contract for next year he would have had the captain's armband this morning.
Great point - Can has always been a huge leader on the pitch. People always loved Gerrard for getting stuck in and doing the big tackles and that is all Can. Oozes leadership. It's wild that people don't rate him. For me he's probably our most effective midfielder. Does the midfielder work better than everyone in the team.
 
Joined
Oct 6, 2017
Posts
1,182
Likes
1,236
Location
All over the place
AFL Club
Essendon
Other Teams
Liverpool Boston Celtics Victory
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Posts
34,989
Likes
68,350
Location
Burn City
AFL Club
Port Adelaide
Other Teams
Liverpool FC
It seems obvious to me though that we need a world class keeper if we are to progress. That, plus a defensive midfielder and Keita and we could really push hard to the title IMO.
I remain unconvinced about this 'buy a DM' solution to our defensive woes.

Klopp clearly loves pace and power in his midfielders and priotisises this over anything else. That kind of player with the press tactic was super effective today but it isn't sustainable across 90 minutes and it's clear that the team isn't great at low tempo game killing stuff. It's also clear the press is so ingrained in our tactical philosophy that the players are unsure what to do when we do withdraw and let the opposition attack. Look at the Silva goal -

lfc1.jpg


From this reasonable starting position, within a second or two both of our centre backs have rushed Gundogan and Aguero and have been absolutely mugged by an elementary one-two passing move

lfc2.jpg


Then Robertson, already yards away from Silva, has to make the decision to cover for those dumbass centre backs both recklessly chasing at players outside the box. Gomez' tackle unfortunately lands at the feet of Silva but if Gundogan raises his head a moment he would have been able to tee up Silva for a tap in regardless.

lfc3.jpg


Again in added time when we're no longer pressing the opposition, Lovren has managed to get sucked up the pitch this much when City are walking into the box for their third goal.

lfc4.jpg


He gets back in time but he's still jogging towards goal Aguero's cross comes in then he has to immediately change directions for a clearing header. He misses the ball entirely and leaves Gundogan with a free chance to chest the ball and ping it in from a few yards out.


Along with the Gomez stuff up you can chalk their goals down to defensive lapses and poor positioning. Tactical discipline or awareness needs to improve from the back four when the midfield isn't running up the pitch interrupting the opposition attack.
 
Joined
Oct 6, 2017
Posts
1,182
Likes
1,236
Location
All over the place
AFL Club
Essendon
Other Teams
Liverpool Boston Celtics Victory
Second I reckon 'availability' is the most meaningless word in regards to transfers. There's very few 'available' players going into a window and generally players are contracted - you've gotta make your targets available by expressing interesting and creating uncertainty in their future.
True. Maybe i should have said realistically get a world class keeper. Oblak who everybody says should be a target, is gettable provided he wants to come, but would Liverpool pay the 100M (euro?) that AM have as his release clause. Other cheaper options such as Allison are gettable at supposedly 40m and if he has a good World Cup, watch that price go up,and we'll have competition for his services.
 

QuietB

Brownlow Medallist
Joined
May 13, 2008
Posts
21,115
Likes
24,409
Location
Melbourne
AFL Club
Hawthorn
It was a rocket, but his technique was awful and always looks pretty awful. His left hand moves 2-3 feet towards the ball while his right hand (which just brushes the ball) moves about 20cm. I can only really remembering him making maybe one or two good saves. Migs makes them on the regular and sometimes they're world class. Plus Karius recently complained about the Kop yelling at him. I prefer Mignolet's confidence in himself despite the criticism.

Maybe Mignolet has complained about the rotation and so Klopp is disciplining him. Otherwise it's hard to see a reason for the change. Klopp not giving Ward a look-in seems to be odd too. If Karius is somehow smashing it in training, but struggling under the public glare, you'd hope they had a good approach to that rather than just giving him X games in a row to get it out of his system.

Klopp played as a forward and as a defender. I don't think he's even been a GK.
Right now he is getting lambasted for not stopping one shot in his first game back as #1 choice. I am more pissed off with the 2 defenders - Sane should never have been able to get that shot off. And when he did it is pot luck as to if any goal keeper can save it. It was a rocket.
 

Sozabarus

Premiership Player
Joined
Jun 18, 2014
Posts
3,999
Likes
10,942
AFL Club
Port Adelaide
Right now he is getting lambasted for not stopping one shot in his first game back as #1 choice. I am more pissed off with the 2 defenders - Sane should never have been able to get that shot off. And when he did it is pot luck as to if any goal keeper can save it. It was a rocket.
Karius was also shite for Everton's goal in the derby last week.
 
Joined
May 1, 2013
Posts
9,218
Likes
5,946
AFL Club
Carlton
Other Teams
ATV Irdning
Right now he is getting lambasted for not stopping one shot in his first game back as #1 choice. I am more pissed off with the 2 defenders - Sane should never have been able to get that shot off. And when he did it is pot luck as to if any goal keeper can save it. It was a rocket.
Yep and Mignolet has been "lambasted for not stopping one shot" a few times too. The point I made was not this isn't his first error (which of course is said of Mignolet and Karius), it was about pointing to the positives. Mignolet has big, obvious positives on his book. He saves us points often. I'd wager he's saved us more than he has lost us, but people don't point to that. Karius I can only remember making one or two good saves.

Gomez does make an error on the flight of the ball, but recovered OK from there. Matip gets tricked, but maybe could point out that showing him down the line - directly towards Gomez was the right move because Gomez was arriving and it was Karius' near post, where you 'shouldn't be beaten'.
I remain unconvinced about this 'buy a DM' solution to our defensive woes.

Klopp clearly loves pace and power in his midfielders and priotisises this over anything else. That kind of player with the press tactic was super effective today but it isn't sustainable across 90 minutes and it's clear that the team isn't great at low tempo game killing stuff. It's also clear the press is so ingrained in our tactical philosophy that the players are unsure what to do when we do withdraw and let the opposition attack. Look at the Silva goal -

View attachment 451145

From this reasonable starting position, within a second or two both of our centre backs have rushed Gundogan and Aguero and have been absolutely mugged by an elementary one-two passing move

View attachment 451146

Then Robertson, already yards away from Silva, has to make the decision to cover for those dumbass centre backs both recklessly chasing at players outside the box. Gomez' tackle unfortunately lands at the feet of Silva but if Gundogan raises his head a moment he would have been able to tee up Silva for a tap in regardless.

View attachment 451144

Again in added time when we're no longer pressing the opposition, Lovren has managed to get sucked up the pitch this much when City are walking into the box for their third goal.

View attachment 451148

He gets back in time but he's still jogging towards goal Aguero's cross comes in then he has to immediately change directions for a clearing header. He misses the ball entirely and leaves Gundogan with a free chance to chest the ball and ping it in from a few yards out.


Along with the Gomez stuff up you can chalk their goals down to defensive lapses and poor positioning. Tactical discipline or awareness needs to improve from the back four when the midfield isn't running up the pitch interrupting the opposition attack.
Lovren was covering for Matip in the first. Matip should've copped the yellow card and taken Ilkay out to stop the one-two. He made a half-hearted attempt, probably because we were up by 3 goals. Lovren can see it's on and tries to stop the Aguero pass. One-twos can easily mug players. Teamwork is what stops them. That's why Lovren dives in, but he stays with the play better than Matip who is still ball-watching from the corner of the pen box when it goes in. There should be a circle around him in pic 3. Klopp would no doubt say the midfield was responsible for allowing Gundogan to run at them so freely.

For their 3rd, Lovren was man-marking Sane in the lead up, and Milner looked like he filled in for him as Lovren went with Leroy. Lovren made a bad attempt at a tackle but got back in his position almost in time, but he is too late. By running back he misjudges the ball as it comes in and doesn't connect, giving Ilkuy the easy shot. You'd have to check who was making the calls about who was CB. If Lovren said he was coming back it's probably his fault entirely. But Milner abandons the position. He might say he was covering for Sane coming back in while Ox was looking at Aguero with his hands behind his back, being a bit useless. Milner also dived in a couple of times for their 2nd goal with no impact, just like when he set up their final free kick with a massive air kick that wasn't closely related to where the ball was. Not a great cameo from him.

All around our press got lazy once Can was taken off. Keita will help with this. A 'proper DM' would too.

But we won anyway.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

The Punter

Norm Smith Medallist
Joined
May 12, 2006
Posts
8,321
Likes
8,411
Location
Lal Lal
AFL Club
St Kilda
Other Teams
Elsternwick AFC
On the GK debate, Mignolet is 30 in March. We know what we're going to get, and it probably isn't quite good enough. If he's our #2 we have no problems.

Karius is young. The "De Gea was given time" point has been made a few times, but De Gea was 21 when he arrived at Man U, while Karius was 23 when he arrived at Liverpool. I can see the potential benefits of giving Karius a run in the 1st team, but I see him making the same mistakes over and over again. I'd be happy if we bought a real world class keeper in July.

The other thing to mention in the 2nd half of the season as far as GKs go is ... a much increased chance of penalty shootouts.

Ratts of Tobruk touches on another good point. When Man City were in trouble at one stage Otamendi just copped a yellow to stop a run.

We. Never. Do. That.

I've mentioned in this space before that a lot of the time it seems Liverpool would rather concede a goal than a foul. A good clattering and the stopping of momentum that can accompany it are sometimes really useful. Matip and Lovren certainly don't like to foul people. I don't know what Van Dijk is like in that regard. Klavan seems like he knows when to foul someone, and Gomez seems to relish a good clattering. But while it is all well and good to support a team that "plays the game the way it should be played", sometimes you need to undertake a bit of what Jamie Carragher referred to after the Arsenal game as the "dark arts".

We always seem to play the game a full pace tempo, swinging my post full circle. Karius certainly appears to have no ability or predilection to slow the game down if it is called for.
 

jod23

TheBrownDog
Joined
Apr 2, 2000
Posts
61,486
Likes
17,878
Location
Perth, Australia
AFL Club
West Coast
Other Teams
Liverpool, Chicago Bulls.
Could see our owners being high on getting Pulisic to the club as he's American. Would expect him to be the face of Liverpool in the US in a marketing campaign.
I think this too. Pulisic is already the face of "soccer" in the US. I think they want to bring him in for business purposes. To have the American poster boy on the books. Helps that he is an absolute cracking footballer too.
 
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Posts
34,989
Likes
68,350
Location
Burn City
AFL Club
Port Adelaide
Other Teams
Liverpool FC
Lovren was covering for Matip in the first. Matip should've copped the yellow card and taken Ilkay out to stop the one-two. He made a half-hearted attempt, probably because we were up by 3 goals. Lovren can see it's on and tries to stop the Aguero pass. One-twos can easily mug players. Teamwork is what stops them. That's why Lovren dives in, but he stays with the play better than Matip who is still ball-watching from the corner of the pen box when it goes in. There should be a circle around him in pic 3. Klopp would no doubt say the midfield was responsible for allowing Gundogan to run at them so freely.
Matip's effort was heartless but you've also given Lovren an absolute free ride here. It was reckless to go in on Aguero here - look at the moment the first pass in the 1-2 was played.
lfc5.jpg


Lovren is way too far away to affect the pass from getting back to Gundogan. We're not talking any old gronks here, this is the best passing team in the league, so it's gonna be an instant flick on from Aguero. If Lovren remains in his position he would be in the way of both the running Gundogan and the turning Aguero, no matter which way they play that move. It was reckless.

At any rate it shows that both of them are easily sucked in up the pitch.

For their 3rd, Lovren was man-marking Sane in the lead up, and Milner looked like he filled in for him as Lovren went with Leroy. Lovren made a bad attempt at a tackle but got back in his position almost in time, but he is too late. By running back he misjudges the ball as it comes in and doesn't connect, giving Ilkuy the easy shot. You'd have to check who was making the calls about who was CB. If Lovren said he was coming back it's probably his fault entirely. But Milner abandons the position. He might say he was covering for Sane coming back in while Ox was looking at Aguero with his hands behind his back, being a bit useless. Milner also dived in a couple of times for their 2nd goal with no impact, just like when he set up their final free kick with a massive air kick that wasn't closely related to where the ball was. Not a great cameo from him.
Their third was basically the result of Lovren getting sucked up the pitch by Sane for no good reason, messing up a challenge on him, getting back slightly too slow (wasn't really fully concentrating on the incoming ball as he was still backtracking into the area), then fumbling his clearance.

Just another game where I reckon a defensive midfielder wouldn't have helped, and in fact would have hindered the press which defined our match. Can was starting at the base of midfield and was a total wrecking ball pressing up from that position when City were on the ball. Take that away and the press isn't nearly as effective and City get more time on the ball.

When we have a lead late in the game we need players to have positional discipline rather than continuing to charge at opposition players, particularly when it is clear we're not pressing any more, which we weren't. You can't press like mad all game, it's just too taxing. So when you're playing more rigid defending a lead you need tactical and positional discipline. Milner and Lovren having that propensity to chase despite the rest of the team remaining static opened us right up.
 

jod23

TheBrownDog
Joined
Apr 2, 2000
Posts
61,486
Likes
17,878
Location
Perth, Australia
AFL Club
West Coast
Other Teams
Liverpool, Chicago Bulls.
Oh and all this analysis on the goals we conceded etc. Just let it go, enjoy it. We just beat the so called invincibles and despite two late goals for them, we kinda pasted them.

What a cracking win. All without our new shiny defender and without our Magician who has abandoned us. The Fab Three all scoring and doing their thing but it's midfield where I thought we really shined.

Losing Can is going to hurt as he keeps improving all the time. Keita will soften the blow but id rather them both in midfield instead of one or the other. Gini was terrific also but Ox... well he is coming on in leaps and bounds. I admit I was skeptical about the signing. A lot of money for a player who cant even get in the Arsenal team.

But he is clearly a Klopp type of player. A goal and an assist. He's really starting to settle in well.

Must give kudo's to Robbo too. He's been fantastic lately. Saw off Sterling.
 
Joined
Oct 6, 2017
Posts
1,182
Likes
1,236
Location
All over the place
AFL Club
Essendon
Other Teams
Liverpool Boston Celtics Victory
Losing Can is going to hurt as he keeps improving all the time. Keita will soften the blow but id rather them both in midfield instead of one or the other. Gini was terrific also but Ox... well he is coming on in leaps and bounds. I admit I was skeptical about the signing. A lot of money for a player who cant even get in the Arsenal team.
I was very skeptical about Ox as well. Happy to be proved wrong. Just goes to show what a progressive manager can do for a player as opposed to an unmotivated fossil like Wenger. There will be players out there looking at what the Klopp project is delivering and will be queuing up to join! (Got to be positive haha).
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom