Liverpool FC Team Talk, Gossip, Rumours 2020/2021

cj maxx · 18-01-2021 12:12PM

I really don't want to see Matip or Keita near the FA cup game. Robbo and TAA look burnt out.
Rest the whole 1st team.

yourdeadwright · 18-01-2021 12:17PM

cj maxx wrote: »

I really don't want to see Matip or Keita near the FA cup game. Robbo and TAA look burnt out.
Rest the whole 1st team.

I thought Robbo was class yesterday had absolute no problems defensively and was probably our best attacking outlet,

The sky crew gave Shaw loads of credit (he played well) but Robbo on an off day was still far more comfortably defending and attacking
He is just world class ,

rob316 · 18-01-2021 12:24PM

Robbo has been the only consistent attacking outlet in the side.

giveitholly · 18-01-2021 12:37PM

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Pearce reporting Jota is due to return to training in early February so I guess it will be a few weeks after that till he is up to match fitness.

March it is so for Jota

Agent Coulson · 18-01-2021 12:43PM

giveitholly wrote: »

March it is so for Jota

I'd say they will be pushing for him to be back for the Champions League however even if he is I wouldn't expect his match fitness to be up and running till March.

happyoutscan · 18-01-2021 12:48PM

giveitholly wrote: »

March it is so for Jota

It will be great to have him back.

Robert2014 · 18-01-2021 12:49PM

It's hard to see us winning anything if we don't sign at least one center half in the next 2 weeks. As we've said we don't need to sign the next VVD, we only need to get in a better center half than Williams or Phillips. Otherwise we are going to be playing Fabinho and Henderson in almost every game between now and the end of the season and will be in an even worse position if one of them gets injured.

There must be some center half out of favour that can do a job for us for 6 months. It feels like we're throwing away a chance to compete this season.

mightyreds · 18-01-2021 12:49PM

awec wrote: »

We have 4 games before we play City at home.

H Burnley
A Spurs
A West Ham
H Brighton

12 points needed if we want to maintain any hope of being in the mix in a few months.

After recent performances it's hard to see it, I think 2 wins and 2 draws there

PhuckHugh · 18-01-2021 12:56PM

mightyreds wrote: »

After recent performances it's hard to see it, I think 2 wins and 2 draws there

Without being dramatic or ott, I think as far as the league goes the season is done. City look revitalised and will only get stronger. It's like a reverse of last year. Not only is there a systems failure currently but all the top lads are seriously out of form. Salah is a shadow of himself... There's every chance VVD is back for the tail end of season and Jota back fit also .. if they can beat Red Bull there's a good chance of targeting the CL if others can refind form.

cj maxx · 18-01-2021 12:58PM

yourdeadwright wrote: »

I thought Robbo was class yesterday had absolute no problems defensively and was probably our best attacking outlet,

The sky crew gave Shaw loads of credit (he played well) but Robbo on an off day was still far more comfortably defending and attacking
He is just world class ,

And I want to keep him that way , so throw Tsimikas in for the cup game. Trent needs to find his mojo, so a week off would be no harm.
And I'd give Allison the day off as well.

rob316 · 18-01-2021 01:01PM

Yesterday was still an improvement on previous games I felt. I really liked what Shaqiri and Thiago offered, constantly linking up. Maybe drop Firmino for Shaq and get another midfielder in there to press.
The problem I have with Firmino isn't goals, its his poor touch, lazy passes and his declining ability to influence games. This isn't a short drop in form either, he's been out of sorts for well over a season now.

awec · 18-01-2021 01:05PM

rob316 wrote: »

Yesterday was still an improvement on previous games I felt. I really liked what Shaqiri and Thiago offered, constantly linking up. Maybe drop Firmino for Shaq and get another midfielder in there to press.
The problem I have with Firmino isn't goals, its his poor touch, lazy passes and his declining ability to influence games. This isn't a short drop in form either, he's been out of sorts for well over a season now.

There was a point in the second half that summed Firmino up. A long ball was played up to him in the box when we had numbers to launch a decent attack, and he tried to do a fancy little one-touch flick and lost the ball.

yourdeadwright · 18-01-2021 01:07PM

So what we thinking for Burnley

id go

Robbo Nat Fab Trent

Hendo Thaigo

Ox Shaq Mane

Salah

Tusky · 18-01-2021 01:07PM

rob316 wrote: »

Yesterday was still an improvement on previous games I felt. I really liked what Shaqiri and Thiago offered, constantly linking up. Maybe drop Firmino for Shaq and get another midfielder in there to press.
The problem I have with Firmino isn't goals, its his poor touch, lazy passes and his declining ability to influence games. This isn't a short drop in form either, he's been out of sorts for well over a season now.

All elements of his game have been well below his best for a long time. Any time I've raised this over the last year people have told me that I'm missing the point - that he's not just about goals and it's his movement that is key etc. But he is simply not influencing games like he used to. I love the guy, and I know that his style of play has been key to our dominance in recent years. But he's just not been at the races.

dogbert27 · 18-01-2021 01:08PM

Since we lost VVD we have played:

Sheffield United - W 2-1
West Ham - W 2-1
Man City - D 1-1
Leicester - W 3-0
Brighton - D 1-1
Wolves - W 4-0
Fulham - D 1-1
Spurs - W 2-1
Palace - W 7-0
West Brom - D 1-1
Newcastle - D 0-0
Southampton - L 0-1
United - D 0-0

8 goals conceded in 13 games. Every game we drew or lost has been with 1 goal conceded at most. While we can say the balance of the team is off with Fab and Henderson at CB there is a clear problem in attack.

Scoring is more of a problem for us this season than our defence and I would still prefer to start with one of Phillips or Williams instead of putting Henderson there to release Henderson with more forward drive in midfield.

Something is not right with the front 3. I don't know if they've lost some of their desire after 3 years as CL finalists, CL winners and PL winners.

davyboy1975 · 18-01-2021 01:18PM

I see barnes is spouting rubbish again.

John Barnes:

“Thiago, who was running the game and was the best player in the first-half, I don’t think that necessarily helped the front three. Thiago slows the game down. When he slowed it down in tight areas, that is not Mane’s game, that is not Salah’s game

To me the front 3 have stopped making runs inside the fullbacks, maybe because they werent getting the ball hopefully thiago solves that issue of them not getting the ball

Tusky · 18-01-2021 01:21PM

davyboy1975 wrote: »

I see barnes is spouting rubbish again.

John Barnes:

“Thiago, who was running the game and was the best player in the first-half, I don’t think that necessarily helped the front three. Thiago slows the game down. When he slowed it down in tight areas, that is not Mane’s game, that is not Salah’s game

To me the front 3 have stopped making runs inside the fullbacks, maybe because they werent getting the ball hopefully thiago solves that issue of them not getting the ball

I think Thiago speeds the game up. He passes it quicker than our other centre mids, and almost always forwards. On a number of occasions he successfully beat a man to try make something happen too.

MD1990 · 18-01-2021 01:24PM

i cannot understand questioning our front 3's desire tbh. They are all giving everything but there has been a gradual decline in Salah & Firmino for nearly 3 years now since 17/18. Mane not so much until the last few weeks.

We need a change in the summer. Not much money. So Salah out & another forward in.
It wont be an Mbappe or Haaland. Someone like Neto or Wamangituka at Stuttgart.

rob316 · 18-01-2021 01:25PM

Thiago slows the game down? What nonsense. He passes quicker than anyone and he breaks forward with the ball taking on players.

TitianGerm · 18-01-2021 01:28PM

davyboy1975 wrote: »

I see barnes is spouting rubbish again.

John Barnes:

“Thiago, who was running the game and was the best player in the first-half, I don’t think that necessarily helped the front three. Thiago slows the game down. When he slowed it down in tight areas, that is not Mane’s game, that is not Salah’s game

To me the front 3 have stopped making runs inside the fullbacks, maybe because they werent getting the ball hopefully thiago solves that issue of them not getting the ball

The team is dropped back a lot because we've lost VVD passing ability, Gomez speed and Matips ability to carry the ball into midfield.

My best guess is our back four has dropped back about 20 yards and both midfield and front three about 15 yards. It's going to be much harder to generate good chances when we start attacks much deeper.

We also don't push TAA and Robertson up at the same time now. If Robbo goes to the end line then TAA is sitting about 10 yards into the opponents half. People keep saying TAA has dropped off a cliff but to me he's actually just not getting an opportunity to get into as dangerous positions anymore and is passing the ball from a much deeper position. It would be interesting to see a heatmap showing his average position last season compared to this season.

Osmosis Jones · 18-01-2021 01:38PM

Every time Thiago gets the ball he's looking to progress it, he constantly receives the ball facing his own goal and spins on his first touch to push it up the pitch, no other midfielder in the squad is doing anything like that. He also very rarely settles for the easy pass to one of the fullbacks, there have been plenty of examples already of him letting a defender press him only to walk the ball past them as if they're not even there.

The White Wolf · 18-01-2021 01:38PM

MD1990 wrote: »

i cannot understand questioning our front 3's desire tbh. They are all giving everything but there has been a gradual decline in Salah & Firmino for nearly 3 years now since 17/18. Mane not so much until the last few weeks.

We need a change in the summer. Not much money. So Salah out & another forward in.
It wont be an Mbappe or Haaland. Someone like Neto or Wamangituka at Stuttgart.

The problem is that right now they should be smack bang enjoying their peak, it really is a strange one. Henderson said in his interview sometimes you just need a ricochet to go in and that will open the floodgates and I think he's correct.

They don't seem to be playing with confidence.

davyboy1975 · 18-01-2021 01:39PM

Tusky wrote: »

I think Thiago speeds the game up. He passes it quicker than our other centre mids, and almost always forwards. On a number of occasions he successfully beat a man to try make something happen too.

Exactly therefore barnes is spouting rubbish

18-01-2021 01:41PM

MD1990 wrote: »

i cannot understand questioning our front 3's desire tbh. They are all giving everything but there has been a gradual decline in Salah & Firmino for nearly 3 years now since 17/18. Mane not so much until the last few weeks.............

Salah's not in decline, he's in a period of bad form.
17 goals this season from 25 appearances........ he can't be judged on the 17/18 season IMO as that was a huge outlier.

Bobby also excelled in 17/18 but when Salah and Mane aren't scoring it looks like he's doing nothing of use as he's just not a striker really....... even last season 9 PL goals yet he played in all the games and we won the league and pre Covid you couldn't fault the overall system.

It's a huge sh1tter that none of the front 3 can score when they are off form as a unit. The likes of Ings would do better than any of them tbh in our current set-up. It's also a pity that Origi seems to be not an option. He must be brutal in training.

TitianGerm · 18-01-2021 01:42PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYa3qABgRRk

Was looking at this earlier and Naby features very well in interceptions and tackles stats. Shame about his injuries as he's an excellent player.

brevity · 18-01-2021 01:43PM

TitianGerm wrote: »

It would be interesting to see a heatmap showing his average position last season compared to this season.

This interested me too so i found this good site:

https://www.sofascore.com/player/trent-alexander-arnold/795064

On the right hand side you can change the heat map from this year to previous years.

Osmosis Jones · 18-01-2021 01:50PM

Augeo wrote: »

Salah's not in decline, he's in a period of bad form.
17 goals this season from 25 appearances........ he can't be judged on the 17/18 season IMO as that was a huge outlier.

Yeah Salah hasn't scored in 4 games (literally nobody has scored in 3 of those) but he's still the Premier League's top scorer this season with 13 goals.

At this stage last season he had 9 goals, the year before he had 11, and even in his record breaking 17/18 season by the 18 game mark he only had one more goal than this season, at 14.

EDIT: And in fact he's missed a game this season so he's only on 17 appearances, meaning if he scores vs Burnley he would match his record-breaking form.

Osmosis Jones · 18-01-2021 01:51PM

A huge part of Trent's game is whoever plays in front of him as the RCM, at his best that player is Henderson.

TitianGerm · 18-01-2021 01:52PM

brevity wrote: »

This interested me too so i found this good site:

https://www.sofascore.com/player/trent-alexander-arnold/795064

On the right hand side you can change the heat map from this year to previous years.

Not as many touches in the box or around the edge looking at that to me.

Osmosis Jones · 18-01-2021 01:54PM

TitianGerm wrote: »

Not as many touches in the box or around the edge looking at that to me.

I feel like pretty much any time Trent would receive the ball in the attacking third it was from a long crossfield pass from van Dijk, we've been missing those passes and so pretty much all of Trent's involvement has come from him receiving the ball way deeper.

Liverpool FC Team Talk, Gossip, Rumours 2020/2021

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