Does Pep need to be more pragmatic away from home in Europe?

[BlueAnorak]

Yes.

Monaco away, and now Liverpool away.

Sometimes shutting up shop for one game will do.

Barca away with Bayern too.

With the line up I thought . OK so Gundogan is going to play along side Fern till the Liverpool energy levels drop. How wrong was I....

 

[The slaughtered lamb]

Yes. A truly great coach has to be able to defend when required. It’s relatively easy to play attacking football against teams that are shit scared of you with the talent we, Bayern & Barca have. But sometimes you have to be able to shut up shop for 90 minutes.

Don't even have to do it for 90 mins, just do it for 60 till they get frustrated. That's what the rags do when they go there and it's served them well. Then do what we're good at for the last half hour. Can Pep be more pragmatic or is he too stubborn, time will tell.

 

[Father Paul]

We were lucky to get back to 4-3 that game as much as it hurts to say. I
'm not saying pep should park the bus. I believe in our style of play but it is possible to be pragmatic when under pressure. This is the second time where we have self destructed at anfield within 20 minutes. We need to be able to take the sting out of a game and if that means just keeping the ball better or sitting in and weathering the storm for a bit then so be it, conceding 3 goals away from home in Europe is not good enough

If we go to Anfield next season and concede three quick goals yet again serious questions will have to be asked.

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

Yes.

 

[The blue phantom]

Is it right that Pep has only won 4 out of 24 away knockout games in the CL?

I'm sure some **** on Talksport earlier said this. Didn't seem right.

 

[Blue Feather]

It was time to either trust Sterling and show faith in him as a key player of a winning side or, as I suspected when I heard the team news, play KDB in a wide right role if the extra central midfielder was deemed necessary. Don't know what the thinking was for last night I'm afraid....

 

[SWP's back]

No. He needs to stick to what we do best and not put an extra central midfielder on the right.

Exactly this. Shouldn’t have changed from the Everton game.

 

[Armaan]

Personally I thought Pep did exactly what he said he wasn't going to do. He changed tactics and it looked as if most of the team weren't quite sure how to play it. Hence so many bad performances.

This. Nobody knew wtf to do when Gundogan was on the pitch. By the time sterling came on it was already too late. If sterling/bernardo played we’d still be in this tie and still be favourites to go through. Pep over thought it and bottled it.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

He needs an answer to Klopp and the press, but you can clearly see where what worked at Barca with Pique, Busquets, Xavi, Alves, Iniesta falls down when it's implemented by even slightly less familiar or talented players. For 95% of games we can pull it off because of opposition weaknesses, but Klopp knows what works against it and has built a team that is designed to bugger it up. Pep either has to get the world's best technicians and calmest heads and pay whatever he needs to do it, or he has to come up with a different setup or style for those games, or we'll always lose them. Trying the Barca style without Barca players against the guy who can actually stop it, is belligerent and becoming slightly foolish.

However, our style in itself is a problem because it works in 95% of games, we've had plenty of games where we've barely had to defend and increasingly our backline and midfield haven't been defending as properly as they should be. Thus, when they get put in the unfamiliar situation like last night against the hounds they're not well-practiced, they have little experience to recall upon and haven't had to cope with it in that system and with that style. It's a serious problem for Pep that that opposition in that stadium has our secrets and can prey upon them at will.

and 2bh, the team that played last night should have been the team that started at Everton. To come out of the blocks on Saturday and play like that and gain all that confidence, only to complete negate the right hand side of our attack, was a big misstep. Pep's decision-making in CL knockouts is suspect at both Bayern and here and he needs to shake it off.

 

[pavelsrnicek]

I don't think this is entirely on Pep. Yes the change in formation, which didn't work first half at Wembley, failed again but at the same time every goal was entirely preventable. Sane's nothing ball put Liverpool on the counter attack for the first, Otamendi has to be smarter with Salah, Walker simply has to clear, three mistakes adnd we're 1-0 down and Liverpool's tails are up. Gundogan bottles a 50:50 with Milner and no one closes Oxlade- Chamberlain (again) and it's two. Otamendi has another brain fart, Laporte shows Salah inside to cross on his better foot, we have 4 defenders in the box none marking Mane and we're 3-0 down.

We can talk tactics, formations and selections but there were some pretty awful individual performances from players who have to be better than they were last night.

I don't think we say Pep needs to change his approach in away matches, when he clearly tried last night but more importantly too many players were absolutely awful.