Liverpool thread 2019/20

[west didsblue]

Which football do you prefer us or them?

When we’re on our game, us every time. Goes without saying.

 

[paulchapo]

Another critical refereeing error goes in their favour. Critical moment in the game.

No surprise it was Oliver again......

 

[waspish]

People have been saying that for over two years, yet they barely lose. It’s not easy to stop the near unstoppable. It’s like saying stop KDB getting down the inside right channel and you stop City. Teams still find it difficult to prevent it.

People belittle their football saying all they do is cross, yet the only time we look remotely dangerous is when KDB is... crossing.

It’s very similar, we just rely on midfielders to put chances on a plate, they rely on full backs. Our crosses tend to be closer to the byline, theirs have more variety.

Yep and there strikers make early runs expecting and wanting that early ball over the top we not set up for that

 

[Super David Silva 21]

Liverpool have been lucky in the fact they've had injuries but not to their star/key players.

Unless some monumental disaster happens they've got the league wrapped up and i for one will enjoy the challenge they set for us to go again even stronger next season.

TAA, he's one bloody player though.

 

[Tracking back]

I've just noticed a rather odd anomaly.

Liverpool are playing the same three teams after us.
Leicester
Wolves
Sheffield United

Now on the face of it there doesn't appear to be anything ominous about that.

However, historically teams that play us tend to perform poorly in their next game. This makes sense because we're not like any other team and we physically drain our opponents.

Leicester last night is a perfect example.

If I was looking to help a team out over the hectic schedule I would probably engineer it so that they play the team that has just played against Manchester City.

 

[TheThirdDeano]

If that old peddled lie is true and it does even out over a season they are in for one hell of an implosion

 

[laserblue]

I've just noticed a rather odd anomaly.

Liverpool are playing the same three teams after us.
Leicester
Wolves
Sheffield United

Now on the face of it there doesn't appear to be anything ominous about that.

However, historically teams that play us tend to perform poorly in their next game. This makes sense because we're not like any other team and we physically drain our opponents.

Leicester last night is a perfect example.

If I was looking to help a team out over the hectic schedule I would probably engineer it so that they play the team that has just played against Manchester City.

Especially when Wolves have had less than 48 hours rest between games.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

Yep and there strikers make early runs expecting and wanting that early ball over the top we not set up for that

And to add to my post, we actually cross more often than Liverpool. Stats for this season are City 481 crosses, Everton 442, then Liverpool on 428. People are just letting hatred cloud their opinions by saying “all they do is cross”, like that’s a negative. We cross more, we’re just comparatively shit at making the most of them.

 

[Tricky_Trev]

I've just noticed a rather odd anomaly.

Liverpool are playing the same three teams after us.
Leicester
Wolves
Sheffield United

Now on the face of it there doesn't appear to be anything ominous about that.

However, historically teams that play us tend to perform poorly in their next game. This makes sense because we're not like any other team and we physically drain our opponents.

Leicester last night is a perfect example.

If I was looking to help a team out over the hectic schedule I would probably engineer it so that they play the team that has just played against Manchester City.

Great observation. One I have noticed is the fixtures before and after the champions league knockout games. Check them out!!

Entire fixture list has been carefully manufactured.

 

[Exeter Blue I am here]

I’m not talking about defending, I’m talking about style and our style of football is far superior and technical than anything they can produce. Jamie Carragher even said that.

It is, but as an MO theirs seems to have no discernible weakness. They’ve lost just one league game now in a season and a half, which of course was to us, and I genuinely think that going forward, in the immediate future at least, we are the only team with the wherewithal to beat them again.

Variously, the back four seldom comes up to halfway like ours does, rather it sits a few yards deeper, so there’s rarely, if ever, space in behind when they come up against the likes of Vardy, and that notwithstanding TAA, Robertson, Gomez and VVD is probably the quickest back four in the world anyway. The midfield meanwhile is completely interchangeable (Henderson, Fabinho, Wijnaldom, Ox, Milner, Keita), all of a reasonable size and all absolute grafters, so they’re never affected in the way we are if say Kev, Ferna or Raz is missing, and they sit and wait for the opposition to come forward in the hope of turning the ball over and quickly releasing it to probably the quickest, most direct running forward trio in the game, who are able to go past isolated defenders in one on one situations 80% of the time. As an example last night they could have been 5-0 up after 20 odd minutes, as they picked Leicester off in this fashion again and again and again.

Nor can you park the bus against them like you can City with our lack of height, cos the two full backs specialise in flat, whipped crosses by the bucketload, and that grafting bully boy midfield will get into the box to assist the forwards in attempting to get on the end of them. Probably only Kev has a better repertoire of crosses in the English game.

All in all it makes them fantastically difficult to beat. You have to be able to pin them back and keep TAA and Robertson occupied, and we are virtually the only team with sufficient ball retention skills to do this, and even then it’s hard to sustain. You also can’t have a great big gap between your back four and your midfield like Leicester did, or Salah and Mane will run riot.

Pep showed he had the measure of Klopp last season at Anfield, when he detailed Walker and Mendy to sit back in support of the centre halves, rather than bomb forward as they usually do, and we played reasonably well there this season as well, the outcome hinging on Michael Oliver’s farcical disinclination to give any kind of adverse decision against them, ever.
The problem we have, is that there will be 3 or 4 occasions each season (and particularly this season), when we are ravaged by injury or are frustrated by compact defences, and it just doesn’t happen to them. Robertson, VVD, Mane, Salah and Firmino played in an astonishing 183 out of a possible 190 league games last season (38 x 5 players), and bar the one game recently when Klopp deliberately rested one or two of them, they have been ever present again this season. It’s an injury record that’s simply astonishingly good, and when you chuck in both VAR and PGMOL’s hilariously bent allocation of match officials, with Michael Oliver wheeled out against City, Leicester and Chelsea, then the odds are stacked against you.
They do occasionally have trouble with opponents who are tall, athletic and quick (Palace in the past with Zaha, Schlupp etc, and Watford last week with Sarr and Dacoure), but Lady Luck, in the form of soft penalties or keepers hurling the ball into their own net, always seems to get them out of jail.
City have a rebuilding job to do in the summer, with Kompany, Sane and Aguero, albeit that the latter isn’t leaving yet, all needing replacing, along with a decent left back. Pep has to get those purchases right (pace and power essential), cos if he doesn’t, the dippers are gonna win the league again and again.