Greenlizard0 PL & Championship Football Thread ** spoilers ** [16th - 24th Jan 2021]

Well, can't really be too upset drawing against the champions at the end of the day.

Yawnfest though, was hoping for something a bit more entertaining.
 
Lucky to get a point out of that, bar Alisson and Fabinho we were garbage. Our tactics aren't working, we desperately need a plan B and crossing it in to a packed box isn't it. Worried, especially with Klopp seemingly happy with our defensive options for the season.
We keep mentioning defence as the issue but it isn't

The midfield is still able to do better than it is, they also won't fix the fact our front three can't hit a barn door and want to pass it instead of shoot at every possible

Nothing I can think of explains how all free of them have nose dived so much
 
Meh. A really frustrating performances - defended well, particularly as we have no CB, controlled possession and limited them to few and far between opportunities to counter but our final third play has let us down again. We were getting into the right positions fairly often but our final pass or decision was terrible - we either didn't shoot first time when the chance was there or we took a shot when we should have played the extra pass. Jota getting back fit can't come soon enough just to give the front 3 a bit of a break but also to keep them on their toes.
 
We keep mentioning defence as the issue but it isn't

The midfield is still able to do better than it is, they also won't fix the fact our front three can't hit a barn door and want to pass it instead of shoot at every possible

Nothing I can think of explains how all free of them have nose dived so much
It's just life. Can't be brilliant all the time. Hopefully soon everything they hit ripples the net. Just get past this dip.
 
18 games to go (20 for city) anything could happen this season. Still be a few major covid issues with fixtures or important players.
 
We keep mentioning defence as the issue but it isn't

The midfield is still able to do better than it is, they also won't fix the fact our front three can't hit a barn door and want to pass it instead of shoot at every possible

Nothing I can think of explains how all free of them have nose dived so much
They're not getting clear cut chances anymore. Most teams we're facing are sitting deep so we're not seeing Salah or Mane beat the defence and sprint towards goal. We're also not seeing Trent and Robertson hit crosses in to empty boxes for the same reason, they're no longer empty. Palace aside, who spread their legs for us, we're barely hitting the target more than twice a game and that's because we're not creating chances anymore. We either need a target man or a goal scoring midfielder and we have neither.

As for the defence, VVD and Gomez are rapid so we can play the high line and get away with it more often than not. As well as Fabinho has done, and he's been superb tbh, we need him in midfield, the same goes for Henderson. A non broken, capable of playing 90 minutes and more than one game a week defender would allow us to do that again.
 
They're not getting clear cut chances anymore. Most teams we're facing are sitting deep so we're not seeing Salah or Mane beat the defence and sprint towards goal. We're also not seeing Trent and Robertson hit crosses in to empty boxes for the same reason, they're no longer empty. Palace aside, who spread their legs for us, we're barely hitting the target more than twice a game and that's because we're not creating chances anymore. We either need a target man or a goal scoring midfielder and we have neither.

As for the defence, VVD and Gomez are rapid so we can play the high line and get away with it more often than not. As well as Fabinho has done, and he's been superb tbh, we need him in midfield, the same goes for Henderson. A non broken, capable of playing 90 minutes and more than one game a week defender would allow us to do that.

Similar thing happened with José's Chelsea. Eventually people find you out.
 
Similar thing happened with José's Chelsea. Eventually people find you out.

As good as they were there wasn’t much to find out about Jose’s side. He had incredible players and purchasing power.

There’s no evidence Liverpool have been found out. We’ll see that when they’re back to full strength.
 
They're not getting clear cut chances anymore.....
We might not be creating as much as when we're at our best but we're still creating chances, just not taking them. We've scored 1 goal from near 7 xg in the last 4 games. We scored 7 from sub 3 xg vs Palace to put that into perspective. We fluffed them so nobody is talking about them but we had chances to score today, similarly in the last few games.

The loss of VVD (and Gomez) has effected the way we attack though. We're undoubtedly not playing as open as we did with him in the side. The way we've broked down deep defending sides is to just suffocate them - our midfield pins sides back and because we've got VVD at the back we have the confidence to allow our fullbacks to bomb forward. Compared to last season how often have you we seen Trent within 18 yards of the oppositions byline? He's usually camped in the oppositions half but to protect our CB's you don't see him or Robertson as far forward as they normally are.
 
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