Permabanned
This. Probably wont even watch it as dont really care about seeing 2 English teams play, again. (Obviously was different when Liverpool hammered Spurs)
Greenlizard0 Premier League Football Thread ** spoilers ** [18th - 19th May 2021]
- Thread starter explicit4u
- Start date
This. Probably wont even watch it as dont really care about seeing 2 English teams play, again. (Obviously was different when Liverpool hammered Spurs)
Caporegime
It's entirely this. Having one of Fabinho/Henderson in our midfield to protect the CBs cannot be underestimated. We lost that when Klopp decided to play them both in defence/lost one through injuries rather than play Phillips, Williams or Kabak when they were available.I think Klopp realising that playing CB's at CB and Fabhino in Midfield was what turned it around.
Top 4 certainly isn't a sure thing for us though, Benteke and Zaha will cause Phillips and Williams all sorts of problems if our fullbacks and midfield leave them exposed on the counter.
None of this is supported by what actually happened though. Fabinho plays most of the first half of the season at CB before getting injured towards the back end of January (while Henderson was out) - at this point we were still in the top 4 and a number of those games up to this point we were also without Henderson in midfield. Henderson then returns from a short injury and replaces Fabinho at CB and we win away at both Spurs and West Ham. We were 3rd in the League having been playing Henderson or Fabinho at CB with a midfield of Gini + 2 for the bulk of the season.
This idea that we suffered simply becaue we played Fabinho and or Henderson at CB is simply not true. If it was then we'd not have been 3rd in the League at the end of January.
Our terrible run from then was a result of so many things. Obviously we didn't play well, with our forwards not scoring (4 goals from 150+ shots at Anfield iirc), shortly after coming back into the side Henderson then gets injured again and the same 7-8 players are left having to continue playing every 3 days for months on end.
Of course having Fabinho and or Henderson in midfield helps but lets not pretend it's a straight forward decision. You only have to look at the posts on here or twitter from our fans regarding Williams to see that. Had Milner been fit last week I'm sure he'd have played at the expense of Williams with Fabinho moving back to CB and I'd have supported that decision and at best it's a coin flip decision this Sunday vs Palace. Kabak, Phillips and certainly Williams are no where near good enough that losing Fabinho and or Henderson in midfield is a decision that seriously needs/needed considering and nobody could say that if we played x in midfield/defence instead of y then we'd have won that game. For every good result we had moving Fabinho back into midfield, we had a good one with him in defence and for every bad result we had with him in defence, we had a bad one when we played 2 of Phillips, Williams or Kabak at CB too.
You'd pick Phillips over Matip? That's bonkers.
First of, you're not getting rid of Matip. Nobody is taking a 29 year old CB earning £100k per week that's just spent 75% of the season injured. Matip, when he's available, is an excellent CB and in many ways is a perfect 4th choice. His body can't cope playing twice a week but as a 4th choice (barring a disaster like we've had this season, which surely can't happen again) he'll not be asked to. I've no problem with Phillips as an emergency 5th CB (I suspect Klopp would still pick Fabinho ahead of him assuming we weren't depleted in midfield too) but there's not a chance I want him as our 4th choice and there's not a chance I'd pick him ahead of Matip.