UEFA Champions League/Europa League ** Spoilers ** [9th - 11th December 2014]

BaZ87 said:
They had god knows how many counters because we were down to 10 men and chasing the game to the extreme with just 1 or 2 men back at times. It's a completely different thing to simply play with a higher tempo and higher pressing game as we did last season.
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And you were able to push up so much and put pressure on them because they were tired and you almost entirely ignored defending. You can't then point to the last 20 minutes and say "look, thats how we should have played the whole game"

BaZ87 said:
Sturridge and Suarez were fantastic last season and killed teams off but they were able to because of our midfield. When we went on that winning run the likes of Henderson, Allen, Coutinho and Sterling were overrunning sides in midfield - it's gone now.
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Its easier to overrun sides in midfield when they are so worried about your attackers getting in behind them. Teams will be more defence minded and not so expansive. They won't press too much for fear of being caught out and punished repeatedly. When you have a toothless attack why wouldn't a team push up into your midfield when they know that stifling that will kill your threat.
 
Pigeon_Killer said:
Did what a DM should do which was win the ball back and play it to better players ahead of him. Looked like he was treated water whenever anyone ran at him at pace but he's still the best we've got in that position. Also attempted and completed more passes than Allen which doesn't bode well when Allen can only bring passing to the team.
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What were the attempt and completions?
 
Pigeon_Killer said:
Did what a DM should do which was win the ball back and play it to better players ahead of him. Looked like he was treated water whenever anyone ran at him at pace but he's still the best we've got in that position. Also attempted and completed more passes than Allen which doesn't bode well when Allen can only bring passing to the team.
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He's not. Lucas sums up the whole problem with the team at the moment - he's a poor compromise. He's a bit better defensively but he's a lot worse going forward.

If he was his old self and rock solid defensively then great, play him there at the expense of a more creative player but he's not. We're still getting exposed in the middle of the pitch and the build up to our attacks are slow as a result of him being there too.
 
BaZ87 said:
He's not. Lucas sums up the whole problem with the team at the moment - he's a poor compromise. He's a bit better defensively but he's a lot worse going forward.
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Who else is there? Gerrard's positionally inept which makes him far more dangerous than Lucas in that position and Allen's one of the weakest footballers I've ever seen. He's nothing like the player he once was but we still look stronger with him in the team than without.
 
fez said:
And you were able to push up so much and put pressure on them because they were tired and you almost entirely ignored defending. You can't then point to the last 20 minutes and say "look, thats how we should have played the whole game"
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They were getting tired? We were the ones playing with 10 men for 30+ minutes. And it wasn't just the last 20 either - we started the game at a decent tempo and caused them a few problems, they weren't tired then.

fez said:
Its easier to overrun sides in midfield when they are so worried about your attackers getting in behind them. Teams will be more defence minded and not so expansive. They won't press too much for fear of being caught out and punished repeatedly. When you have a toothless attack why wouldn't a team push up into your midfield when they know that stifling that will kill your threat.
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Teams that are sit back and worried about your forwards are harder to overrun......because they're sat back :confused:

There's no doubt that having Suarez and Sturridge helps the side but it's no excuse for the side to play at such a pedestrian pace. Lambert at Southampton shows that you don't need Suarez and Sturridge up front for a high pressing, high tempo midfield to work. Southampton's whole game was based around the exact same midfield style as ours, the difference being at the front end of the pitch where they would get the ball into Lambert and run off him.
 
Pigeon_Killer said:
Who else is there? Gerrard's positionally inept which makes him far more dangerous than Lucas in that position and Allen's one of the weakest footballers I've ever seen. He's nothing like the player he once was but we still look stronger with him in the team than without.
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Gerrard isn't great defensively, everybody knows that but what you lose there he more than makes up for else where.

Like I keep saying, get Henderson and Allen either side of him to protect him and do his running and get him on the ball. He is still our only CM that can dominate a midfield. We have to get back to last season's mentality of not worrying about what teams might do to us and worry about what we can do to them.
 
BaZ87 said:
Teams that are sit back and worried about your forwards are harder to overrun......because they're sat back :confused:
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Your midfielders have time and space to do what they want. One of Suarez's main talents was his ability to twist and turn near the goal to make space for a shot. My point is that your midfield doesn't have the time and space it did for most of last season.
 
Liverpool have traditionally been up to the challenge in Europe even when they haven't been flying in the league. They should have been able to get a result against Basel to be fair, they are hardly European giants. Liverpool are a much bigger club.
 
grimm said:
Liverpool have traditionally been up to the challenge in Europe even when they haven't been flying in the league. They should have been able to get a result against Basel to be fair, they are hardly European giants. Liverpool are a much bigger club.
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Basel have a better team though. Size of a club hardly matters when it's 11v11 on the pitch.
 
fez said:
Your midfielders have time and space to do what they want. One of Suarez's main talents was his ability to twist and turn near the goal to make space for a shot. My point is that your midfield doesn't have the time and space it did for most of last season.
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That's a completely different thing to what I was talking about though. Of course if teams drop off our midfield had more room to play in and Suarez could punish them but the key fixtures in that winning run wasn't like that. In fact the games which we struggled most in during the 2nd half of the season were the ones where teams sat off us - WBA & Fulham away and Sunderland, and of course Chelsea at home.

Scholes called it at HT today, Basel were doing to us what we used to do to other teams. They were running over us in midfield - they were first to every thing.
 
BaZ87 said:
Gerrard isn't great defensively, everybody knows that but what you lose there he more than makes up for else where.

Like I keep saying, get Henderson and Allen either side of him to protect him and do his running and get him on the ball. He is still our only CM that can dominate a midfield. We have to get back to last season's mentality of not worrying about what teams might do to us and worry about what we can do to them.
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Last year we had 2 of the best strikers in Europe, this year we play with one, if we are lucky. He is terrible without that in front of him, and he offers the team diddly squat.

If you are going to put Allen and Henderson either side of any of our midfielders you go with Lucas, Allen and Henderson. The guys that were the center of the pitch in our best away performance in years in the destruction of spurs.

Regardless, Gerrad needs to go end of the season, as does Rodgers. Utter failure of a season.
 
Just got back from Anfield.

I can't do anything but sigh. Atmosphere was very poor in the first half especially.

EDIT: At least I went to the last Champions League game for the next 5 years :D
 
Newbie007 said:
Last year we had 2 of the best strikers in Europe, this year we play with one, if we are lucky. He is terrible without that in front of him, and he offers the team diddly squat.
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As I suggested earlier in the thread, put Sterling through the middle with Markovic, Coutinho or Lallana making up the front 3.

Newbie007 said:
If you are going to put Allen and Henderson either side of any of our midfielders you go with Lucas, Allen and Henderson. The guys that were the center of the pitch in our best away performance in years in the destruction of spurs.

Regardless, Gerrad needs to go end of the season, as does Rodgers. Utter failure of a season.
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Right because 1 good performance against a very poor Spurs side overrides 15+ performances where Gerrard was there in place of Lucas?
 
BaZ87 said:
Gerrard isn't great defensively, everybody knows that but what you lose there he more than makes up for else where.
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Last season yes, this season no. A quarterback with no wide receivers to pass to is a passenger and that's what he's been for a large part of the season. He's best used sparingly further up the pitch now imo.
 
lucarocks92 said:
Basel have a better team though. Size of a club hardly matters when it's 11v11 on the pitch.
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Size of a club absolutely matters when it comes to European football. Have you not see how crippling it has been to the smaller clubs without large squads? It almost got Newcastle relegated a couple of seasons ago.
 
BaZ87 said:
As I suggested earlier in the thread, put Sterling through the middle with Markovic, Coutinho or Lallana making up the front 3.
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Sterling needs binning off on the subs bench for a few weeks aswell, the odd run doesn't make up for his poor decision making due to the fact he needs a massive rest.

BaZ87 said:
Right because 1 good performance against a very poor Spurs side overrides 15+ performances where Gerrard was there in place of Lucas?
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Yep, 34 year old Steven Gerrard is utterly pointless at this moment in time. Thanks for the memories and all that, but go and enjoy your retirement in the MLS. This season is done. Start looking forward, try to build a base for next season.

Illori should be recalled (if possible) nursed to fitness here and him and Sahko given the remainder of the season to form a partnership.

Lucas/Allen/Henderson as the midfield until the summer Transfer window, then you get rid of allen *or bench him next year, and try to find a Lucas replacment.

Front 3 (when all fit) from Sturridge, Baloltelli, Coutinho, Markovic and Lallana.


Look at getting exciting attack minded forward in the window and concentrate on the league in 2015/2016.

None of that will happen though, instead we can look forward to more of the same old **** from a manager thats lost his bottle, a captain that wants a nice massive contract to see out his playing days churning out **** performance after **** performance blaming others when he givers the ball away and for the teams lack of cohesion with no onfield leadership. 2 CB's that make more errors than any other outfield player in the league and 2 braindead FB's. All while we destroy one of the most promising young players in Europe as we are overusing him and he ****s off as the team is ****.
 
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