How do you cope with being the best? (West Brom post-match)

[moron]

If there is any lauding of fat sam, its because those wank media reporters love an english manager getting a good result. Also I dont blame him for the way they played, I see it as a challenge for our team that they should find away to overcome, we are going to get games like this and we need to find a formula to break such teams down. I do think that we tend to think the opposition is just gonna be like that all the way through when really they are always on the look out to get something, while we bore ourselves passing that ball from side to side. We have to win these games and there will be more of them, and fat sam has given some of the other 10 and below teams an idea.

 

[MomoWASright]

If we are winning 1-0 against a team camped in their own half I would be arsed watching 45 minutes of alisson, Matip, fabs, hendo and Wijnaldum play 10 yard passes to each other.

 

[gkmacca]

Not a real fan of shooting from distance, but with so many defenders back and bodies in the way maybe we would have gotten lucky and scored a deflected goal or it hits a defenders arm/hand and we get a penalty

That's what happened when we played the mancs a couple of years ago and Klopp sent on Shaq with orders to shoot whenever he could. But that was against a relatively defensive team, not just a block of human beings. What was wasted were a couple of the free kicks. Trent, like many other good dead ball speciaists, still needs to pay more attention to basic factors, such as distance from goal - he surely must realise that sometimes it's no good trying to get the ball up and over a wall when there's not enough distance for it to dip in time.

 

[gkmacca]

I we need to find a formula to break such teams down.

There has never been, is no, and never will be a consistently reliable and effective 'formula' for playing against a team that deep and defensive. The only 'formula' is having the luck to get an early goal or two to spoil the cynical set up, or to find them not sufficently focussed and fit to make it work. Here's a test - go outside and erect two high garden fences in front of you, one in front of the other, and now try to dribble through them. It's not easy. Don't forget to praise the fences, they're being incredibly clever, while you've failed to find a formula.

 

[MaBigTip]

Virgil on set pieces helps a lot.

 

[Donavan Ried]

That's what happened when we played the mancs a couple of years ago and Klopp sent on Shaq with orders to shoot whenever he could. But that was against a relatively defensive team, not just a block of human beings. What was wasted were a couple of the free kicks. Trent, like many other good dead ball speciaists, still needs to pay more attention to basic factors, such as distance from goal - he surely must realise that sometimes it's no good trying to get the ball up and over a wall when there's not enough distance for it to dip in time.

Any free kicks take by us is perdictable. You know that no matter who is stand around the ball that there is a 99% chance that TAA is going to take it, It makes defending against one too easy.

Just like defending against Salah cutting in off the right and trying to bend the ball into the top left hand corner.
At time we are to perdictable

 

[moron]

There has never been, is no, and never will be a consistently reliable and effective 'formula' for playing against a team that deep and defensive. The only 'formula' is having the luck to get an early goal or two to spoil the cynical set up, or to find them not sufficently focussed and fit to make it work. Here's a test - go outside and erect two high garden fences in front of you, one in front of the other, and now try to dribble through them. It's not easy. Don't forget to praise the fences, they're being incredibly clever, while you've failed to find a formula.

My dear @gkmacca - it sounds like you have given up on this. The fact that we scored in the 12th minute against their 'fence' suggests there is always a way. Our problem yesterday was the lack of urgency for most of that game even when we were in front, and to organize a decent counter-attack when they actually did come out of their fixed setup. In these circumstances (especially after we scored in the 12th minute) - we should have just upped the tempo and when faced with these constant blocks on the left or right - should have had the ability to play some cute passes or allowed Jones to take a few of them on. You can knock an opponent's confidence if you can keep the ball moving near their penalty area - and mistakes were like to happen. Instead we just turned pedestrian - and if we were to go by your theory then we are guaranteed to be completely fucked for the rest of the season because WBA will not be the last team to play like that against us. We should have also taken some speculative shots and even dare I say - smacked a few of their defenders with powerful shots at their bodies if not for a deflection then to fucking physically tire them out a bit. We were too 'nice', and not that creative in our approach and like @Donavan Ried is saying - many of those free-kicks were wasted.

We did not exhaust their defense enough for them to make errors - and we should have kept them running/moving and thinking when we had the ball.

 

[gkmacca]

My dear @gkmacca - it sounds like you have given up on this. The fact that we scored in the 12th minute against their 'fence' suggests there is always a way.

I love it how people who sit on their arses and just watch suddenly become 'why oh why' expert tacticians in these situations. Yes, there is always a way, and it's always very much a way connected to chance. Pushing for more than one goal can quite often end up in either another goal or a counter attack, a goal against, and then even more dogged defence. And so, my dear genius, you will need to be far more specific with your brilliant advice for some of the best coaches in the world about this topic. (Seriously, do you not sense the absurdity of your self-confidence in tactical matters?)

 

[moron]

I love it how people who sit on their arses and just watch suddenly become 'why oh why' expert tacticians in these situations. Yes, there is always a way, and it's always very much a way connected to chance. Pushing for more than one goal can quite often end up in either another goal or a counter attack, a goal against, and then even more dogged defence. And so, my dear genius, you will need to be far more specific with your brilliant advice for some of the best coaches in the world about this topic. (Seriously, do you not sense the absurdity of your self-confidence in tactical matters?)

I think I have been specific enough, and as for "arses and why oh why" - I need not say anything as it has already been said by those that took part in the game itself who by their own admission said they were 'slack' and shit in the 2nd half. You don't need to be an expert to see what was going wrong, and I think Liverpool fans have seen this sort of thing enough times to know it ain't going to end well. I forgot to mention that this season after taking a lead - and we are struggling like this, we should at least try and stay in control of the game like we did in most of our 1-0 victories last season - that is made harder of course by VVD's absence.

 

[gkmacca]

There's a ritual that Ajax's academy famously follow with each new bunch of kids. They take them to a residential house, and ask them, 'How would you get in?' When they say 'Through the front door,' they're asked, 'What if the front door's locked?' And so it goes on. How they don't become burglars I don't know, but it's the first day of education at Ajax for players trained, over years and years, to think about how to deal with all kinds of obstacles. It makes them problem solvers. And yet still there are games, against appalling Allardyce-like teams, when they do as badly as we did on Sunday. Because it's incredibly difficult.

During the close season of 2019, Klopp and Pep decided that coaching on how to break down this kind of team needed to be a priority. Video clips from all kinds of games in a variety of countries were thus specially chosen to illustrate key issues, Pep organised a range of what he and the coaching team felt were the best tactical options, and training sessions - individual and team-based - began, and those models are still being adapted and used for sessions every now and again throughout the year.

Believe it or not, Moron, this work has been and remains vastly more wide-ranging, well-informed and incisive than anything you've so far piped up with. And still Sunday happened. So go on dreaming there's a special key to unlock that Ajax house. There isn't.

 

[Squiggles]

The way people apologise for this shite never fails to amaze and depress me. There's nothing clever about parking the bus. Ask a bus driver. It works at every level, on the odd occasion. Praising it is no better than praising Katie Hopkins because her tiresomely predictable rants get a reaction. Praising it is no better than praising some reality star for turning their pathetic life into a tv show. Anyone can do it if they've no integrity whatsoever. It doesn't merit applause.

Exactly this. It can be coached into eleven plodders in no time at all. If one plodder makes a mistake, there's another two plodders within five yards to cover it. Genius.

WBA had eleven compressed in a line no further then 35 yards yards from goal. I get the lower league teams doing it, and I'm far from against defensive football per se, but Fat Sam acting like he's a tactical genius for taking it to extreme levels in the PL is nauseating. The only thing uglier than the mans gut and moral compass is the raving ego that is only ever inflated by himself.

 

[Donavan Ried]

In fairness @gkmacca many in the Kop were moaning and a gasp at some of the things the team were doing or not.

Also it is often easier the see the things we are doing wrong for home than the side of the pitch as klopp has to do.

The old saying springs to mind " You can't see the wood for the trees"

 

[Donavan Ried]

We have faced teams that sit behind the ball so often, that you would think, by now; we should find it easier to break these types of defensive tatics down than we do

 

[gkmacca]

In fairness @gkmacca many in the Kop were moaning and a gasp at some of the things the team were doing or not.

I genuinely don't get your point. Many moan about all kinds of things - it's not evidence that they're right. Fans - even the middle-aged bloaters with high blood pressure and dodgy knees - think they can save what keepers can't, score goals that strikers miss, and thread balls through tiny gaps that top midfielders fail to do. So I honestly don't get what 'to be fair some people moaned' brings to this.

 

[gkmacca]

We have faced teams that sit behind the ball so often, that you would think, by now; we should find it easier to break these types of defensive tatics down than we do

And that ignores my point. Why SHOULD you think it ought to get easier to break down such teams? Any tactical advance that an attacking team might make is wiped out by the tactical advances, mutatis mutandis, that the defensive team makes. And so it goes on. Line ups at rugby don't get easier. Pressure around a batsman during a spin session don't get easier. The basic challenges in boxing don't get any easier. The micro-struggles might evolve or shift from one era to another but they don't really get any easier, in the long term, as such. These are fundamental problems. But I see this just isn't a discussion, more a set of monologues. Pointless continuing.

 

[Grjt2]

Maybe a bit too soon after his injury return for criticism but Trent doesn't seem to be offering much going forward yet. That's a big miss in tighter fixtures.

Can't wait to have him back in form and Thiagos passing running teams into the ground

Has there been an appreciable improvement in his defending over the last year or so? He seems to make the same positional mistakes over and over again.

If there is a show the winger inside/show him outside decision he seems to have the uncanny knack of picking exactly the wrong option. Going forwards and his ball delivery we all know about, but there is a reason that even sides in the bottom half of the table focus attacks at us down our right flank...

 

[moron]

There's a ritual that Ajax's academy famously follow with each new bunch of kids. They take them to a residential house, and ask them, 'How would you get in?' When they say 'Through the front door,' they're asked, 'What if the front door's locked?' And so it goes on. How they don't become burglars I don't know, but it's the first day of education at Ajax for players trained, over years and years, to think about how to deal with all kinds of obstacles. It makes them problem solvers. And yet still there are games, against appalling Allardyce-like teams, when they do as badly as we did on Sunday. Because it's incredibly difficult.

During the close season of 2019, Klopp and Pep decided that coaching on how to break down this kind of team needed to be a priority. Video clips from all kinds of games in a variety of countries were thus specially chosen to illustrate key issues, Pep organised a range of what he and the coaching team felt were the best tactical options, and training sessions - individual and team-based - began, and those models are still being adapted and used for sessions every now and again throughout the year.

Believe it or not, Moron, this work has been and remains vastly more wide-ranging, well-informed and incisive than anything you've so far piped up with. And still Sunday happened. So go on dreaming there's a special key to unlock that Ajax house. There isn't.

But @gkmacca - I think you are overwhelmed with Sam's style of play - it upsets you so much that you are failing to acknowledge that our players themselves have said that they were slack in handling the situation. There was actually very little between the way WBA and Spurs set themselves up against us. We moved the ball far quickly against Spurs and created better chances, with WBA we were slow.

Also - I totally don't get why Sam's style upsets you so much - in the early days of GH that is how we played for an entire season nearly, and even in Rafa's time we played some of that pragmatic bollox you don't like. Because we are guilty of that approach ourselves I have no issues when other teams do it against us, in fact I think of it as hero worship of LFC by the opposing team. I like to look at them and think:

"Look at those poor bastards - we scare them so much they can't move out of their own area..." - it's a superiority thing - you should start to feel that - it will make you happier.

 

[Grjt2]

But @gkmacca - I think you are overwhelmed with Sam's style of play - it upsets you so much that you are failing to acknowledge that our players themselves have said that they were slack in handling the situation. There was actually very little between the way WBA and Spurs set themselves up against us. We moved the ball far quickly against Spurs and created better chances, with WBA we were slow.

Also - I totally don't get why Sam's style upsets you so much - in the early days of GH that is how we played for an entire season nearly, and even in Rafa's time we played some of that pragmatic bollox you don't like. Because we are guilty of that approach ourselves I have no issues when other teams do it against us, in fact I think of it as hero worship of LFC by the opposing team. I like to look at them and think:

"Look at those poor bastards - we scare them so much they can't move out of their own area..." - it's a superiority thing - you should start to feel that - it will make you happier.

The entirety of this is either exaggeration or complete bollocks. All of it.

 

[Donavan Ried]

And that ignores my point. Why SHOULD you think it ought to get easier to break down such teams? Any tactical advance that an attacking team might make is wiped out by the tactical advances, mutatis mutandis, that the defensive team makes. And so it goes on. Line ups at rugby don't get easier. Pressure around a batsman during a spin session don't get easier. The basic challenges in boxing don't get any easier. The micro-struggles might evolve or shift from one era to another but they don't really get any easier, in the long term, as such. These are fundamental problems. But I see this just isn't a discussion, more a set of monologues. Pointless continuing.

Line ups are only part of the game in Rugby. It is like saying that there is always the goal keeper to beat.
The line up doesn't always work out, and goal keeps get beat.

Pressure around a batsman during a spin session... There is always pressure on players to perform, so I don't get that one

The basic challenges in boxing don't get any easier. No it does not, but the more bouts a boxer has the more he refines his skills and learns to deal with an opponent

So what I am saying stands, That we are use to dealing with teams parking the bus, and should be now have learnt to deal with those tactics better than we have

 

[Donavan Ried]

What does it say about Leeds and dealing with a stubbord defence..? WBA 0 vs Leeds 5

 

[Holle]

It means that maybe they're not as stupid as we've been a couple of days ago.

 

[MomoWASright]

Why couldn’t they have been this stupid the other day?

 

[FoxForceFive]

It's almost as if they utterly knackered themselves giving it all against us.

If these games were the other way around the scores could possibly the other way around too imo.

 

[MomoWASright]

Reversing the results would’ve been better for them. Leeds could be a potential rival. No way they’re competing with us.