How Do You Stop The Rampant Reds?

[manwithnoname]

There's an interesting piece in The Times today, highlighting that Liverpool midfielder's have scored 27 of our 30 goals so far this season.

Breakdown is:

Mane (6)
Firmino (5)
Coutinho (5)
Milner (4)
Lallana (3)
Can (2)
Henderson (1)
Wijnaldum (1)

There's nowhere near any other team with a contribution like that from midfield. I think only Chelsea's Hazard comes close, and he's just one player (and doesn't seem to actually have any fixed position).

That's an incredible contribution, and even though it is less likely (and important) that the likes of Can and Henderson score lots, at least they're off the mark.

So here's another attempt to get this back to a proper discussion, without whining, sniping shithouseslike Oliver and cloggy scoring petty points in a game that I'm not interested in playing, as it would appear the prize is just "most obvious bitter, smalltime cunt". Can we do that? Great.

Now, I've never said anything about a collective goals total. All I ever did was point out that 65% of title-winners in the last 20 years, and 80% in the last 10 years, have all had a goalscorer who managed c. 20 goals or more. So, for the slower types, it's not impossible, but is less likely.

But putting to one side the qualities and attributes of Firmino, is the consensus that this is the best way for us to play? What are the pros and cons?

The furthest forward midfield trio of Mane, Coutinho and Firmino nominally start left, middle and right, but the movement is very hard for defenders to track, and the responsibility of who picks up who, is allowing us to overwhelm defences. There hasn't been any really obvious tactical changes that have nullified that threat (arguably United, but that wasn't anything cleverer than pushing back the fullbacks and congesting space with Herrera and co tracking Firmino.

What I obviously like is that, as many have said, we aren't so reliant on one player to win games, thus reducing the effect of that player being injured, playing poorly or simply being marked out of the game (Kane is a decent example). But what it does rely on, is those players who have scored at a decent rate so far, being able to keep that up. And produce a goal tally that they've never matched before. That's one issue.

The other is that yes, it's worked brilliantly so far, but as soon as people start talking about a new way of playing, or a system that is impossible to counter, someone always does. Inevitably. So what could that be? Simply try and match that athleticism and movement, by piling as many bodies and runners into the team as possible?

Or is it that if we don't play well, it's going to be more about our own form and quality, rather than what anyone else can inflict on us?

Let's examine the what and why of our current, lofty position in a positive way, and debate. Has there been a team who have played like this, with the same set-up, that you have seen? Can we win the title? What can stop us? (we probably need to talk about defence in a different thread). Because I certainly don't think United or Burnley were results that had anything to do with the opposition finding us out, otherwise it would have happened more often.

 

[FoxForceFive]

I've split this into its own thread as it's definitely deserving of it imo.

 

[manwithnoname]

I've split this into its own thread as it's definitely deserving of it imo.

Rampant Reds?

Hmphhh.

OK, good idea. What is interesting is that there are actual signs that we don't seem to be playing football quite like any other team.

Usually I'm hugely sceptical and wary of this kind of chat (going back to that nearly season under Rodgers, when we pretended that our blitzkrieg football could withstand our lack of defensive quality) but maybe this is the real thing?

But it's not just us, there's a load of teams who are introducing different formations and systems this season, and I wonder if that's partly jsut down to new managers like Klopp, Conte and Guardiola doing so, rather than any seismic shift in the football landscape; the tectonic plates genuinely shifting to create a whole new topography.

Mind you, maybe that started last season with Leicester actually winning it.

It's all very weird.

 

[manwithnoname]

Someone said Dortmund. I suppose Barca also made the false 9 and a team full of midfielders an actual thing, while winning everything.

 

[TSD]

Our rival fans think we'll get derailed by Jan, when our fitness and form run out, when injury and suspension hits our key players. Fair enough to sling our way, but I think we actually have a few more levels to hit, if Klopp's comments are anything to go by, and a deeper squad which would have played itself into match fitness then. Our defense can still tighten and improve as well, something which the 13/14 campaign couldn't do.

 

[manwithnoname]

Our rival fans think we'll get derailed by Jan, when our fitness and form run out, when injury and suspension hits our key players. Fair enough to sling our way, but I think we actually have a few more levels to hit, if Klopp's comments are anything to go by, and a deeper squad which would have played itself into match fitness then. Our defense can still tighten and improve as well, something which the 13/14 campaign couldn't do.

We can only control the injuries and suspension bit to an extent. I'm sure some are looking at the feverish workrate and miles run, and thought (hoped) that it is unsustainable. I've had similar worries. Not much we can do about that until we see the evidence, though.

What's been encouraging so far, apart from the points won and goals scored, has been the amount of possession we still have, there's been times when control has been lacking, but it's been nowhere near as helter-skelter as I thought it might be.

 

[dantes]

Learning to simply chip the ball over the head of Lallana/Mane/Coutinho/Firmino would render all of our pressing as utterly useless.

 

[Lippy]

You do what Mourinho does. You play a bank of 5 across the back and 4 across the middle. Then cross your fingers

 

[manwithnoname]

Learning to simply chip the ball over the head of Lallana/Mane/Coutinho/Firmino would render all of our pressing as utterly useless.

That's where Henderson and Can come in. To header it back.

I love it when you get technical, dantes.

 

[HC]

Flood the middle of the park, sit two hard working and tenacious midfielders in front of the back four , revert to how Chelsea play out of possession whilst also having your forwards press as hard as we do.

 

[Modo]

At the moment the only thing that can stop us is injuries to vital players or external disruptive situations.

• We lost against Burnley because Mané and Matip were injured.
• We drew against Man U because we lost Winaldum and Lallana and had to play a "disjointed" team against them.
• Against Southampton we've got another uphill battle, with Coutinho and Firmino only having about 3 days to get back to Liverpool from Peru.
• We will lose Mané in January due to the AFCON.

So my biggest worries are first and foremost, losing important players in positions where we don't have any direct replacements.
For instance Mané, who is going to do the job he does on the wing? Yes Origi can probably match his pace, yes Firmino could do a job there and so can Lallana but none of them play with the type of style Mané does.

Matip has been immense for us. Do we have a decent enough replacement? I'm not completely sure. Lucas did an outstanding job replacing Lovren at the last minute, however.

If Clyne breaks down, we're pretty much fucked. Can A-A really cover for him?

So how do we rectify this?
We can obviously buy the necessary replacements in January, or maybe Klopp has a trick or two up his sleeve.

Look at his substitutions yesterday, Mané for Wijnaldum. Was he trying out Wijnaldum for the wing role? Or was he stacking the midfield?

What was he looking for when he subbed Lallana and brought on Sturridge a few minutes later? Was it to try playing Sturridge upfront with Firmino and Coutinho on the wings?

I suspect that Klopp is drawing up a contingency plan. When Mané leaves we probably need to find the most suitable line up for Sturridge to thrive in. Or, he might just shock us all and keep Sturridge out of the team while playing Wijnaldum on the wing, just like he did for Newcastle.

 

[hmmmmm1]

Do what burnley did.

Score early, defend like crazy and nick a goal on the break.

 

[manwithnoname]

At least he has options. Origi is the most obvious like for like in terms of pace, but Wijnaldum seems pretty versatile.

I suppose we'll find out.

I don't quite share your optimism about how it's only us that can stop ourselves winning the title, though. I think Arsenal, City and Chelsea will be obvious factors, and maybe Spurs and even United if they get their act together.

 

[LeTallecWiz]

Someone said Dortmund. I suppose Barca also made the false 9 and a team full of midfielders an actual thing, while winning everything.

I said Dortmund, and I wanted to say Barca, but it's not fair to include a team that had Messi/Eto'o/Villa/Henry/Suarez/Neymar in any equation ...

 

[Modo]

At least he has options. Origi is the most obvious like for like in terms of pace, but Wijnaldum seems pretty versatile.

I suppose we'll find out.

I don't quite share your optimism about how it's only us that can stop ourselves winning the title, though. I think Arsenal, City and Chelsea will be obvious factors, and maybe Spurs and even United if they get their act together.

My optimism is a bit irrational I admit, but look at our upcoming fixture list. With our current form and the games we have in front of us we can really make our mark before our next "big" game which is with all due respect for Everton, Man C.

 

[manwithnoname]

Everton is always a big game, with no respect ever due.

 

[TSD]

As Modo pointed out, what has stopped us so far, in the Burnley and Man U games, is the absence of key personnel which define our football. We seem very difficult to stop if we have our full squad at our disposal atm.

 

[gene hughes]

My concern is still that we're awesome without being ruthless in front of goal. We had about 30 attempts on goal yesterday and scored a hat full. But some games we'll only get a couple of chances. And I think it's likely we won't score them.

I'm probably not remembering things properly but I have this idea in my head that great teams, the kind that win loads, tend to need only a few chances. That's how they beat great teams and win the really massive games.

 

[manwithnoname]

My concern is still that we're awesome without being ruthless in front of goal. We had about 30 attempts on goal yesterday and scored a hat full. But some games we'll only get a couple of chances. And I think it's likely we won't score them.

I'm probably not remembering things properly but I have this idea in my head that great teams, the kind that win loads, tend to need only a few chances. That's how they beat great teams and win the really massive games.

That has been my big concern all along too.

But perhaps the amount of chances we create is higher due to the type of game we play, and players we have, so we can expect to create lots of chances regardless of who we play?

That's a bit too hopeful, maybe.

 

[TSD]

That has only happened once this season so far, against Spurs, where we couldn't convert one more of the few chances created to win the game.

 

[peekay]

Someone said Dortmund. I suppose Barca also made the false 9 and a team full of midfielders an actual thing, while winning everything.

Great thread. But I wouldn't include Barca in this discussion, or for that matter, any discussion on what tactics would work. When you have a player who can score 70 goals and assist a further 35 every season, you can get away with any tactical formation.

 

[Mors]

There's quite a few way to stop us or this system, but you've got have the players with the ability to do it.
Long ball
Press our press
A solid disciplined back 4 or 5 and then hit us on the counter
etc

 

[FoxForceFive]

I have a few reservations about our ability to the win the league.

It's not so much how teams will stop us, but our ability to keep this up.

Firstly, how we can keep this relentless pressing & high energy style going all season. We dont have a deep squad, & I have doubts we'll be lucky enough on the injury side that the squad depth is not exposed. Also the fitness of the players will be called into question.

This is where I'll touch upon a point I made recently, Dortmund's reversal of fortunes under Klopp had a few reasons, but many people believe it was at least partly to do with the departure of their fitness coach, Oliver Bartlett, who not only helped Klopp get the player's fitness up, but advised him on how to manage the squad to get it playing that level of intensity effectively over a season without injuries becoming an issue. Whether our current fitness team can do that is something we will only find out in hindsight, unfortunately.

Here's a piece of an article about Oliver Bartlett & Klopp at Dortmund:

[article]
There is an argument put forward by regular followers of Borussia Dortmund that the club’s fortunes took a turn for the worse after the departure of one man, four years ago. It was not a player, nor a manager. It was their fitness coach, Oliver Bartlett.
Bartlett, a London-born Australian, joined Borussia Dortmund alongside Jurgen Klopp on 1 July 2008, having been head-hunted by director Michael Zorc while he was working for the German national team.
He was told to improve the Dortmund players’ athleticism and strength to the point where they could carry out Klopp’s relentless high-pressing game, gegenpressing.
Within the space of three years, Dortmund went on to win the Bundesliga title. They followed that with the League and Cup double in 2012. Significantly, they stayed largely injury-free, the players embracing Klopp’s methods and overpowering opponents with a thrilling, rampant brand of football.
Then, in 2012, Bartlett left to join Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg. Very much a disciple of Klopp, Bartlett was a key figure in implementing a similar pressing game, and Salzburg quickly went on to win the league.
Pep Guardiola, on the receiving end of a 3-0 defeat with Bayern Munich in a friendly in 2013, said: “I have never played in my career against a team that has such high intensity.”

Dortmund, meanwhile, began to struggle with injuries, the list steadily mounting until it came to a head last season as they flirted with relegation, they were in the drop zone during the winter break, before eventually finishing seventh prior to Klopp’s departure.
To say Bartlett’s exit was the reason for Dortmund’s decline is a step too far, but it certainly had a big impact.

Something had changed. Injuries had been mounting for years until, in total, only three Dortmund players came through the last campaign at full fitness, and Klopp’s squad suffered 26 separate muscle injuries. High-profile stars Nuri Sahin, Mats Hummels, Marco Reus, Jakub Blaszczykowski and Ilkay Gundogan were all sidelined as Dortmund flirted with disaster.
The argument, essentially, is that Klopp’s style of high-energy football places too much demand on his players’ bodies until they inevitably break down with a series of niggling muscle injuries, and that without a world-class fitness coach – someone like Bartlett – it is a recipe for disaster.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...-solve-liverpools-injury-crisis-a6800786.html
[/article]

Next we have the 'clinical' issue. We are NOT clinical. We're creating so many chances it's untrue, yet were we clinical we'd be utterly demolishing sides. We'd have scored ten or eleven yesterday, not six. That sounds obscene, but look at the highlights, Lucas missed two chances he should have scored, Sturridge hit the woodwork twice & should have scored from two other chances, & there were a few more chances we could have scored, were we clinical.

Whilst sides cant stop us playing the way we do, they can limit the amount of chances on goal much more effectively than Watford did, & if we continue to need five chances to score one goal, that will cost us against some sides.

The third point, & this leads on from both of these previous points, is our owners. I hope they prove me wrong, but I doubt if we're sitting pretty at the top of the table, or are thereabouts come January, they're going to say "Ok, we've done brilliantly, but we're about to lose a key attacker in Mane, & we've got a couple of defenders who are dead on their feet with no adequate backup, lets get one or two quality players in to make sure that this doesn't cost us our shot at the title this year".

Thats what City, Utd or Chelsea would/will do, but not us. That could cost us dearly.

 

[manwithnoname]

Great thread. But I wouldn't include Barca in this discussion, or for that matter, any discussion on what tactics would work. When you have a player who can score 70 goals and assist a further 35 every season, you can get away with any tactical formation.

Good point, neither would I.

 

[dantes]

That's where Henderson and Can come in. To header it back.

I love it when you get technical, dantes.

I wonder if this is why I am good at football, I see the angles in a spherical coordinate system. Can and Henderson see them in two dimensions, and think there is no danger in running towards the player with the ball so long as they do so from some particular angle. That's the problem with our pressing, the team try to close down the angles and force the ball to a full back. Unfortunately, although on paper it looks like they've closed all the angles, like I said, a mere chip will leave the ball at the feet of your attacking midfielder, completely unmarked in the middle of the pitch.

 

[DHSC]

We can be stopped, but I just don't think there are many teams with the players and the fitness to stop us.

Injuries would be an issue. I am hoping we are still contending when the January window comes along, and the owners are surely not stupid to not give Klopp money to strengthen the squad.

 

[dantes]

I have a few reservations about our ability to the win the league.

It's not so much how teams will stop us, but our ability to keep this up.

Firstly, how we can keep this relentless pressing & high energy style going all season. We dont have a deep squad, & I have doubts we'll be lucky enough on the injury side that the squad depth is not exposed. Also the fitness of the players will be called into question.

This is where I'll touch upon a point I made recently, Dortmund's reversal of fortunes under Klopp had a few reasons, but many people believe it was at least partly to do with the departure of their fitness coach, Oliver Bartlett, who not only helped Klopp get the player's fitness up, but advised him on how to manage the squad to get it playing that level of intensity effectively over a season without injuries becoming an issue. Whether our current fitness team can do that is something we will only find out in hindsight, unfortunately.

Here's a piece of an article about Oliver Bartlett & Klopp at Dortmund:

[article]
There is an argument put forward by regular followers of Borussia Dortmund that the club’s fortunes took a turn for the worse after the departure of one man, four years ago. It was not a player, nor a manager. It was their fitness coach, Oliver Bartlett.
Bartlett, a London-born Australian, joined Borussia Dortmund alongside Jurgen Klopp on 1 July 2008, having been head-hunted by director Michael Zorc while he was working for the German national team.
He was told to improve the Dortmund players’ athleticism and strength to the point where they could carry out Klopp’s relentless high-pressing game, gegenpressing.
Within the space of three years, Dortmund went on to win the Bundesliga title. They followed that with the League and Cup double in 2012. Significantly, they stayed largely injury-free, the players embracing Klopp’s methods and overpowering opponents with a thrilling, rampant brand of football.
Then, in 2012, Bartlett left to join Austrian club Red Bull Salzburg. Very much a disciple of Klopp, Bartlett was a key figure in implementing a similar pressing game, and Salzburg quickly went on to win the league.
Pep Guardiola, on the receiving end of a 3-0 defeat with Bayern Munich in a friendly in 2013, said: “I have never played in my career against a team that has such high intensity.”

Dortmund, meanwhile, began to struggle with injuries, the list steadily mounting until it came to a head last season as they flirted with relegation, they were in the drop zone during the winter break, before eventually finishing seventh prior to Klopp’s departure.
To say Bartlett’s exit was the reason for Dortmund’s decline is a step too far, but it certainly had a big impact.

Something had changed. Injuries had been mounting for years until, in total, only three Dortmund players came through the last campaign at full fitness, and Klopp’s squad suffered 26 separate muscle injuries. High-profile stars Nuri Şahin, Mats Hummels, Marco Reus, Jakub Blaszczykowski and Ilkay Gundogan were all sidelined as Dortmund flirted with disaster.
The argument, essentially, is that Klopp’s style of high-energy football places too much demand on his players’ bodies until they inevitably break down with a series of niggling muscle injuries, and that without a world-class fitness coach – someone like Bartlett – it is a recipe for disaster.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...-solve-liverpools-injury-crisis-a6800786.html
[/article]

Next we have the 'clinical' issue. We are NOT clinical. We're creating so many chances it's untrue, yet were we clinical we'd be utterly demolishing sides. We'd have scored ten or eleven yesterday, not six. That sounds obscene, but look at the highlights, Lucas missed two chances he should have scored, Sturridge hit the woodwork twice & should have scored from two other chances, & there were a few more chances we could have scored, were we clinical.

Whilst sides cant stop us playing the way we do, they can limit the amount of chances on goal much more effectively than Watford did, & if we continue to need five chances to score one goal, that will cost us against some sides.

The third point, & this leads on from both of these previous points, is our owners. I hope they prove me wrong, but I doubt if we're sitting pretty at the top of the table, or are thereabouts come January, they're going to say "Ok, we've done brilliantly, but we're about to lose a key attacker in Mane, & we've got a couple of defenders who are dead on their feet with no adequate backup, lets get one or two quality players in to make sure that this doesn't cost us our shot at the title this year".

Thats what City, Utd or Chelsea would/will do, but not us. That could cost us dearly.

That was bad luck, which will not last. The shooting from the other players is more a systemic problem rather than bad luck. They just don't know how to hit the corners or put it the wrong side of the keeper, because they're not proper strikers.

 

[manwithnoname]

Uh-oh dantes. Brace yourself.

 

[dantes]

Uh-oh dantes. Brace yourself.

Having three wasteful and false strikers is still better than one 20 goal striker. We'll get more points on average if we do nothing else. However, if we get hit by the bad luck as foreseen by @FoxForceFive , or if the other teams simply learn how to chip a football, then it could ruin our season. We have Sturridge, we have Firmino, we should exploit both options and have two distinct ways of playing. And we should work on that now pre-emptively, before Firmino decides to eat some fucking turkey and pudding over Christmas and comes back two and half stone overweight.

 

[Dreambeliever]

I guess the answers lies in what did the German teams do to turn two times champions Dortmund into chumps.

Regarding your 20 goal a season striker claim, I with our current set up we don't actually need it but I still think someone will get close, most likely Mane