Is the end finally nigh for Lucas?

[The Nomad]

Surely after yesterdays capitulation, Klopp has got to be thinking of alternatives? Yes it can be considered as knee jerk, especially as Lovern didn't cover himself in glory, but the experiment of Lucas in defence has failed in my opinion.

Do we rush an untested Gomez back into contention or do we go out in January for a 1st squad Centre Back? I'm torn on which is the best option, as I like seeing a young player getting a chance. I think if it was the summer you could make a case for a new player as Lovren always looks to me like he has a mistake in him.

 

[gkmacca]

Lucas has been a great pro, I think he's still a handy squad player but he's never been and never will be a centre back.

 

[Rosco]

Lucas' contract is up at the end of this season, so he's presumably on his way out.

Klavan is there as back up, Sakho too.

Gomez will need time to get back to 100%, thats best done away from the first team.

We don't need to rush to get a CB, but Lovren isn't the answer long term.

 

[Dave G]

What exactly is yesterday's result got to do with the question? Lucas wasn't responsible for any of the goals conceded and I would go so far as rm to say he was mom. He can still perform a job if those around him stop acting like the keystone kops.

 

[juniormember]

I don't think Lucas did much wrong to be honest.
Is the OP blaming Lucas for all those goals conceded?

 

[The Nomad]

No i'm not blaming him for the goals. However i also don't think he was MoM.

 

[Modo]

Like I and others have mentioned , Lucas had nothing to do with the goals we conceded.
Also, I think Lucas has played in every league cup game this season and we're in the semis now, so I really don't see how this spells the end for Lucas.
Hasn't Lucas replaced Lovren twice as well and we've won both games?
Despite all that Lucas is on his last year and will unless there's some kind miracle end his tenure with us this season.

 

[Modo]

If anything this loss has me questioning Lovren's place in the team.

 

[HC]

Lucas is gone in the summer but still starting ahead of the summer-signed cb?

he's been by no means great , he's been good to awful but he's alight at the moment and did pretty well yesterday so im not sure klopp should really are any correlation between yesterday's result and JUST Lucas' performance

 

[Judge Jules]

Lucas did all right yesterday as it happens, but the very fact that we had to put him - already a CM converted to DM - in at centre-back shows we aren't adequately covered there at the moment. We may have the numbers but, if Klavan isn't up to the job and Gomez isn't fit/ready, we don't currently have enough quality when Matip or Lovren are out. Either existing squad members have to up their game or we have to buy in January.

 

[Red Mullet]

If anything this loss has me questioning Lovren's place in the team.

Is the right answer.

Or the right question but you get me gist

 

[Judge Jules]

No it isn't. One game is never enough to do that for anybody. Lovren's no galactico but he is one of our most improved players under Klopp.

 

[Tinto]

No it isn't. One game is never enough to do that for anybody. Lovren's no galactico but he is one of our most improved players under Klopp.

True but he started from a very low base. Plus it isn't Lovren's first bad game for us.

 

[davud graham]

None of our players individually cost us that game yesterday, it was because we stopped defending as a team. As we slowed the pace they could smell weakness and exploited it very well.
There were plenty of individual errors but not all of them were in our box. We missed some very good chances and in the last 15 minutes especially our passing was very poor. What exacerbated that was the midfield stopped tracking their runners and the defence was being overrun at times.
The three up front also couldn't hold the ball up and the Lallana substitution didn't help at all as he didn't look fit.
Most of the team contributed to the defeat even though most of them played pretty well but most credit should go to Bournemouth really as they never game up and played really well in the second half.

 

[Judge Jules]

Tinto: all of that is true too, but the first bit underlines the amount of progress he's made and the second leaves out the fact that it was his first dodgy game for a while. Going from playing alongside Matip to playing alongside Lucas won't have helped.

 

[manwithnoname]

If anything this loss has me questioning Lovren's place in the team.

Lovren isn't great but he's obviously better than Lucas, and his partnership with Matip is rightly the first choice, given that they've kept six clean sheets when playing together.

I don't know why Lucas is still at the club. He's our longest serving player, and there's never been a worse footballer to have such a long Liverpool career.

 

[juniormember]

Lovren isn't great but he's obviously better than Lucas, and his partnership with Matip is rightly the first choice, given that they've kept six clean sheets when playing together.

I don't know why Lucas is still at the club. He's our longest serving player, and there's never been a worse footballer to have such a long Liverpool career.

I think he deserves way more respect than some of the vitriol directed at him.
Yesterday showed how solid he was, while once again Lovren was exposed.
He's put in a shit load of effort in for the club, he's played ridiculously well in central defence considering his position and is great with players behind the scene. He's been through 5 managers at the club for a reason.

 

[Modo]

I think he deserves way more respect than some of the vitriol directed at him.
Yesterday showed how solid he was, while once again Lovren was exposed.
He's put in a shit load of effort in for the club, he's played ridiculously well in central defence considering his position and is great with players behind the scene. He's been through 5 managers at the club for a reason.

Couldn't have said it any better.
For some it's, when we win it's despite Lucas and when we lose it's because of Lucas.
The fact that this thread even exists is proof of that. The one change in the team was Lucas, so he must have been the reason we lost.

 

[Insignificance]

Lucas will be first Pool player to round 1000 games and 10 mangers... At least!!

 

[manwithnoname]

I think he deserves way more respect than some of the vitriol directed at him.
Yesterday showed how solid he was, while once again Lovren was exposed.
He's put in a shit load of effort in for the club, he's played ridiculously well in central defence considering his position and is great with players behind the scene. He's been through 5 managers at the club for a reason.

I keep seeing this repeated, as if it's that impressive. He's been through 5 managers?! For a reason?!

OK, what reason?

And big fucking wow, he's been here for 5 managers because they keep getting sacked and if he was actually any good, he'd be like one of the very many superior players who joined and left Liverpool in the time Lucas has been here, because other clubs would have wanted to sign him, or we would have actually won something with him in the side, and they wouldn't have been sacked.

He's fucking shit

 

[Fabio]

Lucas is the perfect player for Liverpool

Completely and utterly average

 

[hmmmmm1]

I have been promised this wish for years. This guy is like Teflon

 

[Hansern]

Lucas is obviously just there to organize barbeques for other players and help out the other Brazilians.
He'll leave at the end of the season.

Lovren and Matip have been very good together but I doubt Lovren is Klopps first choice CB going forward.

 

[manwithnoname]

Lucas is obviously just there to organize barbeques for other players and help out the other Brazilians.
He'll leave at the end of the season.

Lovren and Matip have been very good together but I doubt Lovren is Klopps first choice CB going forward.

We will hopefully find out when he buys one in January or summer.

By which time we might need a new goalkeeper aswell.

 

[beejay]

It's not a case of any terrible individual error that led to any of the goals, the problem with Lucas at the back is that firstly, Lovren had to switch to the left where he has always been much less sure-footed and secondly, we had no cover when we were caught on the break because Lucas is so fucking slow - see the 2nd goal when he arrived late, out of position and off balance so missed the clearance.

He can get away with it when alongside Matip and playing at home but not when we are away and under pressure with Lovren on the left.

I can't see for the life of me what Klavan has done wrong because he has looked solid in most of his appearances and is left-footed so would have been the obvious partner for Lovren when Matip was ruled out. The Lucas centreback experiment has been found out and it contributed to the loss of 3 crucial points along with a collective lethargy that set in after we had gone two up. Watching Origi, Firmino, Can and Henderson in particular playing in 3rd or 4th gear was infuriating and it set the tone for all that went wrong at the end.

I'm praying we sell Sakho in January and buy a top new centreback so we never have to see Lucas there again.

 

[Modo]

It's not a case of any terrible individual error that led to any of the goals, the problem with Lucas at the back is that firstly, Lovren had to switch to the left where he has always been much less sure-footed and secondly, we had no cover when we were caught on the break because Lucas is so fucking slow - see the 2nd goal when he arrived late, out of position and off balance so missed the clearance.

He can get away with it when alongside Matip and playing at home but not when we are away and under pressure with Lovren on the left.

I can't see for the life of me what Klavan has done wrong because he has looked solid in most of his appearances and is left-footed so would have been the obvious partner for Lovren when Matip was ruled out. The Lucas centreback experiment has been found out and it contributed to the loss of 3 crucial points along with a collective lethargy that set in after we had gone two up. Watching Origi, Firmino, Can and Henderson in particular playing in 3rd or 4th gear was infuriating and it set the tone for all that went wrong at the end.

I'm praying we sell Sakho in January and buy a top new centreback so we never have to see Lucas there again.

Lovren plays on the left when Matip is playing, so there's your argument dead and buried.

 

[Dave G]

It's not a case of any terrible individual error that led to any of the goals, the problem with Lucas at the back is that firstly, Lovren had to switch to the left where he has always been much less sure-footed and secondly, we had no cover when we were caught on the break because Lucas is so fucking slow - see the 2nd goal when he arrived late, out of position and off balance so missed the clearance.

He can get away with it when alongside Matip and playing at home but not when we are away and under pressure with Lovren on the left.

I can't see for the life of me what Klavan has done wrong because he has looked solid in most of his appearances and is left-footed so would have been the obvious partner for Lovren when Matip was ruled out. The Lucas centreback experiment has been found out and it contributed to the loss of 3 crucial points along with a collective lethargy that set in after we had gone two up. Watching Origi, Firmino, Can and Henderson in particular playing in 3rd or 4th gear was infuriating and it set the tone for all that went wrong at the end.

I'm praying we sell Sakho in January and buy a top new centreback so we never have to see Lucas there again.

For the second goal, Lovren should have just stepped out and had the attacker well offside as he was about 3 yards deeper than the rest of the defence. Hardly Lucas's fault.

 

[mark1975]

The unit failed, but after the way we defended prior to this game, I can only assume that the sum of our parts, combinations etc weren't enough. Lovren and Milner looked vulnerable, and our cohesion was non-exisitent. Collectively we just didn't function. Maybe its harsh when you can't attribute a particular mistake to Lucas, but whatever understanding we had, and the way players complimented each other, was lost.

Functionally weve lost our shape and incisiveness, through losing Coutinho and Lallana, we've seen the knock on effect on Firmino's play, on the agility of the midfield and on the outlets that take pressure off the back line. It's a combination of a few things. We missed our best players, so it's hard to look beyond the players who stepped in.

 

[Modo]

Who started against Leicester and Watford alongside Matip and how did the games end?

 

[mark1975]

Who started against Leicester and Watford alongside Matip and how did the games end?

Is this at me? Coutinho and Lallana started probably. Lovren is as culpable as anyone for yesterday, so the one constant in our recent defensive success is Matip. Ergo, when Matip is missing we struggle, which tells us what we already know, some of our other players aren't good enough.

We missed Matip, Lallana and Coutinho, each have been instrumental in helping their respective area of the team to function.

I wouldn't use the Leicester game as something to defend Lucas with, anyway.

I'm not sure why you have to turn these debates into a competition between pet loves and hates.