The problem with lots of coaches is that they can very easily encourage, unwittingly, a kind of robotic style of play. Hodgson obviously does so, but one could actually say the same of Rodgers. Take the passing around at the back: as soon as the thought and awareness goes out of the move, it becomes this weird, neurotic little ritual that has little real bearing on what is happening on the pitch. They're not doing anything except 'the move,' because it's 'what we do'. They don't look up at the midfielders, they don't look at the opponents, they just DO it. It's almost as habitual further up the pitch. Shankly's training mantra was 'forwards, back, forwards'. It was a thoughtful, cumulative pattern of play that demanded good movement and good vision and quick wits. Brendan's team seems to be a case of 'forward, back, back a bit more, back a bit more...' Even last season they were regularly abandoning an attack midway into their opponents' half, suddenly passing all the way back to Mingolet, because of nothing more problematic than one forward straying out of a good passing area. Why go all the way back in that situation? It's not impossible to move the ball around in midfield until another space opens up. It breeds fearfulness from a position of strength. This season we're moving forwards with all the anxiety of a bird hopping towards a cat. And although we're still passing, it's largely aimless. It's slow, it's predictable and it's prompted more by habit than by of-the-moment opportunity. Palace, in their crude way, showed how easy it ought to be: you have the ball, you move it ahead quickly, get players into the area and try to stick it in the fecking net. In contrast, we managed to make attacking look like the most improbable exercise around. The side look slow in the head as well as in the legs. It's baffling how poor they've become, but Rodgers needs to shake it up and get them to THINK again.
