And tactically the insistence to stick with a high line in defence, even when our centre back pairing consists of Rhys Williams and Nat Phillips who have done well but are not fast by any means, is extremely confusing. Last season teams could play the game of their lives against us yet we'd still find a way to get the three points. This season, teams just need to sit back and then look for the long ball over the top, guaranteed success pretty much. It doesn't explain why suddenly we can barely create any chances going forwards but I'm sure it plays a part.
I thought he'd do something about playing so open in that way after Villa absolutely tore them apart doing it and if memory serves, Van Dijk was still playing then as well? I'm surprised it took that long really because they were that open last season too but nobody seemed to take them on that way. Maybe in the same way a couple of years ago when teams wouldn't attack Man City when that was really their only weakness, a fact proven against yesterday.
It is a huge failure of the club that we didn't have a centre back signed on the 1st January this year. We knew Van Dijk and Gomez were out for the season weeks before the transfer window opened. Yet we did nothing, and mostly likely if Matip didn't get a season ending injury just before the window closed, we'd probably not have signed anyone on the cheap and somehow be in an even worse situation than we are now.
The two CB signings he did make were real head scratchers for me. Signing a guy from a team bottom of the Bundesliga to play for Liverpool? Then the lad from Preston who can't even appear to get near the team with the three main CB's out, two midfielders preferred there and then Phillips and Williams as well? What exactly was the point of signing him? Knowing nothing about him I had presumed he was a young kid, signed for the future but isn't he 25 or something? Two very strange signings.