Liverpool Thread

Re: Liverpool Thread

Lucas isnt a defensive midfielder.

And Holland (for one example) got to the World Cup final unbeaten all through qualifying and the tournament up to the final playing 2 defensive midfielders with an attacking trident behind a false nine centre forward.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

When playing for Liverpool, Lucas is nothing but a DMF. He hardly ever makes runs into the box, or even around the box regardless of the type of player he was when playing for Gremio.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

That's all very well Jumbo but that was cup football, Holland were poor to watch throughout and really the only players doing much were Sneider and Robben, attackingwise. They didn't create many chances in the tournament but were clinical when they did. Also they had the "fortune" that the opposition always had to attack as it was the cup, you didn't get anything for a draw.

And indeed Lucas isn't a defensive midfielder as he doesn't do much defending (ala masch), however he also doesn't do much attacking. He fills a space and keeps possesion, which is fine when you set out to play defensively. However this is Birmingham at home FFS, they are a decent team, and very solid defensively. So what is the gameplan?! To out pass them in our own half?! Because with 4 attacking players against their 10 there won't be much happening in their half!

Unless Lucas is told to go forward more and keep pressure on them higher up the pitch, the combination with Poulson is unlikely to do much good imo. And it's not like we can pressure high up the pitch as we have a central defending unit of Carra, Skrtel and Poulson which means Konchesky and Johnson won't be able to support Maxi and Al Bundi. So Lucas becomes the main ingredient of how effective the formation can play.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

Aboutreika18 said:
You mean when playing for Rafa. I'd expect Roy to give him more creative license this season.
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I'm pretty sure Lucas is still defensive under Roy, unless he's lost his confidence and he just doesn't want to go forward anymore.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

I agree , with tik that Holland were quite "lucky" To progress to the final.
Firstly they were in the right half of the tournament and could expect "weak" opponents after having won against Brazil.
Although i'm not the biggest fan of Brazil, Holland were quite lucky to win that match (helped by that supid foul of De Melo).
Afterwards they were rather lucky again against Uruguay. The first Holland goal should never have happened. Right before Van Brockhorst scored that fantastic goal, Van Bommel made an attrocious foul and should have been sent off and (which is more important) Uruguay should have had a free kick...
Granted Holland were clincal before goal and certainly not without merit in the WC, but to consider them a tactical model for success is rather farfetched...
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

Fair enough but the point I was trying to make is that a lot of teams succesfully employ two 'holding' midfielders or one very deep midfielder sweeping up and the other acting as a ball winner and supporting the 4 attackers. That way there is two clear blocks of 6 defenders and 4 attackers with the two fullbacks joining attacks to make it 6 when in the attacking phase. It's very hard to break down and the fact so many teams use it at the moment is testament to that.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

These two DMF's are doing good for us. Birmingham creating chances easily, whereas we've got no attacking threat at all. Good job, Roy.

Reina's made three world class saves, not bad for a rubbish goalkeeper.

Not a shot on target for us in that half. It's just embarassing and Roy needs to be a bit more attack-minded. He's making Rafa look like an attacking genius. More attacking Roy, we're not Fulham, we do have some decent players who can create chances so it might be an idea to play them.
 
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Re: Liverpool Thread

Jumbo_ said:
He'll be alright, but nothing too special. Hodgson's hand was forced with the new league rules with homegrown players. He needed a left back and he needed English players, the alternative I suppose was Wayne Bridge but his wages would have been astronomincal.
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What about Emiliano Insua ?
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

DagsJT said:
These two DMF's are doing good for us. Birmingham creating chances easily, whereas we've got no attacking threat at all. Good job, Roy.

Reina's made three world class saves, not bad for a rubbish goalkeeper.

Not a shot on target for us in that half. It's just embarassing and Roy needs to be a bit more attack-minded. He's making Rafa look like an attacking genius. More attacking Roy, we're not Fulham, we do have some decent players who can create chances so it might be an idea to play them.
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I agree....same old boring Liverpool... no invention....
why is Meireles not starting ?
We have such a lack of invention and creativity....it all seems so stale.
Hodgson is playing it safe....and Liverpool are lucky to be surviving..
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

Worst performance by Torres in a Liverpool shirt, by far.

70 mins in, we're still not creating anything, why isn't Roy putting on a sub? We've got Pacheco and Meireles there who can create chances. We've even got bloody Babel who's got more chance of doing something than Lucas or Poulsen here. DO SOMETHING, ROY!!! :BRICK:

Edit: So a sub gets made and he takes off Lucas, who's at least done a bit of attacking passes at times. But Poulsen, who's done the square root of fuck all in the match stays on.

I'm losing faith in Roy more and more with each match, and I don't really care if I'm supposed to be giving him a chance. His decision making has been awful and if Rafa can get stick for poor decisions, so does Roy.
 
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Re: Liverpool Thread

DagsJT said:
Worst performance by Torres in a Liverpool shirt, by far.

70 mins in, we're still not creating anything, why isn't Roy putting on a sub? We've got Pacheco and Meireles there who can create chances. We've even got bloody Babel who's got more chance of doing something than Lucas or Poulsen here. DO SOMETHING, ROY!!! :BRICK:

Edit: So a sub gets made and he takes off Lucas, who's at least done a bit of attacking passes at times. But Poulsen, who's done the square root of fuck all in the match stays on.

I'm losing faith in Roy more and more with each match, and I don't really care if I'm supposed to be giving him a chance. His decision making has been awful and if Rafa can get stick for poor decisions, so does Roy.
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I couldnt agree more. So far his decisions in the transfer market and the pitch, have been awful.The Liverpool bench is too big for a manager like him.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

Birmingham 2009/2010 at home against the top 5

Birmingham 0-0 Chelsea
Birmingham 1-1 Manchester United
Birmingham 1-1 Arsenal
Birmingham 1-1 Tottenham
Birmingham 0-0 Manchester City

They're really hard to beat. I didn't watch the whole match, just the 2nd half but Poulsen seemed to be doing a good job of covering Johnson when he was marauding forward and leaving that flank exposed. You need that, you can't have all your midfielders bombing on trying to score, it's not FIFA. If he's just shielding the defence, recycling possesion and keeping things moving then he's doing and important job. Makelele was lauded for it yet anyone else who does it seems to be deemed useless. :ROLL:
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

Jumbo_ said:
Birmingham 2009/2010 at home against the top 5

Birmingham 0-0 Chelsea
Birmingham 1-1 Manchester United
Birmingham 1-1 Arsenal
Birmingham 1-1 Tottenham
Birmingham 0-0 Manchester City

They're really hard to beat. I didn't watch the whole match, just the 2nd half but Poulsen seemed to be doing a good job of covering Johnson when he was marauding forward and leaving that flank exposed. You need that, you can't have all your midfielders bombing on trying to score, it's not FIFA. If he's just shielding the defence, recycling possesion and keeping things moving then he's doing and important job. Makelele was lauded for it yet anyone else who does it seems to be deemed useless. :ROLL:
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Come one, are you really going to compare Makelele with Poulsen ? If you want to compare him with Mascherano, I would agree because Makelele was at his best the best defensive midfielder in the world and so was Mascherano. They are experts in covering, very fast and have a superb tackling.
Poulsen is really slow and this is a key point when you are a defensive midfielder, his tackling is not that good neither and he cant keep position, he keep giving the ball away in simple passes.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

*Groan*

Atleast we won a point at a fellow midtable team. Because we have looked nothing more then that for quite some time now. Frustrating to see the team "perform" exactly how you were expecting them to do, I'd rather lose and actually create a chance. Did we even create a chance in the 2nd half? Did the goalie need to make a save? A few months later, and from being crap but missing quite a few chances to win the game we have gone to being crap and being lucky to get a point.

Meirales looked energetic and gave the team some good movement. Him with Gerrard and Cole should be a good midfield imo. And you can swap one of them depending on how defensive you want to be. But that is really the only positive I can get from the match...

Poulson and Lucas is just a less energetic and creative duo then Masch and Lucas.....and we've known for ages that that was utter crap together. I thought both of them had good games, so I think that says enough about them.
 
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Re: Liverpool Thread

As for positives, Konchesky looked decent enough and I was actually disappointed to see him injured and come off.

Meireles also looked very good in the 10-15 mins that he played, constantly getting into space and looking to drive on and get something started.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

Yep, kinda goes without saying though. Unless you base your opinion of him on one international match anyway.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

I dont think he was awful. He has a lot of potential, he is young and he is going to improve a lot. He was too young to play as much as he did in a league as the PL.
Plus, he didnt want to leave, in all the interviews he gave to the argentinian press he told that he was very happy and confortable in Liverpool and that he wanted to renew his contract.
Roy also showed the door to Roberto Carlos when he was in Inter and look how that ended.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

Insua's only gone on loan, he's still nowhere near ready for the Premier League and because of that he was awful in an awful lot of games last year, he cost us quite a few points thanks to him giving away so many ridiculous free kicks right on the edge of the area.
 
Re: Liverpool Thread

UJSupanova said:
Insua's only gone on loan, he's still nowhere near ready for the Premier League and because of that he was awful in an awful lot of games last year, he cost us quite a few points thanks to him giving away so many ridiculous free kicks right on the edge of the area.
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I dont agree, I think he was decent enough and that he is going to improve a lot. He also gave us some goals when he intercepted the ball and went for a fast pass and a counterattack.
How many players of his age you see being the fullback of an important team on the Premier League ? None, he only played that much because Fabio Aurelio was injured ALL the season.
He is on loan and only have 1 year left in his contract. He is gone.
 
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