#TAW11 Cover
NEIL ATKINSON was joined by Ben Johnson, Gareth Roberts and Adam Smith after Liverpool’s first away defeat of the calender year.
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I’m glad the city game/performance happened when it did. It’s a timely reminder of the areas that need to be worked on in the training pitch, especially with CL games in mind — there’ll be a few teams in Europe with the kind of weaponry that City have and we need to be less naive against them, especially away from home.
Well, Lovren proved he’s no £20m centre back. Can BR train this defence to work as a unit far better.
That last goal was naive pressing up too high against Aguero without actually playing him offside, when you’ll always lose a race against him when the inevitable ball goes in behind your line, yet Rodgers thought it was Moreno allowing the pass to happen that was the mistake! As if you’ll always cut out the cross!?! It’s just not realistic.
1st and 3rd goals were sloppy and the 2nd was just disastrous back line work with Skrtel and Johnson just watching on while playing everyone onside.
A big issue though is why they took over in the 2nd half. Do we just collapse back so easily when pressure is applied and then end up under siege around the box? How do we resist this?
All that said, the mistakes that gave citeh the goals SHOULD be easily cut out on the training pitch and that would have denied Citeh any goals, however ruthless it looked.
In addition we created quite a few chances but didn’t finish. We haven’t worked out how to have runners assisting Sturridge. If Sterling doesn’t do it, noone does. Coutinho is better deeper so a Lallana or Markovic would fit better flanking sturridge with sterling on the opposing side.
There was one move in the first half when sterling played Sturridge in, down the side in the pen box but then stopped running. Another 5 or 6 strides further into the box and he’s ready for a square ball and a tap in but he just stopped and Sturridge didn’t know what to do then cos he wasn’t in a scoring position. I couldn’t believe it.
We certainly could have scored more but we didn’t and we have to learn to take responsibility in Suarez’ absence to make the runs into the box given we do create dangerous situations.
So some work on the training pitch and good execution and that scoreline is reversed. Easier said than done but it just struck me as basic things that need working on.
Annoyed Toure didn’t get a second yellow near the end for the challenge on Skrtel.
“Well, Lovren proved he’s no £20m centre back.”
Steady mate.. you can’t prove or disprove that in one game, judging by the rest of your comment, you’re smart enough to realise this on your own.
“Can BR train this defence to work as a unit far better.”
Yep. He sure can… but we’re only 2 games in.. I’m guessing you’ll see some progress over the course of the season.. half the back-line is new (the half that was trying to play the offside trap) and one of the new blokes only just got here a couple of days ago ffs..
You seem to advocate improving on the training ground, but are unwilling to afford the team the time to do that?
Lads. Boss fkn podcast. Well in.
Probably the most positive I’ve been following a loss but, as you lot noted, there was a lot of good to come out of that..
Also, last season we started kind of slow (performances more so than results) before Spurs away pumped HGH right into our season.
Not expecting us to completely bollock of the lilyshites – but then again, i wasn’t expecting it last season either.
Looking forward to the next podcast
It was tough to watch that second half, when city lost the ball they were so quick to gain there shape back with 2 banks of four it was hard to break down. When our attacks break down we are so out of shape and position it’s frightening. Sturridge is only happy with the ball at his feet and were desperately missing the non stop Running and pressure Suarez put on defenders. The plus point is markovic from the game for me he looked very assured for his short time on the pitch.
sturridge ballo/lambert (sub)
sterling
markovic/cout(sub) henderson/allen(sub)
gerrard/can(sub)
flanno lovren skrtel manquillo
mignolet
Chaos for the Tottenham game!In my opinion this 11 could give us the flair we lacked against city. I’d really like to see the combination of markovic, sterling, sturridge and ballo…pace!
Mignolet out.
And I am serious.
Mignolet makes a show of me constantly by making ridiculous saves after I’ve been slagging him off but I’m edging towards this as well to be honest. “He’s a young goalkeeper” – Reina was his age in 2009 when you wouldn’t have swapped Pepe with any other keeper in Europe in terms of his all round game. Not everyone can be Lloris or Neuer but I’d be surprised if Rodgers thinks he’s his no.1 for the next five years.
Also, listening to the end of the pod it occurred to me that Ben Johno has a similar attitude towards playing footy as Glen Johno but Glen doesn’t do the keeping the ball bit. Ben Johnson for defensive coach at Liverpool on that basis alone.
Thanks so much for a brilliant podcast again lads really enjoyed it. You lot are great company on the bus home