LIVERPOOL doesn’t have a footballer in the goal at the moment. But Liverpool needs a footballer in the goal. Sure, at the moment, without a footballer in the goal, Liverpool are doing OK. But the fact they don’t have a footballer in the goal is taking its cosmic toll. When judgement day comes, we’ll pay a heavy price. Other sides less worthy than ours will find themselves propelled above us in the footballing pantheon, and we’ll kick ourselves at the chance we missed to do something really special. Unless, that is, we get the right keeper.
“No Pasaran”
Remember the first season under Rodgers? There was no compromise. Liverpool played half a season with a sense of vertigo sweeping through the stands, as the new manager set about imposing his preferred ‘death by football’ style on his newly-inherited squad. We’d have 11 outfield players versus 10, just the way he’d punched above his weight at Swansea, with Michel Vorm in the goal, team mates squaring balls to him in his six-yard box as opposing sides tried to press, and Vorm dinking the ball over the advancing marker, or slide ruling through to a midfield replete with players comfortable turning into play. Ashley Williams, Steven Caulker, Leon Britton, Vorm — a comfy little diamond that could circulate a ball until the cows came home, no matter, it seemed, which team they faced, or how much pressure they applied. Each player was limited in some respect, but the blend worked well. Surely with better players, Liverpool would reap the benefits of the same approach before too long. It’d just take time a little time to bed in. (Two and a half seasons, as it turns out.)
The way our keeper, back four and defensive midfielder played through the first half of Rodgers’ first season at the club had older fans in purple faced heart palpitations. Liverpool took the field at home against Man City and refreshingly went toe-to-toe, bossing the game, and leading until the closing stages, when Martin Skrtel (ironically the only one of the starting defenders left from that time) played an ill-advised blind ball back to Pepe Reina with Carlos Tevez lurking in his blind spot. The Reds, despite dominating the champions, saw three points turn into one, due in no small part to a manager demanding football from players not accustomed to providing it. “No Pasaran”, read the Pepe Reina waver on The Kop. “They shall not pass”. Maybe not, but under this manager it seemed that each and every one of our players, including the goalkeeper, had better bloody learn to, and pronto.
It wasn’t for the faint-hearted. The high point for me was watching a friend lose the run of himself as Stewart Downing, with three pressing players advancing, squared a bullet of a ball from roughly the corner flag to Reina, who dealt with it admirably, the ball emerging on the other side of the tidal wave with the Reds finding themselves free on the counter. In many ways, Reina was the perfect keeper for a Rodgers side, such was his footballing nous. Many of us geeks pencilled him in as an upgrade on Vorm as we sought to predict how the Swansea system would translate to Liverpool. The problem wasn’t that Pepe couldn’t play football — it was more that his team mates couldn’t. Not yet, at least. That and Pepe’s growing and inexplicable inability to stop a ball with his hands.
Compromise Number 1: Sit Deep and Counter
Slowly it dawned on Rodgers that, after half a season, and following long spells without a functional striker (sound familiar?), he was going to have to improvise — to compromise. Playing fancy football and drawing teams out and onto you from your own third brought with it demands that maybe our squad didn’t have the footballing capacity to cope with. Not yet, at least. And so, the manager compromised.
We signed Coutinho and Sturridge, played Carragher, and found a working balance, sitting deeper, striking at the heart of opposing teams with our new found weapons, hitting on the break with searing pace, and seeing often devastating results. The pressure to play football from the back was lifted, and the side saw results improve, not because the approach was intrinsically better; but because it better fitted the players, their nerves, and their level of adaptation to Rodgers’ methods — their level of footballing capacity. We carried players less able to function on the ball, and relied heavily on compensating players more able to play into pressure to keep us ticking.
But each passing session and each passing week saw the squad’s level of adaptation rise. The team was developing a footballing capacity it had lacked for a very long time. Interesting things happen in those circumstances. All it takes is a catalyst to spark things off — all it takes is a big enough jolt of collective belief.
Compromise Number 2: Be Obdurate
Rodgers’ first close season brought Reina’s departure, and the team started afresh, founding his second season on a new-found defensive obduracy. The new keeper, Simon Mignolet, stood behind the collossal shield provided by his centre halves, set us on the path to our unexpected near miss in the League with a clutch penalty save against Stoke, and three consecutive clean sheets. We started the season without Suarez, with all eyes on the new signing Iago Aspas, hoping he might compensate in some way. We looked light on quality in depth up front, and so Rodgers compromised again, this time going with an almost smash and grab approach in relative terms, ceding possession to the opposing side and controlling games without the ball, or when needed, putting bodies on the line. The new keeper fared well, making big saves in behind the big blocks. But the compromise was fragile.
You see, a Brendan Rodgers team is a Brendan Rodgers team. We’ve seen the scientific papers, after all. He trains his side in small-sided games. Games in which players develop intensity, and a capacity for pressure football, and for pace and incision in transition. They learn good habits on the ball. They don’t spend time as 11s working on coordinated team shape drills. They learn to build their footballing capacity, both as individuals, and as a group. So naturally the footballing capacity continued to build, and without the distraction of European Competition, the jolt — the catalyst we talked about above — came not when Suarez returned from his ban, but when Gerrard and Sturridge were ruled out for Spurs in November.
Jesus. None of us realised what that side was capable of up until that point, but boy did we all wake up — the team themselves included. They didn’t just beat Spurs. They obliterated Spurs. All of that potential suddenly revealed itself, and the team seemed on the brink of something special. But in among it all were hints of problems to come in the goalkeeping department. People will forget, of course, but that game brought with it a few near misses, with responsibility falling squarely at Mignolet’s feet. Soldado could have had a penalty when the game was still in the balance, which might have seen Mignolet sent off, all down to Mignolet’s lack of assurance with the ball at his feet. In contrast, playing for the side that conceded five on the night (when it could have been nine or 10), Lloris was a plausible contender for man of the match. Lloris was exactly the kind of keeper we needed (and Kenny Dalglish wanted), but didn’t have.
A Brendan Rodgers team, you see, coached week in and week out like a Brendan Rodgers team, will tend to play more and more like a Brendan Rodgers team. It will start to believe in its own ability. That means it will, at times, rely on its goalkeeper’s ability with his feet. The goalkeeper will have to sweep, and the goalkeeper, more than he might have to for other sides, will be expected to pick out a man in a red shirt — a higher bar to clear than the ‘clear your lines’ mark imposed by other managers.
Remember the high jump at school? Set the bar low enough and you’re flying. But a bar set an inch or so above your comfort zone? Put in a worldie and maybe you’d clear it, but part of your mind becomes noisy, convincing you that you’ll break your back if you try it, no matter how implausible that might be. So it was with Mignolet. Clear your lines? Grand. He could do that without thinking. He might even pick out his winger on the instep. But tell him you expect him to pick out that winger with even a striker as cumbersome as Soldado on top of him? He wasn’t that keeper. He never would be. And so the team continued, as a rule, to sit deeper and hit on the break. The possession stats betrayed the ongoing compromise, but nobody cared. It was working, so why bother to change it?
A Compromise Forgotten
For the remainder of his second season, after Spurs away, Rodgers saw his young team develop a level of belief not seen at the club for a very long time. Week on week, session after session, adaptation after adaptation, the team grew in footballing capacity, and as Spring came, new shoots began to appear. The team found new ways to amaze us all with every passing game.
We went to Old Trafford and bossed the home side in every single aspect of the game — it was beautiful. But still Mignolet was Mignolet and as such his confidence was only as resilient as the compromise struck to accommodate him in the side. The slightly deeper line, the ceding of possession in favour of a more direct game. But oddly, as the 10 other players grew together, they started to believe they could impose themselves home and away on whoever they played. They were almost right. They almost tore our collective hearts from our chests away at Carrow Road, mind, but they did it. They found new ways to do it. But the heart problems — quite often they centred around the goalkeeper, and on those immediately around him.
You see, this young side that had steadily developed the belief that it could dominate sides home and away, and impose its will on football matches no matter what the circumstances, was naturally less and less inclined to provide a comfort blanket for their goalkeeper when in the throes of ecstatic interplay. Imposing their game, the goalkeeper suddenly had to fend for himself, and slowly it led to a crisis of confidence in his heart and his mind. It was maybe natural — better goalkeepers than Mignolet had fallen foul of this phenomenon in the past.
Take Vítor Baía for example. He had been Bobby Robson’s keeper — his trusted custodian. The Barca goalkeeping coach at the time, Frans Hoek, said: “At that moment Vítor was, in my opinion, one of the best goalkeepers in the world and he functioned well within Robson’s 1:4:4:2 system.” But when Louis Van Gaal took the reins, he implemented a different system. Hoek described the impact on the goalkeeper, saying: “Baía changed from a big, strong, confident goalkeeper to the exact opposite. Afterwards I realised he was placed in a concept in which he did not feel the least bit confident. He now had a lot of space in front of him in which he played a role and was forced to become part of the build up. These were not his strongest assets.”
How did Van Gaal fix the problem? He bought another keeper — Ruud Hesp — who could play that way. As Hoek said: “This turned out to be a great choice.”
Mignolet’s existential crisis, of course, steadily heightened into the Autumn of 2014 with Rodgers eventually dropping him in favour of Brad Jones. And that’s about all I have to say about that.
Compromise Number 3: Three at the Back
Rodgers, with a squad full of players who could play a bit, two keepers on the brink of a nervous breakdown, and… you guessed it… a dearth of viable striking options, happily arrived at a compromise that fixed…well, just about everything. He slotted in Emre Can at the back alongside Skrtel and Sakho, added a liberal sprinkling of quality in the midfield and wing back positions, and used Sterling to stretch things up front — oddly, the qualities he told us he needed from his strikers during his first season (he needed mobility and pace, he said — qualities suddenly in short supply with Sturridge consigned to the bench and Suarez offski to Barca). It worked! And it’s continuing to work for the most part.
But here’s the thing: Rodgers continues to develop his squad, and his squad’s footballing capacity continues to rise. Gerrard, blink and you’d have missed it, has been injured for several games, with Sturridge a bit part player. Suarez is long gone. Yet this team had played Chelsea off the park twice (somehow contriving not to get to the League Cup final), and unceremoniously pumped the Champions. It was working well, people said. But it remained — and still remains — a compromise. And a compromise largely put in place to compensate for an ill-fitting goalkeeper — to make him feel comfortable. We sit deeper. We deny space between the keeper and the defensive line. We do what we can to make him feel comfortable, and for the most part, sides set up in front of us. We don’t really draw them onto us — not yet at least.
The side looks fluid, but the whole thing has reached a stage where, to find that extra edge — that little extra upside that will make all the difference when it matters — we need to address the opportunity cost. We now boast players throughout the side who can play football — who demand the ball, and who are comfortable in units in playing their way through pressure — who actually relish doing that.
Watch the team when a free kick is conceded by the opposing side. They’re itching to take it quickly and hurt teams. How many times do we see defensive players emerge with the ball at their feet through the lines of the opposing side (most notably through Emre Can)? How many times have you seen Allen, Lallana, Henderson, Sterling and Coutinho turn on a ball with a marker touch tight and open up a world of space in behind? Add to that the pace and incision from wide positions in the form of Ibe, Moreno, and Markovic. As a collective, how many times have we seen this team press the opposition, in a way reminiscent of last season, when all of our truly ‘big’ names were still available? We’re ripe for a game that imposes itself properly, and without compromise. These players shouldn’t have to carry weak links or compromise their set up to accommodate them. Not any more. The time is ripe to make the next big leap.
No More Compromises
When his Barcelona Dream Team was on the rise in the early 90s, legend has it that Johan Cruyff was dead set on fielding an extra midfielder in their goal. Why was that? Well, they were on the brink of something special in terms of the side’s footballing capacity, and Cruyff felt that by adding one more footballer building their play from the back, well… they’d surely find out.
His coaches talked him out of it, and it’s a shame. Imagine a side with 11 playmakers, decision makers, and footballing brains on the pitch — just imagine it. The standard keeper fields a ball, calms things down, takes his seconds, and lets his team mates get themselves into position up field, while the opposing side get themselves set — get themselves organised. The footballing keeper in a footballing side eschews all that.
He knows that his centre mid can receive a ball threaded to him at pace with his back to goal and turn his man, carry the ball into the space behind, breaking opposing lines and disrupting their organisation before they really know what’s happening. In recent weeks, we’ve seen Coutinho and Sterling make mincemeat of the two best sides in the country that way, receiving balls from defenders and midfielders on the half turn.
Imagine if we had a keeper who could do that the minute he fielded a ball? Or imagine a keeper who, faced with pressure from attackers on receiving a back pass, relished that pressure, and found the instep of a team mate out wide and in behind his cover, setting us on the attack once more instead of slicing it into touch. Goalkeepers like that do actually exist. We had one in Reina once upon a time. And these goalkeepers can keep goal, too. They can field high balls, and punch to clear, and command their area. They tend to be a little mad, and brash, and overconfident. Maybe the occasional rick will happen — but hey, that happens with the traditional set up anyway doesn’t it?
Of course, it only works if you have players who can work with the ball in that way; but we have a squad full of them. We have a squad full of players who are itching to play the kind of imposing game they know they’re capable of. They don’t want to carry their keeper. They want their keeper to set a foundation for them, and to help them open things up — to get the ball to them quickly in areas where they can hurt the opposing side. They say a great goalkeeper can win your team 10 points a season; but what about a keeper who tips the way you play over the critical edge? How much of an impact would that player make to the group as a whole?
Rodgers said after the Man City game: “We like to press the game really hard and aggressively, and I like a technical game.”
To do that fully, week in and week out, we’re only missing a couple of critical pieces. We need to clone Sturridge, of course. We’ll have three of him. But Lordy Lord above, please deliver us one, if not two, proper footballing goalkeepers.
And then sit back and enjoy what unfolds.
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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda
The primary job of a goalkeeper is too keep the ball out of the net. Pepe Reina was amazing with his feet but any half decent strike put on him was very likely going to be in the back of the net. Mingolet has his issues but at least he gives me confidence that he can stop the ball from going in the net. Granted it would be nice to have someone who can do it all but those type of keepers don’t really come around too often and when they do they end up at Barca, Madrid, or Bayern. I understand your points and this was a very interesting piece however I prefer the keeper who can make the big save rather than the great pass.
Blinkin’ ‘eck! What more can Mignolet do?
We all now his distribution is ‘variable’ but his primary function is to stop the ball entering his net and he does that admirably the vast majority of the time plus he even commands his box.
If Rodgers wanted a footballing keeper then that was never Mignolet (I’m not even bothering with Brad bloody Jones)
so give our keeper a break.
He doesn’t need to be a ball player when Sakho/Can/Lovren can do that.
The one question occupying my brain is: Do we go in for Cech this summer?
Lloris? Spurs won’t qualify for Champions league, maybe not even Europa league, and why would he stay there? Has everything we need in a keeper.
Great article Hendo. Aussie Matt Ryan would be the perfect fit!
Terrific article with great insight into what goes on in a game of football. Roy can see beyond the ‘actions’ that occur in a game to the method and patterns that are going on, the macro as opposed to the micro that most people only see. Funnily enough having just watched a re-run of our U21’s playing Chelsea the Liverpool keeper looked as relaxed with the ball at his feet as I’ve seen for some time, though I don’t know how good a shot stopper he is. Apparently Pepe is looking to leave Bayern, reckon Brendan could forgive and forget and bring him back?
Whatever your view of Mignolet, we need a quality keeper, if only as backup.
Keepers are in an invidious position in that they need their team to play shit for the keeper to play a blinder. Simon broke that rule because he played shit when his team played shit. He’s a wonderful shot stopper but his overall game is flawed. Not, in my view, anywhere near as good as Reina on a bad Pepe day. Nonetheless, he’s all we’ve got and it’s bitten us on the arse more than once. Credit where it’s due, for a couple of games lately he’s appeared to have decided the penalty area is not a minefield.
You’re obviously referring to the Reine of 7 or 8 years ago, right.
What a great read!! Totally agree with what’s written. I’m still hoping Mignolet comes good though. But I think it’s a given that we’ll be signing a new playmaker to keep goal for is in the summer. But exciting times to be a Red again. After all these years. And you Rodgers haters can hang your heads in shame too. You guys have to live with the fact that we’ve turned the corner despite you and without you. Not with your support but with your hindrance. Shame on you. Call yourselves fans??!
YNWA
Totally agree, Roy. I like Simon as a humble, hard-working professional with some great strengths, and I cheered him on from the moment he arrived at the club, through his troubled spell, and will continue to cheer the man on. However, you’ve made an excellent case, one that clarifies the an underlying hunch I’ve had all this time.
The team accommodates Simon, and at this point, they’re doing it well. (And yes, Simon earns his keep, too.) But the anxiety that stems from him is always just a half-hearted or over-thought decision away.
I want him to succeed, but I agree, a footballing goalkeeper will take this team further.
3-4-2-1 a compromise? Hardly. It’s a tactical master stroke, making use of the best qualities of the squad and covering the more vulnerable parts. In this formation we can make full use of our pacey, dribbling wingers, pull back deep forming a line of five defenders with two deep lying mids absorbing any overloaded attack, enjoy numerical supremacy (4!) against anyone in the centre of the park and provide great cover to our keeper.
Yes, it’d be great for him to add passing to his repertoire. But beyond breaking the bank for a keeper who has everything, when we desperately need reinforcements in the centre of midfield, I’ll take one who seems to be overcoming his command of his box deficiencies and can stop almost any shot on his goal, within reason.
Is this suggesting then that we get a ball playing goalkeeper and eradicate the need for a sweeper in the three at the back (Skrtel) and adding an extra midfielder? I LIKE THAT but it wouldn’t make up for the fact that our wbs are very effective and I wouldn’t have much faith in Markovic/Ibe in a back four, as good as they are. EVEN Moreno was dodgy first half of the season. The shape works well and I don’t think its all about protecting the keeper, although that’s obviously what we do because that’s what defences do naturally, it’s about utilising the squad. Gerrard, Allen and Hendo look limited in a two man midfield if they don’t have that extra man behind whether it be a CB or DM and because they do now they’re able to relinquish some defensive responsibility to the CB and play their natural game.
I do want another goalie but the compromise to three at the back hasn’t all been for him it’s because we actually don’t have an 11 fit who can play 443/442 because that Manquillo doesn’t do it and Moreno is weak defensively. Not even gonna mention the others.
P.s. Can’t wait for Flanno to be back, just saying.
What’s interesting is that people think a keeper being a good footballer and being good at keeping the ball out of the net as mutually exclusive. They’re not.
Mignolet is a keeper we will always have to carry, and we’ll always be a little less brilliant than we might otherwise be as a result.
They’re not necessarily the same, sure. But as someone else said earlier, a keeper with both those qualities at the level we require is rare enough that they’ll be locked down by one of the European giants – which we’re not right now. If we were lucky, we might have been able to get a young Neur or Lloris and train them up to be the keeper we need – but you’re taking a risk that it doesn’t come off and we have to live through their mistakes as they learn without losing patience.
You say we’re carrying Mignolet because of his poor distribution – I’d counter by saying that for the last season or two of his time here, we were carrying Reina because of his poor goalkeeping. The player you want definitely exists – but you’re paying £30m+ to buy them fully-formed, or buying young and hoping they live up to their potential.
It’s not because of his distribution – it’s just the kind of keeper he is full stop. He doesn’t want space in front of him.
How hard can it be for any professional footballer, goalkeeper included, to learn to improve their passing & become better on the ball.
Great article Roy.
One question though, do you really think that Mignolet cannot improve his confidence and abilities on the ball to a level were we’d be comfortable? I’d say he’s improved markedly since December. His long range passing is still poor, but his overall ball control seems to be getting better.
Yeah, I reckon his passing has improved considerably in this season alone, the anfield pitch definitely isn’t one any goal keeper would looking forward to playing on.
In fact, I was never that worried about his passing as I figured it had quite a bit of room to improve, especially as he isn’t some hulking old-school keeper. The thing that has most impressed me has been the improvements in his sweeping and one-on-one saves as I didn’t see that coming. Sure he is a little uncertain at times but he is really quick over the ground once he makes his mind up, which is a big advantage.
Would you really swap him for Vorm? I wouldn’t, not the way he is playing at the moment. He has made some very important saves over the last week, and I reckon give him a few years and you won’t be still writing articles like this one about his passing as it is improving all the time.
*few weeks
Good read. Thanks.
You know what? I’ve often thought Gerrard would make a decent keeper in his twilight years!
Not entirely sure I buy into the underlying selling point. I watched a replay of Dortmund-Schalke today; the Schalke keeper (admittedly a replacement) thought he was a footballing keeper and he made an absolute howler trying to dribble around Reus.
I agree that times change and it is no longer enough that all keepers have to do is stand on the goal line and dive about when shots come in, but I think the article ignores, a tad, the strides that Mignolet has made. When he arrived he was a pure shot-stopper, albeit a very good one. He has been asked to up his game by orders of magnitude, at the same time as being blinded by the spotlight that shines on the No 1 for one of the biggest teams in the country – a team that challenged for the title – and being asked to marshal a defence that was, at best, a ‘bit disorganised’.
Like any young player – and in goalkeeping terms he is quite young – he has taken time to adapt, but adapting he is.
I’m sure he is well aware of his deficiencies – God knows enough people haven’t been backward in pointing them out – and is working on them.
He is better now than he was three months ago. I’m sure that next season he will be better than he has been this season. To pick a name at random, Markovich has struggled to settle, but people are prepared to cut him some slack because he has gradually improved. Mignolet should get the same.
He’s 19 mate, wish we had a keeper of his quality at that age. He’s got a real shot at keeping the first and second choice keepers on the bench if he keeps on the trajectory he’s on…. and I bet he won’t make that mistake again!
Fair call. I thought he was pretty impressive to be honest, but I needed something to highlight my argument that a ‘footballing’ keeper isn’t the be all and end all.
My bad!
But in goal keeping terms 26 is still very young for a keeper. The equivalent of 22-23 in terms of how much of his career is ahead of him.
Yes Liverpool are on a useful little trot at the moment and Mig’s stock has risen on the confidence that brings. But like the man who cancels his dental appointment because analgesics have eased his raging toothache the problems haven’t gone away and will one day need to addressed
And not a mention of Valdés yet. Gutted about him.
Well written. But I completely disagree.
Not even a Pepe Reina or Jerzy Dudek managed five consecutive clean sheets under the defensive mastermind called Rafa Benitez.
YNWA Simon
Clean sheets aren’t solely down to a keeper. Mignolet (and the others) demonstrated that in the earlier part of the season.
What kind of consecutive cleansheets? Regardless of the competition or each one separated? However, Mignolet has accomplished neither. He ‘just’ managed to get five away ones.
Pepe on the other hand managed to accomplish both, and that in his first season.
http://i.imgur.com/MyCW0ib.png (source is transfermarkt.co.uk)
e-l-e-v-e-n !!!
So check your facts, sonny.
———
I also don’t think that Simon isn’t good enough with his feet. His passing is clean and his distribution among the best in the league.
http://i.imgur.com/bGE4qNU.png (source is squawka.com)
PS: For the ones who are calling for Cech… Have you ever asked yourself why Cech&Courtois always kick it long? While they are very good at long kicks towards Costa/Drogba/Ivanovic, they look very shaky when asked to play it short and build from the back.
As if on cue, from Van Gaal: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/mar/03/manchester-united-louis-van-gaal-backpass-attack
“But I agree with the fans that we don’t have to use so much the goalkeeper because I have seen also moments where we can play a higher tempo without interfering with the goalkeeper. But the goalkeeper is also the 11th player for us.
“He can accelerate our game also and sometimes the solution is, via De Gea, to play forward. Of course it is more the English style of playing a match [to attack], but I think the fans have also enjoyed Manchester playing a position game, so it is always a mix of both.”
I don’t agree with this to be honest, to suggest that the football we played last year which was the best we’ve seen in a long time and nearly delivered the long waited title and the system we’re playing now aren’t the right way for us to play and we should drop whats working for us to play a type of football untested at the club and only really works to a great standard at the top clubs i.e. Barcelona is ludicrous. Mignolet is a good a shot stopper as there is for me and I am a firm believer in having a goalkeeper who can do his job and leave the football to the 10 men in front of him. Obviously nowadays ideally you would want both, but there are very few out there and to get a ‘footballer in goal’ we’d have to either COMPROMISE on the quality of shot stopper or shed out a load of money.
Who says the type of football would change? We already play the right type of football. We’d just swap out a player who doesn’t fit that type of football for one that does.
I got from this that you want us to change our system to the Swansea way under Brendan, which would be a change. For me that’s not the system that suits our player best, we have pace and changing the pace of our build up in a second and quick counters are our strengths. The Swansea way is much more about constant possession and breaking teams down which we have seen the last 2 years that when we tend to come unstuck.
The Swansea style was dictated by the quality of players at his disposal. This side is capable of being direct, because it has the quality to feed players ahead, who in turn have the quality, once facing an undermanned defence, to kill them. There’s no situation in which the addition of a footballer back there is a bad thing, unless you presume that it automatically means a keeper who can’t keep a ball out of his goal. Oddly, a lot of people think that.
Roy,
I have seen and read some of the scientific papers released by Liverpool. Are there any out there on the actual training drill currently being used by LFC?
Having nearly completed the excellent book by Sid Lowe on Barca and Real Madrid I can just imagine Cruyf playing a mid fielder in goal!
I think our keeper is getting much better now, and I’m sorry but I bet if you played 1 on 1 with mignolet he’d run rings around you, I’m sure he will only get better!!!
Weird. Honestly the first I’ve heard of the Lloris/Kenny thing. Maybe I read about it at the time then just forgot.
Big fan of the bollocks Mignolet has shown since his meltdown but generally, you’re right Roy. Even riding on a crest of a wave form-wise, in the moment he panics and stays paralysed on his line. Aguero hits the post but 99 times out of 100 he buries that and turns the game.
Could you write “footballer in the goal” one more time please?
Haha!
(Footballer in the goal.)
If we’re in the market for a new keeper and we manage to get Champions League at the expense of United, I would love for us to put in a very large, very public large bid for De Gea. Obviously we wouldn’t get him in a million years but it would be an audacious statement.
Very good piece!
So much text and so little to it.
If there was ever a “footballing skills” contest amongst goalkeepers I think most people would be surprised at how good Mignolet actually is.
With BR’s now classic close to death-wish passing game at the back (not as bad now as it was from the beginning – Lovren and Skrtl do get to put the odd ball in the stands nowadays), I reckon Mignolet does rather amiably.
Yes, for sure he had a slump, as pointed out, when the whole team had a slump, but his skills should not be in doubt. Like all players on the pitch also goalies depends on their self belief. Just look at his action currently on corners e t c. Instead of his usual boxing gloves he’s got glue to his goal keeper gloves and he oozes courage. Just like our beloved team, Mignolet is refining his own game.