WORD is that Spartak Moscow are a bit rubbish.
Champions of all Russia after 16 years of winning bugger all, the mardy Muscovites have celebrated their Premier League homecoming by turning to jelly. They aren’t so much defending their crown as pawning it to pay for what must have been some title celebration party. They currently sit in seventh place after 11 games on 14 points. Just 13 off pace setters Zenit. Spartak ain’t retaining shit.
Maybe they’re looking at how The Reds are faring and scoffing too. They’ve threatened to tear up trees but if their upcoming opponents look to the league table as a guide they’ll not be unduly terrified. It feels like a season that hasn’t yet truly begun. Key men — Phil Coutinho and Sadio Mane — have simply not played enough football yet. There’s also been a very real sense that the club allowed the transfer window to close without having wrapped up business. Walking around Melwood is an apparition, a void, where a centre half should stand. Whatever his name is seems to be missing from the starting 11 on a weekly basis.
It’s a strange variety of limbo Liverpool find themselves in. Simultaneously contenders for everything and nothing. Praised and envied for their creative talent pool but written off because of an apparent endless capacity to concede idiot goals.
There are two semi-contradictory maxims about success in football that I need to riddle out here. The first, and more common, is that you don’t win shit without a good defence. Seems right. No goals against always provides a platform. Then there’s an adage I don’t hear as often these days that a team can go an awful long way with two or three geniuses ahead of a team of organised yard dogs.
Manchester City don’t have much of a defence. I don’t think Man United do either, on a man-by-man basis. Arsenal’s pool are very mediocre too. Chelsea’s three have been acclaimed, but one of them is actually David ‘there’s no way in the world I’m a defender’ Luiz, so go figure. Tottenham, of the big teams, do have defenders who are the real deal. Made up for them. They’ve got no more points than Liverpool.
Funny how with all these 5-0 wins no one is going on about Pep Guardiola’s flawed Manchester City defence anymore. Mourinho’s United are wining well and not conceding but it’s all down to the one-man defence that is Nemanja Matic, dontcha know. Nothing to do with the lads scoring in all those 4-0 hidings. Anyone notice Spurs legendary back four aid their blunt cause as they failed to break down Burnley and Swansea at Wembley recently?
Yes, Liverpool needed Virgil van Dijk, and maybe another one too, but Liverpool are five points behind Man City in the league because Man City have scored 21 goals to Liverpool’s 12. Teams that race into leads concede less goals. This is because beaten teams lose potency. They become demoralised husks of what they intended to be. These husks are less of a threat to your goal than a team that is still in with a chance.
All of this — if I’m right — is great news for Liverpool’s 2017/2018 vintage. The Reds may not have the tools to improve their much-maligned defence just right now but all the kit needed for attack — to score those spirit-breaking goal avalanches — is already at Melwood. Jürgen Klopp will walk into work and spot Adam Lallana doing a bit of jogging. He’ll be high fiving Mohamed Salah. He’s got a handshake routine he does with Bobby Firmino. In the distance he can spot Mane running. Running faster than anyone can run. Coutinho’s doing some Diego Maradona-type routine with the ball balanced on the back of his neck, while Daniel Sturridge is practising chipping the ‘keepers from the centre spot.
“Wow!” thinks the boss man. To be able to call upon six sublimely-talented attacking players is very cool. If only these boys could be harnessed together. And not just for the odd game. To be fully available to the manager in the way that Guardiola can, week in week out, count on being able to use Sergio Aguero, Gabriel Jesus, Raheem Sterling, Leroy Sane, the Silvas and Kevin De Bruyne.
Man City — no apologies for using them as the yardstick — are not top of the league because John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi, or even the keeper, are suddenly a world-class unit. They’re top because they have attacking options required to conquer all summits. I’m not saying City will prevail because they can throw on a few geniuses ahead of a crew of yard dogs, but that is closer to their truth than those dull pundit shouts about great defences winning leagues.
Liverpool have as much firepower at their disposal now as they have ever done. Some cynics will say “where’s ya Fernando Torres or Ian Rush?” I’ll say Salah has six goals in eight games. He’s better than Torres. I’ll say Mane has a more than one in two full goal-game ratio for Liverpool. Coutinho was the Premier League’s most valuable footballer in the summer. He scores one in two as well, and most of them are worldies. Firmino scores lots. Put him on the pitch and Sturridge is goals. Liverpool have City’s goalscoring capacity. That capacity exceeds that of Man United, Tottenham, Chelsea and Arsenal. The Reds are tooled up. Armed to the teeth.
Spartak Moscow would be fools if they glanced at the English Premier League table right now to get a flavour of this Liverpool. This Liverpool need to get their water carriers into less porous habits. A bit more defensive shape drilling wouldn’t go amiss, but the main challenge for Klopp is to get those front lads on the pitch now, and to get them on there consistently and together. If Coutinho, Firmino, Mane and Salah click, there will be no horizon too far. Home or abroad.
Predicted 11: Karius; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Klavan, Moreno; Henderson, Wijnaldum, Coutinho; Mane, Firmino, Salah.
Kick off: 7.45pm on BT Sport 2
Referee: Clement Turpin (France)
Odds: Spartak Moscow 22-5, Draw 16-5, Liverpool 3-4
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“The Reds are tooled up”. Fucking love it.
Love this.
Fantastic piece by Rob. Makes sense & so uplifting. Thanks Rob for reminding us to stop the doom & gloom!!
What you’re missing isn’t just that Liverpool’s defence will definitely concede too many goals, again; it’s that because we concede so many goals, and so many stupidly soft goals, teams, bad teams, always think they’ve a chance against us. Them not quitting as often against us as they do against our rivals is costly, either in points or in energy expended. very costly.
A 2 goal lead isn’t enough for Liverpool, unless there is less than 60 seconds to play. For United and Spurs, due to their set up, it is. For City, due to their outrageous attack, which is better than ours, it is. Even when their opponents go 1 down against United, you can already see them thinking “fucking hell lads this is now almost impossible to get something out of now.” They are almost beaten there and then, for the most part. United and Spurs have the ability to soak up pressure, even with 10 men, and hold firm. No silly mistakes, no gifting away of chances, everything against them having to be hard earned.
But what’s the attitude of these poor teams against us when a goal or 2 down, or worse, even before the game? “Just hang in lads, even if Mane tucks one in, we don’t change, we don’t get disheartened, nothing changes, sooner or later we’ll get a chance. The heads don’t go down, keep in it, keep fighting, they’ll gift us something – might be from a set piece or a Lovren error, but it’ll come.” You just don’t get that against Mourinho teams when he gets them right, which he always does. It’s a major reason he wins leagues in Portugal, England, Italy, Spain and England again.
Opponents are never beaten mentally against us unless we are in top form and put 4 past them. (And even when we do that they might fancy a 4-4 draw, save a Lallana last minute winner.) And that’s the problem… we always have to be in top form going forward to win. Imagine the pressure on the lads up front, knowing they have to bag 2 or 3 just to be in with a shout of a point. Due to the defending on show, the odds of us grinding out a 1-0 while playing shite are infinitesimal. It will be a regular occurrence away from home for some of our rivals. That’s what champions do. We all know it. Just some of us won’t admit it.
Writing this isn’t much fun, but it’s the reality, and any Liverpool fan trying to wish it away needs to wise up. We’ll do okay this season, score another boatload, have a good run of great attacking football in the league, but ultimately we’re in a battle for 4th again (only this time United have their shit together) and nothing else. Why? The defending.
Couldn’t agree more.
We’re currently conceding on average 2 goals a game which means we have to score 3 every week just to take max points.
That’s not sustainable.
And as you rightly pointed out the smaller teams always believe they can get something of us because we’ll gift them a goal or 2.
Rob, I think you left out the bit where United and Chelsea both have world class goalkeepers that have helped earn them points and keep a lot of clean sheets so far.
So we have a missing CB and defense that goes missing depending on who picks the shortest straw before the game. Add to this we have keepers that cause needless anxiety each time the ball is in the area.
Shaktar, don’t think, are looking at the table just because you have been looking at theirs. :)
Just go there and get the job by doing the basics and keep it simple. We have the quality irrespective of our table position to win the match.
Up the Reds!
This makes so much sense: https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/english-soccer/ken-early-strong-case-for-the-defence-of-jurgen-klopp-s-vision-1.3232398?mode=amp
@NB Nice article and good points. It makes a case for an attack minded team but knowing how and when to defend is just as important.
I think Chelsea winning their last title is an example. They bought the right players for the job when needed and transformed those whose strengths were unearthed over the course of the season. The team gelled enough into a formidable machine to get the job done.
Anyways from the article, for me, it’s this…
Klopp said: “We believe we are on a good way, but we are absolutely aware that we have to show it with results, so that everybody can see it.”
Results do matter as in the case of Houllier and Benitez used as examples since they didn’t win the league either with their defensive approach.
I hope Klopp manages to get things sorted for the long term.
They are not in the best of form, I don’t know why so I can’t comment on that but you are right Rob, there are some very fixable reasons why we are not. Now with Mane and an improving Coutinho in the side we should indeed fear no-one anywhere. We got lucky with the draw weather-wise so go out there and do another Hoffenhein Reds. A win will have us half way qualified. Fingers crossed.
Spot on Rob, a bit more of ruthless streak and we can match City in my opinion. See Leicester on Sat, Bobby scores at 2-0 then it is game over. Same with City, if Palace score instead of smacking the post, who knows what happens in that game.
Go 3 up against most of the dross in the league and its all over.
I think Liverpool took a look at Spartak’s league table position and laughed, then got a nice slap in the face for it.
Sadly we did not take our chances and wasted another European night huffing and puffing with 25 shots on goal to theirs 1 shot on goal and ends in 1-1. WTF?!
Klopp’s not really to blame, though his substitute timing might have been too late. Would’ve preferred he take off Can and Firmino earlier and given Sturridge and Milner a chance to settle the game.
Gini goes back into his magic lamp again. I hope he scores against Newcastle though. Would be ironic.
Coutinho was sublime, Salah wasteful, Firmino wasteful, Mane wasteful, Sturridge wasteful.
Henderson, Moreno, Lovren, Matip and TAA had a great game. Henderson, TAA and Moreno especially. They really tried hard this time and I feel that the attack let them down.
This is where defensive duties, including the fucking goalkeeper saves the team and wins the games for the club, because the attack can waste chances or have off nights.
And finally Karius…Not sure if he ever learned from his last mistake of trying to save free kicks the spectacular way.
I said before Rob, the differences in having a world class keeper is huge. De Gea and Curtois save their teams points, as did the reserve goalkeeper who should have caved into the pressure of LFC’s awesome attack.
At this rate Europa League beckons for this lot.
ROTFL
After that game, Rob, hen you look in the mirror, who do you see there? ;)