Rogers tactics

[Dr The Singh]

BR needs to learn from CP

[Paninistickers]

I would've been delighted with a point in both games. We didn't need to chase either game to try.and.make a statement. 

 

A little bit of 15/16 spirit would've served us well, when we were content at this time of year to 0-0 against Man City and Bournemouth at home and were fully prepared to 0-0 it away at Spurs (til Huth popped up and spoiled the plan!) 

 

 

[Freeman's Wharfer]

Rodgers has had a ton of credit when it has been due, but in the interests of balance he has to be criticised when it is fair to as well.

 

The mistake we made in the last two games was trying to play Man City and Liverpool at their own game rather than changing our approach with the opponent in mind. And failing to change or adapt early in the match when things clearly were not going as planned.

 

The first half yesterday was a clear indication that we probably needed two substitutions at half time and a change of system but it never came and we got punished.

[Col city fan]

8 hours ago, ScouseFox said:

but that is a bit of a rubbish excuse when we’ve played like we have. we’re not losing to these teams because they are the best teams in the world, we are losing to them because we are literally letting them do what they want. 

 

pearson went to anfield last week and looked at the opposition and went ok, they are better than us, but these are the areas they are good at and we will try and stop they literally anally raping us. we looked at both teams and played the exact teams they wanted us to play to give them the best chance of anally raping us. 

 

it’s weird AF. i’ve no issues with rodgers, i think everything he’s done here has been has been almost perfect. but for some reason when we play a team who are probably favourites against us we literally give up before it’s even started. 

 

with the lack of a left winger today we may as well have just simmed the game fifa style and moved onto the next one. their most dangerous players are salah and trent if he’s given time and we gave both of them the freedom of not even half the pitch, but literally the full pitch. it was in a weird way quite nice when trent scores that fourth goal because surely that absolutely rams home the fact we cannot play this absolutely horrid formation ever again. 

 

but then again i think we thought that after last week and we did the exact same thing again. that’s my only concern. and it’s a big concern. if rodgers can watch the norwich game and the city game and then think yeah this might work against liverpool, who are the best team possibly of all time at using their full backs to kill the opposition, and still play with nobody trying to stop their full backs, then we have a much bigger problem than anyone thought. 

 

[Blue-fox]

Maybe needs a simplified plan B, like a big man who we can hit with long balls and relieve pressure on the defence. 

[Deeg67]

The other issue with not having a decent winger on the left against the top clubs is that it allows the opposing right back to party in our third all day long.  Mahrez was no defensive stalwart, but his presence kept the left back pinned down for obvious reasons.  Right now we have a double whammy - no goal threat from the wings and no defensive cover for Chilwell.  Against weaker sides the second doesn't matter so much, but against teams like Liverpool and MC the best answer for now is probably Albrighton on the left.  He won't worry their right back but he will at least help out his own fullback.

 

N'didi was arguably our best player today, but his ineffectiveness on the ball continues to be a weakness smart opposition has learned to exploit.  They force us to connect through him passing out of the back and it almost never works.

[lgfualol]

Did he even have tactics for the last 2 games? Bizarre.

[Bob Hazels shorts]

1 hour ago, Stoopid said:

Easy in hindsight I know, but I think Albrighton on the left last night would at least have given Chilly a bit of help.

Maddison out there is notoriously inneffective and it stymies his game.

Marc is no goal-threat, true. But, blimey, we missed his industry last night - the space we let them have down that side was fatal.

You don't need hindsight to suss that, past few games have suggested it.

 

With whats available id probably go Albrighton right and Chillwell left in front of Fuchs

[Alf Bentley]

8 minutes ago, ttfn said:

I just can’t understand how he thought we were going to win playing like that?

 

As others have said, if Liverpool could have chosen the opposition’s tactics for the game that’s what they would have picked:

No pressure on the ball

No left sided midfielder giving their attacking right back free rein to do whatever he wanted

Slavishly trying to pass out from the back

Fair enough don’t play Gray or Barnes as a left winger to force TAA back, that’s a huge gamble (albeit yesterday should have been a shot to nothing for us). But at least a) give him something to think about so that he has to at least consider not bombing forward and/or b) have somebody track him.

 

 

Good question.

 

I can only imagine that he thought playing a left-footer on the right (Barnes) and a central midfielder on the left (Maddison) would allow us to dominate possession more from central midfield, given that Liverpool only play 3 midfielders but have dangerous attacking full backs and a lethal front three if they get any sort of service. Maybe he thought that, if we dominated possession, the potential exposure of Chilwell and Ricardo wouldn't be such an issue. I'm sure he also expected his wide midfielders to offer better protection to our full backs than they did, even though he was playing them out of position.

 

That's a massive risk to take in such a big match, though: playing a young player (Barnes) in a new position - for the first time ever (?) - against one of the best teams in Europe, and repeating the previously failed experiment of playing Maddison wide.

 

Mind you, Rodgers could point out that (a) Liverpool did a monstrously good job at denying us possession through the quality of their passing and, above all, the fierceness of their closing from the front - constantly harrying our defenders & midfielders in possession; (b) our players did a very poor job in possession - some lacked physicality & self-belief (did the likes of Barnes, Tielemans & Maddison really believe they belonged on the same pitch as Liverpool, I wonder?) and, as a team, we no longer seem to be moving the ball accurately with speed under pressure, as we had been doing until recently....meaning that players in possession were getting bullied into errors by Liverpool's monstrously good pressing. Again, did a lack of self-confidence mean that our midfielders (with the exception of Ndidi, to some extent Praet & Albrighton in 2nd half) did not find space to give our back 5/6 options to move it quickly in possession?

 

So, while Rodgers is definitely open to the accusation of having adopted a high-risk tactical ploy that failed big-time, the players did nothing like enough to give that tactic a chance of working.....if domination of possession was his aim.  

 

Big psychological test now for Brendan & the players to restore self-confidence for tomorrow. Team selection for tomorrow will be interesting - as will the attitude of individual players on the pitch.

[Finnegan]

1 hour ago, StriderHiryu said:

It’s hard to criticise the manager’s tactics when the team can’t string 3 passes together in the midfield area before a move breaks down.

 

TLDR: Just watch the video.

 

I'm sorry but I don't really agree with this and it's kinda the annoying rhetoric that used to annoy me about Puel apologists on here. I don't actually think that anyone started that badly, individually, I thought the players looked reasonably switched on and up for it to begin with. Yes, Liverpool make it difficult with their own press but we had pretty good control of the ball for periods.

 

The problem yesterday was very much the manager's tactics.

 

I used to say this all the time when CP was here, possession football isn't just about a player's ability to trap and pass a ball. You watch them playing rondo before kick off and they've been doing this for as long as I can remember, they're all perfectly capable of trapping and passing a ball in a small space under pressure of press. They all have that skill set and they always did.

 

But the ability to do that in match conditions depends on players being available in the right spaces, possession football is and always has been fairly structured because it's important that the game is spaced out the right way, that players are reliably in positions to receive the ball that the player with it expects, you end up having regular patterns and systems within the game-play. This is vital because to play at the speed required to break down an opponent it needs to be partially instinctive, if you're stopping to think about picking your pass you're playing too slow. There's a really good interview with Thierry Henry that Sky did when Pep Guardiola first came to the Premier League. He talks about how Guardiola once subbed him off angrily at half time in a game at Barcelona even though he'd scored and they were winning. Guardiola was furious that Henry kept drifting from his position and free roaming around the pitch during build up. This is a no-no.

 

People think of Guardiola's systems as creative and free flowing but it's not, in the final third players are given the freedom to move and to use their initiative but in the building phases you retain your shape and stay in your area.

 

We won about eight games on the bounce by locking down an established starting 11 with fixed positions and the key to this was two mirrored passing triangles on each side of the pitch. Tielemans and Maddison as central players are key to this, they hold an alternating 8/10 role playing vertically up their midfield channel in a passing triangle with their winger and full back. Maddison, Barnes and Chillwell on one side - Tielemans, Ricardo and Perez on the other. The familiarity of it is the beauty, they know where they're going to be at all times, some of the link up play- especially from the right hand unit - has been stunning this season. Quick, one-touch football, it's what Perez really brings to the game, he drops in short and really helps get the other two moving.

 

What we had yesterday was neither our match winning 433 or the new diamond, it was the same mess we started the season with. A chaotic, unstructured, asymmetrical shape with Maddison in an anonymous free role, drifting too far inside to provide width and too far outside to influence the game and too slow to either stretch play or defend actively out wide. To make it worse, Barnes was shoved out to the "wrong" side to accommodate him, Tielemans was taken from his position to accommodate Praet seeming more comfortable on the right, Chilwell is left stranded and alone way, way out on the  left providing the entirety of our width on that flank. Praet had a pretty anonymous game drifting far too far right and forward leaving Ndidi to frequently step up in to the centre of a lateral three instead of anchoring behind a pivoting two.

 

Almost everyone ends up in a position that is alien to where they've been during our winning games this season. And I know some smart **** is going to cry about how they're paid millions and they should be able to adapt but how many teams can you think of in world football where a rag-tag combo is thrown together out of shape or out of familiar ground and it works instantly? It doesn't ever. Familiarity is vital, look at that Liverpool side. How often does it change? There's a reason "Tinkerman" is a footballing pejorative. 

Edited 27 December 2019 by Finnegan

[Plastik Man]

41 minutes ago, Stoopid said:

I'd actually consider that option.One of the three could provide help for the full/wing back without leaving holes in the middle. Chilly & Ricky are both great going forward and would give out balls for the midfield.

Be worth a go against West Ham maybe who are certainly not the stiffest opposition right now...

I think it would work, but we definitely need another CB. Also gives the option of playing a second striker, or a 10 where we have plenty of options.

[Tielemans63]

7 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Good question.

 

I can only imagine that he thought playing a left-footer on the right (Barnes) and a central midfielder on the left (Maddison) would allow us to dominate possession more from central midfield, given that Liverpool only play 3 midfielders but have dangerous attacking full backs and a lethal front three if they get any sort of service. Maybe he thought that, if we dominated possession, the potential exposure of Chilwell and Ricardo wouldn't be such an issue. I'm sure he also expected his wide midfielders to offer better protection to our full backs than they did, even though he was playing them out of position.

 

That's a massive risk to take in such a big match, though: playing a young player (Barnes) in a new position - for the first time ever (?) - against one of the best teams in Europe, and repeating the previously failed experiment of playing Maddison wide.

 

Mind you, Rodgers could point out that (a) Liverpool did a monstrously good job at denying us possession through the quality of their passing and, above all, the fierceness of their closing from the front - constantly harrying our defenders & midfielders in possession; (b) our players did a very poor job in possession - some lacked physicality & self-belief (did the likes of Barnes, Tielemans & Maddison really believe they belonged on the same pitch as Liverpool, I wonder?) and, as a team, we no longer seem to be moving the ball accurately with speed under pressure, as we had been doing until recently....meaning that players in possession were getting bullied into errors by Liverpool's monstrously good pressing. Again, did a lack of self-confidence mean that our midfielders (with the exception of Ndidi, to some extent Praet & Albrighton in 2nd half) did not find space to give our back 5/6 options to move it quickly in possession?

 

So, while Rodgers is definitely open to the accusation of having adopted a high-risk tactical ploy that failed big-time, the players did nothing like enough to give that tactic a chance of working.....if domination of possession was his aim.  

 

Big psychological test now for Brendan & the players to restore self-confidence for tomorrow. Team selection for tomorrow will be interesting - as will the attitude of individual players on the pitch.

Great post Alf. My frustration is that it was abundantly clear it wasn't working after 15-20 mins and yet we stuck with it until well into the second half. By which time, the game had gone.

[Tielemans63]

17 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

TLDR: Just watch the video.

 

I'm sorry but I don't really agree with this and it's kinda the annoying rhetoric that used to annoy me about Puel apologists on here. I don't actually think that anyone started that badly, individually, I thought the players looked reasonably switched on and up for it to begin with. Yes, Liverpool make it difficult with their own press but we had pretty good control of the ball for periods.

 

The problem yesterday was very much the manager's tactics.

 

I used to say this all the time when CP was here, possession football isn't just about a player's ability to trap and pass a ball. You watch them playing rondo before kick off and they've been doing this for as long as I can remember, they're all perfectly capable of trapping and passing a ball in a small space under pressure of press. They all have that skill set and they always did.

 

But the ability to do that in match conditions depends on players being available in the right spaces, possession football is and always has been fairly structured because it's important that the game is spaced out the right way, that players are reliably in positions to receive the ball that the player with it expects, you end up having regular patterns and systems within the game-play. This is vital because to play at the speed required to break down an opponent it needs to be partially instinctive, if you're stopping to think about picking your pass you're playing too slow. There's a really good interview with Thierry Henry that Sky did when Pep Guardiola first came to the Premier League. He talks about how Guardiola once subbed him off angrily at half time in a game at Barcelona even though he'd scored and they were winning. Guardiola was furious that Henry kept drifting from his position and free roaming around the pitch during build up. This is a no-no.

 

People think of Guardiola's systems as creative and free flowing but it's not, in the final third players are given the freedom to move and to use their initiative but in the building phases you retain your shape and stay in your area.

 

We won about eight games on the bounce by locking down an established starting 11 with fixed positions and the key to this was two mirrored passing triangles on each side of the pitch. Tielemans and Maddison as central players are key to this, they hold an alternating 8/10 role playing vertically up their midfield channel in a passing triangle with their winger and full back. Maddison, Barnes and Chillwell on one side - Tielemans, Ricardo and Perez on the other. The familiarity of it is the beauty, they know where they're going to be at all times, some of the link up play- especially from the right hand unit - has been stunning this season. Quick, one-touch football, it's what Perez really brings to the game, he drops in short and really helps get the other two moving.

 

What we had yesterday was neither our match winning 433 or the new diamond, it was the same mess we started the season with. A chaotic, unstructured, asymmetrical shape with Maddison in an anonymous free role, drifting too far inside to provide width and too far outside to influence the game and too slow to either stretch play or defend actively out wide. To make it worse, Barnes was shoved out to the "wrong" side to accommodate him, Tielemans was taken from his position to accommodate Praet seeming more comfortable on the right, Chilwell is left stranded and alone way, way out on the  left providing the entirety of our width on that flank. Praet had a pretty anonymous game drifting far too far right and forward leaving Ndidi to frequently step up in to the centre of a lateral three instead of anchoring behind a pivoting two.

 

Almost everyone ends up in a position that is alien to where they've been during our winning games this season. And I know some smart **** is going to cry about how they're paid millions and they should be able to adapt but how many teams can you think of in world football where a rag-tag combo is thrown together out of shape or out of familiar ground and it works instantly? It doesn't ever. Familiarity is vital, look at that Liverpool side. How often does it change? There's a reason "Tinkerman" is a footballing pejorative. 

Superb post Finners. This was why I was so furious yesterday. That formation paid Liverpool too much respect, played to their strengths and nullified many of our own. We should have played our natural game and given them something to think about. He played the diamond v Villa and to be fair it was a masterstroke but since then he seems to have gone away from what made us so good. Weird.

 

I'm glad you've noticed Perez' contribution too. I know he misses a lot of chances but we're better with him in the side because his movement is very good and allows us to play at greater speed.

Edited 27 December 2019 by Paddy.

[yorkie1999]

Rogers tactics???

[st albans fox]

Jonny Evans has dropped off his quick decision making with the ball ....... that pass into wilf needs to be pinged in without too much thought or it gets cut off and we side to side again whilst their midfield squeeze up further which simply forces us to eventually play a poor forward pass which is too long to keep possession . 
 

if you are going to play through the opposition press then the decisions need to be quick and the passes sharp ..... we looked too timid last two games to do it effectively ....last night was a bit better but that’s probably because Liverpool’s first half press was too wide and allowed spaces for Youri to come short and take some heat off wilf.  They compacted it second half which made it tougher but we did manage to play out a few times which pleased me 

[Blanchflower78]

Felt more comfortable with Puel against the big boys and vice versa with Rodgers for the rest... damn it....

[coolhandfox]

The selection of two wide players out of position against probably the best two fullback in the league was beyond me. Maddison can't play wide forward, he doesn't have any pace to force TAA back or the physical power to contain him, and he struggles to create from there. Playing Barnes who looks devoid of confidence on the right was a dreadful choice, against a rampaging Robertson, he never got close enough to him. 

 

People were critical of BR playing both Hamza and Ndidi at the start of the season, that was the problem for me it was the fact he tried to play the two and shoehorn in both Maddison and Youri, by playing Maddison wide. For me I would have drop Youri and played Maddison at 10, with Nididi and Hamza screening the back 4.

 

BR talk about physicality in he post match interview but still left out one of his most physical players in Hamza.

Edited 27 December 2019 by coolhandfox
typo's

[Tielemans63]

4 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

Rogers tactics???

 

Can't help but feel he gave Liverpool The Greatest Gift of All. The Gambler got this one wrong and made it a Christmas to Remember for all the wrong reasons. Oh well, We've Got Tonight to get over it.

 

 

[Adster]

10 hours ago, cruzFOX said:

Just curious to hear if anyone else is slightly concerned about how poorly BR has set the team up against city and pool. I’ve been a big fan of his thus far and he’s looked better than managers below us but against pep and klopp it feels like he’s come up short on smart ideas. In fact I’ve never seen a rival manager like pep snd klopp look so happy to play against the foxes. It’s like they totally had him sussed out before and during the game! Should we expect better from BR considering how much praise has been lavished on him. Don’t get me wrong I know we’re a young project with a lot of ability and potential but like ranieri used to say ‘if you know you can’t win a game than don’t lose it’.

 

And you'd of done a better job, yeah?

 

Sick of football "Experts" armed with extreme hindsind telling BR he should of done this, or that. We lost to arguably the best team in the world right now with a young squad that is learning and will make mistakes. Just get over it and move on. 

Edited 27 December 2019 by Adster

[sm1]

Rodgers, as good a manager as he is, has some massive blind spots. We were bullied and run ragged the last 2 games by hyper aggressive pressing teams that made our midfield and wingers literally shit themselves when they saw an opposing player (bar Ndidi who did his best). Both games were crying out for Hamza at H/T. He would have done to Liverpool & Man City what they were doing to us, but Rodgers just sat there hoping for the best. He left Chilwell and our CBs badly exposed in both cases, left Perez against Man City and Barnes against Liverpool out there for too long, Maddison on the LW. The list is long of what he could've changed, but in the end he looked like a lost sheep. We watched Liverpool rock into our ground and bully us into submission, treat us like practice match. That was worse viewing then the 6-1 loss to Spurs.

Edited 27 December 2019 by sm1

[Plastik Man]

46 minutes ago, Finnegan said:

 

TLDR: Just watch the video.

 

I'm sorry but I don't really agree with this and it's kinda the annoying rhetoric that used to annoy me about Puel apologists on here. I don't actually think that anyone started that badly, individually, I thought the players looked reasonably switched on and up for it to begin with. Yes, Liverpool make it difficult with their own press but we had pretty good control of the ball for periods.

 

The problem yesterday was very much the manager's tactics.

 

I used to say this all the time when CP was here, possession football isn't just about a player's ability to trap and pass a ball. You watch them playing rondo before kick off and they've been doing this for as long as I can remember, they're all perfectly capable of trapping and passing a ball in a small space under pressure of press. They all have that skill set and they always did.

 

But the ability to do that in match conditions depends on players being available in the right spaces, possession football is and always has been fairly structured because it's important that the game is spaced out the right way, that players are reliably in positions to receive the ball that the player with it expects, you end up having regular patterns and systems within the game-play. This is vital because to play at the speed required to break down an opponent it needs to be partially instinctive, if you're stopping to think about picking your pass you're playing too slow. There's a really good interview with Thierry Henry that Sky did when Pep Guardiola first came to the Premier League. He talks about how Guardiola once subbed him off angrily at half time in a game at Barcelona even though he'd scored and they were winning. Guardiola was furious that Henry kept drifting from his position and free roaming around the pitch during build up. This is a no-no.

 

People think of Guardiola's systems as creative and free flowing but it's not, in the final third players are given the freedom to move and to use their initiative but in the building phases you retain your shape and stay in your area.

 

We won about eight games on the bounce by locking down an established starting 11 with fixed positions and the key to this was two mirrored passing triangles on each side of the pitch. Tielemans and Maddison as central players are key to this, they hold an alternating 8/10 role playing vertically up their midfield channel in a passing triangle with their winger and full back. Maddison, Barnes and Chillwell on one side - Tielemans, Ricardo and Perez on the other. The familiarity of it is the beauty, they know where they're going to be at all times, some of the link up play- especially from the right hand unit - has been stunning this season. Quick, one-touch football, it's what Perez really brings to the game, he drops in short and really helps get the other two moving.

 

What we had yesterday was neither our match winning 433 or the new diamond, it was the same mess we started the season with. A chaotic, unstructured, asymmetrical shape with Maddison in an anonymous free role, drifting too far inside to provide width and too far outside to influence the game and too slow to either stretch play or defend actively out wide. To make it worse, Barnes was shoved out to the "wrong" side to accommodate him, Tielemans was taken from his position to accommodate Praet seeming more comfortable on the right, Chilwell is left stranded and alone way, way out on the  left providing the entirety of our width on that flank. Praet had a pretty anonymous game drifting far too far right and forward leaving Ndidi to frequently step up in to the centre of a lateral three instead of anchoring behind a pivoting two.

 

Almost everyone ends up in a position that is alien to where they've been during our winning games this season. And I know some smart **** is going to cry about how they're paid millions and they should be able to adapt but how many teams can you think of in world football where a rag-tag combo is thrown together out of shape or out of familiar ground and it works instantly? It doesn't ever. Familiarity is vital, look at that Liverpool side. How often does it change? There's a reason "Tinkerman" is a footballing pejorative. 

It's a good question whether sticking with our 433, so effective against poorer sides, would've been better against Liverpool? Could it have been worse than last night?

 

To  be fair Liverpool have rotated players in the past month, more so than we have.  I do think many of our players have dipped in form too, and that we've been worked out to some extent. 

 

While I've been pleased with our 433 I'm flexible with it. We do lack a threat out wide so when teams close down our usual channels we do look a bit blunt.

 

Until that is remedied with possibly a transfer then we are limited to shuffling the pack. Unfortunately BR has played a couple of dud hands this week against the toughest of opponents.

[ALC Fox]

We're firmly entrenched in the top 4. Trying to play a certain way and maintain a particular style will stand us in good stead in the future. These two games have exposed exactly how far we are behind Man City and Liverpool. Rodgers will know exactly what he needs to bridge the gap, and the players will have gained valuable experience in those games.

 

If we qualify for the Champions League, we're going to have some very good nights next season by continuing to play the way we want to play. In a couple of seasons, if BR stays at the helm and he gets the kind of support from the owners that we expect, we're only going to get better.

 

Look at Klopp and Guardiola. They play different styles but they don't compromise on their principles.

 

When Guardiola's Man City got thumped by a struggling Leicester in his first season in charge, he didn't tear up the blueprint and start again. He carried on because he knew his team could play the way he wanted with time and the right additions to the squad.

 

When Klopp finished 8th in his first season, he didn't abandon gegenpressing. He's made astute signings, tweaked things here and there and helped his Liverpool team evolve into an absolute machine, the likes of which I've never seen. What he's done is arguably more impressive than the fluid football of Pep's Man City and Arsene Wenger's Invincibles.

 

Rodgers has spoken of creating our own history. We're clearly, right now, the third best team in the league. Man Utd, Spurs and Chelsea will be vying for that position, but right now it's ours. By having a philosophy and a way of playing that we can impose on teams and tell them 'come on then, deal with us', we'll evolve into real top quality side.

 

It's not going to happen overnight, but it is already in progress. Let's not think we have to tear up the blueprint and have to succumb to playing hoofball to beat the teams who are currently better than us. We'll compete with the very best sooner rather than later 

[splinterdream]

I wonder if we literally threw the games against Man City and Liverpool with players being under orders not to chase and press so as to conserve energy, avoid injury and target the games we have more of a chance in. For BR top 4 would be seen as a huge achievement and would be more difficult losing key players against a game we’re likely to lose anyhow.

Edited 27 December 2019 by splinterdream

[LCCFox96]

Rodgers has done very well in terms of hugely improving the team against sides we struggled to break down and beat, particularly in home fixtures. I now have confidence against the sides like Newcastle, Southampton, Palace etc. who pile men behind the ball that we can take our game to them, cause them serious problems and win. We've also had good results against Arsenal, Spurs and got a point at Chelsea whilst amassing a fantastic points haul.

 

My gripe with Rodgers is the manner of the 4 defeats so far. If you exclude Liverpool (a) because in fairness that was a well executed game plan and we were a dive away from being the first side to get anything there this season, we're looking at Man Utd (a), Man City (a) and Liverpool (h). Yes, they aren't necessarily games we might expect something from but each time there was some positive feeling we could get a result and rock the boat a little bit.

 

At Man Utd Rodgers was criticised for going too defensive in a game we might otherwise have won. At Man City and against Liverpool, we played our usual, 'more attacking' side and got soundly beaten - we struggled to play out from the back, got caught in possession/gave the ball away too much and got stung with quick, slick goals. In those games, having the likes of Hamza and Albrighton on the pitch as well would have given us a better base to build from and launch more regular and direct attacks. In all the games itjust felt like the set-up was a bit out of sorts and we were on the back foot from the word go. 

[Finnegan]

1 minute ago, Plastik Man said:

It's a good question whether sticking with our 433, so effective against poorer sides, would've been better against Liverpool? Could it have been worse than last night?

 

To  be fair Liverpool have rotated players in the past month, more so than we have.  I do think many of our players have dipped in form too, and that we've been worked out to some extent. 

 

While I've been pleased with our 433 I'm flexible with it. We do lack a threat out wide so when teams close down our usual channels we do look a bit blunt.

 

Until that is remedied with possibly a transfer then we are limited to shuffling the pack. Unfortunately BR has played a couple of dud hands this week against the toughest of opponents.

 

We needed to commit to doing something last night and in the end did nothing. 

 

I've said before, for me "formation" is less important to your defensive shape than it is going forward. A 433 can easily drop in to a defensive 451 if the right players are under the right instructions to do so, we could have picked a 433 on paper yesterday with Albrighton and Perez with them both under instructions to drop deep in front of the full backs to defend when Liverpool have the ball or to take less risks pushing forward. 

 

We could have parked the bus, maybe we should have parked the bus, as we did at Anfield. You can do this in almost any shape, you can even really do it with the 41212 diamond we used at Villa, with Praet and Tielemans under instruction to drop in in front of the full backs and Maddison coming in to the centre of midfield to defend with Ndidi. I don't think that would have been as effective but it would have been better at least than what we had last night, which, again, was nothing really. 

 

Rodgers just refused to make a decision to either go at them and try and stand toe to toe and swing OR to park the bus. It was really just... neither, it was strange. It was literally just rolling over and refusing to make the call either way.