What I focus on about this subject is why we have not been able to reproduce the form of players in their past club to our own,when everything indicated they should have flourished.Carroll,Adam,Downing,Henderson,Lovren,Lallana,Lambert,Markovic,Moreno,Can...How did these players go from being solid performers at their clubs,to coming to Anfield and hopelessly devaluating their market price?
Now we have seen improvement from some of these players,but why only now?Why did it take Henderson 2 years to be a 6/10 player?What happened to "stonewall" Lovren?Why are we only now seeing glimpses of Lallana,Markovic and Can...in December?
I think it is down to 3 basic things.
The state of the system the player enters,the state of the individual player,and the manipulation of that system.Basically,the form of the squad players,the form of the new player,and the strategy (formation,lineup...).
I 90% believe if we had put Rickie Lambert in last years Liverpool side we could have gotten usual goal scoring form from him,or near.Same goes for Carroll.Lallana would have had a blast,as Markovic.Look at the state of the system now...well you could put Falcao himself up there as our 9 and he would struggle.Given,last year´s system was set up for speed,but the consistency the players were showing and the flexibility in formations used,I think we could have set up to play for a slow 9 even.I might be wrong though,which brings me to point 2.Why buy a 9 if he won´t fit our system?How did we plan to setup Suarez with Carroll,Lambert with Sturridge (or alone as a 9)?
Buying a proven 2 digit goal scorer in Rickie,a natural 9,then putting an experiment in his place for 10 games is as clear an example of not handling the system well.Then putting that natural 9 into a frail,disjointed system lacking confidence is an example of number 1 (the Falcao example).This applies to other players that cannot be expected to replicate their best form when dependent on other players´ form.This, for me,does not apply for certain positions.A striker can never excel in a poor team,but a goalie or CB always has to answer,regardless of the performance of the other 10 players (remember Hennesey and Al-Habsi(who I always said we should have bought)flying to excellent season performances in teams that were ultimately relegated,getting machine-gun blasted by the combined strikeforce of the league).
That leaves us with number 2.What´s going on with Mignolet?What happened to last year´s Gerrard?Did someone body-snatch Lovren?Lallana,Can,Markovic,Moreno,Coutinho,Sterling,all new and old players who are if anything only picking up now,after half a season.This only leaves us with a psychological angle to it.You don´t lose it from one season to the next,you don´t go from being a starter in your club to warming the bench.Something is going on,inside...
So,in conclusion,we have to secure a solid foundation to ensure a smooth running system is in place,which means altering it (if it´s already working) with the less shock possible (as opposed to what Tottenham and we did,selling one player and buying
.This in order to ensure harmony when introducing a new element,even if it´s not a like-for-like replacement.This can only be done with the correct handling of the system.If it ain´t broke don´t fix it,and if you need or want to change something,change small and slow (1,2,3 players,and not at once). This will hopefully aid with the state of the player coming in,a smooth transition.Again,had most of these players come into last year´s side at that moment in time,they would have most probably blended in nicely (again,introducing them gently and in the least possible numbers).
This does not account for cases such as Lovren´s I think (or Mignolet),although it can´t help to be surrounded by lack of confidence,but I think the lack of a smooth effective transition,for the most part/players,is down to not having a solid running system in place which is down to poor handling of the system.
Thanks for listening
