Why Is Our Solid Back Line Not So Solid?

Our defence is known for its solidness and keeping cleansheets, not conceding many goals but why have we let in 8 goals in 2 games with a few share of them easily preventable as well as 3 the other week in the 1st leg against Chelsea.

On the flip side we are also scoring a lot of goals at the moment but that means nothing if you are leaking them too and giving away the lead. In the last 4 games we have taken the lead 4 times and only once have we came away with the win (against Blackburn).

I know that it isn't just the back lines fault but they have always been so reliable.

The only thing I can think of as to why we are leaking goals is because we are a lot more gung-ho at the moment but even so I cant see why this would effect our goals against because we didn't let any in against Madrid, Villa, Blackburn and only 1 against United.

One thing I am slightly dissapointed about is on 1 of the Arsenal goals Carragher just stayed sat on the grass, he was skipper tonight so the defence would have probably been following his lead even more so. Usually we see Carra rallying the defence after a goal gets let in and then we are fine for the rest of the game, but tonight it just didn't seem like the usual Carra that is so damn reliable you would put your house on him preventing a goal and getting the team going.

It's hard to describe but I think you get the general gist of what I mean, we need to improve this and no doubt Rafa will be giving the team a rollocking on the defending aspect.


Your thoughts?

I think there is a serious lack of pace in our defence, defensively Arbeloa and Aureilo are fairly average defensively and there is a lack of pace in the centre as well.

One for the knee jerk thread this I'm afraid.

Chelsea game we had very little option to go all gung-ho for it.

Tonight, again after they scored their first we had no option to go all gung-ho for it.

Some errors yes, but when you're fighting to win competitions this is what happens.  I'm sure after conceding 3 in the first half in Istanbul nobody decided to start a similar topic.

One thing I am slightly dissapointed about is on 1 of the Arsenal goals Carragher just stayed sat on the grass

He was 'pulling his socks up' if you look again.

Get Sami back in there imo

And the difference between Blackburn and Chelsea/Arse was that they didn't have a class attack. I think when the team is dominating most of the game, it tends to get the passing towards the back a bit shoddy, they get a bit overconfident keeping possession. And the more they pour forward, the less they want to run back to defend especially towards the end of the match when everyone's run haggard from all the incessant attacks that sadly, doesn't have a very high success rate  

But yea, I agree, giving the opponents the lead makes us have to go gung-ho, but that just opens us up too much. Even scoring first doesn't assure us a win! We couldn't defend our 2-0 lead against Chelsea though we did have to stay gung-ho for the crucial 3rd goal.

Apart from the lack of pace at the back. ( did say we needed Insua on when Wallcot came on ) When we go on an attacking surge, All the defenders go charging forward as well, Full backs that is, we need to get a bit more disaplined, when the full backs overlap, the wide mid fielders need to cover for them better. Whats hapening is we are getting too many players to far forward and are suckers for the counter. It just needs to be a bit more balanced. Its exciting all right, I'd rather win 5 - 4 than 1 - 0 but we need more concentration.

Regardless of whether your fighting to win competitions and regardless of going all gung-ho you cannot forget the simple aspects of defending.

Our back four isn't blessed with loads of technical ability so if  we do try and be clever in our own box most of the time we'll F**k it up. Just boot it out of play and regroup. Simple.

If your going to go gung-ho for it and defend like we did there really isn't much point as all our attacking effort is just being wasted as we concede sloppy goals.

He was 'pulling his socks up' if you look again.

I stand corrected, see thats what happens when you leave the room at the wrong time


But to be honest with you JD i don't feel that it is a knee jerk reaction because in the past when we have been fighting for competitions we have still been pretty damn solid at the back, apart from when we let in 3 in Istanbul as like you said.

I think where over the years we have always conceded fewer goals than most teams around us in both Domestic and European it just doesn't seem right when we let in the goals that we have done recently.

And i know we had to go gung-ho after they got their 1st but before when we turn it around and take the lead we usually see the game out.

I hope people aren't getting me wrong and thinking i am losing faith in the defence because i have just as much faith in them as ever before.

I came on here to say what i felt and JD has done it for me.

One for the knee jerk thread this I'm afraid.

Chelsea game we had very little option to go all gung-ho for it.

Tonight, again after they scored their first we had no option to go all gung-ho for it.

Some errors yes, but when you're fighting to win competitions this is what happens.  I'm sure after conceding 3 in the first half in Istanbul nobody decided to start a similar topic.

Exactly what i wanted to say, to a tee.

Regardless of whether your fighting to win competitions and regardless of going all gung-ho you cannot forget the simple aspects of defending.

Our back four isn't blessed with loads of technical ability so if  we do try and be clever in our own box most of the time we'll F**k it up. Just boot it out of play and regroup. Simple.

If your going to go gung-ho for it and defend like we did there really isn't much point as all our attacking effort is just being wasted as we concede sloppy goals.

In extraordinary times, extraordinary things happen in extraordinary games.

Reina has got the fastest 100 clean sheets in Liverpool history under Benitez and we have the meanest defence over the past 5 years since Benitez arrived.

This topic is a knee jerk one. Plain and simple.

But to be honest with you JD i don't feel that it is a knee jerk reaction because in the past when we have been fighting for competitions we have still been pretty damn solid at the back, apart from when we let in 3 in Istanbul as like you said.

And against West Ham in the FA Cup Final.

And against Alaves in the UEFA Cup Final.

And against West Ham in the FA Cup Final.

And against Alaves in the UEFA Cup Final.

Ok, i will give you the West Ham one (although to be fair Carragher's o.g was very unlucky and Konchesky's was pretty lucky)

But the Alaves one is different because we had a different manager which means a different style of play, different keeper/defenders etc and our defence under Houllier wasn't what it is under Rafa.

In my opinion JD is a massive jinx for the Reds and should be banned from the forum. Or is that one for the knee jerk thread? hehe

I know we have conceded 8 goals in two games and while I do feel we have been more open than normal because we have been trying to win these games most of the goals have come from individual mistakes that will happen in football. It just happens that all are mistakes in defense seem to be coming at the same time.

In tonight's game we were by far the better team and Arsenal only got into the game through our errors in defense. On another night we could have won this game by two or three clear goals. But because we have to go for a win in every game it does tend to leave us a bit more open and individual errors can be punished, especially by players with the quality of Arshavin.

In my opinion JD is a massive jinx for the Reds and should be banned from the forum. Or is that one for the knee jerk thread? hehe

Somebody should have give me a ticket.  We always win in the Premier League when I go.

This is not a knee jerk post, we conceeded , 7 against Chelsea in 2 games and 4 against Arsenal(who were missing there 2 main strikers) i personally think we have the best keeper in the premiership, so something has to be wrong, have to say I love Jamie Carragher, he is a Liverpool legend but he is definetly lost pace, I wouldn't be a big fan of Arbeloa either(nearly afraid to say that on here), Aureilo has had a decent season but hopefully next season is when we see the best of Insua.

Our defence is the same as it has always been. It's just we are taking more risks as we know we have to win every game. As such players are making mistakes, If we had've won 4-3, there would be no talk of our defence letting in 3 goals.

 it was the only option, we had to win! would rather see a classic open game, than us sit back and lose one nil or draw. It has been silly defensive errors though when dominating a game that has
made the difference,very annoying.

This is not a knee jerk post, we conceeded , 7 against Chelsea in 2 games and 4 against Arsenal(who were missing there 2 main strikers) I personally think we have the best keeper in the premiership, so something has to be wrong, have to say I love Jamie Carragher, he is a Liverpool legend but he is definetly lost pace, I wouldn't be a big fan of Arbeloa either(nearly afraid to say that on here), Aureilo has had a decent season but hopefully next season is when we see the best of Insua.

Yeah, Carra's lost all that blistering pace he used to have in his younger days. He was always slower than a three legged tortoise with sunstroke in restraints. Get a grip!

Attack brilliant, Defensively a shambles tonight,where do we go from here?

There's been some uncharacteristic mistakes made in defence lately. Usually in the past if such mistakes are made, they're swiftly dealt with before any damage is done.

I don't think we've been switched on in defence in the last two games, as we have come to expect from our defence. It's just been a bit too sloppy and if you come up against teams who have players who can cause damage, then you'll pay for it.

In fact, since Skrtel came back from international duty, he hasn't looked as solid. Which has resulted in an unsettled central pairing. And that can easily affect the full backs.

Pretty sure we'll sort it out though.

Attack brilliant, Defensively a shambles tonight,where do we go from here?

Take heart that we're top.

Abit of an over reaction. What if we won 5-4? The Mancs have been just as bad against sides far worse than Chelsea and Arsenal.

They conceded 2 at home to a side we beat 5-0, 2 away to Fulham where we won 1-0, 2-2 at OT against Porto.

Abit of perspective, people.

I think the reason is because in the last 2 games, chelsea and arsenal, we've been desperate for a win and when you're desperate for a win you have to attack and the more you attack the more out of position you're defenders become. Then when the ball comes in they panic more about clearing it and it's harder to get organised.

I bet we see over the next 5 games that we won't concede 4 in all of them put together against the lower sides.

Agger doesnt look happy. He looks to be off in the summer.... lets not chop and change and stick with the same back 4 for the last 5 games

I agree with that they should just lash it out of play and regroup instead of trying to play it out. Other than that no complaints.

Tonight wasn't a bad defensive display. It was three indiviual errors and Arsenal, or rather Arshavin, took advantage. The fourth was because we had little time to win the game, they caught us on the break.

I think there is a serious lack of pace in our defence, defensively Arbeloa and Aureilo are fairly average defensively and there is a lack of pace in the centre as well.

Wrong. They made mistakes today. But you cant call them average.

When we play like we did tonight we will always concede goals  so the back four need to regroup and not go for an all out attack-Cmon Liverpool we are nearly there!

Aurelio and Arbeloa have been two of our most consistent performers this season IMO. Today they both made mistakes. Doesn't happen very often but it can happen. All players make mistakes from time to time. Personally I'm quite comfortable with those two as our full backs.

It's football and these things could have been prevented. The midfield probably should have even stopped Arsenal from going into our defence area.

I think our defense is used to counter attacking style but lately we have been pushing forward far more and are playing much higher up the pitch even Xabi and Mascherano are playing more in the opposition half. I am not sure if this explains the mistakes though, it could just be nerves or a combination of both. The way the game panned out worked right into Arsenals style of play and against Chelsea we had to go for it so I think its a series of unfortunate coincidences and I think we will be back on Saturday with a tight defense again.

3 of the goals are just common mistakes every world class defenders can do. But that last goal by Arsenal I was disappointed. 3-3. I know we need the points, but 1 point is still better then 0? With that pacy Walcott around we have only 1 guy behind at the corner set piece. Arshavin showing 3 fingers was painful, showing 4 I was like crying.

The Arsenal game was a stange one where we were punished for almost every mistake we made,ok the mistakes were a bit obvious but in any other game we would have got away with at least one of them.
I don't think there is any need to panic just yet but i would like to see Insua get more games next season as i don't think we'll geta full term out of Aurelio

In any other given time, we wouldn't have conceded the 4th goal, as we would have more cover, the others were individual mistakes, so obviously quite rare to see.

Overall though, I think that we are playing good atacking football, so must accept the fact we will concede more goals then in the past. Although, if we could have the goal threat and a solid back 4, the league shall be ours either this or next year.

Taken from an article given by Gerrard;

"It's not like us to concede that many goals. We're normally sound defensively, especially at home."

Link To .tv Article

There aren't a lot of good ball playing defenders around that are better than agger and skertel ,we knocked 4 past chelski so there defence ain't solid,4 past arsenal,and the previous results speak volumes when we destroy real madrid and the mancs...possibly our midfielders do block out the telling pass or the runners which would give defenders more time to react....i'd like to see sami come back for spells and when he feels it's time to stop playing first team footie use him for coaching

3 of the goals are just common mistakes every world class defenders can do. But that last goal by Arsenal I was disappointed. 3-3. I know we need the points, but 1 point is still better then 0? With that pacy Walcott around we have only 1 guy behind at the corner set piece. Arshavin showing 3 fingers was painful, showing 4 I was like crying.

Agreed, especially with the highlighted bit. If we are only going to have one back at the half way line, surely it shouldn't have been Alonso. It had to be Masch, if anyone. Xabi just didn't have the pace to get near Walcott to even block the pass, had it been Masch, I reckon he would have intercepted it and got it back inside our front half for another goalscoring opportunity.

Calm down people, theres nothing wrong with the defence that can't quickly be sorted . 3 individual errors cost us, errors from players who i trust 100% to bounce back, just watch.

- 2-0 Sunderland
- 4-0 Real Madrid
- 4-1 Man United
- 5-0 Aston Villa
- 1-0 Fulham (could have been more)
- 1-3 Chelsea
- 4-0 Blackburn
- 4-4 Chelsea
- 4-4 Arsenal
Prior to the 4-4 draw at Stamford Bridge, we scored 21 and conceded 4(1 penalty). So our defence has been really sound and IS STILL is.

Remember MU had that long clean sheet run? They later conceded 10 in 4 games(4 against us, 2 against Fulham, Villa and Porto).
This is football  and it's bound to happen at one point of time.  We were unlucky that so many individual errors happen to come in the same game.

We must be glad that the manner we conceded those goals were errors which are not representative of the players themselves. So there is really no cause for concern unlike the situation where committing simple errors are second nature to them.

We must be glad that the manner we conceded those goals were errors which are not representative of the players themselves. So there is really no cause for concern unlike the situation where committing simple errors are second nature to them.

Spot on!