Felt he got it wrong yesterday.
I would have stuck to the diamond no doubt and took it right to Villa. The argument is there that Raheem is only 19 and will need resting and I agree but yesterday wasn't the time to do it for me. We have and have had injuries and we needed him in his best position yesterday. The rest should have been delayed until we could afford the luxury.
The only reasons I can see for us changing the system was that we shown Villa too much respect or the injuries with the manager not trusting to play Lucas where Allen has been playing.
Hendo next to Stevie in a deep lying two really shouldn't happen, only owls should do that.
My main and probably only concerns about the manager at this moment is his inability to get the centre of defence organised. I think he has spent the best part of £40 million on central defence and to be polite, it looks shambolic when set pieces are put anywhere near it. For all his discrepancies I'm hoping to see Skrtel back in it now.
Bad day at the office. Hopefully.
Good post Dave. I think it's clear he "got it wrong" as we lost the game and in truth never looked like winning it, but as far as the Sterling issue is concerned I think I can understand why he did it. He more than likely wanted to give starts to both Lalana and Markovic, and at the same time bring Coutinho back into the fold. Too many changes/debutants in one go? S@int called it and he is probably right.
Probably a bigger problem for me though than Sterling not playing was how adversely the adaption of essentially a 4-5-1 formation impacted on our fluency. The rampaging Moreno from the previous week was transformed into a stuttering should I stay or should I go full back, while Manquilo looked as if he had no clue whatsoever what was going on when going forward. The issue was Lalana on the left and Markovic on the right taking up the space these guys would normally run into, with Markovic in particular being reluctant to come inside and free up any space.
Henderson sitting alongside Gerrard was as you say a disaster, offering neither defensive stability nor any attacking intent. As I've said before I feel in these situations where often both Weiman and Agbonlahor were marking Gerrard, Henderson has to do more with his passing, take much more responsibility and use the space he is inevitably given.
I would like to have seen us be bolder too, play Sterling up top with Balotelli. The big Italian also has to do much better than he did yesterday, although were it not for some very poor refereeing he would have got Senderos sent off (will the FA review that violent kick off the ball? They surely will). From there I'd have sat Gerrard in as normal, and narrowed up the midfield through Lalana and Henderson (no Markovic), with Coutinho in the 10. All this would have allowed us to get our two fullbacks into the game at pace, to stretch it out a bit.
Equally, while we're talking responsibility I'd like to see Dejan Lovren carry the ball a little more when his outball is limited. He has the ability and the mere fact that he may be about to consider it would make it far more difficult for the opposition to sit on Gerrard.
All in all it was a flat and tired performance, where we allowed the zest of the Villa midfielders to completely stifle our play. A little more composure on the ball, a little more bravery in possession was what was needed. Hopefully we'll learn from it and move on.
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