Malaysia XI 1:1 Liverpool Pre, in game & post match discussion.

What i am getting at is, can you name me two of our players who have an excellent understanding of each others play?

Henderson, Coutinho, Sakho.

That's three, you asked for two. Job done.

Lovren just doesn't fill me with confidence and would rather we sell him tbh. I think Sakho will make the difference with Ilori as cover.

I think the midfield is lacking the #10, and with Coutinho & Firmino to come in, with the right setup, I can see it improving our overall balance and team as a whole. We'll definitely be far better in attack and midfield.
Imagine Chelsea without Hazard & Fabregas, Arsenal without Sanchez or City without Aguero & Silva? They would struggle in attack too!

My only concern at the moment is our attacking play during the tour. We are looking to setup in a way that favours wide play, so I do wonder how Coutinho and Firmino are gonna be utilised.

Looks like Coutinho might be in a midfield 3 playing No 10 alongside Milner and Henderson.
Firmino one of the wide forwards along with Lallana I suspect both supplying Benteke.

Looks like Coutinho might be in a midfield 3 playing No 10 alongside Milner and Henderson.
Firmino one of the wide forwards along with Lallana I suspect both supplying Benteke.

Don't mind Firmino playing wide left, as long as he's played as an inside forward rather than winger, though I believe he's best suited as a 2nd striker. As for Coutinho, I really want him to play as a #10 with a proper defensive midfielder specialist behind him. Even Coutinho said that having Lucas behind him makes a huge difference to his mind set when he attacks.

What did you think of last years pre-season when we romped through some of the best of Europe?

I wasn't convinced by last seasons pre-season games either. There was no "romping " going on. Yes, we got wins but there was no coherent style of play.
The new players did nothing to impress and the defence was unstable, as it always is.
I believe you have to be ready for the start of the season , with your first choice 11 already with most of the game time. With a system of play drilled into the players so that every player knows what is expected of him and, what he is to expect of his team mates.
I see none of this. it's only the way i see it.

I wasn't convinced by last seasons pre-season games either. There was no "romping " going on. Yes, we got wins but there was no coherent style of play.

I remember we had a decent couple of games in pre season at the start, but once the World cup lads came back, we looked terrible There was no cohesion and attacking flair, defense was still the same too. However, I feel more optimistic about this season, especially with 4 first team players signed where as last season I felt we signed 1 first teamer.

We definitely h ave the players, but I'm still worried that Rodgers will F**k up yet again.

I believe you have to be ready for the start of the season , with your first choice 11 already with most of the game time. With a system of play drilled into the players so that every player knows what is expected of him and, what he is to expect of his team mates.

You are absolutely right. Yes, it's about fitness, but it's also about drilling in the system the manager wants, those are the 2 key elements of pre season.

Any videos of Ibe's goal?

Henderson, Coutinho, Sakho.

That's three, you asked for two. Job done.

I'm sorry but they don't. They just don't.
If they did, everything would go through them , and considering Henderson goes missing in many games , i fail to see how that could be the case.
Coutinho always tries but sometimes its as if he is doing it on his own.
Sakho has no understanding with Henderson or Coutinho. He has a hard enough time trying to figure out what Skyrtel and Mignolet are playing at.

Any videos of Ibe's goal?

https://vine.co/v/egbThgj292j

Sakho has no understanding with Henderson or Coutinho. He has a hard enough time trying to figure out what Skyrtel and Mignolet are playing at.

That probably ranks up there with the answer to the universe.

I wasn't convinced by last seasons pre-season games either. There was no "romping " going on. Yes, we got wins but there was no coherent style of play.
The new players did nothing to impress and the defence was unstable, as it always is.
I believe you have to be ready for the start of the season , with your first choice 11 already with most of the game time. With a system of play drilled into the players so that every player knows what is expected of him and, what he is to expect of his team mates.
I see none of this. it's only the way i see it.

It's all for nought if you don't have anyone decent up top, last season taught us that so no surprise we looked a bit toothless throughout this pre-season. It's clear that Benteke and Sturridge (if he ever gets fit) will be the main men this season. Origi is incredibly raw combining outrageous skills and some good physical attributes with a real lack of striking instincts and composure. Ings should have got more playing time I think, he looked bright when he played.

Pre-season doesn't matter,
unless of course we haven't won.
In which case F***ing hell they were sh*t.


Be grand.
Benteke, Coutinho, Can and Firmino.

Wooah Wooah Wooah.

I wonder sometimes if people who post on here have ever played the game before, I really do. The goal is "Lovrens fault"? First thing to consider is that it's a good goal, fine finish. It isn't though the fault of the centre half who was marking the other attacker, when the attacker supposedly being marked by Skrtel leaves the Slovakian for dead, gets the ball and then scores. Yes I realise Lovren ended up being the nearest to him, left his own man in order to attempt to get a challenge in, but it isn't his "fault", that's not how defending works. The idea is that you take individual responsibility for your own defending, then if push comes to shove and one of your team mates goes to sleep (as Skrtel did here) you do your best to get accross and put a covering tackle in. It's not really important either way as it's only a pre-season game, but it's really odd how people either a) don't understand the basic rudiments of football or b) have a hatred for a player which is so deep rooted that they cannot see the most obvious of things. Very very strange.

As for the posters who are saying we have been sh!te in pre season and they fear the worst, I would say to them that the two aren't linked. If you fear the worst and we had won all our pre season games 8-0, you might as well still fear the worst because the result of us against a Malaysia eleven is irrelevent. Just like it was irrelevent that we beat Dortmund 4-0 at the same stage of last season, and just like it's irrelevent that Chelsea got beat by New York Red Bull City or whatever the f*ck they're called. It's just about getting fit, that's all.

I wonder sometimes if people who post on here have ever played the game before, I really do. The goal is "Lovrens fault"? First thing to consider is that it's a good goal, fine finish. It isn't though the fault of the centre half who was marking the other attacker, when the attacker supposedly being marked by Skrtel leaves the Slovakian for dead, gets the ball and then scores. Yes I realise Lovren ended up being the nearest to him, left his own man in order to attempt to get a challenge in, but it isn't his "fault", that's not how defending works. The idea is that you take individual responsibility for your own defending, then if push comes to shove and one of your team mates goes to sleep (as Skrtel did here) you do your best to get accross and put a covering tackle in. It's not really important either way as it's only a pre-season game, but it's really odd how people either a) don't understand the basic rudiments of football or b) have a hatred for a player which is so deep rooted that they cannot see the most obvious of things. Very very strange.

As for the posters who are saying we have been sh!te in pre season and they fear the worst, I would say to them that the two aren't linked. If you fear the worst and we had won all our pre season games 8-0, you might as well still fear the worst because the result of us against a Malaysia eleven is irrelevent. Just like it was irrelevent that we beat Dortmund 4-0 at the same stage of last season, and just like it's irrelevent that Chelsea got beat by New York Red Bull City or whatever the f*ck they're called. It's just about getting fit, that's all.

Both CB's were at fault. But once Lovren didn't bother competing for the header he should have anticipated what was going to happen next, unfortunately this is one of his biggest faults, no football brain.

My god. Liverpool fans, were the most up and down fans in the world. Some here go mad when we win a pre season friendly against nothing opposition "oh we looked great we might win the league ye know " then an end of tour friendly ends in a draw and the squad the system the staff all no good the sky is falling down sh*te comes out

Get a grip it's a pre season friendly where there's been a shed load of long distance travelling involved players are probably physically and mentally tired.

Hold your fire until the season is at least 3 or 4 games old

Both CB's were at fault. But once Lovren didn't bother competing for the header he should have anticipated what was going to happen next, unfortunately this is one of his biggest faults, no football brain.

Both CB's are always at fault if a goal is scored through the centre, it stands to reason. I'm not sure either he "didn't bother" competing for the header, it was fed in flat and sometimes as a defender you have to accept you can't win it. What you do then is ensure your man can't turn on it and get a shot away or play someone in. If, as happened here the bloke plays it backwards, you've done as well as you can do. It would have been nice of Lovren could have "anticipated" Skrtel going to sleep and not tracking his man I'll give you that  but the fact that he didn't (or not quickly enough to prevent the goal anyway) means neither that the goal was "his fault" nor that he has "no football brain". It actually does indicate that the latter is the case though in posters who mistakenly claim that the goal was Lovrens fault, they are either in posession of a baffling agenda or they are clueless. I suppose both is a possibility too.

Both CB's are always at fault if a goal is scored through the centre, it stands to reason. I'm not sure either he "didn't bother" competing for the header, it was fed in flat and sometimes as a defender you have to accept you can't win it. What you do then is ensure your man can't turn on it and get a shot away or play someone in. If, as happened here the bloke plays it backwards, you've done as well as you can do. It would have been nice of Lovren could have "anticipated" Skrtel going to sleep and not tracking his man I'll give you that  but the fact that he didn't (or not quickly enough to prevent the goal anyway) means neither that the goal was "his fault" nor that he has "no football brain". It actually does indicate that the latter is the case though in posters who mistakenly claim that the goal was Lovrens fault, they are either in posession of a baffling agenda or they are clueless. I suppose both is a possibility too.

Or the possibility that Lovren really is useless?

Or the possibility that Lovren really is useless?

Everything is a possibility, that much at least is obvious. He was pretty useless at times last season so if he continues that way this season, then certainly as far as we are concerned he will be "useless". It's the height of silliness though to simply blame him for any goal we concede whnever he's on the pitch, regardless of whether or not he was at fault, it's just daft. Skrtel was our best defender last season by a mile, probably will be this season too I would have thought, but here the fault was his. That much is instantly obvious when you look at the goal, it doesn't take a coaching badge or any massive depth of knowledge to be able to pinpoint it. Like I said it's irrelevent anyway as it's only a get fit/spread the word game in Malaysia, but if this is an example of peoples skill in identifying defensive problems going forward it's going to be a silly season on the forum.

Those who don't rate Lovren (there are one or two of you  ) should relax. You don't need to blame him for every goal we concede while he's on the pitch, every poor performance the team puts in while he's in it. If he's as bad as you all claim, you won't have to wait too long for him to make an error which leads to a goal so you can gleefully put the boot in. Blaming him though when his defensive partner loses his man is just laughable. I'm just glad for Lovren that he wasn't on the pitch when we went 5-0 down to Stoke a couple of months back. Mind you, even though he wasn't there'll be a few on here who'll blame him for the goals  . 

Both CB's are always at fault if a goal is scored through the centre, it stands to reason. I'm not sure either he "didn't bother" competing for the header, it was fed in flat and sometimes as a defender you have to accept you can't win it. What you do then is ensure your man can't turn on it and get a shot away or play someone in. If, as happened here the bloke plays it backwards, you've done as well as you can do. It would have been nice of Lovren could have "anticipated" Skrtel going to sleep and not tracking his man I'll give you that  but the fact that he didn't (or not quickly enough to prevent the goal anyway) means neither that the goal was "his fault" nor that he has "no football brain". It actually does indicate that the latter is the case though in posters who mistakenly claim that the goal was Lovrens fault, they are either in posession of a baffling agenda or they are clueless. I suppose both is a possibility too.

Lovren was in the wrong zone, yet again.
He needs to be much more disciplined and stop trying to do everything himself.
We've seen with every defensive partner he has, that he moves into their zone to try and attack the ball, pulling our defense all over the place.

I'm sorry but they don't. They just don't.
If they did, everything would go through them , and considering Henderson goes missing in many games , i fail to see how that could be the case.
Coutinho always tries but sometimes its as if he is doing it on his own.
Sakho has no understanding with Henderson or Coutinho. He has a hard enough time trying to figure out what Skyrtel and Mignolet are playing at.

Ok, well if you know everything and you know we aren't going to be any good then why do you watch and why do you comment? Seems like you'd have better things to do with yourself.

I wonder sometimes if people who post on here have ever played the game before, I really do. The goal is "Lovrens fault"? First thing to consider is that it's a good goal, fine finish. It isn't though the fault of the centre half who was marking the other attacker, when the attacker supposedly being marked by Skrtel leaves the Slovakian for dead, gets the ball and then scores. Yes I realise Lovren ended up being the nearest to him, left his own man in order to attempt to get a challenge in, but it isn't his "fault", that's not how defending works. The idea is that you take individual responsibility for your own defending, then if push comes to shove and one of your team mates goes to sleep (as Skrtel did here) you do your best to get accross and put a covering tackle in. It's not really important either way as it's only a pre-season game, but it's really odd how people either a) don't understand the basic rudiments of football or b) have a hatred for a player which is so deep rooted that they cannot see the most obvious of things. Very very strange.

As for the posters who are saying we have been sh!te in pre season and they fear the worst, I would say to them that the two aren't linked. If you fear the worst and we had won all our pre season games 8-0, you might as well still fear the worst because the result of us against a Malaysia eleven is irrelevent. Just like it was irrelevent that we beat Dortmund 4-0 at the same stage of last season, and just like it's irrelevent that Chelsea got beat by New York Red Bull City or whatever the f*ck they're called. It's just about getting fit, that's all.

If you can recall our 1-0 defeat to Real Madrid last season at the Bernabeu then this is what Kolo Toure had to do constantly - leaving his man to do the work for Skrtel who was bailed out numerous times. Toure got many plaudits that night, a lot of it was doing work which the Slovakian should have been doing.

Said it before but I'll say it again but I think he's bang average and not top level. Always has been, always will be and more often than not has been accredited 'great performances' by our fans because A - he's a Rafa signing and is thus immune from criticism and B - his hard man image goes before him. I think a lot of those performances have been down to the hard work and intelligence of his fellow defenders. When paired with someone with a lesser reputation than say a Hyypia, Carragher (or Agger and Sakho even), he always gets found out for being a bit of a non communicative dunderhead. Handing him a new contract was worrying I have to say.

Also the thought of Skrtel and Lovren in defence together is horrifying. Would rather see Paul and Barry Chuckle in there.

Lovren was in the wrong zone, yet again.
He needs to be much more disciplined and stop trying to do everything himself.
We've seen with every defensive partner he has, that he moves into their zone to try and attack the ball, pulling our defense all over the place.

Can't agree here Swab. Lovren was the last defender and he didn't try and win it, the ball got fed into the bloke he was marking and he stayed goalside of his man until he laid it off, backwards. Unfortunately the other bloke had run off Skrtel (who had gone to sleep, something he does less of lately in fairness) and Lovren had little choice but to get accross and try and put a challenge in. From there it's a good finish, but Skrtel (the defender who was originally picking the scorer up) is nowhere to be seen.

I do agree that particularly when he plays with Skrtel there is a lack of synergy, as Lovren likes to play on the front foot as a defender and Skrtel invariably retreats. Sooner or later we are either going to have to tell Skrtel to defend higher or Lovren to defend deeper or we are continually going to get problems, I agree with the general point. Here though (and once again I stress it's a meaningless friendly and doesn't matter in any case) it's just a case of Skrtel ball watching.   

If you can recall our 1-0 defeat to Real Madrid last season at the Bernabeu then this is what Kolo Toure had to do constantly - leaving his man to do the work for Skrtel who was bailed out numerous times. Toure got many plaudits that night, a lot of it was doing work which the Slovakian should have been doing.

Said it before but I'll say it again but I think he's bang average and not top level. Always has been, always will be and more often than not has been accredited 'great performances' by our fans because A - he's a Rafa signing and is thus immune from criticism and B - his hard man image goes before him. I think a lot of those performances have been down to the hard work and intelligence of his fellow defenders. When paired with someone with a lesser reputation than say a Hyypia, Carragher (or Agger and Sakho even), he always gets found out for being a bit of a non communicative dunderhead. Handing him a new contract was worrying I have to say.

Also the thought of Skrtel and Lovren in defence together is horrifying. Would rather see Paul and Barry Chuckle in there.

I can't say I agree with this either mate. For a couple of years now Skrtel has been our best centre half IMHO, and by quite a distance. Previous to that he did have a tendency to ball watch something terrible, but with experience he seems to have learned to curb it. This is very rare as it's almost impossible to either coach out or into a defender, but fair play to him lapses like today have become a rarity. I'm fairly confident though that come the real games, Skrtel will once again become our most solid and reliable defender.

The point which has been talked about on here before though where Skrtel tends to want to drop all the time while some of his teammates want to push does create problems from time to time. That's one for the coaching staff to look at, quite a tricky one to solve. 

What a surprise Mick defending Lovren again for abject defending. He gets to the man, backs off still gets beaten for pace and doesn't even come close to getting either a challenge or a block, quite simply pathetic defending and any defense of it is simply a highlight of, what is already obvious, bias.

https://twitter.com/anfieldonline/status/624566861636730880

It's even worse than that:

He gets beaten in the air (fair enough on that as the ball was good enough to not give him a chance), but he backs off that guy who gets the space to then knock it onto the eventual scorer who he also backs off from, doesn't put a meaningful challenge in on either of the attackers and doesn't get near to getting the block in on the scorer as he's beaten so badly for pace.

A school boy would get an earful for that sh*te let alone one of our CBs, it's hilarious though that Mick is trying to shift the blame.