When did Balotelli press? Lambert tried but was too slow to do anything that hurt the opposition.
Oh come on, you know he did press, whether that was when he was deeper, out wide or in the middle, but our pressing as a team was absolutely poor.
One of our biggest faults last year was when we didn't have the ball, we didn't press from the front. Ian Rush is Liverpool's greatest defender and all that. With the ball, Benteke was moving and creating space. Without it, he kinda just stood around. Without comparing the two, one of the biggest reasons Suarez was lauded as the greatest player in the world was because of his tenacity and work ethic when we didn't have the ball.
Benteke is a forward and will therefore be judged primarily on goals. If they're not coming then people will be judging his work ethic and from what I saw, he didn't look like he was going to close the opposition down. Just an early observation that could be put down to early season rust. And like I said, I think he played alright overall.
Last season, I felt It was tactics more than our strikers lack of pressing that was the concern in my opinion. Too many times we had our strikers isolated, and too many times we had our players behind the striker rather than supporting further up. How often did we see our midfielders press intensely last season? Rarely from what I remember.
I do agree that pressing from the front is important, but only if the team is setup for the pressing game. Watching the first half vs Stoke, I don't think we were setup to play a high pressing game too.
If we were to play a pressing game, we should look into the diamond, especially when we have 2 of the best box-box pressing players in the league in my opinion, then you look at Firmino, he'll press all day long, so have him up there supporting our striker and pressing from the front with Coutinho/Lallana helping out. It really would be the perfect setup.
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