Got to admit - I groaned a lot when Hendo got off to that dodgy start. But what a time to score your first league goal at Anfield in 4 years.
You've definitely got a good point there. Where the midfield of Gini and Hendo perhaps has less of the attacking force/innovation of a Keita/AOO midfield, it makes up for it in tactical discipline. And I think tactical discipline has been the most notable trait of Klopp's Liverpool since the start of last season, sacrificing a fair bit of that heavy metal/gegenpressen force 10 attack in the process.
I mean, I get annoyed and groan too when players get off to a dodgy start, today it was Henderson, but I'll groan at the lot of them if they play badly.
The thing is that sacrificing a fair bit of heavy metal/gegenpressen force hasn't cost us anything at all in terms of goals scored and has made us look far more solid defensively.
It's just tiring reading all the 'we need more goals from midfield' bollocks that has been going on in the forums for the past few days/weeks. Henderson having scored one now doesn't change that. Yes, Chamberlain and Keita are far more likely to have a pop at goal than Wijnaldum and Henderson, no doubt about that. Yes, Chamberlain and Keita are far more likely to score 5-10 goals a season than Wijnaldum and Henderson, no doubt about that. How many goals will we concede though because we play differently? The extra goals scored need to be offset against the extra goals conceded, because we
will concede more goals in a set up with for example Keita and Chamberlain. If people want to go back to the 13/14 season, which by all means was an incredible season in terms of goals scored, be my guest, but it won't win us the league.
We have a clear plan A: tactical displicine and a hard-working midfield that provides the platform for our two full-backs and three attacking players to thrive. That's what Klopp and the team work on on a daily basis. Playing a midfield three of Fabinho, Keita and Chamberlain (as quite a few people have been asking for) isn't just doing some 'minor tweaks' to the system, it's throwing the entire system out of the window and doing something entirely different. Any other team than Genk would've scored 3 or 4 in that game on Wednesday. We got lucky. You want more goals from midfield? That's perfectly fine, but then you can't have Robertson and Trent playing the way they do and combined having near 30 assists and a couple of goals a season. Yet when we will be having more goals from midfield, the same people will probably start asking for our full-backs to chip in with a couple of goals and assists too. It's one of the other, you can't have both without being wide open.
The advantage to having both Keita and Chamberlain is that,
if needed, we can switch things up and play more attacking. However, there's no need to do that when plan A has won us f**king 97 points last season and has us off to a 28 out of 30 points start this season.
Logged