Cant believe the guy is getting stick.
Was out for ages with a serious Injury, it takes time to get back to the level he was at.
Also, the problem for him as with the rest of our forward line is the almost non existent creation for them. They are left almost completely to themselves. We cannot keep hold of the ball and we cannot get out of our half with the ball. Our creativity comes, almost exclusively, from long passes from our own half by the CBs or TAA.
To illustrate my argument, lets take a look at the last few goals we've scored (all competitions included but without taking into account the UTD game):
- Against City (1st of April) = Trent pass over the top with the City backline caught very high up which allows the three forwards to run almost entirely freely at Ederson and score
- Against Wolves (March 1st) = Van Dijk via a set-piece + Tsimikas run down the left side followed by a cross which is met by Salah
- Against RM (Feb 21) = Nunez via a nifty piece of creativity from Mo (forward feeding another forward) + the Courtois mistake which Mo pounces on
- Against Newcastle (Feb 18) = Nunez via an over the top pass from TAA from our own half + another nifty piece of creativity from Mo to give the one touch pass to Gakpo (once again forward feeding another forward)
So, all in all we do not score a lot of goals and when we do its either via something that ressembles more a counter attack than anything actually creative with TAA sending a long ball from our own half onto one of the running forwards or, the other option, our forwards get the ball up high and create, between them, the goal and finish it. There is no sustained possession and press resistance and therefore the midfield is not even involved in this whole area of the game (creation).
Since the start of the season people have been moaning about the forwards (Nunez, Mo and even Gakpo and Jota were given a taste of it), but nobody wants to acknowledge that those guys are given absolutely nothing to work with. Looking at the numbers they've put up vs the sh*t that they have to work with I would say they are actually overachieving if anything.
That doesn't mean that they are free of mistakes as I believe the press starts with them and they have done a sh*t job at it all year which leads to our midfield having to sit much higher to compensate which in turn means theres a wide strip of pitch between them and the backline for the opposition team to use and run at our stranded backline who then has to run back. Think how many times we've see one of our CB in a foot race against the other team's forward this season vs other seasons, its not even close and no wonder our defensive numbers are down because of that. And here, again people make the wrong analysis and talk about VVD's sprinting ability before and after injury despite it being no problem last year and also despite every other CB facing the same problem and allowing the same type of goals.
All in all, the team is performing like sh*t and when you have a manager like Klopp (or any other top manager) you can't afford for a piece of the puzzle to not fit because the whole system crumbles and its not as easy as to just say ''why doesn't he switch to a 3 at the back'' or ''Jota is not scoring''. You either play the system right from top to bottom or you suffer. The other alternative is you get yourself an average manager with no system and enjoy watching boring football that extracts not even half of what a top manager's system will extract of a team like this one when the team is actually performing 110% week-in week-out.