We have a better chance to play well when we play against other teams that play football. When we play bus parkers we struggle, always have. When we had Mane and a functioning midfield we had a little better chance at snagging a goal to open up those games. Our attack is looking potent again for the most part but our midfield is still an area of concern. Not sure why Klopp thought starting two kids the combined age of which equal one James Milner was a good idea. They got ran around by a Bournemouth team that looked like it had a single purpose (defend deep and hit us on the break with speed) and executed it to perfection. Almost wonder if we'd be better off inviting a team like that onto us a bit so we could use our speed to hit them on the counter. One goal is all it takes to open up a game like that.
An in form Naby Keita also offers something against those types of teams as he's capable of driving straight into their box and draw players to him which in turn opens up space for our forwards, but we might as well be talking about a ghost.
Right now, any low block is just a nightmare for us. Except for Diaz, non of the wingers we have is the dribbler type. Salah, Gakpo and Nunez excel at movement in space which we fail miserably at creating for them in those situations because like I mentioned above, nobody in that team is capable of grabbing the ball and drawing a few players to him and cause confusion in the backline. Like you said, Mane had that in his repertoire. Right now the only way we do that, some times, is when Matip or Ibou grab the ball and run towards the box. You can see, immediately, that the other team is faced with something they have no plan for and therefore their block starts losing shape as one player get drawn in and the other panics and tries to adjust.
Its essential that at the very least one of the midfielders we get this summer has the ability to drive towards the box with the ball at his feet. I reckon Diaz's comeback will help a bit as he is our only winger with a combination of the ability to dribble in tight spaces and speed which will cause ripples into any low block and open spaces for players to move in, but its a bit late.
With that said, that's just part of the problem. Like I said in my previous post (and CT too), low blocks or not, it doesn't explain the sh*t press, defensive errors and overall lack of energy in our play from one game to another.
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