Last week, someone made a comment (probably somewhere in the transfer thread) referring to the the Munich/Barca game and how Munich's tactical approach is built around pacy wingers and the ability to score very quickly after winning possession back. They went on to make the comment that LFC used to have great wingers (Liddell, Heighway, Thommo, Barnes, etc) but have lacked in that area for years now. It has easily been our weakest area in the team for over a decade now!!
Not too long ago (scroll up a post or two) I made the comment that BR has seemingly settled on a 4-4-1-1 formation because it gives us good balance on both sides of the ball. It can feature either Coutinho/Suarez in the #10 role and either Suarez/Sturridge up top. However, it also unfortunately features Downing/Hendo as RM/LM respectively. While this formation/style has seemingly given us a good balance, I recently got to thinking about the comment made about the wingers. Perhaps BR isn't necessarily an advocate of the 4-4-1-1 that we have been employing, and he has only been utilizing it out of necessity because the players we have tend to lend themselves to that formation. If you look at the team that he built at Swansea, his system was more focused on pacy wingers (Dyer, Sinclair, Routledge) than industrious outside midfielders (Hendo & Downing). With that in mind, perhaps he will be looking to push us more in this direction over the summer.
BR has seemingly wanted to model our style of play after the Tiki-Taka employed by Barca, in which they use a false 9 (Messi) who drops deep to get on the ball and create as well as get into the box to finish off chances. Suarez is a prototypical false 9, and looks set to be the focal point of our attack for years to come. We also seemingly have a Xavi in our ranks (although not the Welsh Xavi), as Stevie G has been showing that his range of passing and vision still ranks among the very best in the game. Lucas plays a very similar holding midfield role to Busquets, and we have potentially uncovered a real gem of a playmaker in Coutinho who could be our Iniesta in this system. An interesting sidenote, Iniesta always seems to be more effective for Barca/Spain when playing through the middle of midfield than when he is deployed out wide much like Coutinho for LFC. For me, the big difference between us and Barca seems to be the creative play (or lack thereof) from our wide areas. Pedro is a special player and his technique/skill set are very uncommon amongst most modern day wingers and it would be hard to find another wide player who boasts the same talents as him. Tello and Sanchez are more traditional modern wingers and are likely the type of wide players that I would imagine BR will puruse as they seem more similar to the wide players he had at Swansea. The great thing about pacy wingers is that they force the opposition's fullback's to stay deep so as not to get caught on the counter attack, and they allow you to stay on the front foot and press high up the pitch rather than having to fall back after losing possession.
Two players who seem to fit into this "system" are the thus far unmentioned Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling. Danny is an adaptable CF who has the pace, skill, and technical ability to play as a winger, and he also has a familiarity with this role from his time spent on the RW at Chelsea under AVB. Sterling is a world class LW in the making, and the only thing keeping him from being a consistent starter in our current team is his tender age and our need to nurture his development slowly. However, moving forward I can see how these two would fit into a 4-2-1-3 system that would deploy Gerrard/Lucas as our deep lying midfielders, Coutinho as our #10, Suarez as our false #9, and Sturridge/Sterling as our inverted wingers. However, even with these two players fitting into the system we still have a lack of quality depth in our attacking ranks. Which brings me back to my original point, I could see Hendo/Downing as the obvious players that we look to improve on over the summer - along with the obvious need for reinforcements at CB due to the loss of Carra and Wilson, and the potential departures of Skrtel and Coates, but I'll leave that for a different discussion.
Another thing that BR seems to look for in recruits is tactical flexibility, so that our attacking players can be fluid and interchange positions freely. Recently we have seen Coutinho popping up on the wing, dropping into a deep central position, then making runs through the middle as if playing CF; Suarez is always granted the freedom to roam wherever he feels like; and even Sturridge has been given license to roam lately as well. That being said, a few players who may well be available this summer who fit into the "pacy winger" category and also have the tactical flexibility to play through the middle are:
P.E. Aubameyang - Young, incredibly pacy forward with an eye for goal. He has experience playing through the middle, but lately Galtier has been opting to play Brandao through the middle with Aubameyang playing at RW and he has been thriving there scoring 19 goals and grabbing 9 assists in 34 games this season!! If Saint-Etienne fail to make the CL places, he will likely be sold to the highest bidder over the summer.
Loic Remy - Most people on here know plenty about Remy after seeing him play for QPR over the last couple of months. Remy (like Sturridge and Aubameyang) has the ability to play through the middle or on the wing, and he offers great pace along with some decent skills and is composed in front of goal. With the R's getting relegated, he will likely be available over the summer.
Rumors are abound that Aubameyang would cost between 10-15M this summer, while Remy is rumored to have a release clause of 8M in his contract. If we can get anywhere near 15M for Andy Carrol over the summer (keep your fingers crossed that he finishes the season on a high lads!!) then we could realistically add both of these two adaptable forwards with very little dent in our transfer budget. Add to them a dominant CB (Ezequiel Garay please) and possibly another top CM (Kevin Strootman anyone) and we would be a real force again!!
Interestingly enough, if we were to add the above players to our squad (by my calculations we would need a transfer budget of roughly 35-40M plus player sales) I would actually think we would have a closer resemblance to the personnel/tactics of Bayern Munich than to those currently employed by Barcelona which I doubt too many fans would complain about
