Does the Skrtel-Sakho partnership work?

Mate, I don't think it's all about the way we play. It's not a coincidence that when Agger was in the starting lineup we actually had more clean sheets and we looked a lot tighter at the back. When Agger got injured we started conceding again. It has to do with ability of some of the individual players.

I don't know mate.  I don't think it's down to individual talent.  I think it's down to how the game is approached.  I applaud Rodgers for his gung ho style and love the attacking football we play.  But yesterday was just an abomination to totally give no regard to the back after we went up 3-0.  Hell, the lads even stopped Sturridge celebrating his goal to get the ball back to the center spot to keep going.

I don't think it's the ability of the Center halves.  I think it's more to do with the full backs and the midfielders leaving the CB's high and dry.

Think it's exceptionally harsh to lay the blame full square on Sakho and Skrtel.

Can the right back defend?

Is the keeper a strong verbal, physical and confident presence?

For a new signing, who has also suffered an injury, I think Sakho has done remarkably well in his first season.  In fact he'd be my pick of all of our signings over the last 12 months.

Sorry JD 

Always has to be a sensible post..

I don't know mate.  I don't think it's down to individual talent.  I think it's down to how the game is approached.  I applaud Rodgers for his gung ho style and love the attacking football we play.  But yesterday was just an abomination to totally give no regard to the back after we went up 3-0.  Hell, the lads even stopped Sturridge celebrating his goal to get the ball back to the center spot to keep going.

I don't think it's the ability of the Center halves.  I think it's more to do with the full backs and the midfielders leaving the CB's high and dry.

Yesterday Rodgers admitted that the system was not the problem, it was mainly down to individual mistakes and decision making. I agreed with him, I don't think it's the system's fault, well not most of the time, in some cases I would agree, however it's down to many mistakes from individual players.

It's not about the individuals, it's about the system with those individuals.

To play the way Brendan wants us to play we need pace and energy right across the pitch. 

Our fb's are expected to provide the width in attack, rather than defend and our cmd's are expected to win back/keep possession and recycle the ball to start another attack.  The 2 cb's and Stevie are meant to mop up anything that breaks through into our half.

So although our fb's get forward, they don't really contribute in an attacking sense and they don't have the pace or energy to get back and cover when they've lost possession.  Therefore both positions have left us vulnerable this season.

Our cmd's have changed over the course of the season.  Stevie dropping back since the new year, Raheem playing central, then out wide, Cou playing central, then out wide, Jordan anywhere and everywhere and we've had to reintroduce Lucas but out of position.

Our cb's have swapped and changed due to injury, Skrtel being the only ever present, they've also had to get used to a new system since the new year, when Stevie dropped back.

It's still a work in progress but I doubt we'll see any new cb's coming in this summer.  We need better fb's and better cmd's.

 

It's not about the individuals, it's about the system with those individuals.

Partly true.  If I was playing it would be about the individuals.

I think they are too similar and I would prefer to see Daniel Agger alongside one of them.What ever way you want to view it our defense does need to be looked at

Partly true.  If I was playing it would be about the individuals.

 

It's not about the individuals, it's about the system with those individuals.

To play the way Brendan wants us to play we need pace and energy right across the pitch. 

Our fb's are expected to provide the width in attack, rather than defend and our cmd's are expected to win back/keep possession and recycle the ball to start another attack.  The 2 cb's and Stevie are meant to mop up anything that breaks through into our half.

So although our fb's get forward, they don't really contribute in an attacking sense and they don't have the pace or energy to get back and cover when they've lost possession.  Therefore both positions have left us vulnerable this season.

Our cmd's have changed over the course of the season.  Stevie dropping back since the new year, Raheem playing central, then out wide, Cou playing central, then out wide, Jordan anywhere and everywhere and we've had to reintroduce Lucas but out of position.

Our cb's have swapped and changed due to injury, Skrtel being the only ever present, they've also had to get used to a new system since the new year, when Stevie dropped back.

It's still a work in progress but I doubt we'll see any new cb's coming in this summer.  We need better fb's and better cmd's.

 

Agree with all this but do think communication at the back is a real issue. I've mentioned it before when I was advocating the Toure/Sakho partnership and I've also criticised Migs for it. You can't defend as a proper unit unless everyone knows what the other is doing and since we don't have mind readers players have to open their mouths.

What Carra did highlight is just how deep we sat when the pressure was turned on us. It's something that has been leveled at Skrtel before that he defends too deep but it's also a pattern that was noticed last season that once we conceded one it seemed more often than not we'd concede another. This suggests the mentality isn't right and watching through Carra dissect some of our decision making late in the game last night was pretty painful.

The CB's can't complain they were tired, so mental fatigue is out of the question it is just one of those natural responses. I think Agger, when in the team, brings that extra level of bravery and determination. Not just through his actions but also through his vocal presence. I would also not discount the fear factor that Agger brings, when you play alongside a player with his mindset and leadership qualities the fear of letting him down can sometimes bring out the best in people. Of course the opposite can be true but that's how you build a partnership, they have to compliment each other and most importantly balance out each others weaknesses. Someone above said that Skrtel and Sakho are too similar to play together and I think that might ultimately prove to be the case, they both seem to want to retreat at the first sign of danger.

What I'm hoping, should we stick with the pairing, is that Sakho's confidence and English speaking ability improves to the point he is happy to bark the orders as there's no doubt that lad can project authority if he's coached to do so. There is of course more to a defensive unit than just the CB's and Johnson has never been very good in a defensive sense so I'd definitely like to see FBs made our highest priority for the summer. Migs is a worry, he only seems to become vocal after the fact, when he's made a good save or when a mistake has been made. You have to be proactive as a keeper, reacting after the event isn't good enough he has to see the problem before it costs us a goal and relay the message to his defenders. The commanding of his box is of course a worry but he's young and I hope he can improve on this next season, would be no harm in bringing in proper competition for him too.

no. Sakho is not a footballer, how the F**k he gets in ahead of Agger is beyond me.

Also we don't cheat enough, did we not learn from Chelsea how to waste time...?

Think it's exceptionally harsh to lay the blame full square on Sakho and Skrtel.

Can the right back defend?

Is the keeper a strong verbal, physical and confident presence?

For a new signing, who has also suffered an injury, I think Sakho has done remarkably well in his first season.  In fact he'd be my pick of all of our signings over the last 12 months.

I don't know if this is tongue-in-cheek, so if it is please forgive my stupidity but would that not just be comparing him to Aspas, Alberto and llori... none of which have had a run in the first team.

Agree with all this but do think communication at the back is a real issue. I've mentioned it before when I was advocating the Toure/Sakho partnership and I've also criticised Migs for it. You can't defend as a proper unit unless everyone knows what the other is doing and since we don't have mind readers players have to open their mouths.

What Carra did highlight is just how deep we sat when the pressure was turned on us. It's something that has been leveled at Skrtel before that he defends too deep but it's also a pattern that was noticed last season that once we conceded one it seemed more often than not we'd concede another. This suggests the mentality isn't right and watching through Carra dissect some of our decision making late in the game last night was pretty painful.

The CB's can't complain they were tired, so mental fatigue is out of the question it is just one of those natural responses. I think Agger, when in the team, brings that extra level of bravery and determination. Not just through his actions but also through his vocal presence. I would also not discount the fear factor that Agger brings, when you play alongside a player with his mindset and leadership qualities the fear of letting him down can sometimes bring out the best in people. Of course the opposite can be true but that's how you build a partnership, they have to compliment each other and most importantly balance out each others weaknesses. Someone above said that Skrtel and Sakho are too similar to play together and I think that might ultimately prove to be the case, they both seem to want to retreat at the first sign of danger.

What I'm hoping, should we stick with the pairing, is that Sakho's confidence and English speaking ability improves to the point he is happy to bark the orders as there's no doubt that lad can project authority if he's coached to do so. There is of course more to a defensive unit than just the CB's and Johnson has never been very good in a defensive sense so I'd definitely like to see FBs made our highest priority for the summer. Migs is a worry, he only seems to become vocal after the fact, when he's made a good save or when a mistake has been made. You have to be proactive as a keeper, reacting after the event isn't good enough he has to see the problem before it costs us a goal and relay the message to his defenders. The commanding of his box is of course a worry but he's young and I hope he can improve on this next season, would be no harm in bringing in proper competition for him too.

All of that plays a part Luke of course it does.  I still don't think we'll see any new cb's arriving in the summer though.

In short, no. And I'm fairly confident it won't be our first choice partnership next season nor should it be.

But really, I don't think it's about Skrtel and Sakho as individuals as much as it is the lack of organization and leadership in the pairing. Sometimes, it's more important to get the pairing correct than it is to put the best talent out. Statistically, our best CB partnership was Toure and Agger despite not being the most talented pairing, for example. They both have years of experience. (Skrtel does too, but Toure's won titles, Agger captains Denmark.)

We also have to remember that defensively, neither Johnson nor Flanagan were big helps last night, and midfield -- particularly Lucas and an unfit Coutinho -- were very slow in helping out. We needed to, but didn't, defend as a team. Perfect storm of calamities in a lot of ways when looking at just yesterday's match.

In the long-run, if we're being completely honest with ourselves here, we need a real top top class CB and two high quality fullbacks. The nice thing is being Liverpool and now being back in the Champions League we have our pick of just about anyone.

Luis Enrique - Always Injured

Who?...

I wouldn't just be looking at the CB and if that is good enough, because as much as they have been to blame they are no more so at fault than Johnson who has had a mare of a season and that timid fella we have in goal. Saying that, the midfield have screwed us over a fair few times this season too.

Yes it can definitely work.

They're both good defenders (Sakho's going to be great imo) and basically did little wrong until the 3rd goal. Even then it was basically cos Skrtel was left marking 2 players cos a knackered Johnson was out of position.

Bottom line is if we want to concede fewer goals then we need to play less open.
But how long a winning streak did we just have playing open and attacking?

I'd still like to see us bring back Steve Clark ( think I was the first to suggest this back when he got the sack at West Brom ), but that wasn't why we lost last night. We got carried away in the passion of the moment trying to haul back the goal difference, and didn't adjust quickly enough when they scored their first.
Bit of inexperience, but no shame, far from it, and no cause to give the boot to our best 2 CBs.

For me it hasn't worked but I'm not saying it never will. Let's face it, we can't be any worse at defending next season as we have been this.

Skrtel and Sakho need to be stuck like glue at training and work on the partnership. In pre-season they have to play at the same time. It's vital that one of them becomes the vocal one out of the pair so that the defence can become organised.

They're both strong in the air but their positional ability needs a vast amount of work doing on it. They also rarely know where the other one is. I have faith that it will eventually become a very good partnership though.

 

Why is the Sakho Skrtel pairing being the only one looked at though? What about Toure/Agger - awful, Toure/Skrtel etc?. All our pairings have looked like they are missing something.

Counter attacks have been our problems because we are so attack heavy and our fullbacks push up so far. Also in the middle there are players completely unmarked scoring. We need our midfielders to drop into the box and help out our fullbacks. All four midfielders need to drop and hustle back. Have one go to the strong flank and have Gerrard and Hendo and the other midfielder in the middle for extra cover. Skrtel, Sakho and Gerrard are not going to be able to do it themselves.

Communication and leadership is also lacking. Pepe was excellent at that as was Carra (starting to see that realization now ) and nobody is as vocal now.

Think Sakho and Flanno have been our best defenders this season.

Martin knows the back of the net but for me the above two have been the standouts.

Johnson and Toure have been disappointments and Agger has not played enough for me to give judgement.

I think they're both a similar type of defender, like that rogue defender who makes the last ditch sliding tackle and wins the header, tussles with players like a terrier, they need a rock beside them, someone to hold the back line; to keep the shape at the back.
The coaching staff aren't doing a good enough job on the defensive side, bring in someone who knows what he's doing as a defensive coach.
I've mostly put it down to a by-product of the fact we attack so wholeheartedly but surely a better balance can be made, if that's the case.

I honestly can't see the point in bashing our back line as and when we lose, there are too many jumping on this bandwagon of late and tbh it gets us nowhere,

IMO the problem lies in both the quality of cb's at our disposal and the system they are being asked to play in,

It is not enough to go all out attack and score more than the opposition,

We have this season survived simply by the amount of goals scored, twice as many as previous campaigns but we have also conceded around  50 so reducing the effect by. Almost  50%,
It's that stat that had cost us the championship our first for 24 yrs, not Stevie slipping and not our capitulating defence last night, although it certainly didn't help ,

For a while now I've been crying out for a specialist defensive coach to work alongside Brendan so that everyone learns to sing from the same song sheet , someone like Steve Clarke or big Sami, since Carra retired we've lost that leader on the field the mouthpiece keeping everyone on their toes,
There is no question that we need at least 1 maybe 2 top quality cb's for next season ,

I'm not sure who is out there that could immediately come in and make a impact I'm not to clued up on potential targets but we do need to remedy the situation.

Also , we need competition for the goalie position , Migs has done ok tbf but,ok is not good enough for LFC,

Nothing wrong with healthy completion amongst the ranks is there ?

Thoughts ?


YNWA

I'm sorry and I'm not trying to call you out but everyone needs to get off this ridiculous idea that Pepe would add anything to our defense. He was incredibly poor the past two seasons and hasn't exactly been stellar at Napoli this season. What we need for our defense to be better is players that are consistently healthy and better full backs. We haven't had a consistent back four at all this season and our full backs are not great. GJ has been awful this season when healthy and Flanno has been good but can certainly be improved upon.

What we need is a top notch defencive coach , we had him and we  had the best defence in the country his name is Steve clark .

What we need is a top notch defencive coach , we had him and we  had the best defence in the country his name is Steve clark .

Hansen finishes with MOTD soon

I honestly can't see the point in bashing our back line as and when we lose, there are too many jumping on this bandwagon of late and tbh it gets us nowhere,

IMO the problem lies in both the quality of cb's at our disposal and the system they are being asked to play in,

It is not enough to go all out attack and score more than the opposition,

We have this season survived simply by the amount of goals scored, twice as many as previous campaigns but we have also conceded around  50 so reducing the effect by. Almost  50%,
It's that stat that had cost us the championship our first for 24 yrs, not Stevie slipping and not our capitulating defence last night, although it certainly didn't help ,

For a while now I've been crying out for a specialist defensive coach to work alongside Brendan so that everyone learns to sing from the same song sheet , someone like Steve Clarke or big Sami, since Carra retired we've lost that leader on the field the mouthpiece keeping everyone on their toes,
There is no question that we need at least 1 maybe 2 top quality cb's for next season ,

I'm not sure who is out there that could immediately come in and make a impact I'm not to clued up on potential targets but we do need to remedy the situation.

Also , we need competition for the goalie position , Migs has done ok tbf but,ok is not good enough for LFC,

Nothing wrong with healthy completion amongst the ranks is there ?

Thoughts ?


YNWA

I don't know Billy if calling Martin inconsistent or Johnson a poor defender is necessarily jumping on the bandwagon.

Johnson is far better going foward then being a traditional defender that argument has been done and dusted years ago on this board.

Martin gives his all but but I would not call him Mr. consistency  he is prone to major mental errors.

So we have a back-line with Johnson (better going forward) and Skrtel (inconsistent) along with Sahko (who just got here and has been hurt) Flanno (for as good as he is still has a lot to learn) and Migs (Who is a great shot-stopper but needs to learn how to be a leader)

On top of all of this.

Agger is another year older and gets hurt easy.
Toure is way past his prime and was brought in for leadership
Enrique is out and may never be the same again.


We have defensive issues there is no doubt about this, for me the future is Flanno/Sahko/Migs and hopefully Illori.

Other than that we need to spend money on the back line before anythign else.