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      Improving Midfield - how will it set up?

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      RedWilly
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #138: Dec 01, 2018 06:06:25 am
      Interesting article about or midfield that will leave plenty of people with something to chew over about Henderson and our midfield generally;

      https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/nov/29/liverpool-paris-st-germain-champions-league

      Apologies, after all these years on the forum I still donā€™t know how to post the full article from my phone :D

      molbys belly
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #139: Dec 01, 2018 10:57:48 am
      Ah then the question must be whatā€™s Molbyā€™s Belly been hopping on all f***inā€™ day then.....🤔

      What's your problem mate ?
      Scotia
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #140: Dec 01, 2018 11:07:38 am

      Iā€™m peachy mate.

      Was bored as f**k with you posting ā€œHendo sh*teā€; ā€œbin off Hendoā€ every 10 mins all over the ship on Thu.......

      But hey - tensions always high after a sh*t performance and we all move on ;)
      « Last Edit: Dec 01, 2018 11:14:26 am by Scotia »
      stuey
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #141: Dec 01, 2018 11:59:34 am
      Interesting article about or midfield that will leave plenty of people with something to chew over about Henderson and our midfield generally;

      https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/nov/29/liverpool-paris-st-germain-champions-league

      Apologies, after all these years on the forum I still donā€™t know how to post the full article from my phone :D


      As is expected this rag lays out a relentless critique of almost every aspect of LFC's performance, the manager is not exempt of course.
      No mention of the blatant cheating by a number of the PSG players or the atrocious officiating.
      We were outplayed by probably the best and most expensive side in Europe if not the world but the one goal winning margin suggests this Guardian "reporter" is talking out of his arse.

      molbys belly
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #142: Dec 01, 2018 12:29:20 pm
      Iā€™m peachy mate.

      Was bored as f**k with you posting ā€œHendo sh*teā€; ā€œbin off Hendoā€ every 10 mins all over the ship on Thu.......

      But hey - tensions always high after a sh*t performance and we all move on ;)

      No worries mate . My views on him are still the same tho ;D
      Swab
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #143: Dec 01, 2018 12:29:31 pm
      Interesting article about or midfield that will leave plenty of people with something to chew over about Henderson and our midfield generally;

      https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/nov/29/liverpool-paris-st-germain-champions-league

      Apologies, after all these years on the forum I still donā€™t know how to post the full article from my phone :D

      I read this on thurs, and pretty much dismissed it, simply because our most dynamic play last season came when we had the midfield runner I keep banging on about, and he doesn't even give this a mention until the very end, when to me it is the crux of the problem.
      Scotia
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #144: Dec 01, 2018 12:37:00 pm
      No worries mate . My views on him are still the same tho ;D

      And well youā€™re entitled to them........maybe ration yourself to 20 times a day after a loss though eh 😜
      molbys belly
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #145: Dec 01, 2018 01:14:02 pm
      And well youā€™re entitled to them........maybe ration yourself to 20 times a day after a loss though eh 😜

      ;D
      The Real Donavan Ried
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #146: Dec 01, 2018 01:45:15 pm
      Posters have mentioned that the trio of Milner, Henderson and  Milner got us to the CL league final last season but seem to have forgotten the contribution of Coutinho, Can and Ox who all contributed with goals.
      How many of the current 3 contributed with goals from open play last season, same story his season

      We saw the outcome in the final and maybe its a bit harsh because the likes of Kroos and Modric have run rings around better players than our 3 but if that is what we are aspiring to get to ie eating at the top table not just looking at the menu then the likes of Henderson and Milner need to be relegated to squad player status.
      I mean Milner was at City for so many years and had a bit part yet he is one of our main midfielders, City have gone up a level since Milner left and we are expected to compete against them!


      Before posters jump on me Im not saying bin them but they need to be used to plug the gaps during a season.

      For what ever reason Klopp doesn't seem to trust Fab and Keita and for me until they start playing regularly (until Ox is back at least) we can forget about competing for any trophies.
      Hopefully he has seen enough and I think he intimated last night at the gaps that were left in midfield in the first half and he will start trusting the new boys more to integrate them quicker.

      For me Milner and Henderson just don't have the technique to play in the middle of the pitch esp against teams who press intensely, Milner will drift wide to find space and Henderson will drop deep to find space and time leaving a huge hole in the middle of the pitch which Gini alone can not cover - saw this last night with PSG just poring through onto the back line.

      We now have a world class attack , admittedly starved of the ball and a world class defence but the midfield....... can anyone honestly say is anywhere near good enough to win trophies?
      ^^^^^^^
      THIS ALL DAY...


      A Great assessment of where our midfield are now
      The Real Donavan Ried
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #147: Dec 01, 2018 01:48:34 pm
      Sooner or later klopp will have to trust his new signings.

      Midfield was a position we went big on in the summer so it's time to see what we've bought.
      Yes totally agree... It's sink or swim time for Fab' and Keita
      RedWilly
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #148: Dec 01, 2018 01:58:28 pm
      I read this on thurs, and pretty much dismissed it, simply because our most dynamic play last season came when we had the midfield runner I keep banging on about, and he doesn't even give this a mention until the very end, when to me it is the crux of the problem.

      Iā€™ve always been honest about the fact Iā€™m not the most tactically aware person to watch football, that side of it doesnā€™t interest me but enjoy the various debates etc.

      If JĆ¼rgen is happy and we are performing well that will do me, the ins and outs I will leave for people far more informed than me to discuss.

      Hendo is certainly one that divides opinion, but weā€™ve always had those players, Kuyt divided opinion for a very long time if I recall.
      Swab
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #149: Dec 01, 2018 02:11:11 pm
      Iā€™ve always been honest about the fact Iā€™m not the most tactically aware person to watch football, that side of it doesnā€™t interest me but enjoy the various debates etc.

      If JĆ¼rgen is happy and we are performing well that will do me, the ins and outs I will leave for people far more informed than me to discuss.

      Hendo is certainly one that divides opinion, but weā€™ve always had those players, Kuyt divided opinion for a very long time if I recall.

      Fair enough mate :) one of the reasons I enjoy the tactical side is that I have the time to spare, and I know that not everyone has the time or the interest.
      It's all good :)

      Regarding Henderson, he's just the latest in a long line of scapegoats.
      It's always the same, every season, a small but loud group find someone to pin everything on; they did it with Kuyt as you say, with Lucas for years, with Can, last season it was Wijnaldum.
      I find it all a bit ridiculous to be honest.
      It's a team sport, and trying to say everything is the fault of one player is silly, at best.
      The Real Donavan Ried
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #150: Dec 01, 2018 02:12:10 pm
      Last night the front three were given plenty of chances to do something and failed - Remember the three on two with Salah on the ball and it was intercepted, also a number of other times there was a chance to put in a quality delivery and no one could do it

      The constant finger pointing at the guys in the middle are allowing the front three a free pass when they are poor , the immediate excuse is they are poor because they donā€™t get the ball from the middle- sorry but nonsense , they have had plenty of the ball in threatening areas but have on a number of times gone for the wrong option

      But the fingers will continue to be pointed at the midfield and the front three given a get out clause

      The Man Utd teams from 1996-2010, the thing that made them so lethal and so successful was the quality from all over the pitch especially the mid -field not only where thier strikers feared be also the mid-field because they had goal scorer in all of those areas who chipped in with regular gaols and created them, something that Man City have now...

      What do we have...? there work horses (Gini,Henderson,Milner) that create little quality chance, the key work is "Quality"
      The so called chance you said we made the other night, hand on heart; how many of them would you call quality...?

      You have one on here who claims it is the wing back that are suppose to create the chance, but what happens when those wing backs are pinned back and can not get up field to create those chances..??

      Also if you have a midfield that can open up teams and score goal instead of just a from three then defenses are unable to identify just who to mark...

      At one time in the match PSG had four men around Salah. Now Salah is no Messi, and even the great man himself would struggle if that was the case every time he got the ball...

      There is a reason why so many people feel like this about the Henderson,Milner, Gini combination in midfield. It simple does not work well...

      I have never been a fan of Henderson, but if I am honest, I feel that it was Milner who played the worst out of the two and said so on the match tread. But the facts remain both are simple not good enough for the starting 11 bar injuries
      Swab
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #151: Dec 01, 2018 02:12:31 pm
      Yes totally agree... It's sink or swim time for Fab' and Keita

      Is it F**k.

      get a grip and stop trying to create this ridiculous narrative.
      It's complete F***ing bollocks, and what's worse, you know it is.
      The Real Donavan Ried
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #152: Dec 01, 2018 02:29:42 pm
      Interesting article about or midfield that will leave plenty of people with something to chew over about Henderson and our midfield generally;

      https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/nov/29/liverpool-paris-st-germain-champions-league

      Apologies, after all these years on the forum I still donā€™t know how to post the full article from my phone :D

      Read this article and can't really fault it... Printed it to make it easier for others

      Liverpool began with the same flat, muscular Milner-Henderson-Wijnaldum axis that has now started all three away defeats in Europe. It is a midfield that looks perfect for last seasonā€™s system, the high-pressing, hard-running game that creates chances out of orderly disorder.

       JĆ¼rgen Klopp speaks to Mohamed Salah and James Milner, who started in midfield alongside Jordan Henderson and Gigi Wijnaldum.
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       JĆ¼rgen Klopp speaks to Mohamed Salah and James Milner, who started in midfield alongside Jordan Henderson and Gigi Wijnaldum. Photograph: Clive Rose/Getty Images
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      Faced with a midfield of greater ball-playing craft, they instead sat deeper and went toe-to-toe in the finer arts, looking at times like a man trying to conduct a concert orchestra with a policemanā€™s baton. Sometimes you really are better off just hitting someone over the head with it.

      ā€œUn Victoire Capitale! PSG sā€™impose sur Liverpoolā€ was the headline in one Paris daily on Thursday morning . And for all the distracting noises about gamesmanship, PSG did impose themselves in that period when the game was won, Verratti, Neymar, Marquinhos and Ɓngel Di MarĆ­a dominating the ball and playing in a system that flattered their own best attributes.


      Will Liverpool make a pig's ear of it in Europe this season?
       Read more
      Successful teams are sometimes compared to a fine wine, something that becomes more nuanced with age. This Klopp-era Liverpool have gone further, changing from a bottle of something fizzy and fun and likely to leave you with an exhilarating headache the next day into a thicker, more restrained vintage, lacking a little in the high notes.

      This is, of course, part of the plan. Klopp has spoken at length about his efforts to create a team that can win by scoring just once rather than playing always in the eye of the hurricane. It may work out. The season is long and attritional.

      But there is also the danger that a midfield of workers and runners makes sense when your full-backs and front three are tearing around creating potent havoc; but less so when there is a requirement to make chances in a more patient, structured fashion. There is also no doubt that they have missed Alex Oxlade-Chamberlainā€™s dynamism, his more vertical movements with the ball. Philippe Coutinhoā€™s skill and vision in those areas has not been replaced. Naby KeĆÆta will presumably settle. Fabinho seems an unnecessary layer of additional muscle.


      The Fiver: sign up and get our daily football email.
      At the end of which Ā£90m has been spent on re-gearing the midfield for this more measured Klopp team, but it still looks more suited to scrapping and covering behind the old tearaway attack. And yes, quite a lot of this comes back to Jordan Henderson, who played as he always does in Paris: wholeheartedly, retaining his intensity to the last, but fraught with the same limitations.

      Henderson is a strange player in many ways. He has played 260 games now, been a fixture in the two best Liverpool teams of the last 13 years and been picked and prized by Klopp, Brendan Rodgers, Kenny Dalglish, Gareth Southgate, Roy Hodgson and Fabio Capello. For all that, he remains a player whose qualities are more obvious to those who watch the team from the inside than to those who see just the outline details of match day.


      Neymar, the great individualist of the age, gives less to provide more for PSG
       Read more
      Clearly those managers will also see Hendersonā€™s technical limitations. This is a midfielder with one goal in his last 97 games, despite spending a fair amount of each game around the opposition goal. He seems physically unable to turn with the ball in a tight space, meaning every time he takes it with his back to goal he passes backwards, a powerful contrast with most high-class central midfielders, for whom it is an essential skill to take the ball and turn in one movement.

      In Paris Henderson was bypassed repeatedly in the first half by Neymar, the last with a dismissive veering run that just said, yes, I can move that bit quicker than you.

      To Hendersonā€™s credit he kept going right to the end, dragging his team along with him, influence growing as time ticked down. But it is not hard to see why Klopp would rather turn the discussion to PSGā€™s players falling over a lot (which they did) than linger on an unbalanced midfield that seems caught between stick or twist, dogs of the high-press asked to perform a more mannered role against opponents better tailored to the task.

      Liverpool could still have emerged with a draw. Sadio ManĆ© dropped deep to good effect and bridged the midfield creativity gap at times. Andrew Robertson was fearless as ever. And in mitigation of the midfield effort, Roberto Firminoā€™s poor form hardly helps. That ability to drop back, hook the ball out of the air, capoeira-style, and find players around him on the turn is a powerful creative weapon. Right now he just looks a little low on zip.

      There are some positives in defeat. In a way the result simplifies the final act against Napoli two weeks from now. Liverpool will have to win 1ā€“0, or handsomely. This is surely the moment for a tactical reboot of last seasonā€™s blitz football, a game to play with fire not ice in the head; and in a style that might just leave the midfield looking a little happier in its own clothes.
      The Real Donavan Ried
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #153: Dec 01, 2018 02:39:15 pm
      Is it f**k.

      get a grip and stop trying to create this ridiculous narrative.
      It's complete f**king bollocks, and what's worse, you know it is.

      Shoo Fly..
      shabbadoo
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #154: Dec 01, 2018 02:50:00 pm
      Is it f**k.

      get a grip and stop trying to create this ridiculous narrative.
      It's complete f**king bollocks, and what's worse, you know it is.

      F**k me, must have been sink or swim when we bought Bobby,Robbo,Ox 😂

      Some folks make it up as they go along...
      Lallana in Pyjamas
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #155: Dec 01, 2018 02:50:41 pm
      Yes totally agree... It's sink or swim time for Fab' and Keita

      No itā€™s not but what you say is typical of the want it now way of the world - most appear to show any sort of patience and expect players just to get used to the club or Prem straight away - some players can take a whole season
      Swab
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #156: Dec 01, 2018 02:52:08 pm
      F**k me, must have been sink or swim when we bought Bobby,Robbo,Ox 😂

      Some folks make it up as they go along...

      It's pure attention seeking, coupled with the fact none of these loons has a clue what they're talking about.

      oh well, tis the way of the modern world it seems.
      The Real Donavan Ried
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #157: Dec 01, 2018 04:24:48 pm
      No itā€™s not but what you say is typical of the want it now way of the world - most appear to show any sort of patience and expect players just to get used to the club or Prem straight away - some players can take a whole season
      These player were bought in to do a job that Gini Henderson and Milner can not do... They should at least be given the chance to do that job,and yes they will make mistakes a long the way and have to learn from them, but wasn't that what Kenny D' did when he bought Henderson, Adams and Downing in to the team...? Play them week in week out...
      Players can only learn so much in training...

      F**k me, must have been sink or swim when we bought Bobby,Robbo,Ox 😂

      Some folks make it up as they go along...

      As for Robbo... It was Moreno who kept him out of the side for so long, he was playing well at the time
      RedWilly
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #158: Dec 01, 2018 04:41:13 pm
      These player were bought in to do a job that Gini Henderson and Milner can not do... They should at least be given the chance to do that job,and yes they will make mistakes a long the way and have to learn from them, but wasn't that what Kenny D' did when he bought Henderson, Adams and Downing in to the team...? Play them week in week out...
      Players can only learn so much in training...

      As for Robbo... It was Moreno who kept him out of the side for so long, he was playing well at the time

      Do you have some kind of inside knowledge of what goes on in training that the rest of us donā€™t have? JĆ¼rgen is on record saying it takes time to adapt to our style and he is also on record saying both Fab and Keita will be in the team in time.

      And given we are absolutely F***ing flying in the league, then no, it isnā€™t ā€˜sink or swimā€™ or the time to tear it all up.

      Honestly, this narrative you keep pushing, itā€™s pathetic because there is absolutely no basis for it.
      Harrisimo
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #159: Dec 01, 2018 04:41:53 pm
      The goal threat from midfield is also fairly weak. You need at least one of your midfield players to reach double figures and the others to chip in. Shaq apart I can't see very much goal threat from the rest. Keita may be but he needs game time to get fully up to speed.

      So add the poor goal return to the perceived lack of creation and if it carries on deeper into the season it will, without doubt, have a negative affect on results.

      The top 4 have always produced from midfield and we have to improve in that area before it's to late. I'd like to see a much more positive display against Everton.

      Shaq,Keita and Fabinho or Gini to start.
      « Last Edit: Dec 01, 2018 04:46:30 pm by Harrisimo »
      The Real Donavan Ried
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      Re: Improving Midfield - how will it set up?
      Reply #160: Dec 01, 2018 05:34:48 pm
      Do you have some kind of inside knowledge of what goes on in training that the rest of us donā€™t have? JĆ¼rgen is on record saying it takes time to adapt to our style and he is also on record saying both Fab and Keita will be in the team in time.

      Honestly, this narrative you keep pushing, itā€™s pathetic because there is absolutely no basis for it.

      So tell me where i am misinformed. lying, or it is pathetic to say that you can only learn so much in training..?

      You don't have to be klopp or to have played football at certain level to know that most of the things you learn comes from playing the game so yes Play them let them fail (sink) or succeeded  (swim) 

      And given we are absolutely f**king flying in the league, then no, it isnā€™t ā€˜sink or swimā€™ or the time to tear it all up.

      Spurs are flying Arsenal are Flying, City Are flying.. We have just been chundering along. Luck can only take you so far eventually that luck runs out

      Edit:-

      JĆ¼rgen is on record saying it takes time to adapt to our style

      And what styles is that...?? The high press that we don't no longer seem to do...??  :f_whistle:
      « Last Edit: Dec 01, 2018 05:38:56 pm by The Real Donavan Ried »

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