Liverpool put in one of their worst performances of the season on Sunday against Hull City. The Reds went down 3-1 in a match we never looked like winning right from the beginning having seen the starting lineup Brendan Rodgers had picked.
The Liverpool manager has come under a lot of fire following that defeat and fans have looked at Raheem Sterling and Victor Moses’ performances with a lot of disappointment. Sterling and Moses had shocking games for Liverpool as Moses was largely responsible for the first Hull goal as he gave away the ball too easily in his own half whilst trying to pull off a fancy lob. Whilst Sterling just looked lost on the field.
Rodgers opted to lay the blame on himself and not the players for the Hull defeat as he said, “When you perform how we did, we probably didn’t deserve to get anything from it. But in the main, our form has been very good, so I can’t criticise the players too much.
“If there was anyone to blame, blame me as the manager.”
During the game, we tweeted:
I have no idea what sterling and moses are supposed to be doing….I don't think they know either!
— Our Kop (@OurKop) December 1, 2013
Former Liverpool defender, Jamie Carragher, also had a go at Sterling and Moses’ performance.
“How many chances did Liverpool create today?” said Carragher on Sky Sports.
“They never looked like scoring. If you take Suarez out of that team, who is going to score a goal? The three players behind are Victor Moses, Jordan Henderson and Raheem Sterling – I think there is one Premier League goal between the three of them this season.
“For what they contributed in that first hour – well, Coutinho comes on for half an hour and does more than the two of them have done! Sturridge is going to be a big miss for them.”
Coutinho made such a positive change when he came on against Hull and looked much better than both Sterling and Moses put together. That is no exaggeration at all as to how badly those two were. The good news is that Coutinho is fit again and will most likely start against Norwich on Wednesday in a game that we must win.
We need to revert to playing the 4-2-3-1 that we had lots of success with at the back end of last year. Solid basis, with lots of attacking options, whenever we’ve played 4-3-3 we’ve been open to exploitative opposition attacks, we look flimsy. We also need to build up attacks at a fast pace, moving forwards from the back quickly and in numbers, in a Dortmund-esque fashion- rather than a slow pace Tiki-Taka style. I also think we should utilise the inverted ‘false wingers’ we were using at the back end of last year, with width coming from the fullbacks.
On player selection, with Sturridge out we need to see Suarez up top and Coutinho in behind at number ten. I don’t think Moses or Sterling have really produced yet this season, so why not give Alberto a run in the team? I and many others have been impressed when he’s been given a shot, Everton have reaped the rewards of Deulofeu being given a chance. I’d like to see Aspas finally given a real chance in the side. He created more goalscoring opportunities than Messi did last year, lets see if we can utilise that. More than anything, I await the eventual return of Suso who’s been in inspired form at Almeria.
with Jose out, and Cissokho seemingly out of favour I would like to see Dagger being featured at LB. Like Vertonghen he’s a ball playing CB, and he’s done a good job filling in on the left for Spurs. I wish to see Sakho playing LCB next match, he’s not really done anything wrong, yet been left out in the cold for the last two matches- next to him should be Kolo, whose experience is what we need to try and recover from a period where we’ve been absolutely shipping goals. I think Glen and Simon’s places in the team go without saying.
Ultimately, I think the tactical set up worth attempting to emulate is that of Arsenal. Lucas in a Flamini role, Gerrard playing the Mikel Arteta deeplying playmaker role (5-10m further up the pitch)and three creative players that can interlink and interchange behind the striker, much like total football, ahead of them- supporting the striker in the box. The top four should also press the opposition when we don’t have the ball. Only Coutinho and Suarez are of a level similar to the likes of Ozil, Cazorla, Wilshere and Ramsey right now, but the style would utilise the strengths of the players that we do have in our team. It would work better with Sturridge playing the Giroud role as an out and out no. 9, but that isn’t a luxury we can as of now afford.
rodgeRs shud try 2 strikers n ease burden on suarez we av not performed any game better without 2 strikers eg games at evrton n hull n those when suarez was banned lets try this 4-3-3
mignolet, johnson,skrel,agger,jon
lucas gerrard
alberto
suarez,aspas,countinhô
Aspas is injured.
The problem is with Lucas. If you are going to play StevieG as a holding midfielder, then why do you need Lucas? By packing the midfield with holding midfielders you are sacrificing an attacker. If you’re going to play Lucas, then move Stevie to an advanced role.
Lucas should not play full stop .
Henderson is more mobile than Lucas but arguably produces little in the attacking third in terms of goals or assists. he’s a decent tackler of the ball, has pace so he can press higher up in the field, and I don’t think his positioning and reading of the game is terrible. So why does he not replace Lucas in the DM role?. using Gerrard n Lucas together makes our midfield extremely immobile
———–Mignolet
Johnson–Toure—Agger–Flanagan
——–Lucas—Gerrard
Hendo——Coutinho——Alberto
————Suarez
Decmeber 4 use this information 4.3.3 m
For f***sake take the shackles off Stevie , hendo can run all day like Lucas but can’t put the ball in the net , they can do the donkey work , if gerrard’s around the box an a chance falls to him he knows how to make the net bulge , he can chip in plenty of goals to ease the burden on the strikers.for crying out loud let him do it