• You may have to login or register before you can post and view our exclusive members only forums.
    To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Gerrard's performance

Forums New posts
Status
Not open for further replies.
rurikbird

rurikbird

Part of the Furniture
Honorary Member
Really seemed like Gerrard had more energy on Saturday than at any other point this season, except maybe the Spurs game. He was covering more ground, tracking runners and doing all the stuff people were criticizing him (sometimes justifiably, sometimes overly harshly IMO) for not doing. For most of the game Gerrard was paired up with Coutinho at the base of the midfield and Henderson was further forward – Rodgers said it was an "inverted triangle," but it really looked a lot more like a "regular triangle" with Henderson playing at the attacking tip, while Coutinho stayed back with Gerrard. In this game Hendo's role was drastically changed: he was making forward runs every time we were in possession and not "babysitting" anybody. I am sure this system would have been a disaster had Gerrard performed at the level of the last few games. I remember how we got absolutely overrun in midfield by Saints when Rodgers played Allen and Gerrard together as a 2-man midfield, I don't think he tried that ever since – and Allen is a lot more reliable defender than Coutinho!

I was already surprised by how Gerrard was winning the midfield battle pretty much all by himself, but then to amaze me even further Rodgers moved him to the #10 role where he didn't play for, I don't know, 4 years? And Stevie seemed suddenly like a younger version of himself, seemingly enjoying being unshackled from positional responsibility, just having fun playing back-heel passes and lightning-fast one-twos with Balotelli (BTW, that's a sign of a truly great player that he finds chemistry instantly with other players no matter their playing style – be it Torres, Suarez, or Balotelli, Gerrard knows how to complement their game from the first second they play in attack together). I couldn't believe my eyes. I've been arguing consistently that the days of Gerrard as an attacking midfielder are over, because I remember how he struggled even to keep possession when he played further forward in Rodgers' first season. And here was this younger Stevie sharp as ever, running at defenders around the box. I don't think he lost the ball once. Where the fuck has THIS Gerrard been in the last 4-5 years?

So, what's the explanation? I am completely sure it is NOT the change of position; Gerrard already was having a very good performance playing in his usual position before being moved forward. I don't think Rodgers would have even contemplated moving him further forward (instead of bringing on someone like Markovic, for instance) had he not noticed this extra spring in his step. Right now the best explanation I can come up with is that with the international break coming up and his retirement from England, it allowed him to stop worrying about conserving energy. I wonder if it's a coincidence that his best game before this one, against Spurs, has also happened right before the international break. What do you guys think? I have an open mind on this one and I don't care whatsoever about being proven right or wrong; but at this point I'm just stunned by what I saw from Gerrard the other night. Really curious what will happen in the next game.
 
Nice post Rurik. I also enjoyed watching Gerrard further up the pitch. His first touch game is a joy to behold at times.

Will we get to see him in the advanced role again soon? I hope so.
 
After 4 years, most of the current defenders in the league have never come across anything like Gerrard at his best. Its not a bad ploy to use when its needed. Like rolling out the special power up weapons in an arcade game.
 
Music to my ears:
Having started Saturday's clash with West Bromwich Albion in his now regular holding midfield berth, Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard concluded the fixture in a more advanced position – buoying Brendan Rodgers with a late rush of stellar creativity.

For the majority of this calendar year, the No.8 has been operating from a deeper region in the team, co-ordinating attacks with his impeccable passing and offering assurance to the younger players in front of him.
The introduction of Lucas Leiva for the final quarter-hour of a 2-1 victory over the Baggies at Anfield brought an opportunity for Gerrard to move forward, though, and the transition was typically seamless.

Dovetailing encouragingly with Mario Balotelli, his short-range distribution suddenly asked new questions of the visiting defence, and all despite the exertions in a week that started with a Merseyside derby and included a Champions League trip to Switzerland.

"You could see his quality and his ability to combine with Balotelli straight away," Rodgers reflected on the skipper's impact in the final third, once three points had been safely secured for the home side.

"Steven is a player who makes the game look simple and Mario knows he is playing with one of the greats of the game. Mario is a guy who needs certain types of passes and Steven is the sort of player who can provide them.
"He definitely added something to our game in that position, though I feel he has been outstanding in the deeper position too. It was refreshing to see the cleverness and brightness he brought, and that was his third tough game in a week."
Click to expand...
 
rurikbird said:
I was already surprised by how Gerrard was winning the midfield battle pretty much all by himself, but then to amaze me even further Rodgers moved him to the #10 role where he didn't play for, I don't know, 4 years? And Stevie seemed suddenly like a younger version of himself, seemingly enjoying being unshackled from positional responsibility, just having fun playing back-heel passes and lightning-fast one-twos with Balotelli (BTW, that's a sign of a truly great player that he finds chemistry instantly with other players no matter their playing style – be it Torres, Suarez, or Balotelli, Gerrard knows how to complement their game from the first second they play in attack together). I couldn't believe my eyes. I've been arguing consistently that the days of Gerrard as an attacking midfielder are over, because I remember how he struggled even to keep possession when he played further forward in Rodgers' first season. And here was this younger Stevie sharp as ever, running at defenders around the box. I don't think he lost the ball once. Where the fuck has THIS Gerrard been in the last 4-5 years?
Click to expand...

And I've been consistently arguing the opposite. :)

I've always maintained Stevie at his smiling, happiest best when he's playing that unconstrained role further up the pitch. I just think he enjoys his football a lot more there, than further back, despite what Rodgers and half of the English media would have you believe.

This deeper role is something he's been doing both for us and England for a while, and while his performances are regularly peppered with breathtaking passes, free-kicks and penalties, he always looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders in that position. And that's not even counting how many gaps he leaves in front of the defence.

The best use we can make of him in these twilight years is to play him sparingly in that AM position, where he enjoys his football, and scores special goals. If he can twat it from 30 yards in a dead ball situation, I don't see why he can't do it from open play. His shooting power might have come down, but he is still hands down the most accurate passer and finisher at the club. He could show that in that position in his sleep.
 
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard, 34, posted a youthful-looking picture of himself on Instagram. He wrote: "11 years ago today I became the captain of my boyhood team one of the proudest days of my career. It's a huge honour to captain this great club #YNWA."
 
I've been clamouring for this like forever too.

If Fat Frank can still score goals from that advanced position I don't see why Stevie, who's far more superior, can't.

Stevie is NOT Pirlo, so Brodgers should stop trying to convert him. He was, as Zidane once said, the best midfielder in the world for 2-3 years. Best midfielders in the world do NOT forget how to play in their favourite and best positions, overnight.
 
dmishra said:
And I've been consistently arguing the opposite. :)

I've always maintained Stevie at his smiling, happiest best when he's playing that unconstrained role further up the pitch. I just think he enjoys his football a lot more there, than further back, despite what Rodgers and half of the English media would have you believe.

This deeper role is something he's been doing both for us and England for a while, and while his performances are regularly peppered with breathtaking passes, free-kicks and penalties, he always looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders in that position. And that's not even counting how many gaps he leaves in front of the defence.

The best use we can make of him in these twilight years is to play him sparingly in that AM position, where he enjoys his football, and scores special goals. If he can twat it from 30 yards in a dead ball situation, I don't see why he can't do it from open play. His shooting power might have come down, but he is still hands down the most accurate passer and finisher at the club. He could show that in that position in his sleep.
Click to expand...

Good post. I'm afraid I think rurik overrates Stevie's performances from a deeper position, which didn't strike me as having improved much (if at all).
 
Not good first half, he should only move to a more advanced position when we're trying to close the game out, it just didn't work yesterday
 
I thought he was one of our better, or least worst, players. When he was up playing near to Coutinho I thought it was interesting to watch them working together. As always, alas, his captaincy was muted, to put it politely, when the team really needed some drive and direction. Hendo, once again, was far more active in this sense.
 
I thought Gerrard was miles better than he was playing in the DM position.
 
So far we had 2 games with Gerrard as #10: against West Brom for 15 or so minutes and vs QPR for the first 45. We were all hugely encouraged by the West Brom display, but in truth this was always a special case against a tired defense in a team who were chasing a game. Rodgers' tactical switch allowed Gerrard to exploit the space, but many of us suspected it wouldn't be as successful in a regular game. And sure enough, Rodgers tried it from the start in the very next game and overall as a system it didn't work, although Rodgers placed blame on other players being unable to "get the ball into Stevie" – implying that we missed Gerrard's distribution ability from the deep, so Gerrard-the-attacker didn't get the ball regularly enough. But when Stevie did get the ball, he didn't always make the best use of it (81% successful passing compared to 94% vs West Brom), although his unstoppable turn and shot in the penalty area near the end of the first half was majestic and reminiscent of Gerrard at his best. Still, on this limited evidence I'm not convinced this position is right for Gerrard, certainly not as a long-term solution.

Last November I posted a thread called "Neue Mittelfeld?" where I suggested a new system (we were playing 3-4-1-2 at the time, with mixed results). That system, as you can see in the post, is a 4-3-3 with the now-familiar "reverse midfield triangle" with Gerrard at the base and Hendo and Allen up front. At the time this idea pretty much landed with a thud and generated no interest – there were no replies, except keni's short dismissal, and no "likes." We did end up using this system in the 2nd half of the season and it also coincided with us playing our best football for at least 5 years. It was introduced initially when Gerrard was injured and Lucas was playing instead (Spurs away), but it worked just as well or better with Gerrard. All of our most spectacular wins of last season – Spurs away, Arsenal home, United away, Spurs home, Man City home, the derby – were achieved with the "reverse triangle."

However even last season it was clear that this system, while generally very successful, has certain shortcomings. For one thing, it placed a lot of responsibility on our CB partnership to push higher and be more active in helping Gerrard or Lucas neutralize threats – and none of our CB partnerships were able to do that effectively (and they still can't). Another problem was hidden while Suarez was here: while Hendo and Allen are excellent at pressing and possession game, they don't get enough goals between them. Now that our ridiculously effective striker is gone, it turns out almost no one in the team knows how to score goals! And Allen and Hendo don't create enough chances either – Gerrard is playing deeper and he created more than both of them combined. No wonder why many fans started clamoring for moving Gerrard back up the field and even Rodgers started experimenting with this. Something has to change.

Rodgers is trying to experiment with 4-2-3-1 right now, but I don't recall a single game in his time in charge where that system was entirely convincing. It's a good and flexible system and has been serving other teams well, but for some reason it just didn't work for us at all so far. Even with Suarez and Sturridge in peak form we would look sluggish and static whenever we tried a 2-man midfield. At best we would defend deep and wait for a chance to counter – which was effective enough when Suarez and Sturridge were playing together, but not any more. So I think a 3-man midfield is still the way to go for Rodgers; it clearly fits his coaching style and he knows how to make it work. Here is what I wrote in the original "Neue Mittelfeld" post:
I think of this triangle as highly mobile and interchanging, where any player can find himself at times at the base of the triangle and in other times in one of the attacking positions. We see this kind of constant interchange among midfielders in the best teams of our time: Barca and Bayern. Particularly in Bayern, the likes of Schweinsteiger, Kroos, Martinez and Gustavo could all find themselves at the focal point of attack at any given moment, which made them so much harder to pick up.

Players can also rest more and pick their spots to attack, which can be important for an aging player like Gerrard. To make this work, we will need at least 3 midfielders who have excellent tactical awareness and understanding of each other's game - which at this point, I believe we have.
Click to expand...

Well, with Allen and Can finally back from injuries, I think now is the right moment to rebuild the midfield again. I think the point about "constant interchange" is crucial – in those 15 minutes vs West Brom and a couple of moments vs QPR Gerrard showed that he still has the "spark" that can surprise opponents and unlock defenses – but he physically can't do it for the whole game. I would experiment with the following 3 ideas:

1. Bring Gerrard on as the "impact sub." Rodgers needed to build the team around Gerrard – there had to be a steady element around which he could make changes. When Allen was injured (like he was for a first half of last season and the beginning of this season), there was simply no alternative to playing Gerrard in almost every game and when Allen returned they formed a very good midfield trio with Gerrard and Hendo, pushing Lucas out – again, not much alternative. But now, things could be different. If Can, Allen and Hendo can form a viable midfield trio, then maybe we can finally afford the luxury of keeping a player like Gerrard on the bench to throw him on for the decisive moment in the game. With his coaching instincts and understanding of the game, Gerrard would know exactly what the game is missing and with his versatility he could provide exactly that missing element. Sometimes that element would be attacking, sometimes more defensive (such as calmness in possession). It would like a coach being able to step on the field and change the game to his liking. This could be a huge advantage and a feature of our play this season – the ability to raise our level every time after 60-70 minutes and swing tight games in our favor.

2. For the games where Gerrard does start (and there will be plenty of those still), he should start at DM, but have more of a license to make occasional runs forward and whenever he does, one of his midfield partners has to drop deeper to cover the DM position. By now Gerrard has proven to everyone (except perhaps the most stubborn fans/detractors) that he has enough tactical discipline to play DM/DLP for the best team in the country (in the 2nd half of last season we most certainly were); now he needs to be allowed to lose the shackles of responsibility sometimes and attack freely and take risks. Just 2-3 such forward runs per game will keep him happier and will keep defenders guessing.

lfc1.jpg


3. For certain games, when we need to tip the balance more towards attack, Lallana or Coutinho could play as one of the midfielders, probably in place of Allen (because either Gerrard or Can is needed to provide a physical dimension which is quite important in English football). With Gerrard being rotated more often, Henderson will remain as the steady element and leader of the midfield.

lfc2.jpg
 
He played a perfect pass in for one of the big chances of the game, he also put in a few perfect diagonal's that were mis-controlled, and then there was that chance, with some nice footwork in the box, that he was unlucky with.

He's not the sole fulcrum of whether or not we retain possession, he's always been a player that tries things on the pitch, so inevitably some of them don't come off, he's never single handedly bossed possession, he's always popped up at key moments with a crucial piece of play, which he did to a degree against West Brom. If we're to utlilise him in that role, you've got to get players around him who will keep hold of the ball (Allen and Coutinho), you've also got to give him a runner who will give him something to feed, (Sterling not Mario).
 
gkmacca said:
For once I agree with him. Marsh SHOULD quit.
Click to expand...
Is it it funny how the pundits like him are been the main people spunking off about Gerrard for the last 14 yrs and then he has a season where as he's got older as expected the performance has degraded and these guys are front of the queue to say I told you say and put the boot in.
It's sad and undignified, I admire how diginified SG has been to just stay quiet and get on with it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom