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Plan B

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rurikbird

rurikbird

Part of the Furniture
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The original plan is not working. Rodgers tried his best to turn this team into Barcelona right away; predictably, we soon found out that there is presently not enough wood to build that type of ship. The half-built vessel is letting in water and Rodgers must be already realizing that he will have to make serious adjustments for the project to survive until January. The adjustments are already underway. The team is visibly getting more defensive and less possession-oriented by the week. Here is the direction we might need to move to make this squad work.

I think the S-S-S front line is not working. Suarez is a one-man team right now, he doesn't seem to trust the kids so every time he gets the ball, he tries to do everything himself. So as soon as the ball gets to Suarez, all the combination and team play stops. I don't blame him and he does carry us this season. But it's hard to win like this, because we don't really play as a team in attack. Suarez needs at least one partner in the attacking 3 that he trusts and respects and whose runs he will not ignore. Only Gerrard can be that partner now.

My solution would be this:

4-2-3-1:
-------------Suarez-----------------
Sterling---Suso/Shelvey---Gerrard
----------Sahin-----Henderson-----
Enrique--------------------Johnson
----------Agger-----Skrtel--------
 
I do think he's tweaked things of late and tightened us up, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, we were chasing games from the off and getting hit by teams on the break. I don't really agree about the possession point though, didn't we just go the Bridge and have 53% possession? (Agreed re using Hendo in the DM role btw, nice lineup)
 
I think Allen should be dropped for now, given his poor form and the fact that he doesn't really fit in a 4-2-3-1 and a less possession-oriented game. If we have less of the ball, we need a central midfielder with a better ball-winning ability, and currently the best we have in the squad is Henderson. This way Sahin will move to his natural position and finally have a defensive-oriented partner, like Sven Bender in Dortmund (Henderson is probably about as good as Bender). Actually the whole shape will become more like Dortmund, with Suso (or Shelvey) playing the Kagawa role, Sterling instead of Goetze/Kuba and Gerrard a big improvement on Grosskreutz. This can be quite a strong team and we'll go into January still in a position to challenge for top-4.
 
Allen can compete for the position of a playmaking CM with Sahin for now. Downing can sub for Gerrard occasionally. I would prefer Enrique over Wisdom at this point. Assaidi can compete with Sterling (good luck with that!). This way every position is competitive, except, of course, the striker. We will need this going into the run of holiday fixtures. It would really help if Borini is available by then.
 
So hang on - he's supposed to drop Allen, after a few "indifferent" games for Sahin, who's been worse so far, and Henderson who has never looked like half the player Allen is, even on a bad day.

The problem isn't Allen.

Suarez isn't being greedy and trying to do to much because he doesn't trust his other forwards - he's always over elaborated for us - it's what he does. When it comes off he's a genius and he's in a rich vein of form so you let him go with what he's confident with in his own abilities.

For all Sterling's impact, his end product isn't there - the approach is, but it's not being converted to final ball and goals. Not a criticism - he'll learn, as will Suso & Shelvey, who flatters to deceive - but will come good.

Gerrard is "playing within himself". Is it the injuries catching up? Is he playing out of position? Is it just a question of form? Should he be used more sparingly? Are we just do used to him being so good, that a blip in form is so obvious? Bit of everything, probably, but he'll still have some titanic performances in him.

The real problem is impatience.

The call for Rodgers to change his entire philosophy based on performances of little over a quarter of a season after several years of actual decline are frankly ridiculous.

Yes he's tweaked his apparently "unchangeable system" because he's had to.

If we deal in facts and perceptions, then the deal is, Rodgers wasn't ever going to turn us in to CL contenders in 10 games. We haven't been disgraced in our performances on the League. Mistakes... yes. Frustration.... yes. Failure to get better results than we could have with a more experienced & settled squad.... absolutely.

Dominated in games by either Man Utd, Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea.... don't think so.

We'll get better, because our players are young, learning new tricks and gelling as a team.

We need to 'calm the fuck down', 'chill the fuck out' and 'enjoy the fucking ride', one way another.

..... and I'm spent.... 🙂
 
I keep hearing stories of how unthinkable it is that we should be CL contenders after 10 games and we are club in transition. But there are quite few of the CL contenders that has started poorly, and why shouldn't we be on par with them. is it nessecary to be bottom half even if we are not CL contenders?

I have no big issue by giving people time, but I still expect us to get some good results here and there. We can't use the same excuse every time we don't get a result. There obviously need to be some pressure on us killing of the odd game.
 
I can quite appreciate why managers don't like the suggestion that they should have a Plan B. For one thing, it implies your preferred plan is flawed, which goes against the deepest principles and dearest values they have. It would be just the same if Allardyce was told, 'Maybe, if all of this mad hoofing doesn't work, it might be a good idea to have three elegant ball players on the bench to shake things up...?' For another thing, I'm not sure you could coach players to play one system whilst having another different system available just in case. So in reality Plan B just means tweaking Plan A. And to be fair to Rodgers he's been doing that practically every match. What it surely comes down to is what other players you can get for the bench, offering enough variations in pace and power to inject something different into Plan A. And until we get one or two more forwards and Lucas back we don't have many options to change things in an effective way.
 
Jack D Rips said:
Im convinced somebody has hacked into Macca's account is the past week. Is there any way we can verify his posts?
Click to expand...

Easy, watch.

Hello GkMacca, I came to the conclusion last night that Yesil isn't that good and doesn't really have any potential future here, thoughts?
 
Is it that Allen has played poor the last few games or that our tactical set-up has become so predictable that an obvious counter-tactic is to put as much pressure on the player through whom our play begins...? Or both?

I think Rodgers is set on playing a high-possession game, nothing will change that but there's been good signs that he's capable of making good adjustments during games. Unfortunately at the moment it seems very easy for teams to pinpoint which players to pressure and we're very susceptible to counters, and you'd be a bit stretched to say any of our recent goals are a clear, obvious result of our possession game. Mostly product of set-pieces and hoofs.

Probably the players need a bit more time to learn when to quicken the attack and when to drop back. Lucas of olde for Allen will be a big change. I also don't really see the point of Enrique being involved in the attack and would rather he'd drop center when the play is upfield. Probably Wisdom would be better suited to that role, and with Glen back I don't think Enrique should start.
 
Any plan that involves henderson in the team is an epic fail IMO. Even when allen is having his worst game ever still has more presence on the pitch than hendo. The sooner wastes of space players like downing and henderson go the better. I agree with StevieM in that we just need patience. We all knew that this season was going to be a painful one. If we can get a couple of signings in january we could have a very good second half to the season.
 
I don't think the pain is that bad and there are some good positives from this season so far.

Suarez is showing that his talent is unquestionable, and rubbishing the idea that he can't finish.

We aren't relying on Steven Gerrard anymore - if he can get back to some good form along with Suarez we will be a challenge for many teams.

Even though Rodgers has a specific style of play, We're showing some fight & tactical flexibility because we've been able to come back from being behind - something we weren't doing regularly in our recent past.

Our approach and style are more pleasing on the pitch - the issue is that we have a lot of young players and new players learning to play with each other - the more they play together, the tighter a unit they will become.

We ate blending in our youth with good success - taking a chance in them, giving them confidence that all of them can succeed and with consistent playing time at senior level, they will develop more rapidly.

As pointed out - we've had some pretty tough fixtures at the start - we now have a run if games against opposition we should be able to gather more points from.

That's the test till Xmas.
 
rurikbird said:
I think Allen should be dropped for now, given his poor form and the fact that he doesn't really fit in a 4-2-3-1 and a less possession-oriented game. If we have less of the ball, we need a central midfielder with a better ball-winning ability, and currently the best we have in the squad is Henderson. This way Şahin will move to his natural position and finally have a defensive-oriented partner, like Sven Bender in Dortmund (Henderson is probably about as good as Bender). Actually the whole shape will become more like Dortmund, with Suso (or Shelvey) playing the Kagawa role, Sterling instead of Goetze/Kuba and Gerrard a big improvement on Grosskreutz. This can be quite a strong team and we'll go into January still in a position to challenge for top-4.
Click to expand...

Dropping Allen for Henderson would not improve things. Allen's had a couple of bad games, but he's twice the player Henderson is, and he's not a shithouse to boot.
 
Said this already in the Wigan thread, but I really am astounded that people are not only considering dropping one of our best players, but replacing him with Jordan fucking Henderson? I mean........like........I can't..........FUCKING HELL!
 
I don't understand how Henderson has suddenly become a ball-winner either. One game at right back does not turn him into Mascherano. It wasn't that long ago he was shitting out of tackles as a matter of course. He hustles and he harries, sure, but a ball winner he is not.
 
He came on and changed the game. I might have chosen to start Sahin instead of Allen (simply based on Allen's form in the previous games), but the basic idea that Henderson or another defense-oriented CM gives us better balance at this point has been proven right by this game, I think.
 
Against Wigan. Who were every bit as awful as we were impressive. Personally, I like to see a slightly larger body of evidence before I go drawing conclusions.
 
No chance should hendo start next match

Our midfield was getting completely bypassed against Wigan because of a total lack of mobility from our central 3.

Hendo came on and created pressure.

If suso ups his work rate or Gerrard tries his hardest to not be shit, then our midfield would work well.

But they won't.
 
I love how Allen's getting all the stick, whilst Gerrard's getting away scot-free despite being shite this season.
 
The thing is Rodgers wants to play like we did in the 2nd half yesterday. 1 holding and 2 attacking in the midfield trio.
After Lucas injury Rodgers changed it to 2 holding and 1 attacking. It gave us more control but less pressure in the oppositions half.

If Hendo can do the job until Lucas returns I'd play him every week.
We look so much better with 1 holding midfielder and 2 attacking midfielders. It suits Allen and Gerrard much better aswell.
 
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