23 Jan 2018 12:15:59
The biggest thing to say about last night was that it wasn’t a disaster, 9 times out of 10 we’d have got a draw out of that game and 7 out of 10 we would have won. Swansea had a well laid out plan that gave them the best chance to take points off of us and the cards fell very kindly for them. Swansea desereva lot of credit, they were calm, patient and their players followed the plan to the letter.



Whilst I’m not too upset about one result it does raise questions. Klopp has done a lot to dampen the Liverpool cliché this season, the one where we’re superb in open games but struggle against conservative and determined defences, but the last eight days belong to last year’s Liverpool and if we reverting to type then the next four months will be harder than we anticipate.



People continue to compare our work rate when we play well to when we play badly as if it’s an application problem which causes our bad results. This isn’t true, Liverpool worked just as hard last night as they did against City, the difference is what that hard work brings. Against City when we closed down the ball in their half the City players didn’t have options to release the ball because most of the team was ahead of the ball. This allowed us to steal the ball, overload the remaining defenders and score. Against Swansea this wasn’t the case, there was always someone in space behind the ball to receive it and Liverpool couldn’t unsettle them. This is the fundamental reason why are tactics work better against better opposition, they play in to our hands.



A big criticism I’ve read is that our play was slow but I disagree, we were trying to be patient and that’s what these games need. When there’s no space for our speedsters to exploit we’ve got to be cleverer with the ball, we’ve got to pull the defenders out of position and exploit the gaps we create and that’s where the Coutinho problem rears it’s head. We need the string puller, the guy who runs the show and can find those gaps, we don’t have one at the club right now. That game showed Can and Wiji’s limitations as players, they’re workhorses not artists. AOC is better but his game is more about his own movement than the ball’s, we’re missing something from our armoury and if we don’t get it this month I can’t see the second half of the season going as well as hoped.



As a final thought I want to praise VVD, yes it was his mistake that led to Swansea’s goal but beyond that I thought he was excellent. I want to compare him to Sakho, the last defender we had who looked like he relished defending. Physically and technically I think they’re similar players (although VVD is a far, far better header of the ball) but the difference was Sakho always looked on the edge of control, like he was scared of what the ball was about to do. VVD is the opposite, he is so, so calm. I expect this is where his reputation for not trying comes from but from my perspective I think this is just the attitude of a man who is confident and in control. Add in the fact that he seems to relish responsibility and I’m starting to see why he was so highly rated by parts of the media. What really excites me is that there’s a resemblance to Hyppia in how he carries himself and, as far as I’m concerned, there is no greater compliment a defender can receive.

1.) 23 Jan 2018
23 Jan 2018 12:56:12
Good post.

2.) 23 Jan 2018
23 Jan 2018 14:24:41
thing that surprised me about yesterday was the lack of energy in the team, considering that they had much longer to rest for it than our last 10+ games.

3.) 23 Jan 2018
23 Jan 2018 14:38:21
good post Putney, but playing TAA and not Wini, would have given us more width on the right side, and Robbo playing more forward passes, more so in the 1st half, would have put us on the front foot more often .

4.) 23 Jan 2018
23 Jan 2018 14:32:18
City plays open football while Swansea let us have the ball. There is a big difference. You don’t need to press a team who doesn’t want to keep the ball. Here comes the intelligent part of the game. City always give their opposition space to run behind, something we used at will.

Swansea just sat back and made it a China wall and we tried penetrating it through the middle from 1st min to 90th min. Klopp was hoping for someone to perform magic rather than alternating the team to suit the play!

There are ways to break the parked bus, but you need to work on it. Not just sit back and expect one player to score from 30 yards!

5.) 23 Jan 2018
23 Jan 2018 14:36:06
Putney, this is the best summation I've read since last night's hysteria.