Match Day Liverpool v Burnley, Sunday 12th March 16:00

[SALTIRE]

Match chat.

 

[G-Dragon]

Will be lucky to get a draw out of this game...

 

[SALTIRE]

Not this time; this time we fight, this time we show them, this time we win!!!

 

[Pagnell]

Confident of a win here, despite the fact you can pretty much guarantee Burnley will have all 10 of their outfield players camped in and around their 18 yard box for 98% of the game. And why not? Such tactics have worked so often against us this season. But I get the impression the Liverpool players are now fully aware how fucked off the fans are becoming with this "beat the big teams, lose to the small ones" shit we have had going on in recent months. Both Klopp and the players need to have a plan b for the flat, defensive tactics teams like this employ against us, particularly at Anfield.

2-1.

 

[RobotSophie]

2-0 to Liverpool is my guess

 

[Bilo]

Confident of a win here, despite the fact you can pretty much guarantee Burnley will have all 10 of their outfield players camped in and around their 18 yard box for 98% of the game. And why not? Such tactics have worked so often against us this season. But I get the impression the Liverpool players are now fully aware how fucked off the fans are becoming with this "beat the big teams, lose to the small ones" shit we have had going on in recent months. Both Klopp and the players need to have a plan b for the flat, defensive tactics teams like this employ against us, particularly at Anfield.

2-1.

I've felt the same way for the past three debacles though. You just can't not be confident at home to Burnley.

 

[Abertawe]

Confident of a win here, despite the fact you can pretty much guarantee Burnley will have all 10 of their outfield players camped in and around their 18 yard box for 98% of the game. And why not? Such tactics have worked so often against us this season.

Which is why you've conceded 34 goals so far this season. That's 4 goals more than Middlesbrough. Honestly it wouldn't harm you to think before you type on occasion.

 

[Pagnell]

Which is why you've conceded 34 goals so far this season. That's 4 goals more than Middlesbrough. Honestly it wouldn't harm you to think before you type on occasion.

As regularly seen in the politics forum, attempting to be clever doesn't suit you Abertawe. We have conceded that many goals because, in our attempts to break these teams down, we're regularly caught on the break and our defence and keepers are shit. We also regularly concede even when we win games for the same reason; the players who are in the pitch to protect the midfield simply don't cut the mustard and both Karius and Mignolet barely qualify as top flight keepers.

If you had bothered to watch the type of games I'm referring to at Anfield, you would have seen the type of defensive play I'm referring to, because it consistently brings good results for the teams that choose to do so. And it's no coincidence we get our best results against the teams that are too proud to sit behind the ball and instead attack us, playing to our strengths. See Spurs and Arsenal.

 

[SALTIRE]

Origi starts as thought in place of Firmino. Still no Hendo.

Heaton back in for Burnley, will probably play another blinder.

Won't be able to see the game as heading out, 'mon the Reds!

 

[Abertawe]

As regularly seen in the politics forum, attempting to be clever doesn't suit you Abertawe. We have conceded that many goals because, in our attempts to break these teams down, we're regularly caught on the break and our defence and keepers are shit. We also regularly concede even when we win games for the same reason; the players who are in the pitch to protect the midfield simply don't cut the mustard and both Karius and Mignolet barely qualify as top flight keepers.

If you had bothered to watch the type of games I'm referring to at Anfield, you would have seen the type of defensive play I'm referring to, because it consistently brings good results for the teams that choose to do so. And it's no coincidence we get our best results against the teams that are too proud to sit behind the ball and instead attack us, playing to our strengths. See Spurs and Arsenal.

You've also scored more goals than anyone else in the league. So teams are either shit at camping or you're talking cobblers. History would tell us it's the cobblers option. Think before you type sir.

 

[johnnytodd]

Nice fair and balanced pundits on Sky Sports again I see.

Both Liverpool fans.

Fucking beauts Sky fair do's.

 

[Pagnell]

You've also scored more goals than anyone else in the league. So teams are either shit at camping or you're talking cobblers. History would tell us it's the cobblers option. Think before you type sir.

I should be surprised you need this explaining to you, but strangely I'm not. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you haven't looked into the details.

The majority of our goals were scored December and prior, when we were on a scorching run and the defensive tactics specified had less of an effect because we were better at breaking teams down. We were still conceding a lot as the defence was still shit (our first clean sheet was against United in October), but scoring more than the opposition so the points were stacking up. But we've struggled with our attack since the turn of the year, as a result of injuries to Lallana and Coutinho, and Mane going to the ACON. Hence our shit form and certain teams employing the park the bus tactic more successfully, particularly at Anfield which led to my original post in the thread.

 

[DarkSithLord]

1-0 Burnley!

 

[Pagnell]

Great start.

 

[Abertawe]

I should be surprised you need this explaining to you, but strangely I'm not. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you haven't looked into the details.

The majority of our goals were scored December and prior, when we were on a scorching run and the defensive tactics specified had less of an effect because we were better at breaking teams down. We were still conceding a lot as the defence was still shit (our first clean sheet was against United in October), but scoring more than the opposition so the points were stacking up. But we've struggled with our attack since the turn of the year, as a result of injuries to Lallana and Coutinho, and Mane going to the ACON. Hence our shit form and certain teams employing the park the bus tactic more successfully, particularly at Anfield which led to my original post in the thread.

Not buying it I'm afraid. You'd earn more respect if you just held your hands up and admitted you haven't been good enough rather than trying to slur other teams.

 

[Pagnell]

Not buying it I'm afraid. You'd earn more respect if you just held your hands up and admitted you haven't been good enough rather than trying to slur other teams.

I've never once claimed we've been good enough, we haven't, particularly since the turn of the year. Teams employ the type of tactics I'm talking about because it works, we fail to break them down when we should be able to and thanks to the defence they can get us on the break far too easily. It's not a slur, it's the sensible thing for them to do.

You can do better than this, surely?

 

[Abertawe]

I've never once claimed we've been good enough, we haven't, particularly since the turn of the year. Teams employ the type of tactics I'm talking about because it works, we fail to break them down when we should be able to. It's not a slur, it's the sensible thing for them to do.

You can do better than this, surely?

No you're attempting to be patronising to other teams to disguise your crapness. The reality is teams haven't been parking the bus as borne out by you conceding loads and scoring more than any other side. You won't go to prison if you admit you're wrong mr pagnell.

 

[Pagnell]

OK, maybe you can't.

 

[Super_horns]

Not sure Heaton has had a save to make...

As I say that Liverpool score!

 

[Pagnell]

Not sure Heaton has had a save to make...

He has, he just didn't manage it.

Great equaliser.

 

[Abertawe]

OK, maybe you can't.

It's comes to something when Bilo is the most considered & balanced Liverpool fan on the forum.

 

[Pagnell]

2-1 great strike.

 

[SALTIRE]

Ground it out, big result.

 

[Pagnell]

Cracking result. Burnley made it hard but we were worthy winners.

 

[SALTIRE]

Woodburn really is going to be a class player, seems just to know what to do in every situation - maybe he could teach Can about that! Shouldn't slag off the latter since he grabbed a peach of a winner though

 

[Super_horns]

Burnley have been pretty unlucky in recent away games..

 

[Bilo]

A win is a win but we weren't very good at all. We lose such an incredible amount of work rate when both Firmino and Henderson are out. Missing Lovren too, Klavan had a bright start here but he can't be relied on regularly.

Would take a draw at City now.

 

[G-Dragon]

Burnley can fuck back off to championship!

 

[Bilo]

Watching the highlights again two things stand out for me:

We were obviously trying to mix it up, sometimes hitting it long and sometimes playing it out of the back. Formation wise, it's easy to see how we set up differently for each purpose -- we were at times very wide, opening the channels for Mignolet to Klavan to Milner, or Mignolet to Matip to Clyne. Then at times we were incredibly narrow, closing the channels but improving our chances to win the second ball.

However, as Burnley pressed, we seem to panic incredibly easily (50-odd long balls from Migs/Matip/Klavan) and I lost count of how many times we seemed to set up to play it out, only to hoof it long with Origi basically having to win the ball by himself. Which he managed to do a grand total of 0 times. This has a lot to do with confidence rather than tactics, imo, the wide to play/narrow to hit setup isn't controversial, we just don't have the defenders to use it properly. Or rather, our defenders are way, way too shy to risk taking in any reasonable sense of the word so they didn't even really try.

Secondly, the long balls that we played were pretty much all wrong and this was much more down to tactics I think. Burnley didn't sit as deep as one could have expected, but even then from ten minutes onwards somebody (Klopp) should have told the players to hit it into the channels, rather than onto the head of Origi. We did do this once or twice, a good example was early on was when Mané beat Mee for pace and just slightly overhit the cross denying Origi a certain goal, or at least a very clear cut chance. But we didn't even seem to try to do it on a regular basis.

So what we ended up doing was fighting for second balls all game, with the same problem in both ends of the pitch: when Origi won the ball, or at least caused some trouble, he was too far off for us to win the second ball. When Can won the ball, the exact same thing happened (until Lucas came on). So despite the two being good in the air, we spent the whole match being underdogs for the second ball because Burnley were narrow and we were ... well, everywhere.

Play that game 10 times and we wouldn't win it twice. We got lucky with Can's one in a hundred shot and there's no way around it. That was a very tight, even game settled by a moment of individual skill that very well could have gone against us. For some reason I find it harder to see what's tactics and what's the players in Klopp's system because it involves so much creative freedom (contrary to Rafa, for example, where almost every decision was pre-instructed). But whether it's because Matip thinks it's illegal to pass by the first line of press, or he's told that Origi just has to beat two defenders twice as good as him in the air and chase down the second ball on his own, it's not working.

Next up is City. We might not win but I'm confident we'll play very well. It's what we do.

 

[Pagnell]

We were bad and despite the win it was incredibly frustrating to watch. But it shouldn't be ignored that it was the first game we have won that, on paper, we should have since Stoke in December.