Our Squad

HEIL MEIN REDS wrote:

donttreadonred wrote:
However, I do expect Milner to be moved more centrally and used in conjunction with Can and Henderson in a Midfield3 (as in your examples above), with the Brazillians predominantly deployed on iether side of a central striker. The roles will likely be variable, though. In other words, some games will feature Henderson and Milner drifting wide to cover the flanks, with Coutinho and Firmino regularly tucking in behind the striker; others will feature the Brazillian's staying wide, with  Henderson and Milner being asked to push forward from the midfield. As much as BR likes to tinker with individual roles and win the "tactical battle", the roles will likely vary depending upon the opponent and whatever weaknesses are identified in their setup.

One other point: I wouldn't be as quick to dismiss Henderson as the "deep-lying midfield". The term is in quotes as I have come to grips with the fact that BR's preferred system does not necessarily deploy a devoted DM. Given our transfers over the last few windows (specifically a lack of targeting a true DM, despite an obvious need), it looks like BR wants to employ a very fluid, dynamic midfield three. With Milner, Can, and Henderson, I think we will see three players interchanging roles regularly. For example, Can may start deep, but push forward with the expectancy that Hendo or Milner will drop deep to cover.

With this in mind, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Henderson given the responsibility of starting as the deepest of the midfield3, being given the responsibility of controlling tempo and distribution. Yes, this will hamper his ability to press and harry, but it also will allow Can the freedom to maraud forward and use his skills and physicality further up the pitch.

Given my preference, I would love to see Can developed as a distributing DM, dropping between the CBs, using his physicality to break-up play, and spraying the ball around like Xabi Alonso. I think he has all the attributes to do so. However, it's hard to guess precisely what BR has in mind for our German stud. After being used in nearly every position other than CF, it's clear he can do a job in nearly any role. I just hope we don't end up making him a "jack of all trades, but master of none".

I think this seems fine, that Henederson and Milner pushing forward. At least on paper this seems like our best team (Lucas saying hi there for deepest role) but I still think we should not dismiss Lallana to be displaced by Firmino automatically. Lallana in this season will definitely be better than last season and who knows Firmino in new league, new team, new city, everything new around might take more time settle.


I think this will be recipe for a defensive disaster. I think these players needed to be allotted clear responsibilities. The midfield organisation is the main reason for BR's Liverpool team being defensively weak. Also I doubt Can will be directly settled in any particular position in midfield 3. He will be used more often in the place of Milner or Henderson imo. And Lucas and Allen are going to compete for that deepest role.

Regardless of what we think should be done, I don’t expect any more concerted effort towards defensive organization this season than last. If our defense is better, it will be down to proper squad selection and the familiarity/understanding that comes with consistency in personnel.

Specifically regarding the midfield, I think it’s safe to assume that Milner and Henderson WILL play. The only real questions remaining are: who plays with them, and what roles are they given. As I’ve said above, everything BR has shown since coming to LFC in the market, in his tactics, and in his selection seems to suggest that he does not believe in assigning one midfielder the role of “shielding” the back four. Moreover, I wouldn’t trust Lucas or Allen with this role at this point in their careers.

Lucas will never be better than he was in that 2011 League Cup match against Chelsea in which he was injured. He’s never fully recovered, and I wouldn’t trust him to physically be able to do the job week-in week-out against Premier League opposition.

Since coming to Liverpool, Allen has been a jack of all trades for the club. Unfortunately, he’s mastered none, and sits behind at least one other player in each of his preferred positions. Moreover, he is not (and never has been) a true DM. He’s effectively a poor-man’s Pirlo when played in that role. He’s most effective when used as a true CM. However, he now has Milner, Henderson and Can (maybe even Coutinho) all fighting for two spots ahead of him.

Mind you, I don’t disagree that we could do with a true DM sat in front of the back four. I merely don’t think Rodgers is going to play with one. Personally, I would sit Can in the DM role. Really, he would effectively be performing the same role he did from RCB in Rodgers’ back-three. He will just be starting from a more central position. Honestly, his stint at CB could be the perfect thing to teach him to curb his attacking instincts and learn to hang back from the play a bit more and support the attack while not neglecting his duties of shielding the defense.

I can already tell that the midfield setup is going to be my “hang-up” with the tactics this season. However, it will certainly be easier to swallow should the team produce positive results.

HEIL MEIN REDS wrote:that first team seems good ! In this season, I feel Milner is going to be a player in this season who is going to frustrate fans because of he starting every game

Nah I think we'll all be satisfied with Milner. He's a good player. In the future we'd all hope for better but for now he'll do to compete for 4th.

Allen is your man for that frustration.

I'm really liking the idea of a Henderson - Can - Milner midfield after watching how hard Rodgers wants the team to press, and high up the pitch.

When we have our best XI on the pitch the pressing is going to be insane from those three plus Firmino and Coutinho. It will definitely help mask our defensive deficiencies (if they are still present).

I guess we will have three-men midfield against away/stronger teams:


While against home games/weaker/PTB teams we will sacrifice a CM (Emre) for an attacker (Lallana):

Haven't you played 4-3-3 in all the pre season games?

Surely that will be the formation you use?

We'll almost definitely play a 4-3-3 and a 4-1-2-1-2. Rodgers is pragmatic though so if it's not working I'm sure he can change it up.

Kick wrote:Haven't you played 4-3-3 in all the pre season games?

Surely that will be the formation you use?

Given the players used in both the formations, it will be very easy to switch to 433. Basically, that will be the key. The core squad can be deployed in variety of formations depending on the situation.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/liverpool-fc-players-goal-targets-9726265

This is actually a pretty good image that I stole from RAWK on how our team looks, and will likely line-up this season. I think Can will start over Lucas, and Allen will provide cover for Henderson, but other than that I think it looks pretty accurate.


Pretty nice actually. I think it also makes the links to Digne a bit more sensible. I think there's a real chance we end up signing him.

What makes you think Can is a better DM than Lucas?

I think he's a more complete player (by a wide margin), and his exploits at CB last season gives me confidence that he can perform a holding role quite well. I think that Rodgers likes footballers that have more than one facet to their game, generally, and the German youth coach said that Can was allegedly promised Gerrard's role.

That said I'm sure they'll both get plenty of game time with our fixture schedule (though Lucas probably even less due to being injury prone).

Can has to phased in like Ibe. Potential is there and he has a higher ceiling than Lucas atm but Can has to do A LOT if he can reach prime Lucas's level.

Emre did mostly well as a CB in the three-man back line last season, but he did struggle a bit, too. And most of those struggles seemed to me like getting caught out of position and letting a player run behind him without getting offside. This is my only worry about Can as a defensive midfielder, that his positional sense and awareness might not be good enough to play DM - at least not yet. You need your DM to keep a track of runners and opposition's off-the-ball movement and that's where Can struggled a little too much last season.

Lucas is the best DM at the club and it's not close. Emre has goat potential as a midfielder (I think he's best as box to box) but currently he's not better than Hendo at BtB and not better than Lucas at DM.

Don't call me James wrote:Lucas is the best DM at the club and it's not close. Emre has goat potential as a midfielder (I think he's best as box to box) but currently he's not better than Hendo at BtB and not better than Lucas at DM.

This is a true statement only by default. Lucas is the only first-team DM at the club.

Allen is not a DM. He can play in that role similar to the way Gerrard could play in that role (with approximately half of the ability, and that's not meant as a slight to Allen).

Can could be a DM. However, at the moment, he's far more of a B2B CM. His physicality and his time at CB last season give me hope that he can play as DM in the future, but he's not true DM, yet.

The biggest question here is whether you think Rodgers will play with a true DM. Personally, I'm not convinced. He's shown no inclination to pursue a true DM in the market and hasn't fielded one regularly in his time at the club. My guess woul be that Can will eventually start as the deepest CM, but the other two (likely Milner and Hendo in most matches) will be expected to rotate responsibilities in a fairly fluid, three-man midfield.

we are going to struggle a bit this season in terms of both defense and attack if we play Henderson and Milner together as we did today. So I hope it was just an experiment.
It is clear that we are going to depend on our pressing for the defense purpose. The only way Allen is going to feaure this season is in that deepest position. Even BR has realised that he cant grow Allens balls for playing as a B2B. So we will see plenty of Can when we need to rest Milner or Henderson. By no means and with no clues, it seems like BR has fixed Can's position for deepest midfield. So I am curious in which direction goes the career of Emre Can !!

Is anyone else a little worried that our winger options are a little questionable?

Coutinho won't play on the wing.
Ibe is young and we don't know how good he is yet.
Markovic seems to be out of the picture.
Lallana isn't a winger.
Firmino isn't a winger, yes?
Origi, we don't know how he'll do.
Teixeira is another unknown quantity, might leave even.

We've got a lot of good attacking midfielders, but I'm a little worried that if we lack natural width and wingers who make runs and can beat defenders with their pace and skill, we might become too narrow and too easy to defend against. I thought it was a bit of an issue already against Stoke, we couldn't get behind their defence and, apart from Ibe, played too narrow. It's something to keep an eye on.

Hoping we can get rid of Balotelli, Borini and Texeira.

I don't think it's necessary to play with wingers when you have fullbacks that are more or less wingbacks like Clyne, Moreno and Gomez that can spread the width and allow us to clog up the middle of the field.

I think it's too early to write off Markovic though. Origi and Firmino can both push the play wide, but are more or less inside forwards. Both Henderson and Milner also seem to have the tendency to move out into wide areas from the center of the pitch when not making penetrative runs.

Rodgers has never really used a ton of width in general though. He's had forwards that will push the play out wide, but even through his most successful spells almost everything goes through the middle.

I don't think our full-backs are good enough going forward to offer what actual wingers offer. You'd have to be someone like Marcelo anyway to do to that.

They don't need to be like legitimate wingers. Just players that are capable of providing width when needed. Watch Henderson play (at least the last two seasons). He'll end up collecting the ball and moving out wide, or starting in a wide position, and cross the ball in from deep or make a nice through ball.

I find for the most part out central players often enough move off the ball to wide areas to create space, and then drive through the middle with the ball or move the ball through the middle. Having Benteke there now as well as capable attacking fullbacks (Clyne, Moreno, and even Gomez to an extent) will allow us to keep the other team honest from the flanks also.

Guys like Ibe, Markovic and Origi to a lesser extent are all alternate options for if we really need to overload the wideplay because the middle is too clogged up.

I'm not convinced. We'll see.

So, I thought a little about our squad and what I wanted to ask is. Is anyone else a little worried that our winger options are a little questionable?

Coutinho won't play on the wing.
Ibe is young and we don't know how good he is yet.
Markovic seems to be out of the picture.
Lallana isn't a winger.
Firmino isn't a winger, yes?
Origi, we don't know how he'll do.
Teixeira is another unknown quantity, might leave even.

We've got a lot of good attacking midfielders, but I'm a little worried that if we lack natural width and wingers who make runs and can beat defenders with their pace and skill, we might become too narrow and too easy to defend against. I thought it was a bit of an issue already against Stoke, we couldn't get behind their defence and, apart from Ibe, played too narrow. It's something to keep an eye on.

IMO we should get Pedro if he's available. Thoughts?

That's an excellent post, Fußball, I wholeheartedly agree, but unfortunately there's no way Barcelona are selling a world-class player like Pedro. We should look anywhere else but there.

Art Morte wrote:That's an excellent post, futbol

Thanks, appreciated. I put a lot of thought into the team I support and this was one of the glaring question marks for me after watching our first Premier League game this season and I wanted to hear people's opinion on it.

Art Morte wrote:but unfortunately there's no way Barcelona are selling a world-class player like Pedro. We should look anywhere else but there.

IMO we might convince Barca to sell us Pedro if we also offer Barca to take Alex Song off them. I think Alex Song is available and what better replacement for Lucas, if the bust-up rumours with beaut of a manager Brendan are true, than Premier League proven Alex Song?

Thoughts?

If you promise to remain with us for this whole season, I can support you for this petition. Alex Song and Pedro, both IN