I think we have a case of the Benteke. Absolutely no competition for him and the result is someone who looks lazy and disinterested. Obviously has talent and great on his day, but just isn't showing it lately.
To be fair the 4-3-3 isn't the best system for a lone striker. Besides Coutinho who's really in form behind him? Needs time in my opinion.
He's the point of our attack and even when he isn't playing well he makes defenders worry about him and play deeper than they usually would. Not a great game tonight but he does a job by being on the pitch.
Studge has been out all season, and I guarantee you when you get hit with a few injuries in a row like he has, phsychologically you'd tend to hold back for a while. He has been out almost all season. The service needs to be better, he makes great runs and never gets the ball.
Thought he grew into the game to be fair to him. System doesn't suit him and he doesn't have a world class partner like Suarez next to him. He was overhyped during his injury but he's a lot better than what we've seen.
He had to drop really deep in the first half. Rectified in the second. Still seems like he's not making the same runs as he did last year......although that's much easier to do when Suarez tears open defences and leaves acres of space to run into. Therein lies our problem this year!
He is in decent positions and you could see from his goal v burnely that he is trying to get in behind What we need is to get him up there. Last night he was too deep all the time
From the few matches i saw (besiktas, City, Southampton), he's not been on his game at all. He's lost that frightening speed and dribbling ability where he used to ghost past players and he's been a lot more greedy on the ball, trying to do stuff that he was pulling off before. I don't know whether its because theres been no suarez in the team, or he hasn't recovered from his injury or whether he thinks he's the big fish and can now ball hog (Suarez used to do this until last year)
Suarez was different class.....and any player will benefit from him in the team. The first time I watched him live was unbelievable.....that guy knew exactly what he was going to do with the ball before it reached him. He created space for everyone else and we really miss that this year. Who wouldn't!?
He should be, but so far he hasn't been able to, especially considering how good Countinho has been when i've been watching. When they first joined they had a real good connection even without Suarez and Coutinho was feeding in all those sick through balls to Sturridge. This season that hasn't really happened. In fact you're whole attack seems to have slowed down a bit and only looks dangerous in spurts (looked great against City). Recently it's been your defence that has been winning you games and i'm just not sure whats happened to your Attack. You look good passing the ball around and getting the ball to the penalty area on the counter but the end product just hasn't really been there.
He's always been greedy. It was slightly different last year because he had the third best player in the world alongside him so Studge become a better team player. since returning this year he's reverted back to the previous greedy player. Whether that is because he doesn't trust his teammates to do the business or Brod has told him to be a typical greedy striker, I don't know. He needs to get back to how he was performing last year but it is still early after his injury troubles.
Yea he was extremely greedy at Chelsea and at City trying to do it all and shooting. Last year he was either scoring his worldies (most of the time) and being a great team player. This year he's not been doing that and he's reverted to type and losing possession. I just hope for my anti Liverpool bias he remains the same
TBF though, he's only played thirteen games this year (scoring four) because of injury. He got a few shots away last night but mainly on his wrong peg. H is slowly improving IMO
It is our defence and midfield too.. We are not scoring enough and any side wanting a point has a good chance I will predict right now.... If utd just come not to lose lFC will struggle big time to score. I don't see us pulling an arsenal style hammering on anyone
That is true I must say that coutinho was marked out of it and lallana and sterling were crap too People say we changed to diamond in second and instantly could press but I dunno. I just thought a rocket was needed really and sort out rwb slot Neither sterling nor lallana were willing to press and once again it was can who had to sort it out in said diamond Message is get Ibe back in ASAP and drop one or both guys who would not play there
We increased the numbers in midfield, Rodgers said we went 3 4 3 diamond but when we had not got the ball we were at times 3 6 1, so Swansea either had to move people to the middle to combat this and leave space in behind or drop back, they did the latter as I knew they would when I called for 451 with no ball at half time.. we were almost 3 6 1 without the ball, close enough but as expected the increased numbers in the middle gave Swans the choice of trying to match us there or dropping back. This is why they looked poorer in the second half, not because they were tired as the commentator had said at one point but because we took over midfield, mainly by having 6 or 7 players in our half when bringing out the ball, we just played through them so they fell bak. This is what I keep banging on about, players being closer together when we are playing the likes of that so we can play through, if we are outnumbered then the ams need to drop back in to help win the ball and outnumber the opponents in areas. The other side is, when they drop back we need to be clever, we were not, and had Henderson not got that one we were destined for a draw as we didn't really look like properly breaking them down. Gerrard's best contribution was it calmed everyone down, he took responsibility and even henderson looked like a weight was lifted off of him
Defenders is the main one for me. Coutinho, Henderson, Sterling, Lallana and even Markovic have chiped in with goals from midfield but I can't remember the last goal a defender scored, surely it's not Moreno's effort at the start of the season? I've a feeling Skrtel's got one not too long ago but I'm not sure.
