Roundtable: Sevilla 3 - 3 Liverpool

Posted by BabuYagu on November 22, 2017, 02:22:26 pm

Normally I try to give the game a second look before a roundtable post. Because in the heat of the moment, emotion exaggerate how you view every event in the game that affects the team you love most. Plus you tend to completely miss/forget a lot of important details as you develop a kind of tunnel vision - and you will notice this a lot with my post here as a lot of this will disagree with how each of you saw the game - each of our own tunnels was focused on different things. Also it will probably wildly disagree with the statistical models for the game which I will tag on at the end but not analyse much at all myself. This one I can't. That was just too painful to watch in the end. Identical to that Europa League final in terms of performance.

Fans/Pundits tend to look at individuals when being critical in games, when in reality it is better to look at units, areas, zones if you want to see where the problems are. Individual mistakes are just lazy analysis so I won't focus much on that either here as we didn't lose our foothold in the game because of mistakes, but because we never really had that strong a foothold to begin with. Several players had a mare, most obviously Moreno & Coutinho who were brought off. The most interesting question is why. Was something happening that was contributing to that?

For me the biggest problems on the pitch were:-
1. How Sevilla were opening up our half spaces, particularly on our left.
2. Benega was then killing us in them
3. We couldn't link play at all
4. Our attack couldn't retain the ball
5. Because of 1 & 2 we struggled when under pressure
6. Because of 3 & 4 we were constantly under pressure

That was in both halves by the way IMO. It just gradually escalated into a crescendo up to the point Moreno & Coutinho came off. But even then the problems were never really solved. We just shored up that left half space better. It was as if the first half was just Sevilla taking some punches to size us up but at no point were we in control of the game. The first half we had a couple of successful set pieces and a counter attack which somewhat masked the flow of the first half, but the warning signs were there. I was hoping they would just give up at 3-0.

The pluses?
1. Karius generally looked good
2. Lovren generally defended the box well. I still maintain he is our only center back to whom that statement will ever apply. The other three are too passive, as exemplified by Klavan a few times and most notably on the header at the end. Which is why if we are going to be under any pressure in a big game, we will need Lovren in there. We do need to add a similar, better quality version of him ASAP though. Ideally one who can defend the rest of the pitch as well as Matip and the box as well as Lovren. Sounds a lot like VVD when you say it like that.
3. Gini generally did a good job of protecting the half space on the right and covering for Henderson's excursions out of his #6 position.
4. The attacking 3 were quite clinical with the chances they had. Arguably could have had a couple more with Firmino 1-v-1 and Can's attempted square pass to Mane.
5. The result and position in the group with 1 game to go.

I don't want to focus on the pluses today, because I don't think people really care when you throw away a 3-0. I'd rather try to frame the negatives in a way that we can make better sense of them instead of just labelling individuals as shite.

#1. Sevilla were opening up our half spaces, particularly on our left.
If you want to watch the game back, and I don't, this was a very noticeable occurrence. Klavan was also getting dragged out there way too much. Without a natural #6, we did a bad job of covering when that happened. Usually Gabriel Marcado (a real shithouse of a player btw) was maintaining width and dragging Moreno out to him, Sarabia was attacking the space that was creating. Or Sarabia would create an overload on that side to pin Moreno quite central and they would run off the back of him. Either way they had a lot of success on our left and gave Moreno so many problems to deal with, I think he was mentally exhaused at half time. However, while Gini was very disciplined in protecting this space on our right, which effective nullified Nolito, N'Zonzi & Escudero on that side most of the game, Coutinho was nowhere to be seen.

#2. Benega was then killing us in them
This was creating a nice hole in the half space in front of Moreno for Banega to operate in at times and he was picking us apart. Moreno tried charging down the ball there at one point late in the first half which almost resulted in a goal but for good movement off his line by Karius. The warning signs were there though. Personally I would have switched Gini to that side but I guess we want Coutinho cutting in on his left and therefore attacking threat was preferred over defensive stability. It was killing us though.

I remember mentioning in one of Klopp's first games against Chelsea, we destroyed Ramires and Mikel that day by giving them so many problems, in the end they just shut down. They had Lallana, Firmino & Coutinho constantly in their zones, with Milner & Can also dropping in and out. They were constantly on the move. When they tracked a runner, that left their partner with 2 or 3 problems to solve alone. When they left the runner, the defence would get opened up. What to do? They were mentally exhausted. If you give someone several problems at once and with seemingly no good potential outcomes for whichever choice they make, eventually they mentally shut down. So constantly having 3 people operating in your space with minimal assistance in a problem. Add to that you are having minimal sleep after a new born and your natural limit to deal with that situation (as we saw at Hoffenheim) is probably a lot lower to begin with. Not excuses for Moreno, just an explanation for what we saw. They wore him down in the first half, by the end of it he was trying to solve the problem at source (Banega) rather than deal with multiple problems in his zone by himself. When that failed, he looked out of options. In the second half he would just have to stay in position, react to the problems around him and get picked off by Banega. He couldn't cope with it.

#3. We couldn't link play at all
The passing stats from last night were grim reading and we have all seen them. The touches per minute played stat is even worse though with Henderson coming in dead last - even including subs and Karius - which is incredible to see for a #6. The strange thing for me was how we fared much better working the ball out on the right (Gomez, Gini, Salah) then we did on the left (Moreno, Coutinho, Mane). I honestly have no explanation for that. Coutinho in particular was awful in possession. Sevilla did a great job of just shutting that side of the pitch down though. Pizarro in particular. We got caught in possession in our left half space in midfield 5 times last night, compared to just twice on the other side.

Like the Europa league final, Sevilla showed that if you press our central midfield, we cannot turn and play out. Surprisingly, Coutinho was as bad as anybody here when in reality, we we expect him to be the big part of the solution. Gini probably fared best of the three here. We would hope having Lallana or Keita in midfield would help alleviate the problem in future. However we do need someone in that #6 position who can receive, turn, pass through or out of pressure because we don't have that at the moment in either Can or particularly Henderson it seems.

However, my biggest problem of the night was actually Firmino. Or precisely, how we used him. He is now playing as striker for us, not a false 9. You go back and watch that first game against Sevilla, or the Arsenal win, or the game against Bayern in pre-season and you see us playing with a box in midfield when in a mid-block. Henderson+Gini in front of the defence. Can+Firmino in front of them. With Salah and Mane staying higher and wider to press the center backs and track full backs. So when the ball was central, they play in half spaces pressing the defence towards the sides. When the ball is wide, they track the full back ball side while the other remains central as a striker and a box in midfield.

This protects our half spaces much better as you have effectively two sixes, two eights and they are both positioned in or near the half spaces at all times. You are only really vulnerable on quick switches of play but even then you back your full backs to slow things down while the box scuttles across to plug things up again. And it worked well, generally.

However, last night Firmino wasn't doing any of that. He was playing as a proper striker, pressing the defence and occassionally the defensive midfield from behind. But he wasn't getting behind the ball and being part of the midfield shape. As a result, the midfield shape was just 3, not 4. One of whom, Coutinho, was constantly leaving us exposed on one side. Effectively, rather than a #6 and #8 protecting our half space on the left against Bayern/Hoffenheim(A)/Arsenal - tonight we had a #10.

But the problems don't stop there, because once you regain possession in that tight box shape, you will immediately have overloads through the middle to play through the press. So while we had a reasonably compact shape on the right to play out through - hence how Gomez, Gini & Salah had some joy over there - on the left though we had none of that.

I personally think the change in Firmino's role is a big problem. He gets through a fierce amount of work in that midfield role for us and the trade off for him getting an extra ~2 chances per game on the counter to score doesn't seem great if we end up completely open through the middle off the ball and incapable of playing out when we do actually regain it.

#4. Our attack couldn't retain the ball
As a result of #3, Sevilla did a good job of splitting our shape into 3 units. Defence, midfield and attack. All fluidity was gone. The midfield could be isolated as Henderson is very easy to mark. Therefore the only option was to bypass midfield and look to the attack earlier (especially on our left, as mentioned). With our collection of small, pacey forwards, it's no surprise that Mane & Firmino struggled to win/keep possession then. I read that Mane won 4 headers in midfield last night - I hate to imagine how many long balls he was competing for to hit that amount. But it was a lot!

So in summary then - we really need to get back to being more compact and quickly. There are some individuals who look like they will always be clashing with the roles they are asked to perform in our system. Nobody looks suitable to play the #6 role. Grujic & Ejaria have been trying out the role for the U23 side with some successes recently, so will be interesting to see if one of them gets given the chance at some point in the role, likely in the FA Cup, for the first team. Suspect we will ultimately need to spend big there. Keita and Lallana will help sort out the problem with our #8's there. Them +Gini look a good set of options for those positions in the future, although age isn't on the side of Lallana there. Firmino isn't a focal point striker for me. We either play him as a false #9, which works for him and our system, or use Origi/Solanke who can play as that focal point to build attacks off the way Spurs use Kane or he used Lewa at Dortmund. However, if we are going to use a focal point like this, then Salah/Mane/Coutinho all need to drop in to be part of the midfield off the ball and in the build up to the attack - just as Reus/Kagawa/Kuba would at Dortmund behind Lewa. Having 3 or 4 players high up the pitch early in our attacking phase just leaves us exposed in midfield and with very little depth in our shape to retain possession in attack. I also think our new conservative full backs is part of the problem here also and have mentioned as such in the past.

We have gone from defending less, with fewer players, to defending more, with more players. Our shape is quite rigid making it hard for us to build attacks properly.

I personally think the losses of Lallana & Clyne are hurting us the most here. Our right side was killing us the first two months of the season without Lallana to play through the lines on the right of midfield and with neither Gomez & TAA able to play the role of full back adequately. We had quickly conceded 6 goals from our RB either making a clear mistake (particularly TAA) or being easily beaten (particularly Gomez). Whereas Clyne is one of the most solid right backs around in terms of 1-v-1 and rarely makes a mistake.

Ultimately though, and I have been saying it all season, I think it's almost impossible to assess the problems of the team with a dysfunctional midfield. If you look at the Arsenal game earlier in the season - Ramsey playing the #8 role much as Coutinho did last night caused Arsenal no end of problems. We had spaces in dangerous places and overloads they couldn't solve and thrashed them for it. Everyone from Xhaka, Chamberlain, Holding and many others appeared to have a shocker largely down to the most important area of the pitch not functioning. Fast forward a few weeks and largely the same personnel play against Chelsea in the same system. This time Ramsey plays as a disciplined #8 similar to Gini for us, and with a functional midfield the defence no longer looks so shit, the midfield exists to build up attacks and link play, the forward has support in attack. Which means, for me, until we have a functional midfield, these problems will keep popping up as sides work out how to expose Henderson & Can as 6's.

Anyway, sorry for the lack of graphics, data etc on this op. Meant to be working and just wanted to quickly jot down my thoughts/observations of the game. I'm sure there is a lot more that I missed too, I actually just gave up noting things down after 60 minutes and focused on chewing the fuck out of my fingers instead! I would like to avoid turning this into a player bashing thread or transfer thread - as both just act as a call to lock the thread. So with that in mind - how did you see the game? How can we solve those problems from within?

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