The thing about the corner thing is we don't have the belief we will defend it right. This is something bigger than working on it during training, or zonal marking it's a confidence thing and we don't have any confidence we will defend these fucking corners and the opposition has a massive belief they can get something from a corner.
The only way to overcome this is to go on a run not conceding via a corner, especially against lower teams as that's there main source of hope. Individuals won't make a difference and Klopp won't change his methods defending them.
Against West Brom, Klopp talked about how the team mantra was "Don't concede set pieces. Don't concede set pieces. Don't concede set pieces." And we kept a clean sheet. Perhaps they need to repeat the mantra every week?
Allardyce said in his presser that they'd analysed our set piece defence and noted that we are OK on the initial entry but poor on second- and third-balls. So they were looking for near-post flick-ons and that sort of thing. It's something that has driven me nuts all season, how unresponsive our team is to that first touch - look at the goal Pennington scored against us, it's like it never occurred to anyone that the ball could end up six yards out directly in front, and half the Everton team could have strolled in and smashed it home. I'm not sure what the answer is. Could it be that too many players are thinking about the counter-attack and not concentrating on getting the fucker out of there?
Regarding the small squad - either we just don't have durable enough players, or Klopp underestimated the effect of the Xmas period vs. the German winter break. You'd think it's the former, because Klopp was here last Xmas and is no fool. If we had a few more like Firmino, Gini, Clyne and Milner who can be counted on to play 2500+ minutes a season, we'd be better off. Unfortunately we've had two places on the senior list go to waste in Sturridge and Ings, our captain and key midfielder seems to have a chronic injury that makes him an ongoing question mark, our most potent scorer had extracurricular activities to attend to and then picked up an unfortunate break, and we have a plethora of players who are forever picking up niggles that keep them out for a few weeks here and there (Matip, Lallana, Lovren, Klavan, Lucas and to a lesser extent Origi, Can and Coutinho... and Sakho prior to his exile), making it hard to build any sort of continuity or consistency. That's why I've been banging on like a broken record about targeting durable players in the next window. For far too long we have bought injury-prone or injured players (Carroll, Benteke, Aquilani being the most egregiously wasteful examples) and hoped that they can somehow stay fit under the additional workload that comes with a team like Liverpool. Enough of that - the ability to cope with the rigours of premier league football must henceforth be a non-negotiable, not a nice-to-have.
