1. We are high on entertainment value, aren't we? Are we in danger of being fun to support next season?
We could easily end up being a lot of supporters' "Second team", in the way Newcastle under Keegan were, or to a lesser extent Liverpool under Evans. That's all fine and dandy, but if we put up any sort of challenge for the league, that will, of course, peter out and some supporters from other teams will go back to hating us
2. How did we manage the midfield and defence while starting with the 3 at the back? Did you pine for Gerrard? Did you like the system?
I, of course, liked the system. But the problem was that it isolated Sturridge and Coutinho - not just in terms of support, but in terms of the plan to attack. It was predictable, and Johnson and Enrique weren't offering anything creative to lighten the load. On top of that, we rarely saw Henderson and Shelvey break beyond Sturridge on the counter, so it was relatively easy thing to defend. I don't think Gerrard would have made much difference with his passing, but his willingness to burst forward might have given Fulham something to think about. He also would have played Enrique into the game more, and that might have encouraged the team to push up more aggressively. What I liked about it, though, is that the central area was covered, and there were no real nerve-jangling moments on short goal kicks.
On the other hand, in the second half, there were several "heart-in-mouth" moments when Reina elected to play short when he had no real options to do so, and one bad touch from Lucas or badly weighted pass from Reina could have seen them in on goal (and they threatened that once or twice). The problem with the way we played the 3-5-2, though, was that it was really a 3-6-1, and that is just a turgid balance of players. It really needed the midfield to be Lucas-Henderson-Coutinho, and Borini-Sturridge up front to have more of an effect. This would have spread the Fulham defence more, and given Coutinho two points of attack to look for. As it was, he only had the one, and that made our play too predictable in the first half - exactly the situation all defences want to be in.
3. How did the fringe players do in staking their claims?
Shelvey had one of his better games, but his limitations (for me) are still all too obvious. I agree (and have been saying for ages too) with Yorkykopite, that he needs a serious eye test. But I paid special attention to Shelvey yesterday, and watched his head and eyes every time he was within playing range. It's always interesting when you're scouting an individual player, to see what he has. First you look at his general fitness - is he sharp, quick, agile, does he have good separation speed, is he strong, can he jump, etc? Then you look at his first touch, his second touch, his 1v1 ability, his passing range and his shot. After that, though, you want to see what his game IQ is, and there are a few "tells" that you can look for that give the game away very quickly. The first one is positional discipline. Unless he's clearly the "free" player, if he starts in a "set" position but ends up wandering all over the place, then that is a black mark against him. Shelvey has a tendency to do this, but yesterday he was quite disciplined in the first half, and when he was moved out to the left for the second half, he only occasionally drifted inside when he shouldn't have. The second one, and the one that I was paying attention to, is his reading of the game - and more specifically, how his head and eyes move when he doesn't have the ball. And this is Shelvey's big let-down - he doesn't look up and scan the field until the ball is at his feet. He moves, he receives, he looks up, and then he plays. He also consistently looks for the "big" pass rather than playing the simpler pass. This means he isn't seeing the game and reading it effectively.
Contrast this with Gerrard and Coutinho, say, who both constantly look around before the ball arrives, allowing them to play first time passes accurately to moving players, because they have seen them well beforehand (although interestingly, they both do it in very national-characteristic ways - Gerrard does the traditional British "Checking both shoulders" look, whereas Coutinho looks at the "Brazilian Diagonals" to see where the players are. More on that anon). So Shelvey, for all his foot-skills, is let down by his lack of "vision". And this is one more reason why a few of us reckon he has eye problems he doesn't seem to want to get fixed - this "tunnel vision" and "wait and play" style is a classic symptom of a player playing without corrective eye-wear. The most liberating thing he could do is get contact lenses. The good news is - if he does this, his peripheral vision and overall ability to get his head up and read the play before it happens will improve immensely. Then it comes down to hunger and mentality and patience for him.
Coates did well. He was solid, won his headers, distributed the ball well, and was calm in both systems. If we were to lose Skrtel but keep Coates and A.N. Other new defender, I wouldn't be disappointed (and vice versa). He has potential, but the key for him and the club is how patient he is willing to be to become a starting defender.
Wisdom didn't do too bad, but contrary to what some have said elsewhere, he wasn't at fault for the goal. He played in the exact position he should have been in as the cross came in. It was Johnson, caught ball-watching yet again, who should have picked Berbatov up. But Wisdom didn't to anything spectacular either, and he was the natural choice to come off the field for Enrique to switch to the back four in the second half.
Coady not on long enough to make any impact, but didn't seem phased by the level of the game, and that bodes well for the future.
4. Sturridge and last but not least, Coutinho. I suppose that needs a question mark, so here's one?
Sturridge was excellent. I can understand where he was coming from with the greedy shots in the second half, but if he adds that quick one-second look up before deciding to shoot, and chooses more wisely, the team will be a large leap better off for it. And funnily enough, I think that hat-trick might be the thing that helps him in that direction - I wasn't aware it was his first senior hat-trick, so that's probably a weight off his mind. I suspect we might see him being more generous against QPR next week (and given my uncanny accuracy in predicting his hat-trick, I'm hoping the gods are smiling on that little prediction too
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As for Coutinho, he gets his own special section:
The Tao of CoutinhoTo understand Coutinho, you have to understand Brazilian Coaching. To understand Brazilian coaching, and Brazilian football, you have to understand the four principles of their attacking game, because Coutinho is almost a poster-boy for their methodology. The four principles of Brazilian play are:
- Minimal touches on the ball
- Ball on the ground as often as possible
- Switch the point of attack often
- Diagonal passing and movement
If we look at the first one, we can check out not just subjectively, but also objectively how this applies to Coutinho. Objectively, as I have mentioned in a few Round Tables, Coutinho often has one of the least amounts of touches in the team in each game, or somewhere in the middle. Yesterday he touched the ball less than both Carragher and Coates. This is a common occurrence for Coutinho. Yet, subjectively, we can say that his touches are quality. He does something with the ball every time that moves the game on, and the ball or an attack rarely, if ever, gets stuck with Coutinho. This is related to the other three principles. He keeps the ball settled on the ground, with the occasional and devastating unleashing of a chipped or lobbed or driven ball in the air. Compare this to Gerrard, who plays a lot more balls off the ground, to often equally devastating effect. But Coutinho's work is generally done on the ground, and it keeps his game neat and tidy. He controls the ball - it never controls him. As soon as it arrives, it gets settled within 2 touches, and the 3rd touch delivers the pass.
In terms of the other two principles, which are connected, you can see if you watch his head movements and eye movements on replays, that he always looks to the diagonal spaces. This is why the pass to Sturridge against Newcastle was both unexpected and also a no-look pass too. He moves himself into positions where his options are always on the diagonal to him (watch his movement and positioning closely in the next game - he rarely goes square or vertical to a standing player - he'll always shift to the diagonal), and he passes quickly into those spaces ahead of him because he has already established that the player is there, and he just needs to get the pass in front of them. When he dribbles, he moves on the diagonal, but switches the direction of the ball with every touch to keep the defender guessing as to which side he'll accelerate to. This again is a very Brazilian thing to do. It's not "straight-ahead" dribbling like, say Bale or Downing (when he does go at players). It switches the point of attack with every touch, and creates a moment of time and space which allows him to make the final burst (or creates the space to pass). His off-ball movement is also based on diagonal support, so when a player is receiving the ball in his area, he will either drop off at the angle, or make the forward run to create the angle. If we had a whole team who did that, there wouldn't be a team in Europe that could easily mark us. But even without that, if we have everyone else on the team understanding the four principles that dictate how Coutinho plays the game, then he will only improve both his own play and the team's play too.