Think it was an intriguing game in some aspects to show the tactical development of not just the team but Rodgers also.
The tactical development within the teamAfter the Everton game Rodgers was pointing out that he'd been using Henderson to the left of the midfield 3 to offer cover for the left-flank with his energy, and allowing Suarez and Sturridge to rotate with who was nominally positioned on the left of the front 3. I think it's beginning to look increasingly obvious that Rodgers is targeting the weaker fullback in possession from the opposition and placing Suarez/Sturridge on his side of the pitch. Sterling, being the best out of possession of the front 3 (I think he's the best at pressing the ball in our entire team to be honest) is placed on the same flank as the fullback who is strongest in possession to stop him getting forward as easily.
Against Everton it was obvious that the player you were happiest to see with the ball going forward was Stones, so you had Suarez/Sturridge on that side of the pitch as the left-sided player, not always tracking him when he went forward, but knowing that mostly Henderson had the energy to get across and that Stones would be far less dangerous with time and space on the ball than Baines on the opposite flank.
Against Arsenal it was the opposite. You wouldn't want Sagna showing up free in our half of the pitch, so you put Sterling against him. Suarez went over to the right, although there was considerably less altering of position between Suarez and Sturridge than in the previous games (but it did happen a few times earlier on in the match). What happened also though, that shows the versatility in the front 5, is that Henderson also swapped flanks along with the striker, again presumably to cover him and to be there to quickly pressure that flank if Suarez is caught out and they try and find their spare man at the back in space.
Basically over the last 3 games we've seen Suarez and Sturridge play all across the front line, Henderson and Coutinho swap sides to compensate for that, and play either side. The only switch we haven't really seen with that five, which I think may come in time, because Rodgers has used him there once or twice before, is the idea of Sterling playing as the central figure in the front 3 for any amount of time. Maybe we won't see him pop up there for fear of leaving two strikers up against their fullbacks if we lose the ball, or maybe Rodgers doesn't think Sterling wouldn't be of great effect there on his own (yet?). I think it would have been interesting though, had we see Sterling drop off into a central area against West Brom for a brief period, just to pick up the ball in and around Yacob after he was booked. He can get freekicks like no one else in our team (considering Suarez's reputation).
Possibly it's simply an issue of in-game management from the player though. It's a very, very young team. And a pretty impulsive one. For the sake of curiosity I had a look at the differences in our midfield's performance over the last 3 games, partly because the burden (as it often seems to) fell on Gerrard's performance for our lack of cohesiveness against West Brom. What struck me was, in terms of touches of the ball and passes (and pass accuracy), that was Gerrard's best game of the 3 on paper, for the kind of 'controller' people are assuming Brendan Rodgers wants. What was interesting is that in that West Brom game, Henderson's passing accuracy was way down on what it has been in the other two games. It was also the one game where Gerrard made more passes than the other two (14 more!) against Everton Coutinho played by greatest amount of passes. At the weekend they were within 4 passes of one and other (keep in mind who was subbed off in each game). To me what went wrong against West Brom, and it's totally understandable, is that neither Coutinho (at 20) and Henderson (at 23) were able to manage the game and bring themselves in to it. Through various stages where it needed one of them to simply pass the ball accurately and take the sting out of the game, neither was capable. Henderson's radar was off and Coutinho was trying to inject pace into the game.
That for me is the next major evolution in terms of the team going forward. It's scary to think how good a midfielder Coutinho will be when he can do that to a game (I think he looks the mostly likely to dictate a game out of him and Henderson, and that's what his role looks more set up for anyways). He appears to have embraced the transformation into an out and out midfielder. Even against West Brom, when he wasn't particularly good, he was simply trying to do the things he had a few days previous, rather than being desperate to score as he has been all season. In consecutive home games he has taken the two brightest hopes of English football and out performed both quite convincingly. His ability to break open lines in the opposition midfield is incredible. But it's ability to genuinely harm a team when he's done so that's frightening. Dembele can dribble past players from the midfield third. Wilshere can dribble past players from the midfield third (although there's been less evidence of that recently). Few players can hurt you quite so badly as Coutinho when he's done it though. His range of passing is scary. Even when his radar is off, he's still finding more accurate through-balls than pretty much anyone (I think he's top 5 in Europe at the moment statistically). He can absolutely kill teams in transitions. He did it to Everton for Sturridge's first, and again at the weekend (and those are just the ones that ended in goals). I actually think he, perhaps more than any other player, encapsulates the perceived move away from 'death by football' - by which people almost certainly mean 'death by possession' - that seems to be the debate now. What I think will change, and can't wait to see over the next season or two, is what happens when this kid develops that innate understanding about when to look to kill a team and when to keep them at arms length with the ball. I'm pretty sure it's what will happen, and I think it was the big difference between our West Brom performance and the other two games. When it comes then we'll start to see the real end game of what a Rodgers team looks like, I think.
Which brings me on to...
The tactical developments from Brendan RodgersCounter-attacking or death by football?We're getting a lot of talk starting now about how he's deviated from his original philosophy of 'Death by Football' (death by possession) and become a counter-attacking manager. I've got qualms with this, personally.
Firstly, I tend to think if a team is dead in the water by half-time, they're pretty fucking dead. Whether it's through passing them to death, or gorilla-fucking them into a level of masochistic subspace only found in Moyes' house when he decides to open the trophy cabinet. Everton and Arsenal both experienced "death by football", if that's what we're going to call it under this manager, like we would have a 'crushing machine' under Rafa. Don't kid yourselves that either phrase means anything deeper than treating the opposition like a Fritzel daughter. It's flat out obliterating the opposition, and making them wish the game was over, and that's what happened.
I don't think the idea that we're a counter-attacking team is fair though. Looking at possession over the course of a game can lead you to come to that conclusion. But respectfully, if you're 3 or 4-nil up within 35 minutes, the game is won and the best way to preserve energy is to shell up and play conservatively. This isn't particularly new to the last few games either by the way. This happened against Stoke and Villa very early on in the season, and drew criticism in performances like Palace at home where we 'tired after half time'. We are the aggressors until we think the game is won. Counter-attacking implies that you set out with the idea of sucking the opposition on to you. We don't do that. We absolutely fucking cane teams in the first half an hour of games. The weekend is the most obvious example, for sure, but we were the team in the ascendency against Everton, we were the ones controlling the games against Villa and Stoke, We were the ones that had Palace, Sunderland, Cardiff, Norwich and West Brom wrapped up before half time.
Rodgers made note of the half-press against Villa early on in the season, and it's tempting to suggest we go back to it a fair bit when we feel the game is already won. Early on in the game though he says we're looking to three-quarter press, which so we're getting higher turnovers in the dangerous thirds of the pitch (or when the opposition have space behind them).
Again though, I wouldn't necessarily call how we're starting games counter-attacking. I'd say it's more based on transitions after the turnover possession. It's arguably quite Germran. Look at Dortmund. They're not a counter-attacking team, but the last few years they're ones that are most dangerous after the ball has been turned over, because that's when an oppositions shape is in chaos and they're eat their most vulnerable. Bayern obviously did it to Barcelona (but also away in Turin IIRC).
The way I'd describe it, whether accurate or not, is that counter-attacking implies a reactive brand of football. We've been anything but reactive these past home games. In fact, the vast majority of both games have been played out in reaction to what we've done to the opposition within the first third of the match.
The defenceThis a really interesting one for me, because I'm super-guilty of it myself, especially last summer. I think we've all jumped to conclusions a little early on what we think a Rodgers defence ideally looks like and have ignored that firstly, he's probably still tweaking with that idea of perfection himself, but also, his experiences elsewhere don't tally with it.
I'd completely written off Skrtel. I think there was about a 50/50% split on that if we're being kind. I think everyone had written off Flanagan. I don't mean as a player in general, but as a Rodgers player. I think it was pretty easy too as well. Rodgers early doors spoke of Flanagan's role as not an attacking fullback, which we all assumed he wanted because, eh, Barcelona right? *nudge nudge*. Skrtel struggled terribly first half of the season last year being asked to split wide and do a lot more 1-vs-1 defending. He was out of the team 2nd half of the season, Flanagan I don't think got on the pitch at all last year (the nadir possibly being Swansea in the cup which I think was Henderson and Downing at fullback). Then we looked at the type of players being targeted in defence and the implication seemed to be that after Carragher had comeback in and been a solid stop-gap, we'd be going back to what we assumed was the original plan of basically having incredibly strong 1-vs-1 defenders who were brilliant on the turn. Well we haven't.
A couple of things to say on this really. Firstly it's that one thing that has been reasonably consistent under Rodgers so far is that he only seems to change in answer to a problem. Second half of last season our style of defending wasn't a particular problem compared to the first. The second, more interesting thing, I think, is why did we all assume Rodgers would push such a high defensive line and play 1-vs-1 defending with loads of space in the first place?
Swansea didn't do this. Yes, their centerbacks split and saw a lot of the ball. But Swansea didn't leave a lot of room in behind themselves. They didn't leave Caulker or Williams isolated too often. They also didn't press really high up the pitch, which is something we also haven't done very often under Rodgers (compared to say a Barcelona, Southampton or Villas-Boas team who push the defensive line right up).
I had this conversation with Royhendo a couple of months back, that maybe Rodgers' ideal defence isn't so much like Barcelona than it is a Mourinho team. The summer was spent looking for an increased physicality a the back and looking for 'men' as Rodgers put it. We swapped out a keeper in Reina who was, at his best, very sharp off his line and sweeping up in behind (like Lloris is for Spurs) and replaced him with a brilliant shot-stopper who doesn't come out and look to win the ball very often at all. He's brought Skrtel back into the team because he kicks it and clears it and is a pessimistic defender. He's gone from not rating Flanagan at all to him probably being a starter even when everyone's fit, it's just a question of on which flank. A question to ask would be whether this is Rodgers adapting to the players at hand or what he genuinely prefers from his defenders. I think it's perhaps too early into his career to tell given he hasn't stayed more than two seasons at a single club. Certainly the idea of defending deeper, with more traditional fullbacks has benefited Flanagan massively, and Cissokho, whose defensively solidity is apparent during this run of games when it wasn't when he was asked to play at wingback. Skrtel, who I'm not a huge an of, is also playing brilliantly at the moment in a settled defence. The fun narrative is the idea that he's been better since he got stapled up, but I thought he had a good 2nd half against Villa too. The longer-term question is - if we are going to sit in as a defence - whether anything has changed with his ability to deal with the more physically imposing strikers. You'd think if we're going to have sit-in and have a goalkeeper that doesn't come for crosses, that the two centerbacks would have to be solid as rocks when it comes to dealing with aerial bombardments and balls up to the big man.
The idea of sitting in as a defence certainly seems to suit the team in general though, and it's very Mourinho. If you look at his first spell at Chelsea, when Rodgers was there, both fullbacks were fairly orthodox. Ferrera especially and he'd probably have said Gallas was his best left back in the two title winning seasons. I think the thing they had in that defence that was exceptional, that I think we look to have replicated in a slightly different way with Steven Gerrard (and hopefully Sakho when he comes back in) was Carvalho. Carvalho could've played centerback anywhere in the world. He could've gone to Barcelona and defended on the half way line with the greatest of ease. But at Chelsea when he could beat an attacker to the ball he would set them off on their counter-attacks in the same way that Gerrard's passes are doing now when the ball is turned over deep. It was a key feature against Everton that we would take the risk to play out through their first phase of pressure in the turnover and then look to move the ball quickly and punish them. It was apparent again on Saturday, especially in the key period in the game between 1-0 and 3-0, where Gerrard just physically locked down that area in front of our defence, got in far sharper than any Arsenal player and then looked to start the counter-attack. I think Sakho definitely has that ability to his game playing at centerback (and there were supposedly doubts about his ability on the turn anyway?) and even Skrtel has shown it occasionally, especially in the build up to penalty against Everton. Flanagan is also really good at this. That idea of being a rash on a player and pressuring them off the ball before they can get turned, then playing the smart pass to a player facing forward in space straight afterwards.
Again, like Coutinho's development in terms of 'managing' the game on the pitch over the next season or two, this I think will be really interesting to watch over the next season or so. Is Rodgers using the players at his disposal in the best possible way (not just the defenders, because he wouldn't defend this way if he didn't think it suited the way Gerrard, Coutinho, Henderson, Sterling, Suarez and Sturridge all want to play) or is the long-game still the idea of fullbacks who are basically wingers, centerbacks playing as wide as fullbacks, and a 'controller' in the Leon Britton mode who touches and passes the ball more than anyone else (rather than Gerrard who in the better performances sees less of the ball than the two ahead of him, arguably like Barca
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Either way, after the weekend, and the Everton game, and plenty of others this season, it no longer feels like the Rodgers end game is years down the line. The picture of what we're going to look like is starting to look clearer, although not crystal yet. But at least we'll probably see it coming, which is more than teams coming to Anfield get at the moment.
