I think we have the players to be more pragmatic, yes.
In what way? All our full backs are all short. Likewise the midfielders are designed to prevent time on the ball rather than prevent space also. Who are the players which will win the physical and aerial battles for us back there?
I gave my formation and thoughts on what I'd do for this game previously in this thread, a few pages back.
Missed that, sorry. Can you like it to me? Or is this is below?
I think we should play a similar brand of football, in terms of dominating the ball. But having a better defensive structure to cope when we do lose the ball, which will happen.
I'm not suggesting sit deep and only look to hit on the break.
Still look to control games, press in the right areas. But give the defence more protection, tell the full backs to pivot, tell the CBs to not take risks in possession - if in doubt don't be scared to hoof it long or out of play. Reduce the risk.
What would the defensive structure look like? Where is the defensive line sitting? Zonal or Man marking? How? Where? When do we engage on the pitch? Halfway? Higher? Deeper?
Control the game - but that only deals with on the ball. My entire post was talking of off the ball, which is where we have problems. But okay - Tell the full backs to Pivot. So one sits while the other pushes up. But then who stretches play for us horizontally? I assume the widest attacker? We can't just have nobody wide as it allows them to compress us hugely in the middle with no space, plus we need that switch option to move the defence around to tire and look for gaps. Also work in combination play diamonds which means usually one or both attackers are ball side of the pitch. So typically in wide areas you have 1 attacker, 1 #8, 1 full back and either another attacker or Henderson. This leaves you with 3 players centrally. Another #8 (positioned quite parallel to the sides diamond and nearby, or deeper in line with the bottom of the diamond if Henderson is involved). Then the wide attacker (but he is now wide). Then Henderson. So either you have a hole in midfield or nobody in the box now as one of those central players is providing width. You can get the #8 to provide that width but then you lose compactness in the middle. You can bring the wide player in but now you have let them compress us again and you have no switch option. We can bin off the idea of diamonds but then our combinations are based on them and we likely don't have time to practice others. We could just let the players wing it with them but it's typically not how Klopp likes to do it as he has a structured attack around those diamonds.
Also are we still counter pressing? Who is doing this, when, how, for how long? Are we retreating? If so where is our defensively line? How do we prevent getting picked off without pressure on the ball? How do we deal with the far-side overload sides have against us when play breaks down? If we aren't pressing them high up the pitch it could be a problem.
If the opposition come on to us more, then that could play into our hands, with the space it will give Salah, Coutinho, firmino etc on the break.
They won't though. They tried to go at Huddersfield and demonstrated that their defenders cannot play a high line (hence why no Maguire to Liverpool I guess). The line dropped off later and there was a chasm between midfield and defence when they pushed forward and Huddersfield could just pick the ball up in space and run at their defence for days. I mean it could happen but I think that was a wake up call to Shakespeare that he cannot be an attacking side with his players as sides cannot push up so he either leaves space behind with no way to defend it, or get stretched vertically and get picked to pieces.
If the opposition don't we can still attack, but the defensive structure will be able to cope better without leaving such gaps, the CBs having better protection and we can hopefully deal better when we lose the ball.
How do we defend off the ball though? Hold line where? Shape, marking, engagement? I just saw how we could avoid getting caught in either our attacking or transitions better but not the defensive phase, unless I missed it. My entire post you were replying to was the defensive phase.
The current approach is naïve, it plays into a team like Leicesters hands. Maybe we don't have the perfect players to deal with a team going direct or whatever approach Leicester decide to go with. But we know the current approach is asking for trouble and hasn't worked the last three times we have played them.
Klopp's results against them have been:-
Win 1-0 (H)
Lose 2-0 (A)
Win 4-1 (H)
Lose 3-1 (A)
Win 2-1 (Neutral - Asia Cup)
Lose 2-0 (A - League Cup)
So whatever way I cut that, leaving out the asia cup as a friendly, or including it, we have beat them once in the last 3 games. But isn't this just a tiny sample size and results based logic though. The bad performance in that lot was the 3-1 defeat I think. The 2-0 League Cup match was just one of those games where you create the chances to win and get suckerpunched. You cannot throw your tactical plans out on results based logic though. You either believe your tactical plan is doing what it should be (creating chances, limiting the oppositions) or it's not.
I look at that, and without any information at all I think wow, Red team was unlucky. That's it. People use a sequence of unlucky results to mean something more than it does often. It's human nature to look for patterns in everything. When in reality you shouldn't look for them, you should use the information you have to explain the outcome. How much of the recent results is luck? Sides aren't stopping us creating chances - which would indicate being found out - we just aren't scoring the chances we are creating. The opposition have no control over that at all. We do. The opposition isn't creating more or better chances against us. They are just scoring the chances they do have, most of which can be traced back to not one but several basic individual errors. Again, they don't control that, we do.
Will it be the answer to all our issues? No. But would it help? I think so.
I've not suggested sitting deep, not pressing - so not sure why you're implying that.
True. But you didn't say how you wanted us to play in the defensive phase. Which I assumed being more conservative, like how we approached those games I mentioned.
