I'd just like to say a word about Lucas, possession and pressing—it should perhaps go in the Lucas Gerrard thread, but it's come to me thinking about this last game, to some extent in juxtaposition with the one before it.
Anway, it seems to me that Lucas is a very good defensive midfielder when we play deep, (but he can be got at if the space he patrols is overloaded with opposition midfielders) but that he is an absolute monster when we move up the pitch and press and exert pressure in front of him, controlling the ball more and pressing when we lose it. Two reasons for this (well, the ones I've noticed most anyway). When we're up the pitch and pressing well, the passes out from the opposition are often hurried, sometimes panicked, and certainly unable to be timed to the run of a forward leaving his marker (in any direction I suppose, but mainly back to the ball). Lucas is just remarkably good at reading the game from that advance defensive position, and he absolutely hoovers up these less than optimal passes. He flat out bullies opposition forwards and midfielders because his reading and sharpness to the ball is better than theirs, and defensively in this phase of the game I think he's as good as Mascherano was—he doesn't cover the ground as quickly, or destroy quite as aggressively, but he has some Xabi mixed in—he reads the game better and his tackles are frequently not full on tackles because they don't have to be—he's arrived at the optimal moment (and he can be freer about it because up the pitch it doesn't matter so much if he mistimes it).
Secondly, his distribution after gaining possession in mid or advanced midfield is very effective—quick and accurate—wide or down the middle, giving extra time on the ball to Gerrard, Coutinho and the front two even in a shortened field—and when we play forward, most of the passes available are well within his most effective range. Finally, it's when we finally manage to move the whole team forward that Lucas finally turns up on the edge of, or even in the box. Not often, but when the opportunity presents itself—which it will more frequently now that we've got more than one or two main attacking threats to pull the opposition about. My feeling is, taken all in all, that when we press and the whole team moves up the pitch, Lucas becomes absolutely world class—and as such, I'd like to see us do it rather more, not because I'm a particular fan of Lucas, but because I think that the benefit of his play at its top level is really worth looking for, and I also think it is more likely what Rodgers has in mind, and that it will bring us more success than will the sitting deep stuff.
Finally, I've heard people say on here that we don't have the personnel to play the pressing/possession game properly, and I'm wondering why that is. The only ones who it would seem can't do it/don't much like it (if you've got Enrique and Johnson in the team) are Gerrard (struggles on the pressing side for a whole game due to legs, and tends to want to release the long ball quickly, because he can do so devastatingly, but it doesn't bring the whole team up the pitch), perhaps Skertl , just in not being so enthusiastic about a high line (although, I'm not longer sure this is true—I've not been his biggest fan, but one wonders how much it has been about confidence with him given a couple of recent performances—the too many touches, the panic out wide, the wanting to drop further back—maybe they were signs of a player not trusting himself and he will continue to improve), and Mignolet. I watched Napoli and Juventus today, and Pepe, who also made a couple of quite extraordinarily fine stops and wasn't at fault at all for any of the goals (all three are worth looking for by the way... actually, the whole game, just to watch Pirlo take the piss even in a game of two excellent teams full of good players playing well), just looks so at ease with the ball at his feet by comparison. Is that it then. Three players don't fit (sort of) the pressing model and thus we can only do it against weak teams? If Skertl improves and Mignolet adapts, could Lucas play in front of Gerrard (Gerrard as his own version of Pirlo)?
um, sorry, rather longer ramble than I expected.
