...seriously needs to improve.
Now people might pinpoint poor finishing or performances by oppo goal-keepers as the reason we're not scoring more, but for me that doesn't even cover half of it. We're creating chances and having shots on goal, but how many of those are real quality chances? I'd guess just from observation that it's a fairly low proportion. I think we have a real problem in our attacking play and it needs to be addressed.
A lot of our forward play seems to be off the cuff or improvised. Now there's nothing wrong with improvisation - seeing a player produce a goal-scoring situation out of nothing is one of the things that is so great about football. However, I think that improvisation needs to come within a proper attacking structure, and this is something I think we are somewhat lacking at the moment.
This isn't simply a reaction to today's game, but something I've observed over the course of the season. A few of the problems I think we have:
Lack of players attacking the box when we get the ball wide.
Downing's come in for a fair bit of stick this season, some of it fairly. I think he's certainly improved recently and thought he played well today. I think part of the problem with Downing this season has been other players not doing the things that would maximise his abilities - i.e. presenting themselves as targets for crosses. We put a lot of crosses into the box on a regular basis (can't remember off the top of my head but I think the stats suggest we're among the top crosser in the league). A lot of the time though we only have one or maybe two players in the box. There's a lot of reasons for this - Suarez drifting wide, central midfielders not wanting to commit too far forward, our wide players not attacking the box regularly enough (Maxi being the notable exception to this and one of the reasons he should play more regularly IMO - also Downing seemed to be doing this more in the latter parts of today's game) -these are all things that need to be looked at and addressed. A lot of the time we seem (especially when Suarez has pulled wide) we seem to have three or four players in wide positions and only one in the box.
Lack of movement/wrong movement in the box.
Even when we have got players in the box they're either too static or make the wrong movements. Players should move in a way that maximises the potential for a goalscoring opportunity - they can't just stand there waiting for the perfect cross all the time. Carroll seems to be particularly guilty of this - a player of his size should be imposing himself on the opposition defenders, getting accross them so they can't head it away - he did do it on a couple of occasions and almost scored from both of them, but needs to do it more (I know he's not played much recently before anyone points it out)..
Also players need to make runs in the box that help each other - a lot of the time we'll have two players making the same runs and congesting the space - making it easier to defend against.
Movement in the final third
We tend to pin teams back quite a lot and manage to get a lot of players forward a lot of the time, but we don't make the most of those situations. we've got to accept that teams are going to come to Anfield and defend deep - our movement and passing in those situations ha to be better if we are going to break teams down. We've got two quality attacking full-backs and they get forward a lot. Both of them have pace and skill and can be a real asset to our attacking play, but they are not linking up effectively with our wide players at the moment. A lot of the time they seem to be making supporting runs at the wrong time, or when they do they make the wrong runs - moving to the same place as the wide player and making that area more congested instead of pulling a defender away. In situations where we have the opposition pegged back our movement needs to be cleverer and our passing quicker and more incisive - the difference Gerrard made in this respect when he came on was there for everyone to see I think. It's as much about speed of mind as speed of movement - anticipation and knowing what you want to do before the ball has even got to you.
A lot of this may be put down to the fact that we have a lot of new faces in the team - it's harder to build up an understanding in an attacking sense. This might have been a valid excuse two or three months in, but we've had half a season now, and I would expect better at this stage. I'm hoping the return of Gerrard can kick our attacking play up a level, because we certainly need something..
