This is from the Sevilla Roundtable 3-3 game which I was bringing up our need for a proper #6, how it transforms our team and prevents games like that getting away from us.
When you read it now, it's quite clear Fabinho was the first name I had in mind when you look at how I describe the role and the important qualities and also how I dismiss the Jorginho type as a realistic option.
I have a question:
If Henderson and Can aren't the type of no.6 we need, then who in world football is a good example of an no.6 we need in the team?
I am personally a big fan of Henderson and Can but it seems that they don't 'own' a position in our system... Would Kante be a good example of a no.6 that would fit our system well? Or is it someone more like the younger Xabi Alonso or is it someone like Arturo Vidal? Or if we look for less talented examples, would Ki Sung Yueng from Swansea be the no.6 type we are looking for?
The player we sign to replace Can will be the signing I am most interested in for the summer. I think the success we have in implementing Klopp system and competing for trophies is almost entirely dependant on getting that signing right - no pressure
To answer your question, I should probably first be very specific what Handerson & Can lack making them the wrong "type" of midfielder.
Imagine everything a footballer does falls into one of three categories - Technical, Tactical or Physical. British footballers tend to excel physically because for a long time the top academies would cut players because they weren't big enough, strong enough, fast enough, etc. The academies were then building up the technical side of the game. The result is a good physical &/or technical players coming through who are poor tactically. We don't, or very rarely, produce players who excel tactically in this country. Even now you look around some of the top prospects that have come through and if you ranked their games in terms of those three categories, more often than not it's the tactical side that is least developed in the likes of Barkley, Alli, Henderson, Chamberlain, Stones, Sterling, Rashford. It is why I believe the English side struggles so much at international level because physically and technically they can hold their own against most sides. Which means if they can make the game be played on their level at a high pace or physical battle, they can beat anybody. If it becomes a more tactical, patient, methodical game, they get picked off.
Italian, German & Dutch football would be the opposite. They will churn out players who are tactically great who are weaker either physically (Aquilani) or technically (*cough* Kuyt *cough*) than what we would be used to. Then you have latin countries who are good at spitting out highly technical players.
Btw this is where the comparison of Dier and Xabi come into play here which left everyone scratching their heads. Because physically Dier is everything Xabi wasn't. Technically few can even dream of doing the things Xabi could, and certainly not Dier. But tactically, they both excel - which makes him a rare breed for English players. His movements as a DM are similar to Xabi. He isn't hammering around the pitch like Kante nailing everything that enters the final 3rd. He's closing up spaces and pushing play away from dangerous areas.
Can probably breaks the mould here somewhat for German midfielders as he is a beast of a player and is technically good but for a center midfield, he is tactically very poor. You look at the players who played CM for Bayern after he was sold - the likes of Xabi, Kimmich, Vidal, Lahm - they all had excellent 360 awareness of the game. Xabi, in particular, his head never stops moving, making micro movements to correct his position to close up spaces before they have a chance to open up. They are players who excel at making sure they are in the right position whereas ours are runners - players who get caught in the wrong positions often and then need to run to solve it. When you are an excellent runner, and are likely praised for that energy up to the point you are a pro, no opportunity comes up to have them improve tactically rather than rely on running to get them out of the problems it causes.
The exception to that is Gini who is tactically very good and is constantly moving around trying to plug those gaps before they appear. The problem is, in a midfield that is so tactically poor - there are so many gaps that he is fighting an uphill battle. However, put him beside Lallana - who is excellent tactically as well, likely due to needing to be smarter to survive in academies again all the physical beasts and we have a nice screen in front of Henderson that doesn't allow gaps to appear. A similar thing happened against Hoffenheim, Arsenal and Bayern earlier in the season with Firmino dropping into midfield. We would have Firmino in front of Henderson, Gini behind Can. We were harder to play through once more. Which makes the decision to use him more as a focal point striker even more frustrating. The closest we had to that tactical stability in midfield this season was perhaps Milner & Gini in front of Henderson against Palace. Unfortunately it's a midfield which did little to link play, create or support the attack.
Then you look at all the midfielders Klopp used for Dortmund and the tactical side of their game stood out first. Kehl & Bender (Tactical & Physical), Gundogan & Sahin (Tactical & Technical). Which makes me wonder why he persists with midfielders who are not at the level tactically that he would normally require. Which leaves me with some possible suggestions:-
1. He is making best use of what he has to give important players at the club time to fight for a position before making changes.
2. He believe trying to adapt players he has to the roles is a preferable solution than trying to adapt players signed for those roles to the club/league/country.
3. He saw Sahin's struggles here as a problem in terms of players who were not physically inferior to the rest of the league. This made him question signing similar to what he had in the past and believing he perhaps needs more runners here than in Germany. Gundogan's inability to stay fit here more than a few games may support this idea.
So back to your question of what "type" we need if not Henderson or Can - we basically need a player in that role who excels tactically. Then you can go in either direction. You have the tactical/technical players like Jorginho, Verratti, Ruben Neves, Weigl and of course, Xabi in there. Or tactical/physical players like
Fabinho, Dier, Saul, Matic.
Given our system, and the lack of height we have in the side in general, I suspect #6 in one of the few positions Klopp can add height to the team without losing anything in terms of the pressing side of the game. Therefore we can probably eliminate those quarterback types like Jorginho would would probably end up as #8s in Klopp's system rather than #6's. However, with Keita coming in plus Lallana & Gini already here, we don't need to stock up on more #8 type options. So I suspect whoever we target will look a lot like Weigl, Fabinho, Ruben Neves, Saul even if likely not those specific players. All players who are 6'0 - 6'2, excellent tactically, good-excellent technically and decent-excellent mobility. Read any interview with Ljinders and you will hear him name drop Ruben Neves at least once I'm sure. Then watch him for Wolves running the show in midfield against Leeds last night - I personally would have him high on the list of potential candidates and something of a Mascherano signing perhaps in his strange path to the top of the English game?
Babu & PoP in the same thread 
Interesting to see analysis of the defenders' role in the collapse. It's normally the defence who get blamed initially, before people point out that the midfielders in front of them aren't offering protection - then they get the blame. It seems like on this occasion the CBs didn't give our midfield the chance to offer protection to them.
That said, given the odds of winning the match graph - is there a chance we were unlucky? Didn't we kinda shut the game down at 3-2? What did we do differently, if anything, after they scored the second? Because if we could have done that at 3-1 the game peters out and looks like a boring second half. And 3 points.
As mentioned in my OP, the big difference Can made was shutting down that left half space where they were killing us from the entire first hour. Coutinho was an absolute passenger in there off the ball and did nothing to halt progress in that zone in the first hour. Therefore no longer was it Klavan+Moreno v 4 from Sevilla on that side of the pitch. We had someone pressing the ball carrier, someone tracking the deep runner, someone watching the wide forward and someone watching the center forward trying to find space in that zone.
Would we have done better had we played Henderson, Can and Wijnaldum instead?
For all his qualities, Wijnaldum is not really a CM per se. He is more comfortable operating just behind the strikers, making those late runs and playing quick passes forward. Henderson was basically the only genuine CM playing in our side, against a very accomplished side with a solid midfield.
Hasn't Matip played as a DM for Schalke in the past? Can we benefit by playing an outright defensive player in midfield alongside the likes of Henderson?
Better in terms of protecting the defence = yes. In terms of linking play, creating and supporting the attack = no.
This is the biggest problem we have really. Our midfield needs to perform all four of those tasks every game. When you get a bad performance, one or more of those tasks isn't happening. That is likely true of every bad performance from every team, ever. You can find something going wrong in midfield which results in you losing control of the game.
Whenever we have 3 from Henderson, Can, Wijnaldum & Milner - we struggle to link play, create or support the attack. They will be able to do some of those tasks, depending on how they play their roles, but not all of them. Whenever we are without Gini &/or Lallana, we will likely struggle to protect the defence. Whenever we are without Coutinho &/or Lallana we will likely struggle to link play/create. So trying to pick a winning formula from available options becomes a problem.
What is interesting is the composition of
Ljinders midfield in his dominant U18 side when he first came to the club.
"We played all season almost the same style. We had 3-diamond-3. We started with the ideas of a high pressing game and that we don’t defend our goal, we defend the midline. The idea was the attackers were the first defenders, so it was total football.
And there are certain positions in that structure where overload situations, offensively and defensively, develop. These are key positions. Six and 10.
We try and find the best player to construct the game out from the back, to have the right timings, to have the pause and ability to speed it up. And Trent always plays there. No. 6. My Ruben Neves. I always put Trent at 6. Why? Because every attack he is the main guy, the pivot, the lighthouse of the team, guiding the rest.
And the second key position is the No. 10 position. Because this player has to structure the press, to be able to jump to the centre-halves at the right time and he gets stressed offensively and defensively. And my 10 was Ben Woodburn for the whole season.
Trent and Ben went through a big big development since then—and the very biggest development was Jurgen putting them in.
Now we don't play 3-4-3 of course. However, if you go back to last season and rewatch our games, you will see our buildup formation is actually 3-4-3. Our center backs would split. Henderson drops in to make a 3. Our full backs push up and the assymetric staggering of midfield gives us something of a diamond in midfield with usually Gini the deeper point and Lallana the top point. However, the midfield problems so far this season has seen us move away from this. As mentioned again in my OP, this is causing bigger problems though with a clear seperation between the lines of our formation now, it is easier to isolate them from each other in the build up play which saw Sevilla do so with our midfield.
I also mentioned it in my OP for the West Ham game. It is interesting to note how Ljinders (and therefore Klopp) would like the midfield to function and how he talks about the roles of the two most important midfielders in the team. If he was to analyse Henderson's performance using the terms "the main guy, the pivot, the lighthouse of the team, guiding the rest" for Tuesday, how would he score? Likewise for Coutinho "this player has to structure the press, to be able to jump to the centre-halves at the right time and he gets stressed offensively and defensively" - how would he score? Also when you read that sentence the first name that pops into your head is Lallana for me, every time. We miss him. Or someone
like him.
I also disagree on Gini. He can perform either of those roles at a high level. As mentioned he shut the attacking avenues down on our right and protected Gomez excellent. If we had another Gini instead of Coutinho in front of Moreno, the second half looks very different to me.
And yes, Matip played DM for Schalke on rare occasion. We could do that if we moved back to the 3-4-3 I mentioned in build up as we were last season. However with our new conservative full backs, I think the ability of our midfield to link play would fall even more. The composition of Klopp's Dortmund midfield though was a Matip-type (Kehl) next to a Gundogan/Sahin more often than not.
IMO, the clearances come from a lack of good options, which comes from a lack of movement from the midfield. Watch how our midfielders behave once our CBs gain possession: At best they're static, at worst they move away from the CBs, hiding within the crowd of Seville players. Our FBs also push too high. This is how Henderson manages to get the fewest touches in the team, with Gini marginally better. In most teams, the DM or the playmaker will drop down and help the CBs, often ending up between them.
I also noted that in the second half, Mane played left midfield. No idea why, but it wasn't helping Moreno.
Agreed with all of that. I think going long was instruction because our midfielders weren't dealing with the ball. By moving away from the defenders on the ball, they are giving them more time & space on the ball to better find players beyond our midfield line. Again, a far from ideal workaround due to the options we have in central midfield.
Result of moving coutinho further back to midfield, if we had 2 Gini's our midfield surely would of been a lot better, which makes me think will Keita be more likely to replace Coutinho than Gini? (not in all games but in games we need to be more compact)
Perhaps. Without a #6 we would certainly need two of Gini/Lallana/Keita in front of Hendo/Can for it to work well IMO. However, I suspect we will move to Klopp's preferred 4-2-3-1 once we have the right players for the side. Which means Origi/Solanke/another leading the line, Keita/Gini as #8 and a new player as #6.
