Quote Originally Posted by IBK View Post
...which brings me back to the point I was making about our whole system/style of play, and whether this is becoming a bit obselete. HCZ says what can we do when teams don't come to play us. For me this is a bit of a cop out. For the last 2 or 3 seasons mid/low blocks have been a problem for us, even when at full strength. The manager has not found an effective answer (even our much vaunted set pieces have been found out). Like you say, the way we play is an open invitation to defences to get re-organised. An effective system should not have to rely one individual player (Saka) to produce a moment of brilliance. For all that Liverpool have benefitted from Salah's form, they create a multitude of chances every game and would still do without him. We make the game too difficult.

We do not manage transitions, there is indeed a lack of direct running, and options when we 'attack'. We almost oblige defensive teams by playing the ball wide and slowing the game down.

And the huge irony is that we nullify the advantage of having such a talented defence - and one of the best 6's in the game in Rice - by playing them so high up the pitch to make up for our lack of dynamism in midfield.
I think you’re missing my point which is at this exact moment in time it’s completely and totally academic. I’ve said until I’m blue in the face that most of the time we absolutely do not need to be playing two defensive midfielders, and in fact my last post actually fulsomely agrees with your point that actually ironically the contradiction between wanting to play this controlled game which makes our attacking inefficient which means we have to overcommit and as a result get caught too high in possession.

But given where we are at the moment in terms of the players available to us, we have two choices….continue to play the way we are doing and make ourselves vulnerable to conceding on the break, or we play more conservatively and hope against hope to get a scrappy goal. The luxury is not there to play the ball quicker. I’m literally the person who always moans about us playing Rice at 8, but I’m in no expectation that if we swap Rice and Partey around everything is going to get magically better and we will create far more chances which our second string attack will put away.