Liverpool's Defence: The Lost Art Of Keeping A Clean Sheet
…And Liverpool’s right centre back conundrum.
Ever since the halcyon days of Jamie Carragher’s partnerships with Sami Hyypia and Daniel Agger Liverpool fans haven’t witnessed a truly balance centre half pairing at Anfield. We’ve seen Skrtel, Kolo and a selection of left sided centre halves trying to fill the void at right centre back.
The club’s transfer committee and last two managers have bought in a growing list of specialist left sided centre backs. Sakho, no doubt the club’s best …
Liverpool Cleverly Embracing Sell-On Clauses
Buy-back clauses. Percentage of future sales. Neil Jones of the Liverpool Echo commented about how Liverpool are now adopting a more continental approach when selling players. Copying the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid by adding clauses into sales. English clubs are slow on the uptake, It's one of the many things European clubs do that makes perfect business sense.
FSG are first and foremost businessmen so it was only a matter of time before they embraced this approach when …
Conclusions From Three Months of Klopp's Selection Policy
It is easy to preach in football about the virtues of patience and context, but it is far more difficult to mobilise those concepts in the race to form opinions. Jürgen Klopp has taken charge of 33 games as a Liverpool manager - games which include finals against the richest clubs in the world, domestic cup rounds against football league minnows, European fixtures across the continent, all nestled amongst a hectic league and international period. Using only the decisions made …
What is Liverpool's best centre-back pairing when everyone is fit?
Injuries have blitzed the Liverpool squad since Jurgen Klopp was appointed as manager in October. Within his first week as manager he'd lost Joe Gomez for the season with an ACL Injury. Immediately he was down to just four first team centre-backs. Four centre-backs for practically an entire season and of those four two of them, Mamadou Sakho and Dejan Lovren, have a habit of picking up injuries. It's not exactly the ideal scenario for a new manager.
Fast forward …
Klopp's Kids
Every time Liverpool step on to the pitch I always try and learn something. For instance some of the things I learned under Brendan Rodgers were, I learned that he didn't have a clue about managing a team who didn't have a twenty goal a season striker playing for him or what a defence was. I learned that you need more than character to win matches and that he had no clue when it came to buying, selling and loaning …
Liverpool's Forgotten Man: Tiago Ilori
Liverpool fans got another piece of good news at the start of this current transfer window when it was reported that Aston Villa are thinking about terminating the loan deal they have in place for Liverpool's forgotten man Tiago Ilori. For me personally this is great news as when his loan to Aston Villa was announced I thought it was a shocking decision by Brendan Rodgers to allow Ilori to leave the club for the season.
For me Ilori is …
Liverpool's Strongest Team
We all know what Liverpool's strongest team is, well we all like to think we know what Liverpool's strongest team is anyways. If you go through the full squad, including those who are out on loan and those who are currently injured Liverpool have the potential to have one of the strongest starting elevens currently in the Premier League. They now also have back up in positions they never had before, mainly in the left back and the right back …
Merry Klopp-mas and a Quiet New Year?
The countdown is on and the big day is nearly upon us. Excited boys and girls are writing their lists, checking them twice (at least!) and hoping that when the time comes, they’ll be screeching with excitement over the presents that they have been dreaming about for months, delivered by the jolly red man on his trusted vehicle of dreams.
I am, of course, talking about the opening of the January transfer window and Ian Ayres moped exploits en route to closing …
Skrtel and Lovren Costing Liverpool More Than Just Goals
In some clubs central defensive pairings form the basis of championship winning seasons. But the Skrtel and Lovren hardly gives a platform for even a top four challenge. The three clean sheets of the season while welcome, should not deceive anyone. They have serious defects with their individual games and their pairing. Clean sheets are not conclusive proof of solidity of a team’s defence. What is the point is racking up three clean sheets and conceding three in the next …
Top Four Things That Didn't Happen in Liverpool's Transfer Window
Another crazy summer draws to a close. Gone are the rumours. Gone are the ITK's putting one and one into two. Gone are the mornings where one would scramble for his or her smartphone to catch up on what happened in the transfer window.
As soon as it's transfer season, fans go nuts about the idea of new acquisitions in hopes of bolstering the squad for the upcoming season. The summer window is where most of the major transfers take …