Liverpool 2 West Ham 0 - Talking Points: Return of the Dancing Man
The win at Anfield was as far away as you could have got from the disappointment at Upton Park in the reverse fixture in September.
Liverpool dominated and took their chances, while West Ham struggled to impose their own unique brand of physicality on the game and create openings.
In September, Liverpool were effectively bulldozed by a strong and decisive West Ham team on its way to putting together its best ever season. This time round the Reds stood up …
Liverpool v West Ham | Premier League Preview
After an abysmal showing at Boleyn Park, the Reds face West Ham at Anfield Saturday evening. We’ve got a different story to tell this time out concerning form; back in the “wish we could forget it” month of September, Liverpool registered no Premier League wins. In fact, the only 3 points taken from that month came from the 2-1 Ludogorets win that’s scarcely memorable. The Hammers, on the other hand, were just hitting their stride that led to a Champions …
Cup-Tied or Hamstrung? | Liverpool FC
The Magic of the (FA) Cup. We all love a good cup tie, don't we? Every fan, surely, must want to see their team go on a great cup run, musn't they? I mean, winning breeds winning; it's a great way to gather momentum; the players just want to get out there and play; When you're winning you want to win again, and if you're losing, you just want to go out there and put things right. After all, that's …
Wide Box to Box Midfielder | Crucial To Liverpool
The term box to box is used to describe a midfielder who has no specialist role, they're primarily an engine tasked with helping both sides of the teams' game. They're also more commonly found in the centre of the pitch, but could the change of formation to the 3421 formation mean Liverpool could deploy wide box to box midfielders? Midfielders to arrive late but instead of overlapping they'd 'underlap' and take up a position inside of the box that Pablo …
Chelsea v Liverpool | Capital One Cup Semi-Final Second Leg
“Final ball, finish it off. Final ball, finish it off.” I found myself repeating this phrase over and over again during the last two cup clashes of the past week. To be fair, we’ve all been saying it pretty consistently over the course of the season, but never more so than against Chelsea and Bolton.
Last Tuesday, there was a sort of excitement to my voice that I hadn’t really heard since last season. Liverpool attacked and countered hard and …
Rating Liverpool's Summer Signings, Halfway Through 1st Season
The 2014 summer transfer window was certainly an eventful one. If Luis Suarez was not biting an Italian in Brazil, Mario Balotelli was being welcomed into Melwood by ice buckets of all sorts. Whilst the former opted to exit the club due to aggravating back problems due to continuously carrying the club in the 2013-14 season, the latter joined the Anfield club in a 15 million pound move that shocked the footballing world. Six months on, and we find ourselves pondering the 'ifs' …
Is 'Box' the New 'Triangle' for Liverpool? Part 2
In Part 1 of this article, we looked into the importance of the 3-4-2-1 formation and how successful it has been for Liverpool since its implementation. In the second part of the article, we are going to examine if there are any weaknesses in this system as Liverpool use it and how opposition teams might try to set up and counter this system.
Are There Weaknesses in this System?
1. Positional Rotation in Centre Midfield
In the 3-4-2-1, the 2 central midfielders are …
Is 'Box' the New 'Triangle' for Liverpool? - Part 1
In the recent weeks we have seen Liverpool implement the 3-4-2-1 formation across competitions and the formation has proved to be successful. So what has made Brendan Rodgers use the 3-4-2-1 in the last few weeks? What options has it provided us pre-game and in-game? Are there weaknesses or more appropriately ways for the opposition to get around the 3-4-2-1 employed by Rodgers? This set of two articles will try to examine few of the questions mentioned above.
When Rodgers joined …
Can he do it? Of course! He's Emre Can
When Liverpool bought Emre Can you would have been forgiven for assuming the young German’s role would be as another midfield option. Not many would have guessed that since Christmas he hasn’t missed a second of action.
Some might have even seen Can at Bayer Leverkusen and thought no this kid is going to be a star but who could have predicted how well the £10 million defensive midfielder has done since nailing down a starting place at Burnley?
Maybe …
Liverpool FC Recruitment Analysis: Watching the Watchmen
After an exciting summer spending money on shiny new players, Liverpool FC set fans' pulses racing with the promise of defensive leadership, pace up front, guile in midfield, and those full-backs we’ve been looking for since the days of Stig Inge Bjørnebye and Rob Jones…
Over a hundred million pounds were spent replacing Suarez, but not replacing him, as his only true replacement in terms of player profile (hard working, skillful, South American, high profile, tries crazy stuff) went to …