Liverpool’s One Big Problem
by YNWA on September 22nd, 2009 22 commentsRafa needs to sort this out and quickly!
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“When you talk about Liverpool for the title, all of a sudden they’ve got frailties, and I don’t think that bodes well.
“Liverpool have lost nine goals in six matches, which is far too many. They have problems with the zonal defence.
“Carragher and Skrtel for a long time have been rock solid. But they just made one or two mistakes against West Ham.
“And when you start making mistakes you go on the pitch a bit hesitant and indecisive and before you know it you’re under pressure.” – Alan Hansen
27 in 08/09, 28 in 07/08, 27 in 06/07, 25 in 05/06. That’s our defensive record for the past four seasons, pretty impressive isn’t it. However this term in six games we have already conceded nine goals, so what’s the problem?
Clearly set pieces and long balls into the box are causing us all sorts of problems. But why? It’s the usual centre backs we are using with Jamie Carragher and Martin Skrtel the mainstays at the back and even when Daniel Ayala was thrown in at the deep end at home to Stoke, we managed a clean sheet.
Alan Hansen is right, zonal marking is not doing the trick thus far this season and we need to snap out of our collective errors at the back. It seems to be a case that we are finding it hard to deal with basic balls into the box and our defenders don’t know who they are marking and as a result confidence and self esteem is hit and the whole thing becomes a vicious cycle, fortunately scoring at the other end is not a problem and therefore we are still ending up the right side of 3-2 wins but this is not sustainable.
Rafa can obviously see whats going on and has probably rammed these points home to the players, but maybe its time to start man marking against teams with more than their fair share of big bulky players, especially on set plays. It has even on occasions got to Pepe Reina who is occasionally coming for balls he shouldn’t be considering.
It’s a big problem, but one we can hopefully shake before it becomes a real headache.
YNWA
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anonymous - September 22nd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Carragher can’t jump are you all thick or something.
anonymous - September 22nd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
You started by stating our impressive defensive record over the last 4 seasons, and concluded we need to change from zonal marking .
But the fact is liverpool have a very impressive record from set pieces over the last 4 years. we have conceded less goals from set pieces than any of the top teams , so why blame zonal marking ?
I agree we have conceded too many goals from set pieces this season, but the reason for this is not the zonal marking system. The issue with zonal marking is this – if the delivery is good and the attacking player gets a run on the defender then he will almost always win the challenge. But for this to work you need the ball to be top quality and the attacking player to meet it correctly. This does not happen too often , this is why zonal marking has lead to liverpool conceding so few goals in the last few seasons. In the current game , pushing and blocking during set pieces has made it more difficult to man mark , at least with zonal marking , each danger area is covered so you have a greater chance of clearing the danager. But the system can let you down if the players dont concentrate on their area . A perfect example of this was Clelsea’s first goal in the champions league semi . The replay clearly shows Skertal looking back to see the chelsea player coming in , this split second cost him a chance to clear the ball, if he had his mind on his task ( watching the zone the ball was coming into ) then the goal would not have been scored. You will remember the chelsea player didnt have to jump to win the ball , he just ran into the space in front of skertal , had skertal ignored the player , he would have seen the ball coming in and had enough time to meet it first.
Other examples include torres not doing his job at the front post for on of villa’s goals this season.
we need to realize that neither zonal marking or man marking are 100% perfect, but as i said over the last 4 years we have conceded less goals from set pieces than any of the other big teams , this tells me only one thing , we have the ccorrect system. We are just talking about it becouse clueless hacks and footie pundits ( who are’nt good enough to be managers ) keep bringing it up. Let Rafa do his job , his way .
anonymous - September 22nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
zonal marking shows rafa’s inability to admit hes wrong. There is a reason other teams dont do it. Every corner makes you worry
anonymous - September 22nd, 2009 at 2:00 pm
rafa will never give up the zonal marking, he loves it. thats like asking him to put a substitute on b4 the 60 minute mark.
Jed - September 22nd, 2009 at 2:58 pm
YNWA….liverpool have more than one big problem buddy….and how is rafa gonna fix any of them if he is one of the said problems……and yes YNWA did start off by commenting on liverpool’s impressive recent record of conceding less than 27 goals a season over the past 4 years…but have you ever heard the words “over the hill”?? carragher just isnt cutting it…drogba is gonna make him look stupid come 4th october..
anonymous - September 22nd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
In May 2006 Reina was awarded the Premier League’s Golden Glove award for keeping 20 clean sheets in the 2005–06 season.
In August 2007, Reina once again won the Premier League’s Golden Glove Award for the second successive season after keeping 19 clean sheets in the 2006–07 Barclays Premier League campaign
On 2 February 2008, Reina became the quickest goalkeeper in Liverpool history to keep a half century of clean sheets. He hit the milestone during a 3–0 win against Sunderland on his 92nd league outing, beating the previous record by three.[6]
During 2008 Reina also won his third consecutive Barclays Golden Glove after keeping eighteen clean sheets during the season.
On 22 March 2009, Reina then went on to become the quickest goalkeeper in Liverpool history to keep 100 clean sheets in all competitions. He hit that milestone during a 5-0 win against Aston Villa on his 197th appearance for Liverpool in all competitions.
He came 2nd in the 2008-09 season, Zonal marking may not be pretty and I also worry when the ball comes in the box but stats don’t lie, it works, just been a bad start to the season
Retryboy - September 22nd, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Back fours operate as a unit not just the centre backs this is a new back four takes time to gel we do always look dodgy on corners and free kicks we do lack height and i prefer man marking cos while u r waiting for the ball 2 come into your zone an attacker has run to attack it whilst u r going from a stationary start rafa won’t admit it tho he is more determined to prove he is right than to get the points
anonymous - September 22nd, 2009 at 4:48 pm
What a completely stupid and idiotic ‘article’ which has no basis in reality and doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny.
anonymous - September 22nd, 2009 at 5:37 pm
LFC seem to be winning….after a slow start. So FUCK OFF. YNWA.
anonymous - September 22nd, 2009 at 5:39 pm
For gods sake the reason zonal marking isn’t working is because carragher can’t jump. Why can no one admit it.
RaNE - September 22nd, 2009 at 6:25 pm
we have a great keeper
now on to defense fair enough a slow start but carra isnt getting younger and skrtel is still improving everyteam can make mistakes at the back BUT at least there happening early rather than towards the end when it could be vital
Retryboy - September 22nd, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Whats ppls views on the team 4 2nite would like to see… Cavalieri, darby, aurelio, skrtel, agger, spearing, lucas, riera, babel, benayoun, el zhar with babel up front, benayoun in the 2nd striker role
Riera left, el zhar right… Reckon degen and voronin will start tho
saif - September 22nd, 2009 at 6:38 pm
i think the squaf should be
martin
darby ayala agger aurelio
el jhar spearing amoo
dalla valle
pacheco n’goo
subs caveliari torres bable n’gog at the bare minimum should be on there
anonymous - September 22nd, 2009 at 6:58 pm
the team will most likely be
…………………caveliari……………….
darby….greek….ayala….aurelio
babel….spearing…….?…….reira
………….voronin….ngog…………..
Retryboy - September 22nd, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Team news in cavalieri, degen, dossena, kyrgiakos, carragher, mascherano, spearing, aurelio, riera, babel, ngog. Subs reina, johnson, skrtel, gerrard, plessis, torres, voronin
Retryboy - September 22nd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Think that has to be the most defensive team i have ever seen in my life! Gk, 5 defenders, 2 defensive midfielders, 1 winger, 2 strikers obv won’t line up like that but still reckon he knows we need to protect our attacking players or something lol
jimmyk - September 22nd, 2009 at 9:14 pm
i couldnt care less about how many goals we concede, as long as long as we win the league.
obviously clean sheets are important but i just wanted to state that fact. trophies speak louder than goals scored / conceded.
anonymous - September 23rd, 2009 at 8:25 am
guys dont u think its time we replace carrager he was terrible against w-hamm and the same story yesterday against leeds.he made numerous mistaks that nearly cost us the game.we need agger back quickly
saif - September 23rd, 2009 at 8:39 am
yeah sell carra and get a winger giving youngsters the chance to shine is important so sell lucas asap
Retryboy - September 23rd, 2009 at 9:44 am
Carragher lives and breathes liverpool and you just wanna sell him off, write him off instead of getting behind him
anonymous - September 23rd, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Liverpool are shit and so are all who follow them are shit watchers
Donavan Ried - September 25th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Why not let the back four mark zonal and the rest mark man-man