Dani Ceballos

Should of been pulled at half time. Simply dreadful performance.

If we were gonna play him out wide, maybe somebody else would have been better in hindsight.

Agreed also he has got to be blended in on a single role.

Thatā€™s ur boy tho Emery. Played a diamond formation where Ceballos was supposed to be the number 10 but we couldnā€™t get the ball out of our own half because Emery is bereft of ideas offensively anyways, and well defensively too because itā€™s actually hilarious to me that everyone in the world knows how important wing backs are in Klopps system and Emery thought it was a good idea to play a tactic where thereā€™s nobody to defend the wings :joy::joy::joy: so yeah Ceballos wasnā€™t supposed to be playing as a winger but was forced over there to try and stop the constant stream of crosses we were allowing into our box.

1 Like

Well yeah, that is Emery. Oh well, we may only have tolerate this for another year. :+1:

That was actually a decent plan that worked, in the first half Liverpool had like a gazillion crosses and nothing to show for it. After the break Klopp completely changed their approach as they had like 3 crosses all half, instead they started playing balls for Mane, Firmino and Salah through the middle and thatā€™s where we collapsed.

6 Likes

It was also because we came out our shell

Letā€™s hope Emery learns from this mistake

Yeah itā€™s a good tactic if ur Burnley or a team less talented. We have invested over the past few years Ā£250m in attacking players and thatā€™s the tactic we choose to play at Anfield :joy::joy: honestly any Arsenal supporter who has watched this team in the past 5 years that thinks we can sit back and soak up pressure and knick a 1 nil victory is smoked out af homie. Pathetic by Emery tbh.

I think thatā€™s harsh under the circumstancesā€¦ integrating 4 new players into team and dealing with makeshift wingbacksā€¦ 3rd game of summer after big investmentā€¦ against one of the top 3-4 teams in all of Europe probably at their home where they are invincible for over 2 seasonsā€¦

We arenā€™t that good and to the extent we should expect improvement THIS year, it will take some time.

Overall not arguing with you about Emery, but this particular game come on.

As others have pointed out, the real indictment is that teams like Norwich have already gone to Anfield and caused that same team more trouble. Our team is infinitely better with more talent and our offensive gameplan was for Pepe to attempt to dribble past 3 defenders to score.

Well we can cherry pick single games to make a case, but they were freaking Champions of Europe and almost got 100 points last season - and they are playing a team that has played together for thousands of minutes.

We were starting 4 brand new players and dealing with crappy makeshift wingbacks in the 3rd game after a season where we finished 27 points behind them.

And you can hyperbolically describe our tactics that way if you like - but we all understood that sitting deep, absorbing pressure, and trying to hit them on counter was the planā€¦ and it almost worked in the first halfā€¦ a stupid corner and a missed 1 v 1.

Maybe it was wrong plan and maybe Emery is total crap, but it wasnā€™t a terrible plan under all the circumstances. I donā€™t see why people can agree that Emery isnā€™t the right guy and also not just comdemn every little thing he does b/c it comes across as incredibly imbalanced.

2 Likes

Just a bunch of butthurt AKBs being petty.

3 Likes

Issue is that we barely scraped by against much inferior opposition the first couple matches, he clearly canā€™t manage the team to be dangerous offensively. That was an issue among many last year, and itā€™s only carried over to this season. Going full Mourinho is the last straw for me.

If u had told me before the match that our plan was to sit 10 men behind the ball and knick a win at anfield Iā€™d have laughed. We all know we donā€™t have the personnel to accomplish that, and itā€™s definitely a cowardly way to play football for a club that has our talent. If u wanna play anti football hire a proper manager who can drill the players and teach them to play that way. We have zero identity as a club, and unless one emerges very quickly, itā€™s gonna be a painful season. Not enjoying watching this team whatsoever. What a waste of guys like Pepe and Ceballos so far.

3 Likes

I donā€™t think Iā€™ve agreed with anything youā€™ve said over the last 2 days, you clearly have an anti-Emery vendetta because your viewpoint is just too skewed otherwise.

Please explain to me how any of their goals were scored due to tactical errors?
And if you seriously think we would have conceded less goals by going out and attacking them then youā€™re deluded.

This is the same guy who would have criticised Emery if he played all his attacking players, went gung-ho and lost 5-0.

Even responding to him is silly most times.

5 Likes

The only thing I personally took issue with, and although it hadnā€™t specifically lead to a goal was the system which allowed their full backs too much space.

I can count so many times where either TAA or Robertson received the ball with a clear radius of at least >6 yards of space via a diagonally pinged pass across the field.

I took less issue with it because the result was inevitable imo and personal trip ups is always what ends up costing us anyway.

So yeah, I wasnā€™t entirely sold on our master tactic if Iā€™m honest but I do agree with people who think on another day that performance may have knicked us an off the odds steal.

3 Likes

It is a reasonable argument whether that was a good idea or not; however, it was kind of working defensivelyā€¦ they have so much more threat through the middle with those goal scorers and picking the poison of aerial crosses wasnā€™t a terrible idea.

Our problems with possession, progression, and overall attacking competence was multi-faceted imho. It was a combo of:

  1. Wrong lineup in retrospect (and I didnā€™t like it from beginning)
  2. Shambolic clearances and play out of the back - we just arenā€™t good enough or composed enough or ā€œconnected enoughā€ to pull it off right now
  3. Really good pressing by Pool and individual errors in execution by our midfield.

In terms of our offensive fluency and competency ā€œbig pictureā€ - yeah, Emery hasnā€™t shown me anything to be confident about; however, we are dealing with a massively changed lineup at the moment and wide backs are a very vital part of 2-way play these days and ours areā€¦ Monreal and AMNā€¦ nuff said.

I completely agree with the stubborness to insistently play out the back. That in itself was a contributor to their great press.

Either way as I said though, I donā€™t think much better twerking would have changed the result anyway, theyā€™re that much better than us right now.

EDIT: Obviously meant tweaking* but maybe twerking would have worked?!

1 Like

I think some Miley twerking would certainly have helped the enjoyment of the game.

One never knows how a game will go and what would have happened under other circumstances, but I would tend to agree that odds were massively against us. There is a reason they are 2+ seasons unbeaten at Anfield in the league and there is a reason they almost got 100 pointsā€¦ and there is a reason they are Champions of Europe.

That team that we played also have massive familiarity advantage over us - not sure why people seem to gloss over that. We had 4 players who basically didnā€™t play any minutes for us before this seasonā€¦ and crappy wide backs in AMN and Monreal compared to their WC wide backs.

I think we are more competitive and have more tactical options later this season with a full squad and a team that has gelled and adjusted to all the newbs.

2 Likes