• ! ! ! IMPORTANT MESSAGE ! ! !

    Discussions about police investigations

    In light of recent developments about a player from Premier League being arrested and until there is an official announcement, ALL users should refrain from discussing or speculating about situations around personal off-pitch matters related to any Arsenal player. This is to protect you and the forum.

    Users who disregard this reminder will be issued warnings and their posts will get deleted from public.

PL | Liverpool vs Arsenal | Saturday, 17:30 BST | Sky Sports

What is your predicted result?


  • Total voters
    131
  • Poll closed .
Status
Not open for further replies.

drippin

Obsessed with "Mature Trusted Members"

Country: Finland
Try to understand football for a moment. What makes Liverpool so dangerous is that Firmino occupies both CBs with his movement leaving Salah and Mane mostly 1v1 with a fullback and a full head of steam headed towards the box. What we did in the first half today was essentially play without a striker because Emery had everyone hiding in the middle of the park and Auba and Pepe both coming in from the flanks. Pepe was actually taking up the more central postions of the 2 in the first half. Because of that, Robertson and Alexander-Arnold were free to set up camp in our defensive third and ping in crosses at will. It also ensured that Liverpool had longer spells of possession since they always had options in acres of space on either flank to play the ball to and retain possession.

If Lacazette starts then you force both CBs to account for his movement meaning that Robertson has to drop back in to mind Pepe and Alexander Arnold has to drop back in to mind Auba. Instantly you take away Liverpool's ability to camp in the final third like they did and instead of having Auba and Pepe isolated when we did try to counter, now they have Laca to play off of and a less settled Liverpool backline to attack. It's unbelievably basic stuff. Pepe by himself put the fear of God into VVD and Robertson. If he actually had Lacazette to interplay with as well as drag attention away form him rather than having to wait for Auba to come over from the other side of the pitch he'd have been ever more dangerous. It was redundant to play Xhaka and Guendouzi together. It added nothing to the defensive gameplan. Lacazette would have both made us more dangerous going forward and helped us to take away such comfortable possession defensively.

Good points, but we have to rotate. Like I assumed, Laca will be on the bench in at least some away games, to be brought in as a substitute and a force. Also we would have one less in midfield and we have been overrun there earlier and in counter attack. Now with two 20-year olds starting.

Personally I think he made the right choice, Pepe & Auba are very good at counter attack, even faster than Laca.
 

JoaoFelix

Active Member
Try to understand football for a moment. What makes Liverpool so dangerous is that Firmino occupies both CBs with his movement leaving Salah and Mane mostly 1v1 with a fullback and a full head of steam headed towards the box. What we did in the first half today was essentially play without a striker because Emery had everyone hiding in the middle of the park and Auba and Pepe both coming in from the flanks. Pepe was actually taking up the more central postions of the 2 in the first half. Because of that, Robertson and Alexander-Arnold were free to set up camp in our defensive third and ping in crosses at will. It also ensured that Liverpool had longer spells of possession since they always had options in acres of space on either flank to play the ball to and retain possession.

If Lacazette starts then you force both CBs to account for his movement meaning that Robertson has to drop back in to mind Pepe and Alexander Arnold has to drop back in to mind Auba. Instantly you take away Liverpool's ability to camp in the final third like they did and instead of having Auba and Pepe isolated when we did try to counter, now they have Laca to play off of and a less settled Liverpool backline to attack. It's unbelievably basic stuff. Pepe by himself put the fear of God into VVD and Robertson. If he actually had Lacazette to interplay with as well as drag attention away form him rather than having to wait for Auba to come over from the other side of the pitch he'd have been ever more dangerous. It was redundant to play Xhaka and Guendouzi together. It added nothing to the defensive gameplan. Lacazette would have both made us more dangerous going forward and helped us to take away such comfortable possession defensively.

Allejuah!
 

JoaoFelix

Active Member
Good points, but we have to rotate. Like I assumed, Laca will be on the bench in at least some away games, to be brought in as a substitute and a force. Also we would have one less in midfield and we have been overrun there earlier and in counter attack. Now with two 20-year olds starting.

Personally I think he made the right choice, Pepe & Auba are very good at counter attack, even faster than Laca.
He didn't make the right CHOICE at the end of the day the results speaks for itself.
 

Batman

Head of the Wayne foundation for benching Nketiah

Country: USA

Player:Saliba
Good points, but we have to rotate. Like I assumed, Laca will be on the bench in at least some away games, to be brought in as a substitute and a force. Also we would have one less in midfield.

Personally I think he made the right choice, Pepe & Auba are very good at counter attack, even faster than Laca.
I don't mind rotation or trying to play on the counter but you can't do it if you're playing so cautiously that you're constantly trying to counter with just 2 players. I have almost never seen any team so comfortable in possession that they basically played 2 at the back for long stretches. We were so unwilling to come out of our shell even once we regained possession that Matip and VVD were able to just drop back and wait for Auba and Pepe to cut inside and try to find each other. We made ourselves not just unbelievably easy to defend but also unbelievably easy to attack because of the way Emery set up. Plus I don't tend to believe that we HAVE to rotate 3 matches into the season when we have the chance to pick up at least a point and set ourselves up nicely in the table.
 

Batman

Head of the Wayne foundation for benching Nketiah

Country: USA

Player:Saliba
Get off your high horse already.
Maybe when you actually engage the content of the post and refute the facts in it I will but for the moment it's a pretty comfortable ride.
 

boyinneedofhumor

Active Member
...
A mistake to leave Laca and Torreira on the bench. ...
With Laca, its more of a case of releasing the ball for Auba and Pepe to sprint towards. Questionable? Maybe. Maybe not.

Torreira, I'm guessing Emery might have doubts about him lasting 90mins and defines a sub role for him as a result.
 

drippin

Obsessed with "Mature Trusted Members"

Country: Finland
I don't mind rotation or trying to play on the counter but you can't do it if you're playing so cautiously that you're constantly trying to counter with just 2 players. I have almost never seen any team so comfortable in possession that they basically played 2 at the back for long stretches. We were so unwilling to come out of our shell even once we regained possession that Matip and VVD were able to just drop back and wait for Auba and Pepe to cut inside and try to find each other. We made ourselves not just unbelievably easy to defend but also unbelievably easy to attack because of the way Emery set up. Plus I don't tend to believe that we HAVE to rotate 3 matches into the season when we have the chance to pick up at least a point and set ourselves up nicely in the table.

I like your attitude in criticism. Countering is very approvable tactic against Liverpool away.

I think Ceballos was surprisingly bad today, one less in good attacking flow. It's very understandable, but didn't see that big drop coming. Also Willock & Guendouzi probably had the permission to go forward when possible.

It just didn't happen as much as hoped for. One less in midfield and we would have been in trouble and also risked our two strikers.
 

ASIF

Active Member
I think the tactics were spot on but once we conceded the 2nd goal he should have brought Lacazette on he came on in the 81 min which is unacceptable.And we defended way too deep it was inevitable that we would concede but Pepe looks a fine player.He just turned Van Dirk inside out and after that they dint try to press him much.Wish he had taken his chance thou.Cant wait for Bellerin and Tierney to come back becoz teams will target our full backs.Amn is a solid player but not a rb.We move on to Sp**s have to beat them and 9 points out of 12 doesnt look soo bad.
 

Vinci

The Sultan of Unai

Country: Netherlands
Maybe when you actually engage the content of the post and refute the facts in it I will but for the moment it's a pretty comfortable ride.
Nah, I can't be bothered doing that on here anymore.
 

goonerfamily

Active Member
In theory, I can understand why we went with the diamond today. If you look at Liverpool’s side, they are obviously brilliant all over but their weak point, if they have one, is their midfield. In theory, if we could control the midfield through a numerical advantage, we could have won. However, what actually happened was we struggled to have an out ball out wide and their full backs could play high up the pitch.

It is interesting because with wenger we would rarely deviate from our style against the big teams and that saw us get routinely spanked in the big away games. Meanwhile, Emery is more pragmatic and plays differently depending on the opponent, and that saw us perform better against the big teams, though not especially away from home.

It’s all relative though. I thought Pepe looked exceptional, Willock grew into the game too. I think if you add Laca, Holding, Tierney, Torreira and Bellerin into the starting 11 then we may have been more competitive today.

I think we can get three points against Sp**s next weekend, there are quite a few positives to take from the game. I do think in the long term we need to look away from Emery and go for a more positive manager if we want to win the big trophies in the future though.
 

Finesse

Well-Known Member
Try to understand football for a moment. What makes Liverpool so dangerous is that Firmino occupies both CBs with his movement leaving Salah and Mane mostly 1v1 with a fullback and a full head of steam headed towards the box. What we did in the first half today was essentially play without a striker because Emery had everyone hiding in the middle of the park and Auba and Pepe both coming in from the flanks. Pepe was actually taking up the more central postions of the 2 in the first half. Because of that, Robertson and Alexander-Arnold were free to set up camp in our defensive third and ping in crosses at will. It also ensured that Liverpool had longer spells of possession since they always had options in acres of space on either flank to play the ball to and retain possession.

If Lacazette starts then you force both CBs to account for his movement meaning that Robertson has to drop back in to mind Pepe and Alexander Arnold has to drop back in to mind Auba. Instantly you take away Liverpool's ability to camp in the final third like they did and instead of having Auba and Pepe isolated when we did try to counter, now they have Laca to play off of and a less settled Liverpool backline to attack. It's unbelievably basic stuff. Pepe by himself put the fear of God into VVD and Robertson. If he actually had Lacazette to interplay with as well as drag attention away form him rather than having to wait for Auba to come over from the other side of the pitch he'd have been ever more dangerous. It was redundant to play Xhaka and Guendouzi together. It added nothing to the defensive gameplan. Lacazette would have both made us more dangerous going forward and helped us to take away such comfortable possession defensively.

Matip and VVD were just happy mopping up things. Playing Xhaka , Douzi , Willock and Dani was too much. We just slowed down transition and provided no support to Auba and Pepe. Willock was the one trying to drive the game forward. Top lad Willock. Pepe was our most dangerous player. This is terrible for a lad on his full debut in an away fixture. Every time we just hoped he made magic with the ball since he was swamped every time he got the ball. He is an unbelievable player and hopefully we don’t break his confidence.

How can you sit deep and invite such an invasion from Liverpool. That forced our defenders into silly errors.

When the game plan went tits up at 3 down we started attacking and that’s when we looked dangerous and scored one.

Emery knows he it wrong. It is sad when everyone knows Xhaka is that poor but would walk into his team as a captain.

Let’s hope he shows he learns from it against Sp**s.
 

Batman

Head of the Wayne foundation for benching Nketiah

Country: USA

Player:Saliba
I like your attitude in criticism. Countering is very approvable tactic against Liverpool away.

I think Ceballos was surprisingly bad today, one less in good attacking flow. It's very understandable, but didn't see that big drop coming. Also Willock & Guendouzi probably had the permission to go forward when possible.

It just didn't happen as much as hoped for. One less in midfield and we would have been in trouble and also risked our two strikers.
Yeah Ceballos' performance was a little surprising but it was also just a very odd setup all together. Essentially we played 4 CMs and told 2 of them to operate somewhere between CM and FB. I'm not surprised by a disjointed performance in a disjointed setup. It wasn't quite clear to me whom was supposed to be doing what. I'd almost have preferred to see him go 3 at the back with more defined roles than whatever he thought he was achieving with that odd midfield because it almost looked like we were playing 4-6-0 a lot of the time rather than 4-4-2. What I'm saying is that if you start Laca, who not only presses from the front but does drop back and help out then you completely change the way Liverpool has to approach defending you when you do have the ball. You can't just resign yourselves to them having their way against you and bet that you can just absorb it all game by throwing bodies into the middle of the park. We don't have the kind of personnel for that. We aren't a Stoke or a Burnley.
 

drippin

Obsessed with "Mature Trusted Members"

Country: Finland
Yeah Ceballos' performance was a little surprising but it was also just a very odd setup all together. Essentially we played 4 CMs and told 2 of them to operate somewhere between CM and FB. I'm not surprised by a disjointed performance in a disjointed setup. It wasn't quite clear to me whom was supposed to be doing what. I'd almost have preferred to see him go 3 at the back with more defined roles than whatever he thought he was achieving with that odd midfield because it almost looked like we were playing 4-6-0 a lot of the time rather than 4-4-2. What I'm saying is that if you start Laca, who not only presses from the front but does drop back and help out then you completely change the way Liverpool has to approach defending you when you do have the ball. You can't just resign yourselves to them having their way against you and bet that you can just absorb it all game by throwing bodies into the middle of the park. We don't have the kind of personnel for that. We aren't a Stoke or a Burnley.

I think it was 4-3-1-2 or 4-1-2-1-2 diamond, which some here have wished for. The diamond needs Tierney and Bellerin to thrive for sure.
 

Ashybashy86

Well-Known Member
I like your attitude in criticism. Countering is very approvable tactic against Liverpool away.

I think Ceballos was surprisingly bad today, one less in good attacking flow. It's very understandable, but didn't see that big drop coming. Also Willock & Guendouzi probably had the permission to go forward when possible.

It just didn't happen as much as hoped for. One less in midfield and we would have been in trouble and also risked our two strikers.
I agree, but Xhaka and Guendouzi combo is not great for that. Both are too slow getting the ball forward. Torreira’s transitions were much quicker.
 

Batman

Head of the Wayne foundation for benching Nketiah

Country: USA

Player:Saliba
I think it was 4-3-1-2 or 4-1-2-1-2 diamond, which some here have wished for. The diamond needs Tierney and Bellerin to thrive for sure.
It spent so long cowering in the final third I'm not sure we ever actually saw the intended shape. :rofl: I have no doubt that KT and Bellerin will help, as will Holding but I still feel that if the manager's tactics don't improve in these big matches that we'll continue to underperform.
 

Finesse

Well-Known Member
How on earth can you play from the back and build from the back with no one to provide the width to stretch your opponent! It’s comical seeing us trying to pass from the back and build up play ! How can you do that with no marauding full backs or wingers go stretch the opposition. Today Pepe and Auba were expected to stretch Liverpool and still lead the attack. Impossible. We have to commend our defence for the first half. Excellent ! But it could not last. You can’t defend for that long with no lead to protect. It was only about time we made an error.
 

GeorgiaGunner

#FreeClaude
Liverpool are a ~95 point side with an all-world home field advantage. We’re a ~75 point side with road issues. Today wasn’t great, but anyone expecting too different — acting like Emery / players massively undershot expectations — is kidding themselves or hasn’t been paying attention for the past few years.
 
Last edited:

drippin

Obsessed with "Mature Trusted Members"

Country: Finland
I agree, but Xhaka and Guendouzi combo is not great for that. Both are too slow getting the ball forward. Torreira’s transitions were much quicker.

I would have started Torreira too instead of Xhaka, but I'm pretty sure Torreira wasn't yet fit for it. We'll never know.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom