Im starting to believe we have two systemic problems at Liverpool. One is much easier to deal with than the other, so I will start with that. Our defence is headless. Our defensive triumvirate of Carragher, Agger and Reina had a solid understanding between them, and when it broke down Pepe was able and capable of taking charge. In Skrtel we have one of the best defenders in the world, but he is not a defensive leader and does not command the respect of the other defenders. Lovren is a natural leader, but he is the new boy and does not have the proof of success that Carragher and Agger had and Toure is too far down the downslope of his career to fill that role. In this situation Mignolet must step in, and whilst he is technically a competent keeper he has neither the footballing intelligence, mental bandwidth nor the natural authority to carry the defences organisation. So he makes positional, organisational and motivational mistakes that he would not otherwise make under the stress of divided leadership. I think the answer to this conundrum is Valdes. He is a natural leader, has a list of trophies that put most national leagues entire rosters to shame and can instil discipline and backbone into our defence. Our second systemic problem, and one which we could not have believed last season, is that we pause on the attack. We are over intricate when we settle and erratic and disorganised when we are not settled. We cannot play one touch football. This is harder to identify an individual upon which to hang, and as such responsibility must rest with Steven Gerrard as Captain. His enthusiasm for the long ball and his advancing years mean that only his footballing intelligence is an asset now. He should be encouraged to enter the coaching side of the club as soon as possible, and allowed to explore this side of his personality as Club Captain rather than an on the pitch leader and he should be replaced with a player capable of leading the attack while Henderson learns more about the game and settles into the full captaincy. /b/
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 21:34:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015