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29 May 2020 12:38:42
Hi Ed's

Greetings from a cold and rainy Cape Town.

I wanted to know your take on the Liverpool midfield. Since the days of Gerrard, Alonso and Coutinho the team really seems to lack someone that can/ scores from long range and a central position. In many of the games this season and last there were a lot of moments where we would have possession in dangerous positions outside of the opposition box and none of our midfielders seemed keen or able to have a hit (or it was woeful) .

If I look at rival clubs they all seem to have people who a capable of this:

City: De Bruyne and Mahrez
United: Fernandes and Pogba
Chelsea: Alonso, Willian, Mount
Arsenal: Pepe and Xhaka


In your opinion (s) is this a area that Liverpool need to improve on or acquire a player with that ability? We no longer seem to be a threat from long range in central positions.

All views / opinions welcome!

Thanks.

{Ed001's Note - most of those players play ahead of the midfield, as attackers when they score goals. The exceptions being Pogba, who barely plays as he can't be arsed, Alonso is a defender and Xhaka who is crap anyway. It doesn't matter what you do, there is always things you want to improve, but we do have players who can score from there, it is just that they usually have people in better positions to play the ball to.

I would rather they didn't do a Couts and Gerrard of hitting it constantly and just handing the opposition possession most of the time. We are a much better team than those days, with full-backs and centre-backs adding more goals and forwards racking up huge numbers, so it is not as important for the midfield to add many. Certainly Henderson, Wijnaldum, Fabinho etc have the potential to smash them in from range, but there is no need to just hit it from range usually. There is almost always a better choice for them to make.

That is the thing, if they started smacking more from range, it would reduce the chances for people like Mane and Salah to score. We have a good balance right now and it is working, we need to be careful not to upset it.}

Agree1 Disagree0

29 May 2020 14:47:17
Good question TRC. I hope with Ox and Keita finding more fitness and consistency in the coming seasons we will have plenty of goalscorers in midfield also. Both of them have the ability to thread passes and shoot from outside the box so they will not only add goals but also the element of surprise which will help our front 3.

29 May 2020 16:02:06
I would say the ox is as good as any of those mentioned at hitting shots from outside the box.

Imo, Gerrard earned the grace to smack shots from outside the area, he scored some crackers. And often he had poor players ahead of him.

29 May 2020 16:26:01
This got me thinking of long range goals we've scored under Klopp, and apart from Couts, the ones that stick out are the Ox scoring in the PL and the CL against City a couple of seasons ago (Salah scored far out in that first game too but that was basically an open goal), and Fabs scoring against City this season. Kind of interesting that we've scored a few from long range against City.

29 May 2020 16:32:07
Thanks for the insight Ed001 and others.

I was asking as sometimes i felt when teams sat very deep against us to mitigate being exposed by our pace, we had moments where we should have taken on a long-range hit in the space provided.

I also felt often teams would double-up out wide on Mane and Salah which i felt opened up the middle for a long range effort.

We are playing and like mentioned the side is balanced and contributions coming from multiple sources. I guess a just love a long range golazo :)

29 May 2020 18:00:42
The stats show that Liverpool have scored 8 goals outside the box this season, that's the third highest in the league.

29 May 2020 18:15:55
Agree 100% with TRC the midfield need to shoot more from outside the box and shooting in general is an area we could improve on.

29 May 2020 18:56:12
25 points clear, current CL holders and about to win first title in 30 years. I think Klopp has balance right don’t you?

29 May 2020 21:03:46
Spot on, SupaReds. We are European, World and soon to be crowned English Champions. I think I'll leave the midfield balance talk to the guy who has masterminded our great success which is our very own Jurgen Norbert Klopp, thank you very much.

29 May 2020 22:18:13
I have to say that when the Ox is fit and firing, he does all of that. However I couldn't agree more with Ed001's comments. We are a better team now and usually have better options than trying to beat a top keeper from distance.

29 May 2020 22:41:49
I agree with The Red Cape
Having a player that is capable of scoring from distance would be a huge asset. Whilst I understand what Ed 01 is saying about shooting and missing just gives the opposition the ball back, having someone in the team that can score from distance would give teams something else to think about, and could actually create more space, with defenders coming out to shut down the likely shooter, which in turn could create space for any parries or rebounds. I can't count the number of times one of our players has shot from out side the box and I have said "well he is no Steven Gerrard"
I absolutely love watching Stevies goals they are so WOW.

30 May 2020 02:23:10
Yeah, Ed is bang on of course. You generally shoot from range when you're out of ideas. Our boys don't give up until the final whistle. Hendo wouldn't smash one with three World class forwards making moves in front of him. Unless the space opened up and the ball was in the perfect position to hit.







 

 

 
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