{"id":1468,"date":"2019-04-01T11:15:53","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T11:15:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/?p=1468"},"modified":"2019-04-01T11:15:53","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T11:15:53","slug":"lets-talk-about-liverpools-midfield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/lets-talk-about-liverpools-midfield\/","title":{"rendered":"Let\u2019s Talk About Liverpool\u2019s Midfield"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How are you doing, then? Did you survive? My prediction before kick-off was a nervy 2-1 win for Liverpool, but I was still not really prepared for just how nervy it would end up being. We looked every inch the better team in the first-half and it seemed as though Mauricio Pochettino\u2019s mad decision to go with a back five had played right into our hands, but we failed to capitalise on Roberto Firmino\u2019s opener and were all over the show for the opening thirty of the second-half. My resting heart-rate is about 73 bpm, so the fact that it hit 149 towards the closing moments of the match probably tells its own story. I admire Alisson Becker\u2019s determination to take out as many of the old folks in the Main Stand as possible and thereby clear the season ticket waiting list a touch, but I\u2019m not totally sure he should be doing it in these final games of the season. Judging by the reaction of those close to me on the Kop, everyone else felt pretty much the same. I\u2019ll be writing about the atmosphere later in the week, which I thought was pretty poor, but the let off for the goal was incredible.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Anfield erupts as Liverpool manage to get a late winner against Spurs!<\/p>\n<p>There have been some great moments with this team this season and this has to be right up there! <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#LFC<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LIVTOT?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#LIVTOT<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/3mjd0gIq08\">pic.twitter.com\/3mjd0gIq08<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Redmen TV (@TheRedmenTV) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheRedmenTV\/status\/1112460809962033152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 31, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\u201cutf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Last week I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/do-liverpool-need-to-beat-spurs-to-win-the-title\/\">wrote a piece suggesting dropped points yesterday wouldn\u2019t have been a disaster<\/a>. I still believe that\u2019s true, but the manner of the dropped points had the game played out how it looked like it was going to would have been devastating. To draw or lose from a winning position would have been mentally crushing for the fans, if not the players. It would have felt as though Manchester City were truly in the driving seat and that we would have been waiting for them to drop too many points to think of it realistically. I still think Pep Guardiola\u2019s team will lose a game before the season\u2019s over. If they don\u2019t and they go on to win all of their remaining matches then you simply have to hold your hands up and admit that they\u2019re an incredible football team that is the product of money well spent. The Reds are likely to end the campaign with their highest ever points tally, so the notion that anything has been \u2018bottled\u2019 is absolutely ridiculous. We didn\u2019t <strong>need<\/strong> to win yesterday, but now we have the shift in mentality could be massive. So why are so many people annoyed at the midfield?<\/p>\n<h2>We Controlled The First-Half<\/h2>\n<p>It would be madness not to think that the closing six games of this season are going to be anything other than fraught affairs. We have never won the Premier League. We haven\u2019t won the top-flight for nearly thirty years. It\u2019s natural that nerves are going to begin to influence proceedings the closer we get to taking home the biggest prize in domestic football. What\u2019s surprised me today is the simplistic, black and white manner in which yesterday\u2019s game is being judged. Too many people seem to have redressed it as us having no control whatsoever throughout the ninety minutes and that\u2019s a nonsense. We controlled the game for the first thirty and never really looked all that troubled for the remainder of the first-half. Yes, Tottenham had chances but they\u2019re a very, very good football team that was always likely to cause us some problems. The point is that the idea that J\u00fcrgen Klopp got his starting eleven wrong is, in my view, flawed.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Klopp conceded the title the second he left Fab off the starting 11!<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Ryan Whittington (@rgwhitting10) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rgwhitting10\/status\/1112401618920767488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 31, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\u201cutf-8\u201d><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The main criticism of what some ludicrously refer to as the \u2018Brexit Midfield\u2019 is that it doesn\u2019t link the defence to the attack well enough, but that criticism ignores the fact that it allows the full-backs to get forward and that\u2019s where most of our goals come from; indeed, it\u2019s Andy Robertson that sets up the opener. The criticism that it doesn\u2019t allow us to score goals is a weird one to make after it literally allowed us to score a goal. I\u2019ve also seen plenty of people saying Jordan Henderson was rubbish throughout, but in actuality he started well and then fell away. That\u2019s also a criticism that allows Gini Wijnaldum off the hook, who didn\u2019t really do much of anything at all. I completely understand people\u2019s frustration with the way the game panned out, but the manager\u2019s starting eleven was right. It was his slow reaction to the Spurs change that is deserving of criticism.<\/p>\n<h2>J\u00fcrgen Klopp Knows His Players Better Than We Do<\/h2>\n<p>Those criticising the manager and saying that Fabinho should have started are acting as though football is like FIFA. The Brazilian might not have played much football during the international break but he still had to fly halfway around the world and didn\u2019t get back to Melwood until Thursday. James Milner didn\u2019t go anywhere other than Dubai on holiday, Jordan Henderson played brilliantly in the first England game, only played about twenty minutes of the second and was around Melwood for most of the week, whilst Gini Wijnaldum played on Sunday so will have been in a similar situation. It\u2019s entirely possible that J\u00fcrgen Klopp decided it made more sense to go with the players he\u2019d been working with all week and then have Fabinho from the bench if needed.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">J\u00fcrgen Norbert Klopp, never ever leave this man out of our starting 11 again. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/TSQytuxVMb\">pic.twitter.com\/TSQytuxVMb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 conall (@cxnallLFC_) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cxnallLFC_\/status\/1112463180796698627?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 31, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The notion that we\u2019d have won the game easily if he\u2019d just started is belittling of Tottenham and ignores the fact that we might not have been able to change the game as easily if things hadn\u2019t panned out with us running away with it. To state as fact that idea that we\u2019d have won the game if Fabinho had started is the equivalent of me saying that Spurs looked more likely to score after the Brazilian came into the fray &#8211; it ignores the circumstances surrounding his introduction. He came on at a time when we\u2019d ceded the midfield in favour of pushing for a winner, so we were always likely to look more open and vulnerable on the counter because of that. For the record I wanted him to start, but Klopp has to think of so much more than we as supporters get to think about. He got his starting eleven right, took too long to change things to cope with Pochettino\u2019s alterations but we got the three points in the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How are you doing, then? Did you survive? My prediction before kick-off was a nervy 2-1 win for Liverpool, but I was still not really prepared for just how nervy it would end up being. We looked every inch the better team in the first-half and it seemed as though Mauricio Pochettino\u2019s mad decision to go with a back five had played right into our hands, but we failed to capitalise on Roberto Firmino\u2019s opener and were all over the show for the opening thirty of the second-half. My resting heart-rate is about 73 bpm, so the fact that it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1470,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1472,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1468\/revisions\/1472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}