Imagining Klopp’s Liverpool message: F*** the opposition

Matt Stead

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G’won, Lennon
I know this isn’t the hot topic of the day, and won’t generate a load of clicks or debate.  But it’s bloody brilliant to see Aaron Lennon doing well and rolling back the years.

That’s all.
Adam

 

Pressure, pushing down on me…
Mihir’s rather gloomy mail in this morning’s mailbox got me thinking about pressure. This summer, my hometown of Limerick won the Hurling Championship in Ireland for the first time in 45 years. It was a huge occasion for Limerick people having seen neighboring counties win it as we came close over the years, and having had to sit through a period of utter dominance by the Kilkenny team. I think this allows for certain parallels with Liverpool. Former champions, more recently also rans who have had to watch rivals succeed.

The most interesting thing for me was a Limerick hurler who works with my dad (all the plays are amateur and work or go to school) giving his opinion before the semi final against the afore-mentioned might of Kilkenny. Dad asked this chap was he nervous considering the occasion, the opposition, the 45 years of waiting etc. His response? ‘I don’t give a f*ck about Kilkenny. We’ve trained all year for this. I want to win. F*ck Kilkenny. The last 45 years is nothing to do with us.’

To hear him tell it, the belief in their squad was absolute and sure, players wouldn’t be human if they didn’t consider these things but if you work like a dog and give your best in every game, then pressure becomes irrelevant. I think Klopp would be saying something similar to his lads while he keeps grinning like a maniac: keep doing what you’re doing. Work hard. F**k the opposition. Let them worry about you.

Think too much about pressure and things start to slip (sorry Stevie).
Alan, Córdoba. 

 

 

How to solve a problem like The Arsenal
After seeing yet another iffy-perfomance-but-three-points from Arsenal, and reading David Hytner in the Guardian (“There was the sense of square pegs in round holes, with Aubameyang shoehorned in on the left and Mesut Özil stationed on the right”), I can’t help wondering if 3-4-1-2 might be the answer.

Cech
Holding-Mustafi-Sokratis
Bellerin-Torreira-Ramsey-Monreal
Ozil
Lacazette-Aubameyang

This would give us a back three, whereas at the moment we mostly play with a back two – although personnel-wise Koscielny would obviously be welcomed back with open arms.

As wing-backs, Bellerin and Monreal could carry on doing what they are doing – providing natural width and goal threat, and occasionally remembering to defend. Torreira is such a sight for sore eyes I am surprised fans haven’t already tweaked the old Vieira song for him, and playing Ramsey at 8 would put Xhaka on the bench. I know both Wenger and Emery have had him as an ever-present, but I don’t see it, even with some of his defensive burdens eased by Torreira.

Ozil could play in his favourite position, which would also mean he wouldn’t have to track back very much, and could wander around and make a laconic nuisance of himself, and Lacazette and Aubameyang could build on their very promising pairing, with both up front.

Our bench would be full of possible impact players: Mkhitaryan (whose name I can pronounce by pretending he’s an Irish lad named McItarian), Xhaka, Wellbeck, and Guendouzi.

I know Emery has traditionally played four at the back, but I feel it might solve some problems.
Leo

 

Jose’s job
I am baffled. A man admits that he cannot do his job, and the people who employ him are not listening. The team was not motivated, he says. they did not respond in the second half, he says. Now correct me if I am wrong, but is that not his job, to get them to be motivated, to look past the next bank statement, to respect the 80 odd thousand people that have paid their hard earned (are you listening Sanchez?) money for tickets, and for some a once in a lifetime trip. If they are not listening, what is the point of Mourinho? He blames the players, but they are, well, the players. One might have thought that on the day that Sir Alex returned, the players might put in a performance for him, but what the hell, that would mean trying!

A certain legend’s sister, a Mr. George Best, was at the match on Saturday and was scathing in her report on Facebook. The crowd were not there, the play was terrible, the whole experience was a letdown. But then she was spoiled by having been at Old Trafford when the football was magic.

Theatre of Dreams? I don’t think so.
Tim

 

I genuinely don’t think anyone listens to Mourinho’s post-match interviews anymore because they are so depressing.  So here is a quote from what he said… ‘’Playing at 30% of your potential is not enough’’

Does he not realise the irony in his criticism?? – who’s job is hit to make sure they play as close to 100% as possible??  And, when the players aren’t up to scratch, who’s job is it to make sure it doesn’t happen again the next game?

This is a team of very very good players no doubt about it but week in, week out we play sub-par predictable, boring football.  Apart from the start to last season and the odd game, I haven’t seen anything over the past couple of years that tells me it will be any different going forward.  In fact, if the bookies would allow me to put a bet on watching us being slightly more entertaining than watching paint dry, I’d be a very rich man by the end of the season.  Actually, the odds would be so rubbish I probably wouldn’t.

Credit to Wolves they should have been 3 nil up at half time.  But, from a United perspective, look at Liverpool, Chelsea, City.  The talent in those teams and United’s is pretty similar but the gulf in the way we are playing on the pitch has never felt so big.

For anyone in any doubt, let me tell you it is Mourinho’s fault.  And his managerial secret to getting us out of this will be to make it to the transfer window, buy more players and hope they are insanely good.
Kenny (Manchester)

 

Chile reception
The mother of my children is from Chile and so I’ve been watching them since before Alexis and the golden generation emerged. I remember the Chileans raving about Alexis in the early days but the truth was he often didn’t live up to the hype. He was terribly inconsistent. Then he went to Barcelona and things changed both for club and country.

I don’t think this is a coincidence. Barcelona is well known for its close knit team unity, a family atmosphere, players go to team mates’ book signings etc, it’s a key part of the Barcelona philosophy. Equally the Chilean national team is well known for its family atmosphere at tournaments. Journalists have written about going to the team hotel and seeing relaxed players in public areas with wives, girlfriends and kids everywhere. Even Arsene, for all his faults was good at the nurturing mentality.

All Chileans believe family is their top priority and it’s no surprise to me during this period of his professional career he’s won lots of accolades and been part of two Copa America winning teams.

Contrast that with the behemoth that is Manchester United, even more so under Mourinho’s leadership. The team doesn’t have that family feel. Apart from the Pogba-Lukaku bromance and the local lads network, there isn’t much of that at Old Trafford.

Can you blame Sanchez, you’re near the end of your career and someone offers you a contract you can’t refuse at the biggest club in the world. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear to have made him happy. I’m pretty sure he’d be performing better at City, Liverpool or Spurs but no one will fork out the money now.

So United fans, you’re stuck with him and he with you. He’s played his way out of this sort of funk before, so hold out some hope. But Old Trafford might never get the best out of him for some pretty important non footballing reasons.
Rob, Gravesend

 

I wrote in when Sanchez was signed by Utd to say there was no point signing him as they already had Lukaku. It might have seemed strange, it might have been a big email day, my email might just have been rubbish, but the point is at Arsenal Sanchez was amazing when he moved in from the left to become a centre forward. He’s not playing well at Utd as he isn’t playing centre forward. He might be in the way of Martial & Lingard but Lukaku is in the way of Sanchez. Jose knows this which is why he tried him as a number 10. If Jose played Lingard up top with Lukaku, Sanchez in ‘the hole’ and a midfield 3 of Pogba, Fellaini & Fred (which sounds like a boutique pastry shop….) it just might fix several problems at once…..

Thoughts on a postcard please to the usual address…..
Ian (we’ve won 6 times, we’ve won 6 times, this season, we’ve won 6 times) LFC

 

Passing interest
To JHAruba re: Jorginho’s passing stats

Your question highlights and interesting misconception of the possession metric amongst most football followers.  The definition of possession by Opta is “as one or more sequences in a row belonging to the same team. A possession is ended by the opposition gaining control of the ball”, and so a team’s total possession is measured by ‘no. of possessions/total number of possessions in the game’.  A ‘possession’ could be a dribble or shot that ends up with the opposition taking control of the ball, but more than often than not it can be equated to a pass (indeed Opta historically measured possession as simply a completed pass/number of passes in the game).

This is different to most people’s assumption that possession stats represent time spent on the ball.  I only recently discovered this as a prickly Newcastle fan subjected to recent (perhaps fair) derision at sub 20% possession against City and Chelsea.  However, everytime Jorginho does a quick sideways two yard 1-2(-3-4-5-6-etc) with Kovacic in their own third it’s rapidly inflating Chelsea’s possession stats.  Whereas big ol’ Diame could shield the ball for 20 mins by his own corner flag before punting it upfield and it’d still only contribute ‘1’ to Newcastle’s possession total for the match.

So Jorginho’s passing stats aren’t necessarily less impressive, but it’s not as relevant to analyse it against how much time Chelsea spent on the ball, more that he made approximately 24% of Chelsea’s passes and 17% of the game’s total.  Most of which were two yards long.
Alex NUFC (sorry for typing ‘possession’ too much), Manchester

 

Sarri’s mistake
I’d like to take a bit of issue with one of Matt Stead’s comments in the piece about Sarri today.

“You have to give credit to Sarri for trying to teach his new dog new tricks”.

Don’t worry, I’m not a rabid Labour support getting uppity about the use of an animalistic metaphor. No, instead I vehemently disagree that Sarri gets any credit for his approach. Let’s look at his situation:

He’s a new manager in England and is implementing quite a different style to previous Chelsea manager. He decides that he wants to bring his chief marshal along to support. All fair enough so far. He arrives and remembers that he has the PL’s best holding midfielder, twice champion in three years and (about to be) world cup winner who plays in the same position as his marshal.

Instead of making the tough call and saying “I prefer Jorginho for this role”, he’s tried to shunt Kante out of position in an effort to avoid people calling him out for not playing him. It’s obvious to anyone who’s watched him play over the last few years that Kante’s attributes are not around killer passes and goals. It’s just not what he does! Indeed, there are far better players in the Chelsea squad who could be playing that position.

Sarri does deserve credit for a good start. He does not deserve credit that said good start has hidden a massive flaw in his plan.
Alex, Ayr

p.s. as topical aside for JHAruba, according to Opta’s man on The Totally Football Show, possession is simply percentage of passes played. So Chelsea’s is so high because they play so many passes, rather than because they’ve had the ball for a set amount of time e.g. if Chelsea play 9 passes and West Ham play 1, Chelsea have 90% possession irrespective of time on the ball.

 

Johnny Johnny Yes Papa
Following on from John Nicholson’s musings today about the monopoly of ex pros covering (ruining?) live football, it’s also worth remembering that the vast majority of these ex pros have little to no relevance to a huge number of people watching/listening to the programme.

I’m 26 and have been watching football for quite a while now, and the oldest ex-pro who I can even remember playing is probably Alan Shearer, even then it’s towards the end of his career. To my mind, while I’m aware of their ability through old footage and anecdotes, the likes of Graeme Souness and Glenn Hoddle are not much more than TV personalities who are bad and/or ill informed in their roles. There will also similarly be teenagers now watching football who don’t really remember Gary Neville as a player, but instead see a passionate, well prepared and knowledgeable pundit who brings genuine quality to the programme in which he’s appearing.

Another point alongside this is the fact that you can look at the download figures for any of the major football podcasts and see that there is definitively a movement towards actual broadcasters and journalists (totally football show, football weekly, the front three, set piece menu, the football ramble, on the continent, BT sport football writers podcast to name a few in my regular schedule).

The point I’m making is, there will hopefully soon come a realisation from broadcasters that their viewership and listeners are caring less and less about the opinions of dull, lazy ex pros from the 1970/80/90s, and are far more interested in actual genuine insight from people who have enough respect for their job, the game and their listeners/viewers to actually do some research before speaking on a subject.

While I’m on the subject I’d also like to just list a few of my personal favourite people in football media at the moment, and I’d love to hear about any others that I may have missed: James Richardson, James Horncastle, Julien Laurens, Daniel ‘Judas’ Storey, Rafa Honigstein, Barney Ronay, Max Rushden (fight me, he’s brilliant at what he does), Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson, Andy Brassell, Duncan Alexander, Lars Sivertson, Sid Lowe, Phil Kitromilides, Sasha Goryunov, David Preece, Michael Cox, all four of the Football Ramble team, the list could go on but honestly nobody is going to even read all of these names so I probably should stop now..
Rob, Stourbridge 

 

I read John Nicholson’s column and although can see his point, felt he rather missed the most important aspect to having an ex-pro as the co-commentator; Their experience of having played the game. Although they are not taking part in running around on the pitch anymore, they are commentating on it, and as such that knowledge is invaluable. As much as someone can watch a lot of football there is innumerable experiences within that dynamic that can not be understood by someone who has never been in the cauldron of a professional football game. You already have a non-footballing person commentating, I fail to see the benefit of adding another non-playing personality to the mix.

Johnny’s main evidence for saying they should remove an ex pro from the co-commentating role is that they can be dull, cliché-ridden and inarticulate. And he has a point, an infuriating point to be honest, though I would say the problem is with which ex-players they pick as opposed to the fact they pick an ex-player to begin with. What you tend to find is that TV execs often plump for a successful player who played for one of the premierships more established teams, just because they tend to be well known. They also like ‘personalities’ although their criteria for these people can have more to do with being infamous for on-field or off-field issues as opposed to their intelligent, erudite contributions around it, see Keane, Collymore, Savage etc. I would argue identifying players who make more insightful and interesting observations but could be from any of the pro-leagues, at home or abroad, would produce a higher quality show.

You could also argue that the media training players receive when they transition from player to commentator or pundit should be considerably better considering the evidence of often dreary dialogue. Additionally, it is important to remember that because of the tabloid fixation on extrapolating exclusives from even the most even-handed and mundane media comments, players have training akin to politicians on how to conduct interviews and press conferences in a fashion that questions are answered with vague and generic responses that are almost impossible to derive headlines from.

Another point which should be made is that journalists and those within football media are often as guilty of the knee-jerk, ill thought-out and illogical comments as ex-players. Your own Media Watch illustrates the kind of idiotic and deliberately incendiary comments that drive clicks and opinion but are rarely insightful or constructive. Moreover, I used to watch Sunday Supplement after a particularly resounding win for my team only to be increasingly infuriated with the inane and self-aggrandising comments of journalists who are under the illusion that spending your working week talking about football makes you as, or possibly more, knowledgeable about the game than those managers and players within it.

There are of course extremely intelligent journalists who provide significant amounts of interesting media around football who should be included in the set-up of live football. There is space on the pundits bench for journalists and non-pro’s and this would undoubtedly make the pre, mid and post game coverage considerably more entertaining, however I don’t see it for the co-comm.

Just sayin’
Ed Ern

 

I enjoyed reading Jonny Nic’s piece today on the ex-pros’ punditry monopoly.  I made a similar point some months ago in a (I think unpublished) letter to 365 which I have copied below.  It is a genuine bugbear of mine that live football coverage rarely offers anything interesting by way of insight.  There are a few exemptions to this of course, but would it be that much of a gamble for Sky to throw in a Barney Ronay or a Michael Cox alongside their usual suspects and see what happens?  The only downside I can see is that the ex-pros’ lack of analysis might be embarrassingly exposed but I can’t imagine many viewers complaining as long as there’s still a few recognisable big names to state-the-bleeding-obvious.
Rob, London