I watched the Villa game back. Trying to put a positive spin on it is proving difficult. All I’ve got is the goal and, maybe, Leon Bailey’s performance as he was the only one who carried a threat.
Even though Villa looked blunt going forward, that end of the pitch is not the concern for me right now.
All of the back four were off it, Cash spent so much time trying to poke a reaction out of Zaha that he went away from actually just trying to defend against him. We wasted so much energy trying to get him to lose his head that the only reaction we ended up with was firing him up to put in a class performance.
Konsa, Mings & Digne didn’t do any better and if this is the back four going forward then I really think we need to address this because the two centre halves just aren’t top level and need more protection.
Kamara struggled with Eze yesterday who was outstanding but the problem was McGinn and Ramsey who offered nothing in midfield. They couldn’t get on the ball to get it to Buendia or Bailey and they did nothing to help Kamara.
With this in mind I’m trying to figure out a way that the Sarr signing makes more sense than what it seemed when the news broke last night.
Firstly, he’s an upgrade on Bertrand Traore who has moved on which left a gap in the squad.
Tactically, he gives us a couple of options. I’ve no idea if Gerrard has this in mind but this is how I could see it working.
We could now set up in a 3-4-3 that’d look like
Martinez
Chambers
Konsa
Mings
Cash
Kamara
McGinn/Luiz
Digne
Sarr
Watkins
Bailey
or a 4-2-3-1
Martinez
Cash
Konsa/Chambers
Mings
Digne
Kamara
Luiz/McGinn
Sarr
Buendia/Coutinho/
Bailey/Ramsey
Watkins/Ings
Both of these systems would offer more protection to the defence but would mean a change to a more counter attacking style.
I think it goes away from Gerrard’s preferences of having his full backs high and wide but right now we need to start building from the back and becoming harder to play against.
Once again, we’ve put pressure on the home game next weekend where we need another reaction.
That’s my pennies worth anyway.
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