8.13.2011 LFC vs Sunderland 1:1 - Promising 1st half following by a disappointing 2nd half as 4 new players making their debut in new-look LFC

Starting line-up: (4-4-2)

Reina
Flanagan Carragher Agger Enrique
Henderson Lucas Adam Downing
Suarez Carroll

LFC Goals:

Suarez ‘12

LFC Man of the match:

Agger – Agger is fit again and he is a quality and complete defender when he is fit. He has good read of the game, decent ball control and great shooting ability. The question is he is very injury prone! With Skrtel currently injured and Kyrgiakos not up to LFC standard, LFC will hopefully get a new CB before the transfer deadline.

Top 5 Insights:

1.It was a pity Suarez missed the penalty to open the score after sensationally earning a penalty for LFC in the opening minutes. (Suarez did make up for his mistake by opening the account with a tricky header.) However, Sunderland’s Richardson should have been send-off when he tripped down Suarez in the penalty claim. On the hindsight, had Richardson been send off in the early going, LFC could have dominated the game.

2. King Kenny started all 4 new players: Adam, Downing, Henderson and Enrique. Although Adam, Downing and Enrique have all shown their quality in the game, it’s clear they need more playing time and training to gel together. People have criticized King Kenny for starting all 4 of them together, but King is clearly concerning more about long-term. He’d rather lost points in the early season by starting all of them at once than taking more time for the new players to develop their understandings by restricting their playing time. Had King care more about instant success, he could have started Kuyt, Meireles and Maxi alongside Suarez. On the other hand, although Sunderland had bought about 7-8 new players, they have only started 2 new players so it’s obvious they have the edge in terms of understandings and teamwork.

3. 4-4-2 was used in the game for the objective of developing the striker partnership of Andy Carroll + Luiz Suarez instead of the more successful 4-2-3-1 adopted in their winning runs in the 2nd half of last season. However, Henderson as the right winger doesn’t seem working so far as he doesn’t have the skills and speed to operate in the wing effectively and he looks for passes too often when he received the ball. Clearly, he is more effective in the CMF role. Also, the partnership of Adam and Lucas in the 2 CMF has shown clear weakness. Adam has shown decent passing and shooting ability, but his defending ability is poor. Thus, Lucas has to take on too much responsibility in defensive duty in the CMF. I think 4-4-2 may not work for LFC and 4-3-3 or 4-3-2-1 may still work better with one more CMF such as Meireles and Henderson to help out Lucas and Adam. Suarez may need to play in the wing forward role but I still think a 3 CMF formation suits LFC more.

4. I always like to have a target man like Crouch and Carroll in the squad. It gives the team another dimension in attack as they can attack opponents through the ground or up in the air. However, the single most disappointing area of LFC display in this game is there were simply too much mindless long-balls to Carroll in the 2nd half. LFC should have tried to pass the ball around more to have a better mix of pass-and-move to complement with decent crossing for Carroll like they did in the 1st half. With players like Suarez, Adam, Downing and Meireles, LFC is much more quality than having to rely on 40-50 yard long crossing to Carroll. King Kenny really needs to correct this big tactical mistake from now on!

5. There are concerns that Aquilani didn’t even make the bench and it could be a signal King may sell him before the transfer deadline. I still hope King will give Aquilani serious chances in the coming few games to prove his worth as he is a skillful playmaker with scoring and playmaking ability. I believe Aquilani and Suarez can play well together with their passing skills and ball control. As King said he will give fair chances to everyone in the squad and I hope he will keep his promise!