Originally Posted by
miller0863
My feelings on Thiago are not governed by any agenda just an honest opinion on his performances as an individual.
He may have been able to have more of an influence on Premier League games 4 or 5 years ago but the current 30 year old Thiago is too hit and miss for me.
Yes I am obviously an amateur observer but I have been going to Anfield since 1971, so I have seen a few games.
Thiago can be good, can be very very good but not often enough imo. We can do better by focusing on midfield recruitment which I am sure we are now doing but right here and now, Thiago is easily our best left sided midfielder and will continue to be selected when fit but he is not irreplaceable, far from it. As for Klopp’s comments he praises ALL players in his squad, every single one. To hear his comments on Taki we should be getting £50m plus for him when he leaves.
Thiago will play in Paris and I hope he is motm I really do but to win the Premier League again we are going to need at least two new starters in midfield. City are relentless and we have to match them if we want number 20.
as ever an entirely fair analysis, my feelings aren't governed by an agenda, they are made out to be because I've had our drastically undervalued Captain's back in the face of a lot of unjust criticism
It's not about who is the better player in the sense I feel Steveo tries to constantly make it, it's about who serves our team and other players better, that's all i ever base anything on.
Yesterday, Jurgen said "That's the best 25 minutes we've ever played against Chelsea" a huge part of that, constantly mentioned during that period of the game on commentary, was the gap between Chelsea's defence and midfield so they couldn't press us effectively - What creates that gap is the runs in behind and balls over the top, it turns the defence, unsettles them and makes them drop, that's why I'm always banging on about the need for variation and why in a lot of games, it's my belief we're much better served by a player who can play those balls at No6, because we have most of the ball in most of our games and a lot of teams get players behind the ball - It isn't a dig at anyone, players have different skills sets
With the variation, what I actually expect is for Henderson at No6 to play those balls in behind to turn and unsettle the oppositions defence to make them drop off and for Thiago to play the balls between the lines through the gaps in the time and space that creates for him. I'm still waiting for Thiago to do that, not having a go at him, just an honest assessment that that passing through the lines to release players we expected from him hasn't been forthcoming as yet
I haven't seen the expected playmaking ability yet either, perhaps he doesn't understand our set up and the mechanics of it, it is really very simple, making the play for this Liverpool side mostly involves playing the right ball at the right time, to the full back or forward running into space/in behind, arriving into space that run has made, or arriving into space on the opposite side the play and players having been congested into an area on one side of the pitch, the right ball being where any particular player prefers to receive it, including but not limited to, the spin on the ball, how quickly it arrives to them, it being played to connect their run, rather than them having to wait for it - And getting the ball to all our other players with very strong playmaking ability also
It isn't rocket science or difficult, my nature is to be pragmatic, I'm interested in what works and what is effective and for me that always comes before what is more aesthetically pleasing, I honestly don't give a fuck how good a ball looks or a player looks playing in, I'm interested in what it does and how effective it is
By the same token, I'm not interested in how people love to see Fab crunching into tackles and prefer that to a player pressing expertly with great reading of the game and positioning for others to quickly join for the opposition player to be dispossessed and for us to have plenty of players to support the ball when it's won and play constructively from there, I'm especially not interested in crunching tackles in games against PTB sides in which we will have the vast majority of the possession and there will be precious little requirement for such tackling and in which what we really need are more players with greater ability with the ball - Ideally to offer us the variation required to break those teams down and make sure they don't get settled in a pattern of defending
"If Everton were playing at the bottom of my garden, i'd close the curtains”
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