New season, old problems…

After the debacle of last season, by the time it was over I was really struggling for motivation to write articles and needed a bit of a break from it so I’ll start by thanking everyone who sent in articles over the summer break, it’s very much appreciated. Also my fellow mods in Red and Stu for picking up the slack, Stu in particular for writing match threads throughout the World Cup. Having had my break however I’m back in the hot seat for the new season. Bet you all can hardly contain your excitement…

Right, let’s get to it. First game of the season, new manager and a sense of optimism that comes from wiping the slate clean of last season’s misery and starting afresh with the new boss, known for high intensity, entertaining football… but I guess we’ll have to be a bit patient on that front.

After the recent, tragic passing of Kevin Keegan, it seemed written in the stars that we started the season away at Newcastle and before the game started, we witnessed both sets of fans partake in an incredible tribute to the great man, possibly the best I’ve ever seen, as the entire stadium paid homage to a man who was a legend at both clubs – as a player for us and as a manager for them, a very classy and fitting tribute from two of the most passionate sets of fans in the country, made it an emotional start to the season.

There were good and bad things to take away from yesterday, so let’s get the bad out the way first… The game began, we knocked the ball about for a few minutes and many of us were purring watching our new CB Jeremy Jacket, who from the off showed he’s a very good footballer with an excellent passing range. Those purrs were short lived however. Gravenberch drove into space and was in a very promising position, when he inexplicably decided to pass when the shot was by far the better option. His pass was cut out by a Newcastle defender, one pass into midfield was followed by another pass out wide which Elanga raced onto, leaving Kerkez in his wake. We still have hope in these situations though, as Alisson has proved himself time and again to be the best in the world in one v one situations, to which end I’m sure we’ll all let him off for this one but in this instance, he must have had his bearings all wrong in terms of where his goal was, because he wasn’t just covering his near post, he was pretty much in line with it, leaving the far side of the goal gaping and Elanga accepted the gift gratefully and buried the ball in the back on the net.

The collective groan that must have followed from LFC fans everywhere, probably registered on the Richter scale… Really? Again?? New manager, new look defence and we concede within five minutes from our opponents first attempt… AGAIN???

This has been going on for literally years now. This wasn’t a Slot problem, although it probably got worse under him but this has been happening, not even since Klopp’s final season but from the season before that!! FOUR YEARS now of conceding early, invariably from our opponents first attack. In fact thinking about it, it might actually be five years as I remember the season we almost one the quad, I wrote an article about how I felt part of the reason we ran out of steam at the final hurdle was because we were so often having to come from behind to win games late, while Man City were putting teams to bed in the first half hour of games. That allowed them to make early subs and rotate, while we were playing at maximum intensity for the full 90+ minutes in every single game pretty much. This simply has to be a mental issue at this point but I really have no idea how we go about fixing it.

Sticking with the bad, our fullbacks are a real worry for me. I wasn’t against the signing of Frimpong at the time and I still think he could have his uses as an impact player off the bench but I don’t see him starting many games if Bradley was fit. His problem is, he’s neither one thing or the other. He’s never a RB, he’s too small and got absolutely bullied at times by Harvey Barnes yesterday, who played aggressively against him but why wouldn’t you when the fullback your facing is a midget? Plus he doesn’t have natural defensive instincts, he wants to get forward and attack. Thats fine but he’s not particularly good at that either! I mean he’s not terrible, he’s got pace to burn and can cause a team problems but his final ball is poor around 90% of the time and his finishing erratic at best. It’s obvious now why his best football came while playing as a wingback in a 3 at the back system. I can see that working but in a classic fullback/winger system like we play, I struggle to see him becoming a regular starter. His pace and energy could be useful off the bench against tiring legs but I was manager, Araujo would be starting at RB in our next game.

Then there’s Kerkez… He has massive boots to fill, taking over from Robbo – a bona fide Liverpool legend, who held down the LB position for a decade, winning everything, many believing him to be our best ever LB and hugely popular with the fanbase both on and off the pitch. I don’t think Slot helped him by immediately making him first choice over Robbo either, I called it out many times last season. I thought that was really poor management from Slot in almost every way. Put huge pressure on Kerkez, who’s still a very young man that was making a giant step up in quality. It disgruntled the senior players, as well as the fans and heaped unnecessary pressure on the manager himself. A baffling decision that he doubled down on, despite Kerkez having a very unconvincing first season.

That’s the past though, new season having had a year to settle in and now playing under the manager who’s system has him playing the type of football that got him his big move to Liverpool in the first place!! Time to kick on you’d think and granted it’s early days and we only have the tiny sample of one game to go on but my god he was awful. Elanga had him on toast the whole game, he just couldn’t deal with his pace but that brings me to my real problem with Kerkez… It’s not his footballing ability, it’s that he seems like he’s as dumb as a bag of rocks. He’s a headless chicken, like a LB version of Darwin! Trying like a bear, no lack of endeavour but it’s all head down, blood and thunder. He made zero positional adjustments to compensate for Elanga’s pace, him and Gakpo still look like they’ve never played together before and when he gets in promising positions, where we’re used to Robbo getting his head up and picking the correct pass/cross, Kerkez is still playing percentage football and just sticking it in an area. The perfect example was late in the game where in a promising position, if he’d just looked up he would’ve seen Isak running in at the far post. All he had to do was roll to across the six yard box and Isak has a tap in, he has an assist and we’re all having very different conversations today. Instead he played a neck height ball across the six yard box to absolutely nobody. We need big improvement from him if he plans on still being our first choice LB at this time next season.

The biggest issue facing our new boss right now though, is how to get Wirtz and Isak performing. These are two players who we spent just shy of quarter of a BILLION on last season, breaking our transfer record twice in the process. The first time FSG truly went for best in class, two players you felt were as close to a sure thing as you can get in football transfers, especially Isak being a bit older and already thriving in the PL when we signed him. It’s been a bit of a disaster up to now though. Wirtz hasn’t been terrible, he’s neat and tidy and was unlucky yesterday, denied a goal by an excellent save from their keeper but we’re looking to him to be the man all our attacking play goes through, for him to pull the strings and it’s just not happening right now. It’s not from lack of effort, or hiding. In fact it might be the opposite! A case of him trying to do too much, dropping too deep to get involved in the build up, when he’d be better staying higher and close to the striker. Think Gerrard and Torres when Rafa effectively turned Gerrard into a no10/second striker. It’s so frustrating because you can see there’s a brilliant footballer in Wirtz, I just hope we/he can figure out how to get the best out of him in an LFC shirt.

As for Isak, he’s a shadow of the player he was at Newcastle. He used to terrify me every time he got the ball when we played against him, a player known as much for creating goals and chances for himself, as he was getting on the end of crosses and through balls but we’ve not seen a hint of that. He’s anonymous for around 80 of the 90 minutes, gets minimal chances per game and the one decent chance he did get yesterday, he blazed wildly over. I keep thinking he’ll come good eventually and I’ve not given up on that yet. I still believe him and Wirtz are too good for it not to click eventually but they’ve had a settling in season. Now it’s time to deliver.

On the positive front, Gakpo scored a good goal and we’ll need him to rotate with Isak through the middle this season. Munoz looked very lively when he came on, not least winning the penalty and speaking of the penalty, Dom’s finish was absolutely outrageous in the 99th minute, under that kind of pressure. He’s our next real leader for me once Virgil goes. Maybe our only leader in the current squad, which is a bit of a concern.

Anyway, first article in ages and I’m aware it’s turned into a novel so I’ll wrap it up. It’s early days, the manager has barely had any preseason at all with most of his first team and our transfer business isn’t finished yet… but… it’s clear he has a LOT of work to do, to get this team anywhere close to even functioning properly as a team, never mind being the finished article. As Soop says, I think we’re in for a rollercoaster of a season… So strap in and walk on