comment by Goofy One (U16087)
posted 5 minutes ago
Al good abive but how xome he still has nit solved the defemce situation?
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Thats a bigger question.

When Carra, a RCB retired, he bought in Toure and Sakho.

This season he sold Agger and bought in Lovren, again bringing in a new LCB

We also know that we tried to sell Toure this season, and he too, refused to leave. Presumably had toure left, we would have bought a new RCB too. or would have deployed wisdom there (its where he ultimately will end up)

To me the problem is clear, our first choice RCB, is skrtel, who, lest we forget: got displaced by carragher for the six months leading up to jamies retirement, due to how dire he had been playing.

for me, Rodgers bought Toure in to address the RCB spot for a year, we were out of europe and despite looking to buy one, we had no luck, we managed however to bring in Sakho, bags of potential and out of favour at a sugar daddy club.

Skrtel was dropped at the start of last season, in favour of toure, untill injury forced us to turn to him vs united, he actually had a good game or two with three at the back, and scored a few goals, which i think sadly glossed over his own goals and individual errors leading to goals. toure had chances back in the team and looked awful, so skrtel was our best option

Skrtels high goal return may have led brendan to believe that getting a commanding LCB to partner him could sort out some of the defensive issues while retaining his goal threat on corners. So agger was shipped out and lovren bought in.

However lovren hasnt fixed the issue, and there are still the individual errors.

I think his goals last year earned martin a second crack at the whip. i certainly think if toure had left, and we had replaced him, the understudy may be getting a chance soon, however at this point we are stuck with a RCB option of Bad or Worse.

we have now tried three LCB's with skrtel, and none of the pairings have worked, i personally wouldnt have minded trying Lovren - Agger as a partnership, Agger used to try and command the defence, and i think with another like minded CB could probably have maintained a solid defence, even if one was out of position.

At some point (and after trying three partners with him, i think its time to try a different tack) we need to look at martin as being the problem, the fact is, any CB who is commanding in the air will get chances from gerrards set peice delivery. however the priority is actually not conceeding.

For all that being said, once again, being in a back three today we looked defensively solid, bar two mistakes from Moreno. but we cant put someone either side of Skrtel to accomodate his set peice threat.

I don't know why we are still talking about defenders being a problem. When we've tightened up the past two games our defence have been fine, apart from a Moreno moment when he should have cleared with his weaker right foot. This confirms what many of us thought. We had an all out attack style which put the defenders and goalkeeper under pressure too often. Last season we were able to out score teams and keep them on the back foot, this season we haven't been, thus the tightening up of the system.

Our problems are in scoring goals.

In short we have a new balance to find and we need to find it quick and hope Sturridge comes back firing.

what happened to illori?