A More Than Inconsistent Stint
This club is the epitome of inconsistency.
One week, Liverpool plays the top and only undefeated club left in the league, Manchester City, and beats them — almost by a few goals — until City comes back to just barely fall by one goal.
The very next week after, they are getting blanked by Swansea City, the club at the bottom of the table.
It really doesn’t get any more unpredictable than that. Every time the Reds run out onto the pitch, you have no idea which kind of Reds are going to show up: The relentless attacking club, the utterly defenseless club, or an entirely new type of club with a form we haven’t even seen before.
For the neutral viewer, it’s probably exhilarating, but for a Liverpool fan, it’s not exactly the most exciting way to take in a match.
The common conception of getting Virgil Van Dyke is that the back line will turn things around. I wish I could point a finger on the exact issue myself, but these are areas in which I can only speculate; and LFC doesn’t really make it easy to pull something right out of the air that makes any meaning out of describing what’s going on.
At times, the way to play the best defense is with a great offense. Sometimes it works for Liverpool. Other times, if fails miserably. Perhaps it is the attacking mindset of the starting eleven as a whole. Many clubs score against them when they have more possession and shots on target. This happens when the opposition counter-attacks. It happened with Swansea and other teams recognize the same weakness.
Maybe Liverpool is too attack-minded. It’s great going after the ball when you don’t have it, but this exposes a vulnerability that is exploited too easily. It simply doesn’t give the defensive players a time to recover and get tight to the other squad’s attackers.
We know the men positioned between the iron bars haven’t exactly been stopping balls at the rate they should be this season. It’s tough to predict who Klopp should start as his number one goalkeeper — and honestly — how can you decide? You’ve got two keepers who seem to have very similar issues.
Both Mignolet and Karius get beat on balls that they should do much better with taking care of. Neither are actually very gracious at handling the ball either. Mignolet has since cleared this problem up a bit since past seasons, but the real issue remains for both keepers — and that is — keeping the ball out of the net.
Whether it comes down to the players, the owners, Klopp, or the rest of the management staff, one question still remains. How is this club going to get out of this never-ending inconsistent stint they’ve come to be known for?
Source photo credit: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda Photo | www.theanfieldwrap.com
