The Curse of Front Foot Defending

Liverpool’s problems this season are everywhere.

A goalkeeper who doesn’t command his area or distribute the ball well, a back-line that has made the most defensive errors (16) of any team in Europe’s top 5 leagues, a midfield that is neither protecting the defence nor creating for the attack and a strike-force that, without Daniel Sturridge, has not scored a single goal in 11 Premier League games.

Add to this a talented young manager who is repeatedly making errors of judgement in team selection & tactics (e.g. where has the diamond gone?) and we have a whole lot of problems to solve.

One of the biggest issues, perhaps the biggest, is the conundrum of our centre-backs.

Kolo Toure has won Titles with Arsenal & City, has 108 Caps for his country and as his performance against Real Madrid indicated, is still capable of an impressive showing. However such a performance is rare and Kolo was guilty of some comical defending last year that cost Liverpool critical points.

Dejan Lovren was lauded last year as the ‘leader’ and ‘organiser’ of an impressive Southampton back-line. He looked comfortable on the ball and was a danger from set pieces. However after a litany of errors for Liverpool, he has looked totally shorn of confidence. Missing tackles and headers, diving in at the wrong time, vacating his position, and resorting to regularly hitting unsuccessful hollywood long balls rather than passing the ball through midfield. Already weak from last season, Liverpool’s defence has looked even weaker since his arrival while Southampton’s has looked stronger.

Mamadou Sakho is a fixture in the France side ahead of Laurent Koscielny and £32m Eliaquim Mangala. Sakho is fast, powerful and forms one of the best centre-back parings in international football with the impressive Rafael Varane. Despite his awkward gait he has a passing accuracy of 90%, passing forward 75% of the time. However for Liverpool he can seem completely at odds with his defensive partner, twice head-butting one of them (once Lovren, once Skrtel) by jumping for the same ball when he could clearly see what his partner was doing. Furthermore his legs can turn into jelly when his passes start going astray and his confidence falls.

Martin Skrtel was the one regular centre-back throughout our failed quest to land the Premier League Title last year, scoring crucial goals at key parts during the season. At 29 years old and Captain of his country he led Slovakia to inflict Spain’s first defeat in qualifying for 8 years with a masterful display. Except he still seems like the same rash player that joined the club 6 years ago, getting drawn to the ball, pulled out of position, rarely communicating and often risking a penalty decision with his manhandling in the box.

All these players play well for their international teams. All have done well enough for their prior club sides to convince Liverpool to sign them. Skrtel was signed breaking Liverpool’s transfer record for a defender in 2008 for £6.5m. The signing of Sakho broke the same record for £18m. And Lovren yet again for £20m.

Liverpool’s centre-backs may not be World Class defenders but they perform remarkably well outside of a Liverpool shirt. For some reason they are less than the sum of their parts, the antonym of synergy.

Why?

When asked about his centre-backs, Brendan is often supportive and coy, but he does voice his disappointment with the errors, choosing to highlight individual mistakes rather than collective play – focussing on a lack of concentration.

His most commonly repeated explanation of late has been that we need to be “more aggressive” in our defending. He has said this a number of times, but is that really the issue?

I am of the opinion that it may well be exacerbating the problem!

In my opinion all our centre-backs are ‘front-foot’ defenders. What I mean by this is that their natural preference is to quickly sprint forward to go tight to an opposition player and ideally nick the ball from them, or win the header in front of them. This leads all of them to dive in, in an attempt to make the tackle or the interception, often vacating their natural position within the defensive line.

This is good ‘if’ you get the ball.

If you don’t you leave the defence badly exposed, especially if your full backs have pushed further forward or are in a defensive line but aren’t tucked in. In such situations the key is for the other centre-back to respond, and move across to cover the space, and be in a position to cover any second balls. Instead as all our centre-backs are also front foot players they get drawn to the ball, don’t cover effectively and we are left badly exposed.

With Skrtel, Sakho & Toure already on the books what Liverpool really needed to sign this summer was a player who is positionally aware, adapts his position based on his partners movement and is vocal in co-ordinating the defence.

At Southampton Lovren had the impressive Fonte to cover for him, in France Sakho has the mature beyond his years Varane. The Slovakia team often defends deep and/or in numbers meaning Skrtel has adequate cover (the deeper the defence the more likely the goalkeeper acts as an additional point of cover, except of course this isn’t Mignolet’s strength).

At international level our centre-backs also have better defensive midfielders ahead of them, who know when to act as a 3rd centre-back or when to press, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Instead of buying a covering centre-back, Liverpool bought Lovren, who is perhaps the most front-foot of all of Liverpool’s centre-backs and the results have been there for all to see. Last year Lovren was praised by Neville and Carragher for always being on the front-foot. In some ways it’s not entirely Lovren’s fault, he’s trying his best in the style he knows how to play, but he has failed to adapt his style to the needs of the team, just as the other centre-backs haven’t managed either.

Lovren is more vocal than Skrtel or Sakho (although Sakho has mentioned this is partly due to the language barrier), but when you aren’t playing well yourself and are unsure of what to do, it is rather hard for Lovren to be a credible or effective organiser of a shaky defensive line.

Ultimately much of the responsibility for this situation lies with Brendan Rodgers, who identified Lovren as his first choice defensive target and for whom the club clearly paid over the odds for. Brendan has had a poor record in his transfer dealings at Liverpool, and just as with the key role of goalkeeper his preferred first choice target was not a well judged one.

Many fans are increasingly pining for Daniel Agger, who was surprisingly sold for just £3m to Brondby, in part as recognition for is loyal service to Liverpool. Rodgers probably felt that Agger’s difficulty marking at set-pieces, increasing injury issues and lessening mobility meant he wasn’t as good an individual defender as he used to be, and the Dane’s eagerness to play regularly sealed the deal. However Agger is actually the defender who is most willing to play the covering role, and hence often made a better partner for other defenders, particularly Skrtel.

Rafa Benitez, a coach who knows how to organise a defence, often praised the role that Mauricio Pellegrino played in his defensive line whenever a journalist would automatically laud the brilliant front-foot defending style of the more famous Argentine Roberto Ayala. Rafa knew that Pellegrino’s positioning, and covering was as important to the side as Ayala’s aggressive defending.

Solving Liverpool’s defensive problems is clearly far harder than highlighting it’s weaknesses. However the fact that Brendan in his interviews doesn’t seem to identify some of the root causes of our problems is rather worrying. Playing Gerrard as a defensive midfielder against fast powerful teams that man-mark him, or starting Glen Johnson against tricky fast wingers in strong sides are amongst his dubious decisions.

I am fully behind Brendan Rodgers as our manager and he should be given more time to find the right balance and solutions to our present travails. However I admit to being more than disappointed when he stated that he felt Liverpool didn’t need a defensive coach. It’s times like this that a strong backroom staff can provide constructive criticism and guidance to the manager. I worry that Colin Pascoe and Mike Marsh aren’t able to provide the contrarian view that Brendan Rodgers needs.

Nevertheless, a 2 week break after an appalling run of form may be beneficial to Brendan to get his mind straight and make the changes in coaching, selections and tactics that are needed to turn our season around.

You can catch more from me on my own blog: http://taintlessred.blogspot.co.uk/ or follow me on twitter: @taintlessred

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