Jurgen has a lot of work to do going forward, if today’s display is anything to go by
Mizgan Ahmed on 20th December, 2015
An error-prone and lifeless Liverpool were humbled by Watford 3-0 at Vicarage Road as Klopp’s tactics are starting to get figured out.
Klopp made four changes to the side that met West Brom with Sakho, Lucas, Bogdan and Firmino coming in for Lovren, Milner, Mignolet and Benteke. It was a 4-3-3 with midfield trio of Lucas, Can and Henderson; Firmino, Lallana and Coutinho in that front three. Bogdan was given his first Premier League in a Red shirt at the expense of injured Mignolet.
It was again a test of Liverpool’s guile and precision against a deep defending side and, to be honest, the trio of Lallana, Coutinho and Firmino failed miserably to breakdown a well-drilled Watford backline.
As expected Coutinho and Lallana were tucking inside looking to run in behind the centre-backs, Clyne/Henderson and Moreno/Can were making those wide runs and putting in crosses. But, one thing Flores(Watford manager) figured out cleverly was that he allowed Liverpool to have possession in wider areas because neither of Firmino, Coutinho or Lallana are good enough air ball winners.
He crowded the central area of the pitch which made it utterly difficult to breach through. Firimino looked absent in that crowd, Coutinho and Lallana tried to make something but lack of good good touches in and around the box made it a lot more easy to defend. Can was error-prone in his passing, Henderson was one of the better players on the pitch but sadly for Liverpool, he was the only better player for them.
The Reds struggled for precision in that final third and were not quick in their thinking and imagination. Once the central area was crowded, there were no runs available for the front three and no target man in the box was a big miss. Klopp was really short of ideas on the touchline, with no new tactic or anything that would suggest they are trying something different, just the same old sideways passing and when they get in around opposition box, the players were starved of any ideas.
Klopp brought on Origi for the injured Skrtel and in the second half the directness of Liverpool’s play did cause a few problems for the Watford back-line. Origi was playing well as a target man with many runners in and around him, but again not much incision to open up Watford and worry Gomes a whole lot.
The other problem was getting cut apart from counters, as whenever Watford had the ball with either of Deeney or Ighalo, they seem to have lots of space to attack and work the ball, creating meaningful goal-scoring chances. Clyne and Moreno committed themselves too much and make-shift centre back Lucas had a tough job to track back and hold a physically strong Ighalo.
We should say it’s a deserved victory for Watford, but it has to be admitted that Klopp’s tactics are getting figured out quite easily now. No real change was made to break a deep defending side, and the German looked short of ideas. The changes he made were also very obvious ones; so no real big strides to deter the opposition. He needs to sort this out as quickly as he can, as games are coming thick and fast and then majority will be those where oppositions will sit deep and play on the counter.
