WHEN FSG signed Brendan Rodgers as the new Liverpool manager following the departure of Kenny Dalglish, they were clear on what they wanted out of the new guy.
They wanted a manager who had a clear vision, and would be able to make the team play attacking football, with an attractive style, in an order to bring back the glory days to Liverpool once more. A return to The Liverpool Way of playing football.
Rodgers has been very clear on the philosophy he likes his team to play with, a philosophy derived from the Tiki-Taka or totaalvoetbal style of play. It depends on all 11 players, as a cohesive unit, being comfortable with the ball at their feet, passing it around, probing & prodding the opposition team and slowly exposing weaknesses over the entire period of 90 minutes. There’s no rush, no long ball lobbed down the field hoping to find a player, no rushed clearance. The entire system is built around the philosophy of calmly passing the ball around utilising all the players on the field to get yourself into a position of advantage.
This style of football, which Rodgers used at Swansea, to excellent effect, calls for the 3 forwards to be mobile and interchangeable, passing the ball between each other and the midfielders, probing and looking for opportunities and only shooting when they’re sure of a goal.
Andy Carroll, the £35 million player Liverpool bought from Newcastle is a big, young striker with world class aerial ability, and a killer left foot. While he is undoubtedly talented, whether or not he will fit in to Rodgers’ style of play remains to be seen. Under his style of coaching, the 3 forwards need to be mobile and extremely good with possession, passing the ball around along the ground and interchanging positions among themselves to keep the opposition guessing. Spain made their way through most of the Euros playing without a recognised number 9; instead opting for a false striker to further enhance their passing. While this might mean that Carroll will have little to no part to play in Rodgers’ Liverpool, I am of the opinion that he will still be of use when the situation calls for it.
Carroll showed, towards the end of last season, when he was finding his feet in Liverpool, that he is capable of holding up the ball and passing it on to his team-mates as well as any of the other players in the team. He was as hardworking as anyone, and his performances really helped Liverpool on more than one occasion. Also, having an out and out number 9 with aerial abilities that’ll strike fear into any defenders mind might not be a bad thing to have in your arsenal.
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As Chelsea & Real Madrid showed last season, and as Inter Milan did 3 seasons ago, the Barcelona style of football can be countered if you know how to. Inter Milan, by heavily marking Messi and cutting out Xavi’s fluid passes, were able to win against Barca in the Champions League, and Chelsea, by figuratively parking the bus and relying on Drogba’s ability and their pace in the counter attack, were able to achieve the same result.
When playing against teams that employ tactics like this, a strong and big number 9 like Carroll might come in handy when you can cross balls into the penalty area from the sides and have Carroll hold it up or quickly lay it on to a team mate to score. With Carroll on the team, defenders will also have a hard job on their hand marking him and the two other mobile strikers causing havoc throughout their half. Also, Carroll’s ability to win headers will come in handy when playing against teams who are strong at corners or long throws or free kicks, as he has already proven last season by making quite a few well timed intercepting headers to clear the ball from a danger area.
All in all, Rodgers should not be looking to get rid of Carroll as soon as possible, and just might keep him around for a while. Carroll is still only 23, and is eager to learn, and is bound to improve in leaps and bounds with the proper training and regiment; something Rodgers should think about.
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A 35 million pound failure plan is not a good idea. Spend the money elsewhere and plan to win. If he is a fall back when this so called Tiki-taka fails then he should be offloaded to Barcelona.
spot on.
Carroll was a £35 million player because of his potential and his age, we are told he signed a long term contract, 7 years according to reports, thats £5 million a year for a player who is likely to keep improving over most of that term and would only be 29 at the contract renewal stage where he would likely still bring in a substantial sum if sold then. KEEP HIM!!!!
That’s £100k per week depreciation for 7 years non-stop. Plus his wages, which have been reported as £70 – 80k per week. Torres was the reverse of this. Bought for £22m(?) sold for £50m, so we got our money back and covered his wages while he was here, plus a tidy profit not least from merchandise.
We waited a season and a half for Carroll to hit a ‘little’ patch of form, he’s English and 23. Fowler and Owen were 17/18 when they started banging them in. Carroll could go down as the worst piece of business in our history. I prefer to be positive but the odds are stacked against him here…
I see your point, but Carroll is LFC’s biggest player asset.A FACT that cannot be ignored. Whilst we deplore him at times, deep down we want him to fire, since we are LFC & we back our players to the hilt. I think he is capable, strong, has a rocket left foot and has gained better fitness and ball control towards the end of the season. All he needs to do is read the lines to run into and this can come with proper training. Not forgetting defending corners and set pieces with big Andy around is a huge relief to our defenders. YNWA
There are certain games that will be made for a player like carroll. Keep him he will get better.
Even at its best tiki-taka is not infallible. First and foremost because if the other team score first and park the bus, you may be touching the ball around for 90 minutes with no penetration. That happen to Barcelona (masters of tiki-taka) against a few very good defensive teams. We’re NOT Barcelona. Our beginner’s tiki-taka may be exposed by lesser teams. If we have no plan B when that happens, we’re sure to be very, very frustrated. At times during Benitez era, we played very fluently, conserved ball possession and pressed hard to get it back. It worked back there and we always had a striker to score the much needed goals. Maybe it’ll work without Carroll, but it isn’t a bad idea to be able to adapt to different circumstances when they present themselves.
Guy’s it irrelevant as the Carroll doesn’t fit the managers ethos, remember when Kenny became the manager, one his first task was to ship out Ryan Bable, he didn’t give him an opportunity to play in his proper psoition, he just shipped him out of the club. I whislt I disagreed with him, as the manager he had the final call.