Villa expose Liverpool's weaknesses
Its long been felt that Liverpool are susceptible to balls crossed into the box and strikers that are aerially dominant. Here are some examples of how Villa exposed these weaknesses and created some very good chances that we were lucky to survive.
1. Agbonlahor's early chance. First thing to notice is that Carragher and Johnson are left to mark 3 men in the center. The ball has been played between Coutinho & Henderson to Lowton. However, Enrique's body shape is 'defensive', he is backing off when clearly Lowton's body shape is set up for a cross. He has backed off the man and made no attempt to close down the cross. In the end, Agbonlahor shots straight at Reina. Liverpool were lucky in this 2 v 3 situation that the ball rebounded to Carragher to clear for a corner and not one of the Villa strikers.
2. Benteke's goal. Somewhat ironically, Villa's goal came from a tougher chance than the one created above for Agbonlahor and below for Wiemann. As highlighted in my preview (roryfitz9.webnode.com/news/aston-villa-away-sunday-march-31st-2013-/), Villa get men alongside Benteke and hit him early looking for knock downs and knock ons. Westwood receives the ball in midfield and immediately looks for Benteke. In this case, it was Agbonlahor that won the ball with his knee/tigh unchallenged which Benteke then smashes in
3. Wiemann blazes over. Firstly, Coutinho and Henderson make the same move and try to close Lowton down. This leaves Sylla free and a very easy pass to find him. Coutinho really should have held his position with Sylla and let Henderson press Lowton. In the 2nd and 3rd graphic, it can be seen that Enrique makes no attempt to move towards Sylla to stop the cross. In fact, he puts his hands behind his back and sees the cross as a fait accompli that will happen. This allows Sylla to get so close that his ball is no longer a hopeful cross into the box but a pass along the ground to his team-mate that he can pick out as there is no pressure on him from Enrique. Luckily, Wiemann blazes over the bar.
This point is also made by Mike Girling on The Anfield Wrap around 13mins 45secs (https://traffic.libsyn.com/theanfieldwrap/PODCAST_-_ANOTHER_CRAZY_LIVERPOOL_WIN.m4a)
4. Offside goal. Villa throw the ball forward from a deep free kick looking for Benteke. He wins the ball on the edge of the box. Enrique ends up 'skying' the clearance and Villa win another aerial duel on the edge of the box. Thankfully Benteke had strayed offside, but its another example our inability to deal with high balls and could have cost us dearly in injury time.
Also, there was a cross at the very start of the game from Villa's right that both Benteke and Agbonlahor missed which I have not included above and the header that Benteke won from the corner that Gerrard cleared off the line. All in all, Villa hit our weak spots and caused us problems that we were lucky to survive.
On a brighter note however ...............
5. Forcing an error. In an earlier blog (https://roryfitz9.webnode.com/news/liverpools-performance-after-30-games/) I made a deduction from the stats that perhaps we work very fast in trying to regain possession once its lost;
We have made the 3rd most tackles in the league. The top 10 teams in this stat are largely the bottom teams as it reflects the fact that they have the least amount of possession and therefore have to challenge for the ball more often. The fact that we are 3rd in this stat despite averaging possession of 57.3% could be an indication that we work harder than other teams at trying to get the ball back though do we work better needs to be asked ?
In the following graphic, Henderson presses Agbonlahor who lays the ball off to Sylla. However, he is quickly pressed by Coutinho and looks to pop it off to Bannon. This ball is anticipated by Downing who is already moving to close down Bannon. In the end, Bannon has to try a 'first time' pass and by the time he has layed it off, he is sandwiched by Coutinho & Downing. He ends up hitting a poor pass that goes straight to Suarez who sees his shot saved by Guzan.
