DISCLAIMER: By showing these stats it does not mean I want rid of Jürgen and Rodgers back. you need to do that around here



http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/row-zed/Jürgen-klopps-liverpool-record-worse-11205510

Hard to get worked up about the midfield.

With a gun to my head, if asked to sign players/positions:

1st - 20 goal a season man
2nd - quality keeper
3rd - LFB that will start
4th - CB

only then get to midfielders ...

Disappointment from summer, didn't do any of 1,2,3,4

Lamard made a career out of it.

Would that pass played by Shelvey have got through to Joselu if we had a DM sitting in front of the CB's?

Interesting video that mate, enjoyed watching it and as you say his passing angles are a mile away of and ahead of what our guys do. I very much agree with what Graeme Sounness said on Sunday, midfielders these days get away with murder just rolling it side to side for 90 minutes.

People will probably not believe it, but I remember having conversations and arguments on here with folk who wanted to drop Gerrard to the bench long before he retired, three years before. They said he was past it and that he wasn't upto it any more, as his pass completion stats veered into the mid 80% level whereas the likes of Lucas was consistently over 90%. Of course it's how difficult the pass is which is the crucial thing, if you're trying to split a defence in half as Gerrard used to do regularly and as Shelvey did on Sunday, it stands to reason your "completion percentage" will drop a tad.

But your video of the Napoli bloke (who obviously I've never previously heard of) is a stark reminder of what a midfielder who is in there to dictate the play should do.

You've mentioned the lad above to me before and I agree, he looks like a real DLPM and something we could do with for sure. I guess the ultimate question is does Henderson need replacing for us to be successful and while I think his form has improved a lot recently I would still say yes. I would still say that the player given the most time on the ball and the most time to look up and pick a pass should provide more drive to the game, that doesn't need to be with runs, just that zip on the ball that I too sound like a broken record with but anyone that's played will know what a difference just a bit of pace to the pass can make to your options to beat a man/shoot/first time pass yourself.

So while I don't think he's our biggest problem in midfield right now, that would be Can and Wijnaldum away, I do think he should be upgraded upon for a genuine DLPM. For people to think if that would make a big difference just imagine what our play would look like if that were Alonso in Henderson's role.

Not necessarily I think. Look at United and Matic / Pogba. Chelsea and Kante / Bakayoko (or last season Matic), Spurs and a combination of Dier / Wanyama / Dembele. Would you say their defence having / needing that kind of protection is an indictment of their defence? How would their defenders look when playing in our system? In these cases, does the midfield make the defence look very good / better than it is? Or is all just the quality of their defenders (not denying that they do have a few quality CB's)? Any defence needs protection, either in the form of defensive minded players in front of them or a system (City) that prevents teams coming at them with full force.

The only top team not offering as much protection to their defence and playing a similar system (domination and pressing wise, not formation wise) to ours, is City and they seem to be doing fine (most of the time)? Is that because of the huge quality of their defence? (Stones? Otamendi? Walker? Danilo?) Or is it because the players in front of the defence actually are able to do what Guardiola wants them do and in doing so don't constantly expose their defence like our midfield is currently doing to our defence?

For me it's still more a personnel issue, mainly in midfield at the moment, than it is a system issue. The system works perfectly fine when everyone does the job he's supposed to do. When one player decides to be lazy, the whole thing falls to pieces. I'll say it again and I agree with Klopp in that aspect, the way we play and the way our midfields works right now (not saying he might not change it in the future and play with a #6) bringing in a #6 wouldn't change anything to the goals we concede. Henderson indeed isn't a 'DM', but I stand by it, he is not the issue at all. He has looked very, very good there when the other two midfields are doing their jobs.

I'm actually going to try and look at last season and how much a difference (if any difference at all) playing Klopp's preferred midfield (Wijnaldum, Henderson, Lallana) made to whenever one of the three wasn't available (both Lallana and Henderson were out for big parts of the season). Both to goals made and goals conceded.