Ibn Battuta

We simply couldn’t handle Southampton’s build up and passing in our half at home. Read that again.

Mount and Kante not playing well. Kante just seems to be off, making wrong pass after wrong pass.

Havertz is so impressive with the unimpressive stuff. Already playing at another level compared to the rest.

My key takeaways: Finally Frank managed to find a decent balance in terms of shape, roles and formation. However, question remains if Abraham is the best option to play with Werner. Giroud would definitely attract more bodies and allow more cuts inside between the CB and FB for Werner from the wide position. Chilwell can make a huge difference. Forgot what it feels like to have a FB who can command his area and side like he did. Just makes it so much easier to handle all the other problems we have in other areas when you know you can put more responsibility on his shoulders. Clearly we are a more of an elite team when Jorginho plays. Here is why fans can’t appreciate him: the amazing things he does is invisible (direct play at the right time with the right tempo and the right movement). The bad things he does is hyper visible (getting run past). The latter happens and can the damage can be contained with proper tactics and setup. The former is invaluable for any team hoping to be more than “good”. Silva is silky smooth with the ball. He just has it. Contrary to many pundits I thought he looked very good in the first game too, apart from his slip. Haverts and Mount, will they have to fight for that one spot most games or can they play together? Havertz is a strange buy if you believe in Mount (who looks like a player worth developing), because they are similar. Difference is that Haverts looks elite already. He hasn’t done anything amazing yet but he is a big body that can do little man moves and that is RARE. Usually a big man like him would be slow to turn and twist and would struggle to take on tight spaces. He can do that. A rarity, and I hate to be the 16 year old kid with the childish comparison, but he reminds me of Zidane in this respect. Zidane was a big, nasty and physical ballerina. Havertz has the potential to become that. And that my friends is an extremely unique and powerful weapon in football that can make all the difference.

Starting to play passive. Not exploiting the situation and advantage of being 1 up. Need to play quicker in transition. chilwell is quality on corners. Wow!!!!!

Lots to complain about so far this season, but Havertz looks like a player and a half. Does the right thing 9/10.

I don’t disagree but we are very exposed on the left side. Not sure about playing Werner as a left winger when Crystal Palace are so threatening down the flanks. Werner is spending too much time running around.

I can see what Lampard was thinking. Two strikers supported heavily by two CAM and two attacking FB + two deep midfielders in Kante and Kova to clean up. The problem is that you place a lot of pressure on your ball handlers at the back with this approach. You could say the mistakes were personal but as with everything tactics played a part. When mistakes are made with this tactic the impact can be huge. Frank envisioned that we would destroy WB with intricate passing in their half and against their low block. But did he consider how exposed we would be for counter attacks? Specially when we don’t do the press as well as the top teams? And especially with so many slow players at the back? Lampard started with a “final 10 minutes of the game and we need a goal” team. And herein lies my biggest worry: is Lampard much to willing to take risks? Football is a game of micro gains but Frank seems to be willing to make it a game of huge gambles. Very unusual at this level. I also feel like Lampards career is driving his willingness to take so many big risks tactically. I don’t feel Lampard has earned to take the risks he is taking on behalf of this club.

Why start both Kante and Kova against this lot?

Kante, Kovacic, Havertz and Mount on the field at the same time with two strikers upfront is just a bad bad fit. Simply to unbalanced. Too many players who need the ball at their feet. Too little stretch in the team when attacking. Easily countered when we lose the ball.

You are very negative and would do well do have a more optimistic outlook. But this is a very sensible post and it really touches on what I think a lot of us are feeling, but perhaps not able to express. 3 points from 2 games after having played the champions is fine. However, the decline in key players who should shown improvement at this stage of their career (Kante, Rudiger), the lack of tactical shape and disciplined mentality, the tactical naivety/gamble from management, and finally some truly horrendous swing in performances, is worrying.

A few points: - We lost this game because we did not have any pure wingers on the field. That is where you win against Liverpool. Without that, we were always at a huge disadvantage. I feel very confident we would have gotten a much better performance if Hakim and Pulisic where on the field. - I thought our shape was pretty good this time, and much better than against Brighton. However, I am very worried about Lampard's vision for this team. What is his end goal here? I would love to know. - Haverts has to play deeper and more centrally! He has great vision in small spaces, and a very very good first touch pass. How is this not utilized more? He should play like our good old coach used to play. Instead I am seeing him played as a hybrid winger. Painful. - Playing from the back with no out and out wingers? Why? Playing the ball short at the back is a HIGH risk game that should be balanced with a potential HIGH reward. When we dont have enough variety up front, the reward has drastically reduced. Because once you overcome the high risk the ball ends up at someones feet (Alonso, Jorginho, Haverts) who is still not able to hurt Liverpool sufficiently because they are too isolated, or have few options upfront. Werner alone is not enough to justify such a high risk game at the back. - I do not care how many howlers Rudiger has. He is clearly the best and most talented CB we have, and needs to play. Maybe our current paring is good in most games, but Rudiger at least has the potential to be great. I do not believe we can win the league with AC and Zouma as our pairing. I do believe we can win the league with Rudger as our CB. Controversial I am sure, but Rudiger has much more to his game, and the risk is worth it as it stands.

I think Klopp is worried about our ceiling tbf. Lampard would do well not to get drawn in. Timo Werner looks absolute class. Positioning and acceleration seems top notch. He really has a motor on him. The difference calculated speed up top makes is huge. Teams could play us a certain way with Giroud. Difficult to do with Werner up top. I am a little worried about our tactical set up. We cannot play both Mount and Kai on the wings like this every again. No threat down the wings, and extremely vulnerable down the flanks. It might have worked if RLC had a world class performance, or if we had someone like Zidane playing in the middle. But we do not. Kai should have had the role of RLC last night. I believe Lampard was too slow to make the right changes.

Lampard! You can’t continue with this shape?

Lampard needs to make necessary changes quick. We might get punished any minute now.