"While it's too late this season, this (admittedly small) run of games equates to title-winning form; over 38 games it scales up to almost 90 points"
Intéressant, même si les équipes n'étaient pas du big four (Villa, Spurs et Stoke pas commodes malgré tout) et que le jeu était moyen.
Ca méritait quand même d'être souligné.
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Intéressant, même si les équipes n'étaient pas du big four (Villa, Spurs et Stoke pas commodes malgré tout) et que le jeu était moyen.
Ca méritait quand même d'être souligné.
------
http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/features/tomkins-success-starts-at-back
Tomkins: Success starts at back
1st Feb 2010
Whisper it quietly, but Liverpool could be six games into a very important run of form.
An eight point deficit to fourth place is now down to one, and it's another week closer to the major attacking threats of Torres, Benayoun and Johnson returning.
With every passing month, another top-four challenger falls away; as happens every year. People worrying about the threat of Birmingham has been made to look premature.
After the draw at Wolves, I had to check if Liverpool had dropped into the relegation zone, such was the overreaction from some quarters.
While it was one of the least enjoyable games I can recall - rubbish pitch, ball in the air (much like at Stoke) - I never, ever see a draw away from home as a disaster. It was a battling performance, and in order to maintain momentum, defeat had to be avoided.
Another clean sheet helped build some confidence ahead of the Bolton game. And it's a truism of the sport that anyone building a team, or rebuilding confidence, starts from the back.
It's a football basic.
Liverpool's problems this season, injuries aside, stemmed from some uncharacteristically lapse defending. The Reds actually started the campaign with the club's highest number of goals in the opening seven games for 114 years. The problem was conceding them. Even in winning, the back-line never looked confident.
Of course, a large reason for that is because defending is based on understanding; and with Benítez forced, due to injuries and suspensions, to use a dozen different defenders by the autumn, including four players making their first starts in the shirt (Johnson, Kyrgiakos, Ayala, Kelly) and two others yet to really feature (Degen, Darby), plus another youngster in 20-year-old Insua, it was a horribly disjointed time, not to mention a steep learning curve for many of these individuals.
That set the tone, and once you develop problems, they can, for a time at least, become habits.
And on occasion Liverpool, if anything, were too positive in the first months of the season, leaving central defenders exposed. The main problems were a) marking at set-pieces, which I've always argued is tougher with new faces in the side, and b) getting caught on the counter attack with not enough cover.
Once you start conceding goals you stand a greater chance of losing games; lose games, and you lose confidence, at the back but also at the front. Pressure mounts, and it gets harder to play good football. And start conceding late goals, and it will play on the mind. Only now do Liverpool appear to be breaking this cycle.
The Reds may not be playing their best football of the season, but with five clean sheets in six unbeaten games, four of which were won, form is returning.
While it's too late this season, this (admittedly small) run of games equates to title-winning form; over 38 games it scales up to almost 90 points. But of course it's just a six-game run, and I present it as nothing greater; my aim is not to predict that it will continue, merely to show that the Wolves result was disappointing rather than disastrous.
Add that this run of points has been based mostly on clean sheets, and you can see how confidence breeds from the back forward. After all, United won the league last year based on a record-breaking defence; Liverpool were the Premiership's top scorers.
The past six games have not pitted the Reds against the very best sides, but Villa away and Spurs at home were big games. And anyone who thinks going to Stoke is a doddle is seriously deluded. It's like trench warfare.
If anything, the most pleasing facet of the recent defending has been the opposition faced. Stoke, Wolves and Bolton may be capable of some good football on the ground, but each encounter centred around big battles and an aerial bombardment. And lest we forget about how tall forwards like Carew and Crouch are.
These were not Benítez's supposed stock-in-trade 'European' style matches against teams that let you play, but about as British as football gets: in your face, and for much of the time, over your head.
Much of the success has to go down to the inspired form of Kyrgiakos; a low-key signing, but an absolute rock when called upon.
The highest compliment I can pay him is that he's looked like Sami Hyypia at his very best. Of course, Sami is a legend because of ten years of brilliance, not four or five games - but my point is that you could not have asked for any more from the giant Greek, now that he has settled in.
A Word of Praise
Statistics are a strange thing. I never use them to provide the be-all-and-end-all to an argument, but I do like to use them as one part of my evaluation methods. Providing they are not abused, they present handy evidence.
As someone said to me this week, "Digging for facts is a better mental exercise than jumping to conclusions".
Take these figures. Based on the latest available data (up to 25th January), Lucas Leiva has made the most successful passes in the entire Premiership: 1,200. This is achieved at an 85% success rate (higher than anyone else in the top five). He has also made the 3rd-highest number of successful tackles.
So, he's in the top three in both categories.
Now, this doesn't mean that they were all extravagant or incisive passes; however, a quick look at The Guardian's 'Chalkboards', which illustrate the direction and distance of his passes, will show that there is a huge variety to how he plays the ball. And as we've seen in recent weeks, he's less the "defensive" player as which he's portrayed, and is clearly becoming ever more box-to-box (even if his finishing is yet to match his bright ideas).
Lucas isn't one for frequent killer passes, although the ball to Benayoun in extra-time against Reading was one of the best of the season; the sort he supposedly can't play.
Indeed, even Xabi Alonso rarely had direct assists from open play; my analysis of last season showed that he was involved in a lot of goals, but much earlier in moves, often with simple passes. Lucas' goal 'involvement' figures have increased this season, and unlike Alonso, he's also been frequently getting into the opposition box.
However, he's a very different player to Alonso, and it's a shame that anything good he does is obscured by the fact that he's not Alonso.
Now, I'm not using these figures to say that Lucas is therefore the best central midfielder around, and that the sublime Cesc Fabregas, for example, is a lesser player. Lucas has played a lot of minutes this season, and that will help boost his figures.
But as some deluded soul told me earlier in the season, 'Lucas can't even play a simple five-yard pass, and doesn't even win 50% of his 50-50s'. Now, those statistics suggest otherwise. He's made 1,200 successful passes and won seven out of every ten tackles.
Indeed, in this context, they are facts, not statistics. They prove otherwise.
Javier Mascherano is also in the top five for both successful passes and tackles won.
This backs up my assertion earlier in the season that the problems with the team mostly lay elsewhere. If you have two overlapping full-backs, and an adventurous centre-back (Agger) you need a solid centre to the side.
After months out with injury, Alberto Aquilani has come in and done well, although the Bolton game seemed to pass him by at times; which, of course, is to be thoroughly expected. Arsene Wenger often states that any import should be allowed a season of adjustment.
Unfortunately for Aquilani, there was a ludicrous amount of pressure and expectation surrounding him, at a time when he had to find fitness in the first team spotlight, when that team was struggling.
But even though Bolton wasn't one of his better games, he did brilliantly to set up Dirk Kuyt, and got another 65 minutes under his belt. The Reds have won all four league games that he's started, and that bodes well; but at times, such as against Spurs, he's been deployed ahead of the midfield, and, of course, better defending as a whole has given the team the platform to go on and win these matches.
The next three games, two of which are away, are all big encounters against in-form sides. After their own injury-ravaged start to the season, which saw them languishing near the bottom of the table, Everton have hit their stride.
If Liverpool can remain undefeated and gain five points, that would satisfy me; any less could leave a gap, and any more would be a wonderful bonus, particularly as one game is the Mersey derby, and the other two are trips to Arsenal and Man City.
But in many ways these games could be what the Reds need; there's less overpowering expectation to win, and 'big game' atmospheres - which help all players - will be guaranteed.
) mais cette solidité ne serait-ce que physique est une chose rassurante malgré tout (bon si il pouvait éviter de se laisser avoir comme une buse dès le premier crochet ça serait chic quand même...)
