Liverpool’s lack of balance is creating entertaining chaos: How they’ve become the world’s team to watch

The sample size is small, but two weeks after the season, it seems Liverpool Have you established in a pattern for their Premier League title defense – a clear chaotic, to be specific. They show every quality of a team that spent around $ 400 million on transfer costs this summer, so that almost all their funds dropped on attack -oriented players, regardless of the result. The by-product has been thoroughly entertaining, with the Reds taking a 2-0 lead in each of their opening matches, giving up and then scoring to achieve the three points they seemed to collect half an hour earlier. However, conventional wisdom always starts at a certain moment during this version of the Liverpool experience and forces questions about whether the Reds are actually capable of a real title loading.

After looking at Virgil van Dijk and Milos Kerkez, a 10-man Newcastle United collapsed on Monday, the worries are honest. The simple expectation of each team is to win games, but that is especially true for a team like Liverpool, which has all the trademarks of a team that is in fact obliged to succeed. Title -winning history? Account. Reigning competition champions? Account. A bank balance with which they could spend hundreds of millions on flashy new signing sessions, which created the demand for immediate satisfaction? Account. Each team of this ILK chooses their own stylistic specifications, but the success pattern is usually rooted in routine victories against inferior opponents with a few explanations that have been mixed. A deviation from the norm is usually a sign of problems and with Liverpool those pain points are particularly easy to recognize.

After a preseason in which they only kept one clean slate and, combined with the FA Community Shield, a third consecutive week in which they have admitted two goals, the defense of the Reds is particularly vulnerable to an attack that is an amount of danger. Veteran van Dijk can officially be post-peak after a few suspicious moments to start the season, while Kerkez becomes a member of fellow recout Jeremie Frimpong As a wingback that is much suitable for the “wing” part of the work than the “back” aspect. With Frimpong injured for Monday’s 3-2 victory at Newcastle, manager Arne Slot selected midfielder Dominic For the role and has not received a defensive solution of the selection. The conditions almost completely eliminate the possibility of standard victories for Liverpool, the Ploegonbalans so clear and clear that the unnecessary Nervy creates that are certain that they will cost them against a better opposition.

What a welcome change of pace.

There is a responsibility that is placed on title hunters to create machine-like teams that minimize imperfection and although Liverpool did not fall their desire for excellence, their new look group seems to be built to fully maximize opponents by fully maximizing their strengths. Perhaps perfection is not a priority for the Reds in this season, which can ensure a non -durable title costs, but can herald a new tactical trend – and a genre of entertainment that should never be discouraged.

The trend of life and dying through the sword

During the last decade and change, the top teams are determined by a feeling of control, usually rooted in possession that is designed to fully limit the opponent. It is a decisive aspect of Pep Guardiola’s best teams and is probably still a characteristic of his Manchester City, now in the midst of this newest rebuilding, but it was such a common concept that Brendan Rodgers made this argument during the 2012-13 season, his first responsible for Liverpool. “If you have the ball 65-70% of the time, it is a football death for the other team,” He said to complete that campaign for some time for their seventh place. “It’s death by football.”

Owning because of it was not an inherently successful strategy – Guardiola and Rodgers are not meant exactly to be grouped – but at best it was extremely effective. Guardiolas Barcelona” Bayern Munich And Manchester City teams, for example, used possession as the basis of a game that was dependent on an effective pass and the creativity of progressive players to offer the dramatic flair that stops opponents and tension of the public. However, a possession -oriented strategy also paves the way for effective but inherently boring teams, illustrated by those of Mikel Arteta Arsenal. He is a strategy that depends on control, although the Gunners have used it to build a defensive Juggernaut, successfully keeping it at a distance time and time again. On the way, Arteta has created a title candidate, while sucking life out of the game every week.

However, no tactical trend has been built to survive innovation, which slowly but surely always comes. Own-oriented managers are recently prepared to hand over the control when the opportunity requires it, finding ways to catch the opposition without the ball. It’s not always glamorous – Ange Postecoglou’s Tottenham HotspurFor example, the ball handed over Manchester United In a boring UEFA Europa League final in the hope that the Red Devils would not be able to do a lot with possession and managed to do that exactly. However, the most innovative managers of the game build teams that may possess but are not defined by them. To take Luis EnriqueS Paris Saint-Germain as a good example-she won last season’s UEFA Champions League, not because they hold the ball, but because of his unique view of a press-oriented style, overwhelming opponents with their intense game in broad areas. Owning is almost a consequence than a determining function.

Enrique is also not only in this approach. Hansi Flick’s reinvention of Barcelona was built on the same idea. There are hints of evolution of the old tactical trends instead of a rejection, including the high line that has been a style of the most stylish teams of the sport for years, even if it is also the first disadvantage for those aversion to the strategy. Barcelona lived and died last season at Het Zwaard, clean sheets A rarity on the way to the Double and Champions League semi -finals. There was an argument that changes in the defense are necessary; Jasper van Leeuwen, a former youth scout in Ajax, did that A team like Barcelona needs faster centerbacks such as Spurs’ Micky van de Ven.

Whether or not that tactical evolution comes, however, teams such as Barcelona and Liverpool find a way to survive by claiming that the best defense can simply be an excellent attack.

Liverpool, Arsenal and a season of thought experiments

Liverpool’s new reputation for imbalance is already feeling, but there is still a sense of excitement thanks to the shock value of the approach. Slot’s Reds won the title by practicing reluctance with Jurgen Klopp’s “Heavy Metal” team, apparently ready to make his name England As manager Emblematic for late stage, possessed play and without one of the eruptions of entertainment that defined the Klopp team. Their summer of expenditure, however, was a surprise and their exaggerated attack -oriented approach even more.

It is difficult to shake the idea that the new version of Liverpool looks like a fictional team that is presented by someone in a fun FIFA Save, a strategy that feels deeply unrealistic. This is especially the case in a sport that is increasingly defined by pragmatism – managers such as Postecoglou have proved to be a lack of usability instead of the construction of the team or the regular banalities of organizing a defense. The new Reds are a thought experiment in a sport that needs some tactical freshness that adds a fascinating ideological layer to the title race. Slot’s Liverpool is a direct stylistic contrast with Arsenal from Arteta, and the rebuilding of Guardiola with City could throw a nice wrinkle in the mix.

The Reds can benefit from strengthening their defense, even if the ties to Marc Guehi from Crystal Palace have become silent in recent days. Slot can also find a way to restore the balance as the season continues, which adds a sense of stability to his team as the title costs become well and really going. However, Liverpool should not feel obliged to do something like that. The sport needs a team that is really equipped to show whether this exaggerated attack approach works, no matter how stupid it is. The Reds must feel empowered to double (triple down? Four four?) On the approach, also by signing that of Newcastle Alexander Isaacwho is so desperate to a move to Anfield that He reportedly mentioned his house in the northeast of England on the rental market. Signing a different forward and expressing a defensive addition with still to be transferred to the transfer window has absolutely no sense for a team that scores goals with incredible convenience, but its strangeness makes it all the intriguing.

The incredible imbalance of Liverpool can mean that their title challenging is doomed from the start, which is inherently bad news for everyone with a rooting interest. However, the Reds deserve the patience to give this unusual strategy the old university. If people are lucky, it can encourage work and managers and sporting directors to build incredibly fun teams everywhere. If that is not the case, the masses are treated at least once a week to a banger of a competition for an entire season (and twice during a Champions League week).