a single phrase could sum up the game pretty well: great intensity, poor quality.
the thing is we can't expect much more from liverpool theese days. loosing xabi was a huge blow for benitez, and i believe this season rafa will have to face his biggest challenge ever as a coach: find a new tactical formula to cope with the lack of a regista.
a team can definitely play without a regista (man utd played without a proper regista in the last few years and still showed the most sophisticated football in europe, speaking of tactics)...... but when u got used to play with a regista, it gets damn hard to play without him. xabi has been for liverpool what pirlo is for milan, what xavi is for barca.... they're like a morphine dose; once u don't use it anymore, it's hard to detox.
just take fiorentina as example..... it was a hell of a challenge for prandelli to "detox" his players, when liverani left. he went for new a midfield formula with lots of muscles (melo and donadel) and quality (montolivo and kuzmanovic)...... wich is the same path rafa is choosing right now (with kuyt, mascherano, benayoun and gerrard).
it took one year to prandelli to teach his players to cope with liverani's absence.... and even today, fiorentina looks like a work in progress......
so i believe this is gonna be a very tough season for liverpool fans.
anyhow the game vs utd brings a very good news for liverpool fans; the fighting spirit the reds showed sunday proves that the players didn't loose their faith in rafa, they still suppport him, and that's very important imo.
now it's up to benitez to show this faith is well deserved; he must give a new tactical imprint to this team, and he must do it as soon as possible, coz, to be honest, this liverpool is very boring to watch, very predictable, very flat.
and it won't be easy to do it with lucas as a starter. the guy is finally showing some progresses, and his passion and intensity certainly deserve a plause..... but his passing game is so terrribly flat and predictable... and even defensively he still has a long way to go; sure he recovers many balls, but he also loose possession way too often. sunday he was pretty good, but to be fair, i'd say that's up to carrick and scholes bad performance.
liverpool's performance sunday pretty much reflects lucas situation. the team was great during non possession phases, showing a great fighting spirit and a very intense pressing that crashed man utd midfield (right now fletcher is a key assett to man utd)..... but as soon as they got possession, there was a serious lack of ideas at midfield.
lucky them, benayoun can provide all the creativity lucas lacks of..... but benayoun plays higher on the pitch.... while liverpool need a clever player deeper in their own midfield, if they wanna start playing some "logical" football.
right now yossi is liverpool's most important player. tactically speaking, he's even more important than torres (as he's the one who allows el nino to show his magic). the "dialogue" between benayoun and kuyt was great sunday (certainly the most interesting thing of the match), and if only those 2 guys were a bit more selfish, liverpool would be a lot more dangerous upfront.
the game versus man utd arrived with a perfect timing. after such a bad period, the reds had to show some guts, and the big game against their rivals was the perfect scenario to pull out that amazing fighting spirit liverpool is famous for. and if u add to that man utd's poor performance (they were simply awful, not only they couldn't cope with liverpool pressing, not only they didn't put enough pressure on lucas, who is liverpool's weak link, to force his mistakes... they weren't even able to create anything when they got the opportunity)..... this match became the best medicine to heal liverpool's pride.
but the problem is, u don't get to play against top teams every week.....it's easy to find the right motivation playing against man utd....... but in the league (in the long run) u don't prove yourself performing against man utd..... a real top team must find the same motivations, must show the same fighting spirit even playing against sunderland, west ham or bolton.
and since the reds lost xabi, they're gonna have to show even more fighting spirit than in the previous seasons, if they wanna cope with his absence.
i know this is not really a deep tactical analysis.... but that's because this match really didn't offer anything interesting from the tactical point of view to discuss about.
anyhow i hope this is a sign of things to come for liverpool. i hope the reds will keep playing with that intensity until rafa will find a new way to have his team playing.
afterall football is played with brain, heart, lungs and legs. if u ain't got enough brain, u can still make up with the other factors.
sorry for the double posting, for the off topic and for the long post