Same Old Story: Liverpool's Familiar Problems Return at St. James Park

Liverpool's 2-2 draw on Sunday at Newcastle felt like a reminder of the familiar problems from last season. We talk about the positional breakdowns, question the squad's balance and examine whether Liverpool have enough of the right profile to compete at the highest level. Is this just an early-season blip, or a warning sign that significant issues remain unresolved?

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to America's Anfield, the Liverpool FC podcast brought to you by American Brothers Matt and John. From the heart of the U.S. to the cop, we're talking all things reds every week.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Welcome in everybody. This is Matt, and you're listening to America's Anfield. Wanted to quickly give a recap of yesterday's game against Newcastle. A Liverpool, of course, struggle, I think, for the most part is the right word. Away. So let me go ahead and tee this game up for you guys. We'll get into some quick positives and negatives, and then we'll let you go. Okay. So the first thing is this. That is a trickier game, I think, than we probably give it credit for. And here's why. Yeah, it's true that Newcastle has been pretty gutted over the summer. So they lose Guarmez, they lose Tanali, they lose Eddie Howe, they lose Anthony Gordon. And so it's a shell of the team that played last season. But the beginning of the season games are always tricky, in my opinion. It's still a really passionate fan base. Um that's still a really hard place to go play. And you know, the fan base is still really into it. There's still a lot of hope for everybody at the beginning of the year, right? Everybody's zero and zero. And so it's very different than say going there in the spring when maybe you know they're sitting 10th, 11th, 12th in the table and not playing for a lot. And um, I think from that vantage point, you know, you could easily make the argument that Liverpool were going to be in for a tough game. Um, and you know, credit to Newcastle, they played really hard. I was impressed with them given a lot of the departures I just mentioned. So, not for nothing, I do think that's a tricky game. That said, I think if we kind of go into the match itself, a lot of things went wrong for Liverpool yesterday. Um, it reminded me a lot of last season's team, and maybe that shouldn't be a surprise. It's not like the personnel's changed all that much, you know. Um, midfield is still a big question for me. We've talked a lot on this podcast, and I'm sure you've heard it on others, about the lack of balance in the squad. We have a lot of eights, in my opinion. Now, we've heard that in Ariola's system, you don't necessarily need a six, so I'm not gonna go there. But we tend to have a lot of players who want to bomb forward, um, and very few who want to do the dirty work or are okay hanging back. And you saw that on the first goal. I'm not gonna get into whether it's a coaching issue or not. I actually tend to say that sometimes the players themselves need to just have common sense andor positional discipline. So, you know, if you've watched the highlights back again, Graven Burke makes a run forward, he's on the right-hand side, just outside of the penalty area. He really should shoot or lay it off. One of the options, maybe one of the better options, was to lay it off to Dom, who is the other guy in the double pivot off to his right. And the reason I bring that up is because both of those guys are pushed forward and there's no cover. And so whether you want to blame them, whether you want to say, hey, somebody else needs to tuck in and cover for them, whatever the case, like you cannot leave um the space that happened after Grab gives the ball away. It's a really simple counterattack. And I'm actually not going to beat up Kirkz too much because frankly, not that many people are going to beat Alonga in a foot race. So, you know, to me, the bigger problem was that type of in possession shape that shouldn't happen. So, you know, a lot of that happened last season, too, though. So it you know didn't didn't really shock me, but was disappointing nonetheless. Um, we already know that Frim Pong's not a right back, so we didn't learn anything there. Um, the other thing that continues to worry me too, and as I'm talking, I realize that I'm kind of pointing out more personnel issues than necessarily coaching issues, but nonetheless, the balance in the squad is just not there, you know. Um, the player profile. So let's talk about that. We have a lot of guys on the team who are fairly small, you know. I mean, Frimpong is on the smaller side, Kirkz is not big, Mac is smaller, Florian Verts. Um, and it that's not to say that that matters in the sense of uh of everything. I mean, Messi's not a big player, obviously. It's more just an observation when you think about the way that the Premier League is going. You know, it's a big physical league. Um, and it feels like to me that Liverpool are set up sometimes to get a little bit physically bullied, uh, for lack of a better word. Um, and it's just something that I I've noticed and you know, just kind of wonder like, how is that gonna hold up against certain teams? Um, you know, obviously Liverpool are competing with Arsenal City, Chelsea, etc., to finish in the top four and potentially win a title. Do we have the right player profile? Not just size, but also the way they play. We have a lot of technical players. Again, does that mirror the league right now? I'm not sure. Um, so those are some of the things I would say were um on the negative side for me. And then the other the other one I do want to point out is you know, I'm not entirely sure if Liverpool are going to contend this season. If you go back and listen to our preview podcast, I picked us to finish fourth. Johnny picked us to finish third. Um but let's make the case for Liverpool contending. I think it's pretty easy. Uh we don't have a ton of depth, so we need to have a good luck with injuries this season. But more importantly, we need our two big signings from last summer, Florian Burtz and Alexander Isak, to consistently deliver man of the match performances. And they need to consistently um deliver performances that are good enough that by the end of the season they're at least in the conversation for player of the season. You know, we need that level of output from both of them. Um, you know, it's not fair, but the reality is that the transfer fees follow you around. Same thing at you know, lesser level, but happened to Darwin Nunez. We paid a hundred million pounds for Verts plus 16 and add-ons. Played eat paid even more than that for ASOC, and the output has got to be there, like period. And so, you know, I don't know why Verts got taken off um early yesterday. I think he got subbed around 62, but you want that guy going 90, and you want him to be a major, major force, and you want to look at him and you want to be able to say, hey, he's one of the best players on the field. And I don't think you've been able to say that very much, you know. And then for Isak, obviously it's a tough game for him, and I should have mentioned up front, the other part about this is you know, Newcastle fans still have a lot of bad blood towards him. There's still a lot of hard feelings about what happened last summer. So, you know, it was gonna be a rough game for him. But I mean, he had not many, but a couple of you know decent opportunities to find the back of the net. One in particular that I'll point out, if you remember, there was a moment in the second half where Gakpo gets the ball on the left, slightly inside the box, lays it back to Isok, and he hits it way too high, like way over the bar. Gotta put that on frame. Again, we're paying you to be able to finish those opportunities. And, you know, there's a lot of pressure on those guys this season. Not again, not necessarily fair. Would love for them to be able to not step on the pitch and feel like they've got um you know a heavy load on their shoulders, so to speak, but that's just the way it goes. Like we're gonna need those guys to perform. Um positives, you know, if we go to the positive side, I liked uh the cameo from Munoz a lot. You know, like he seemed energetic, he seemed he wanted to take guys on. So I thought that was a positive. Really liked Kumas coming on. I thought he was um, you know, just again, energy, um, willingness to go forward, really enjoyed that. Like Chacay's performance, honestly, at center back. He was solid, it wasn't spectacular, but we didn't get a lot of solid from Kanate last season. Um, so I thought that that was a positive start for him. Um, and so, you know, those are some things to build on, you know, I think for for those guys. For Rio, um, I'm not gonna read too much into it because he's not playing in his preferred position. You know, I I so I don't want to go one game and say he's not meant to play on the right. We'll see. And then the other one I'll get I'll point out is Gagpo. He gets a lot of shtick online. Guys, the reality is he is one of the only attacking players on our team that can consistently score goals. You know, so a lot of smoke today, again, about him going to Spurs. There was even a report that maybe City had reached out with interest. I don't know. I I would be very careful with that one. You know, again, to take one of the only guys on the team who can find the back of the net. Yeah, you know, his dribble-dribble cut into the right can be a little bit annoying. He had another chance later, right after he scored, that he probably should do better on. He can be a little plotting, like I get all that, but you know, at the end of the day, we're keeping score and he can score goals. So, you know, that's not nothing. Um and I I would be very, very careful and cautious, you know, about letting him go. So, but look, with that, you know, that said, 2-2 maybe feels a little bit fortunate for us. Um, but you know, this team is by far, in a way, not a finished product yet. Like most teams, you know, the reality is all of them count the same, but you just don't expect for a variety of reasons. You don't expect these teams to be firing at all cylinders in week one. Um, it's an away game, it's not one we're gonna look back on later, um, you know, and make a movie about, but um, I think it's not a terrible point. So we will see where they go from here. Thankfully, I don't think there was any injury news or anything like that. Um, I do think, you know, Ariola's comments after the match about being able to figure out the midfield shape. I thought we're we're spot on. You know, so I mean he obviously sees those issues. We'll see if he's gonna be able to correct them. Um, and as this team hopefully gets a couple more transfers in and can start to gel both on the the training pitch and you know, and and during games, um, we'll see if they can reach their potential. All right, that is it. Hey, thanks for listening. Um, feel free to follow us on social media, subscribe to our podcast, tell your friends. Uh, we will see you again next time.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Thanks for tuning in to America's Anfield. If you enjoyed the show, make sure to like, subscribe, and follow us on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on YouTube, Twitter, Threads, and Instagram at America's Anfield. Got questions or topics you want us to cover? Send them our way. We'd love to include them in a future episode. Until next time, up the red.