What Does The New Manager Need To Do To Fix Liverpool? Play With More Attackers?

While media outlets are busy reporting the fact that Liverpool have parted ways with Brendan Rodgers, let’s discuss where should the next manager start his work at Anfield. Liverpool haven’t been at their best this season and another 1-1 draw, their fifth such result in all competitions puts the pressure back on the manager.

Liverpool started the Merseyside Derby the brighter of the two teams but they just about held onto a 0-0 score line thanks a couple of world class saves from Simon Mignolet. Liverpool did take the lead thanks to a header from Danny Ings but conceded a few minutes later before the end of the first half as Romelu Lukaku blasted home the equalizer.

Bring the fear into the opponents again

In that one season where Liverpool almost clinched the title, Liverpool were attacking almost every team they faced. That Liverpool seems to have gone and so is Rodgers. The new manager should set up the team in a similar fashion; he does have the tools in his team with a bunch of attacking players like Adam Lallana, Roberto Firmino, and Philippe Coutinho and has some big money strikers in Christian Benteke and Daniel Sturridge.

The team might lose a bit of defensive balance but they didn’t really care about the goals they were conceding as long as they ended up scoring more than their opponents. This might not be the way to go in the long term but it certainly would provide a lot of entertainment and possibly more points per game for Liverpool than they currently are getting.

The other problem that Liverpool have apart from not controlling enough games is finishing their opponents off. They have often taken the lead in games, but just cannot seem to score the second goal or keep the opponent from scoring. The Liverpool from Rafa Benitez’s time would score once but ensure that they would not concede, that just is not happening at the moment.

Defensive frailties have been a common factor in recent times at Liverpool and they do not seem to be learning. While playing with a lot of attacking players would ensure they should score more than they concede, currently playing with three centre backs and have a couple of wingbacks isn’t helping Liverpool keep the clean sheets that they started the season with.

In fact, Liverpool should go back to four defenders at the back, like they had at the start of the season and play Lucas in midfield to give them the defensive stability that they need. The other positions can be taken up by the attacking players but they need to play with two strikers as they have been doing for quite a while.

No matter what the new managers does, he will be scrutinized for the next set of games.