Posts Tagged ‘FA Youth Cup’

Liverpool 5 – Leicester City 1 FA Youth Cup: not good enough

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Liverpool beating a strong Leicester City side 5-1 away from home in the FA Youth Cup was a fantastic result, and there were many good things to take away from the performance. But in time-honoured Liverpool tradition (albeit slightly tounge in cheek), I’d rather focus on the things that were not good enough.

For a team that won 5-1, Liverpool had a disappointing amount of possession. The first two goals came after Leicester had the reds on the back-foot and both were on the break. That shouldn’t detract from the quality of the moves, or the finishes but it was unbelievable that Liverpool were 2-0, and then 3-0 up.

When Liverpool did have the ball, they didn’t do much with it. They hurried their passing and struggled to string more than 3-4 passes together. As the game openened up, the reds were guilty of losing the ball in important areas of the pitch. A move like that resulted in the Leicester goal but it could have been so much more. They had two 1-on-1s with the goalkeeper and hit the woodwork three times.Even the excellent Andre Wisdom had a tendency to get rid rather than take time and pick a pass.

The passing was often over-ambitious all night and the objective appeared to be catching Leicester for pace rather than building sustained pressure. This meant that when Liverpool had broken up a Leicester attack, too often they found themselves on the back-foot soon after. It would have been better to see the players know when to make the ambitious pass and when to play it simple.

Leicester didn’t make it easy for Liverpool, often by-passing midfield completely. But the holding players didn’t stamp any authority on the game, disappointing for someone with the footballing abilities of Michael Roberts in particular.

Liverpool were also a bit rash in the tackle. Although the second of the two bookings was harsh, Roberts could have seen red at a higher level and Coady dived in too frequently for a player in that position.Coupled with this, the team was particularly effective at closing down Leicester. They didn’t hunt in pairs, as the first team does at its best and rarely hassled Leicester into a mistake in midfield. That left a lot of work for the defenders.

There were also individual things to work on:

  • It was disappointing to see just how often Michael Ngoo was beaten in the air by the centrebacks
  • Matty McGiveron was caught out a couple of times, though once rescued it with a brilliant saving tackle
  • Deale Chamberlain was indecisive coming off his line and this led to a couple of great opportunities for Leicester
  • Tom Ince often gave up when he lost the ball rather than track back

The point of all these negatives is not to be overly-critical (although I am a grumpy bugger). But when you bring in coaching staff from Barcelona, you aspire to a quality of football that was often missing tonight. Liverpool have assembled some great cup-tie winning teams at this level over the last few years, without developing players who can play consistently at the next level (Darby and Spearing not withstanding). If the new philosophy is to work, it needs to depend less on results and more about the style and ethos of the football.

But at least the team has more confidence and gets to play on in the competition. Next up, Watford or Hartlepool at Anfield.

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Posted in Liverpool FC | 7 Comments »

Liverpool v Leicester City FA Youth Cup Preview

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Liverpool’s youngsters play Leicester City tonightin what’s likely to be a tough encounter. In the league match earlier this season at Melwood Leicester won 3-0 but it could have been more.

I expect a crowd close to 10,000 at the Walkers Stadium helped partly by the home team offering a freebie to 2,000 season ticket holders.

For readers who haven’t seen much of the young reds, here are seven things to look out for:

1. The strength of Leicester and how our midfield deals with it.
Leicester are a strong team and physical, but not dirty. Striker Adi Yussuf caught my eye earlier in the season but they dominated the reds all over the park.

Since then Rodolfo Borrell has had more time to get to know his team and convey his ideas better. But the midfield battle will be key. In the last round I felt we looked weak here.

2. Christopher Buchtmann
The blonde German was promoted to the reserves in the summer but hasn’t had much game time, partly due to international call-ups. He played on the right against Wolves in the third round which was tough for such a left-sided player. But if he can contribute and improve his all-round game, all the better. He can play in defence but is a good crossed with pace to take on defenders.

3. Andre Wisdom
An exciting talent who can play in a number of positions. I expect to see him at centre-half. He reads the game well, times his tackling and is good on the ball. Watch for him showing leadership qualities and possibly occupying different roles as the game progresses.

4. Tom Ince
I suspect it’s been a tough year for Ince but he rises to the occasion and took his goal well last time out. He’s not afraid of taking on defenders and shooting on sight. He can – and usually does – play across the frontline but is
most likely to play the Gerrard role.

5. Fullbacks
The fullback Flanagan and Robinson stood out last time and Robinson is a particularly accomplished footballer. They will add width where necessary and aren’t prone to nose-bleeds in the opposition box. They are solid defensively but can be caught out of position if an attack breaks down.

6. Formation
As an early indicator of the ‘one club’ philosophy the 4-2-3-1 formation is as good as it gets. It’s probably hardest for the deep lying centrebacks and the striker. But the young reds appear to be getting used to it and results have become more consistent.

7. The team peformance
Liverpool have been hugely successful in this competition in recent years but failed in the central objective: to develop players for the next stage. How many of the recent finalists are currently at Liverpool? It’s less than half. So don’t expect to see ‘the next Carra’ or ‘the next Gerrard’; just wish them luck and hope they can graduate to being a reserve team regular.

The game is exclusively live via the e-season ticket. If I don’t make it up there, I’ll be watching it online before writing my post-match analysis.

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Liverpool v Wolves FA Youth Cup analysis

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

Liverpool beat Wolves 2-0 at Anfield in the FA Youth Cup third round, and in doing so the under-18s side put one over on a team that had beaten them with a last minute goal in the league tie at Wolves.

Liverpool were comfortably the better team throughout the game and created far more opportunities than a Wolves side which lacked creativity. However, when Wolves did create chances they were more clear-cut and on another day might have won the game.

The game

I was surprised by how easily Liverpool gave the ball away at the start of the game. The passing from midfield wasn’t particularly accurate and with Liverpool trying to use the pace of Tom Ince to hit Wolves on the break, the team struggled to control the game. However, that didn’t stop Ince having two clear chances before he took his goal well (left footed from an angle) which mirrored two earlier opportunities which he wasn’t able to put away. Andre Wisdom played a good through ball to Ince who took the ball away from the defender and shot across the keeper.

Liverpool started the second half brightly and were, I thought, much better at closing Wolves down, pressing from the front and when they had the ball, looked much more compact; they were able to move the ball quickly and effectively to open up Wolves.

The second goal was a bit lucky, Buchtmann fed Adorjan who did well and dribbled into the box but the keeper will have been disappointed to have been beaten at his near post – and not by a powerful shot.

After that, Liverpool bossed the game and Wolves lost their discipline. The midfielder Rooney (no relation) was lucky to only get a yellow card and Ngoo was fortunate not to have been injured after getting a studs flying into his thigh. It was good to see the young reds stand up for themselves, particularly as a team mate would usually be responsible for getting retribution for an earlier foul. It was heated and committed, but never over the top.

Performances

It was a good team performance from Liverpool but obviously people want to know which individuals stood out and what it means for the future. The key point, I think, is that Liverpool have got teams to the final of the FA Youth Cup in four out of the last five years but very few players from those teams have made it to first team football anywhere. Even earlier teams, such as the one with Carragher and Owen which won the FA Youth Cup in the mid-1990s, only saw a couple of players progress.

That notwithstanding, I was pleased to see Tom Ince work so hard – and play well. It can’t have been easy to see a good friend like Nathan Eccleston playing regularly in the reserves this season – and even playing for the first team – when they were at a similar level last season.But seeing him go down with cramp at the end was a reminder of how hard he worked and how difficult it is for young players stepping up to a bigger pitch and a big occassion (albeit with a small crowd huddled together in the Kop).

Andre Wisdom impressed as a centreback – not least because he’s played recent Academy games on the right hand side of midfield. He didn’t put a foot wrong tonight, led the backline well and the young team even deployed zonal marking reasonably effectively.

I was also impressed by the two fullbacks: Flanagan and Robinson. They did pretty well defensively (although were never under sustained pressure) and looked good coming forward. They didn’t just provide width out wide but were comfortable cutting inside and both had decent efforts on target.

Christopher Buchtmann, a player I’ve been really impressed with in the past, didn’t really have a chance to show what he could do, often playing wide on the right (he’s very left-sided) but sometimes switching flanks with Ince. However, he wasn’t caught out on that side – he just didn’t have a chance to show his full range of passing and shooting skills.

It’s really important that the team progressed, because Liverpool have had good runs in the competition of late (so they have something to live up to), because young players only really have two seasons to compete in the FA Youth Cup and after an inconsistent season, adapting to new ideas and systems, the extra games will help.

The most obvious sign of the new ‘integrated’ approach at this level is the goalkeepers, who all look to distribute the ball quickly, use a similar technique with their kicks to Reina and are comfortable with coming off their line. Zonal marking is also deployed across the Liverpool teams now – as is the 4-2-3-1 system, which takes some adapting to.

It’s quite a young Liverpool team and although three players played in last season’s youth cup run to the final, there weren’t any players involved from reserve team level (unlike the previous couple of years). The team is also doing well in the absence of the injured Lauri Dalla Valle.

The reds will be hoping for another tricky tie at home in the next round and give themselves every opportunity to progress further, whilst demonstrating that the new regime is bedding down.

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Posted in Liverpool FC, Reserves | 4 Comments »