Luis Saurez----Should He Stay or Should He Go.....

Should I stay or should I go now

If I go their will be trouble

If I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know
Should I cool it or should I go

I miss The Clash, but more importantly I miss the loyalty of players to the Club. Steven Gerrard and Carra are probably creatures of a different century, a different upbringing.  Maybe what I really miss is directness. Where a player says something honest, like, " I want more money! That will make me stay ". 

But these are different times. Players say things like "the press are mean to me", "I'm homesick" and then their agent starts to make noise.

So Luis Saurez, what do you do?  He is a fantastic player. Scores goals, is aggressive, has great instincts, terrific pace, and disrupts the defensive lines effortlessly. He also regularly gets banned from games, causes distraction to the development of the squad, and makes noise direct and indirect about leaving the squad.

He makes about 4.5 million pounds per year, and misses on average 6 games (so far) per season. And still score more goals than most players in the EPL.

Today we here that the spendthrift Arsenal were offering €30000000 for Saurez. If true he must surely be worth double! 

My opinion, sell. Just using the Arsenal figure of €30000000 is an amount that could well set up Liverpool's financial stability for the years to come. It would allow for the acquisition , now and in the future, of solid players to get us back into Europe and, more importantly, to stay there.

Remembrance of Pitches Past or Looking Back at Your Season

Sorry Mr. Proust, but sometimes things happen and you seem to explain it all away, especially when you wrote

"The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea".


So from a cup of tea and a cookie he remembered his past. As coaches, and as Liverpool fans we need to be a little more current on our review of the previous season.


Let's look at Liverpool 2010-2011. And we will start small. August 2010, 3 games, 1 win, 1 loss, 1 draw. Two goals for, 4 against.


The specifics are as follows:

Aug 15	FT	Liverpool	1-1	Arsenal	44,722	Premier League
Aug 23	FT	Manchester City	3-0	Liverpool	47,087	Premier League
Aug 29	FT	Liverpool	1-0	West Bromwich Albion	41,194	Premier League

This season, 2 wins, no losses, and 1 draw. The specifics:

Aug 13	FT	Liverpool	1-1	Sunderland	45,018	Premier League
Aug 20	FT	Arsenal	0-2	Liverpool	60,090	Premier League
Aug 27	FT	Liverpool	3-1	Bolton Wanderers	44,725	Premier League

Everything is great, right?


I think so, but don't bet on a top four finish just yet. 


The positives


The squad has scored six goals versus two, and has two wins and no losses in three games, and two goals against versus four. Also, and I think important, an away victory, albeit against a weakened Arsenal. The squad appears to be cohesive, playing as a team, in the Liverpool way.  
There is pace, passing and spirit, things largely absent for the last two years. We are not in Europe stretching our resources. 


All of this is good.BUT.....


Now comes Stoke, the giants of the EPL,  their average height, way taller than Saurez, Kuyt and Adam, Way taller. In fact they may be the tallest nin basketball team in the world.


Now if Liverpool can salvage a tie, or god be praised, a win, then maybe the top four can be achieved. 


I can remember that day, against Stoke, when that beach ball doomed the season, and we lost. Luck had left us, and didn't come back for a very long time.  These are the teams we have to beat, the Stokes, Wolves, Rovers and Boltons of the leagues, and this has been our weakness. Beating the bigs and losing to the smalls, This has not been Chelsea or Manchester's issue. This has been our problem. Liverpool needs to play more consistently against all opponents before they can or deserve to be a top four team. Stoke is where they can begin.


Come on lads, win bug or win ugly, just win!!!


Walk On


Hal White

The Power of Dribbling

Now as parents and Coaches we are very familiar with the sausage lines of children dribbling a ball to a cone and then back. "Why?" we ask through clenched teeth do coaches do this, why can't the children just play?
Two things come to mind in this scenario;Lackof creativity onthe part of the coach , and, a lack of appreciation of the fundamentals of soccer by the parents.

I will deal with fundamentals first. Dribbling of a soccer ball is one of the essential player skills that must be developed. Dribbling is what allows a player to control a ball in tight spaces, helps them get around opponents, helps maintain possession of the ball, and is the basic building block for feints, moves and turns to get around opponents. So no dribbling no penetrating runs, no moves around defenders and no possession soccer.

The coach who fails to consider options/drills other than sausage lines will not only risk losing the parents, but the players as well. The coach should consider diagonal runs, simple cross overs, and opportunities to include passing, turns or moves.

At the UEFA training ground page there are several ball control drills I like to use in training sessions to help develop dribbling and movement skills.  The links are included below:

This drill just works the foot skills, and is an excellent warm up.

www.uefa.com/trainingground/training/drills/video/videoid=788371.html?autoplay=true

The following drill is also lot of fun and can engage a lot of players in a very small space:

www.uefa.com/trainingground/training/drills/video/videoid=788378.html?autoplay=true


Now for fun , here is the power dribbler of the world, Mighty Mouse, Lionel Messi:

Too bad Liverpool didn't get him first!

And Before I Forget   March 6, 2011, Liverpool 3 v Manchester United 1,

YNWA

Walk On

Hal White

Torres o Saurez o Ambos

Saurez or Torres or Both?

So we got him. Ajax has 25 million euros, and we have Saurez. What is brought to the table?

If it is to have a second lone striker, then so what. If it is to set up the sale of Torres, then we are back to a lone striker and, then so what. But if they want to exploit yhe advantage of two strikers then the team would be effecting a real change.

Torres has been and will continue to be a true threat on goal. Saurez is a known threat as well, but not yet in the Premier League. My suggestion is pair him up with Torres until the end of this season (unless Chelsea ponies up the 50-60 million to buy him now), to gain some experience. Then if Torres still wishes to go, sell him, and start using N'gog as a regular second striker. I don't like him yet, but I also thought Berbatov was of no value, and I may stand to be corrected in N'gog's case as well.

So change things up to 4-4-2 or maybe go nuts with a 4-3-3

Training to Shoot

Avoiding the issue of technique, which in the case of shooting is a modification of passing techniques by passing in to the net, how do we encourage players to shoot?

As a coach my principle concern is to create situations where the player does the task without thinking. Boys are very easy, in that they don't think at all. Girls, well. they think too much, in shooting situations, this is bad and leads to passes when striking should occur.

I use one game in particular to encourage shooting with good results . It is called "wide pitch" and is played on a 20x 30 pitch with 1/2 to full size nets on the long sides of the pitch.

The teams are 4 v 4 plus keepers. Nothing special, but the field design encourages shooting from range, and crosses into the front of the net. if they aren't shooting add restrictions to encourage shooting such as maximum three touches, a goal from range is worth double, or that shots on target count for a point. With girls it is important to encourage and compliment the act of shooting, so look for an opportunity to stop the game and heap praise on the shooters instead of the playmakers.

Let them play, and make them shoot.

Walk On

Hal White