Tony Cascarino says passes in behind exposed Liverpool’s two full backs against Chelsea.
Former Chelsea striker Tony Cascarino says his old employers exploited Liverpool’s full backs in their 2-0 FA Cup fifth round win at Stamford Bridge last night.
On TalkSport, Cascarino said Neco Williams and Andy Robertson were ‘exposed’ by long passes in behind as the Reds suffered a second straight defeat.
He said: “The continuous switching, the diagonal ball last night was clearly an area where Liverpool have been exposed, that their full backs venture forward.
“In the Champions League final, their full backs sat. Liverpool have got a really tricky time coming up after Bournemouth. The disappointment is coming from Liverpool fans hoping their brilliance would continue.”
Liverpool’s full backs pushing forward is where they get a lot of their creativity from, and the central midfielders generally do a lot of work to cover for that.
It didn’t help that Fabinho had a poor game last night, uncharacteristically ponderous on the ball and ghosted past by Ross Barkley for the crucial second goal.
Robertson and Williams love bombing on and whipping crosses in and Klopp will encourage them to do that. That means they will be sometimes caught but the rest of the team shape needs to be better to avoid being caught by long switches.
That home match against Atletico Madrid is now absolutely massive, but it should be pointed out that there will be very little of the disappointment among the fans Cascarino talks about when a first Premier League title is lifted at Anfield, as it surely will be now.
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