Today's football, the strength of a FB depends on his offensive ability ( D alves, Alaba, alba, Marcelo,carjaval and so on) or at least be able to defend a lil bit ( ivanovic etc..). LP does not have any of this.
That is true, but to be fair, many others had bad games last season, but he gets a special treatment. Anyways, let's hope he has a better season. One way or another, it would be a good for the club and for himself.
what happened last season IDGAF about right now, if players step up and perform when they need to this season then they're good in my books. I find that the reverse of miki situation was seen last season, Klopp after many great seasons, finally fell apart tactically, and people still point to past performances, claiming those few matches could just be an outlier, and still is a top caliber coach.
Its only a small minority of forum fans though. Bigsoccer seems to have tge most detractors. There is no problem with criticism, but when he has a good game and people still say that he was shit it becomes obvious that the fan has another agenda. Had the club paid 10 Milllion less for him, then there would be less whining.
Which fans? This is an online forum so let's not get political over here. You'd have to go back more than 15 games to see a match where Reus, Hummels and Gundogan played really well. Other than PEA nobody had put in consistently good performances apart from LP who tailed off by mid season. The problem with Miki is he has 1 good game followed by about 4 where he sucks. He doesn't recognize when he should be passing vs. shooting or when he should be dribbling vs. passing. And the quality of his shots are awful. How many goals has he scored from outside the penalty box? He's clearly not a very cerebral player. Just watch his movements and you'll notice that he is more focused on first getting the ball and then creating space for himself. If you've played any kind of competitive football you should know that it is the other way round. Also someone pointed out a few months ago how he plays with his head down!! Quite a few of us have said we need a superstar to play alongside these guys. A player who has the skill, confidence, physical level to play in the final third and have more good games than average + bad while sharing the scoring burden with PEA and Reus. It wasn't going to be Kagawa whom I didn't want back and after 2 season it doesn't look like it's going to be Miki.
I can agree with quality of the shots, no disagreements there. But creating space and waiting for the ball? It depends from the situation, really. Look at last game's assist. He does that a lot, opening up a space to receive a ball. But my point is, if he has a good game, at least recognize that. I don't like Schmelzer in a lot of situations, but if he is having a great game against Juve, I will recognize that. The same goes for every player.