Because Mignolet is no longer overthinking things. He was overthinking his passes before, its not his natural game, and we were seeing defensive errors as a result. Let him plonk it up the field if it helps him keep his head, his confidence, and the ball out of the net.
Have to agree with this. He is an excellent shot stopper. The last month or so been above average at controlling his area, as long as he keeps this up he can be as crap at kicking as he is and I don't care. Also having Sahko, Can and Lucas (when healthy) helps with the distribution. They can all receive the ball under pressure and distribute.
Interesting that the return of Sahko and Lucas from injury and the placement of Can in the back 3 has made Ming a better keeper...it certainly can't hurt his performance that the play of the guys in front of him has improved since we went to the back 3.
If City play in their favored, "assymetric," 442, our 3421 matches up really well and could be a decided tactical advantage that might help overcome a talent disadvantage in certain areas. If City plays some variation of a 4231, I'm not sure how we will match up.
This is so short-sighted. Markovic has improved immensely since the start of the season, and was dubbed the best winger prospect to come out of the Portuguese league since Ronaldo for a reason... Kid's like 20 and has already adapted and somewhat excelled at a new position in the world's top and most physical league, and you want to dump him because he isn't already world class? This is why people make fun of our fanbase so much, because of this complete and utter lack of reason.
And both he and Ibe are being played out of position. Both belong in the front three, not as wingbacks. Markovic was very good upfront against Spurs and Ibe is a monster when played through the middle. In the long run, they both provide us with players who can play two or three positions while presenting a real attacking threat. And both are very young. Each has another decade or more as a top level footballer.
Both have to learn, when to beat (try) another man, or when to make that vital pass or shoot. Like you said, they have 10 more years to learn.
McLaren said about Ibe "when he first came (to Derby), we needed two balls -- one for Jordan and one for the rest of us". You can see the improvement from game to game. Against Spurs he kept on trying to dribble two or three defenders, that Spurs felt they needed to contain him, until the 85 th minute when he looked up and saw that Lallana had no one covering him. Ibe's deft pass led to Mario's goal. Like wise, he laid back a lot against Besiktas trying to pass until the addition of More forwards left him one on one with their fullback and then he went to full attack and won the penalty. The lad is getting better quickly.
And, the development of Sterling, and others, has shown that our young players will be taught how to be complete footballers instead of specific position players - which is very refreshing in the day and age of buying everything you need. I've got a lot of faith in our ability to engineer a group of players (not too disimilar from Utd's "Class of 92") that can move wherever they are needed the field.
I wouldn't say that Ibe is playing out of position. You could say that about anyone who plays in the wingback role, because its a position that didn't even exist before we changed our system. I can't imagine a more perfect position for him at the moment. He just needs to run up and down the wing and use his pace strength and raw talent right now. As his game develops he can move into one of the front 3, but those positions require much more game intelligence and technique.
As easy as arranging numeric symbols in sequential order to designate the year you became a Liverpool supporter.