Liverpool is a counter attacking team. A lot of teams are counter attacking teams (Athletico, even Juventus to some extend, etc...), the ball possession is just more frequent when the opponent fears you.
Anyway, some games show that it’s not just counter attacking but it’s a pressing and counter pressing that aim to control where we want the ball to go. We have games where we do not press, e.g. City, but we also have games where we press pretty well, e.g. Spurs. You can’t say this team is not being coached in that regard when games show it. Again, going back to my theorem analogy but if you can find counter examples, the theorem is invalid in mathematics. The theorem to say we do not have a pressing strategy or that we do not press well is wrong, pressing is not just about getting the ball back right away, it’s also forcing the ball to go where we want, which in our case is mostly the right side where we don’t have to defend in numbers, etc... we should also note that the way we defend is not always the same so clearly there are some adaptations that are discussed and prepared.
Now if you have clear instructions that are simple but effective and you have individual mistakes for whatever reason, does that somehow erase all the instructions?!? Cause that’s what you’re saying.
LVG had one of the best defensive setup in the world and tactically he was a nerd. This is a guy who congratulated Herrera because he took one control before shooting (and scoring) in the box on a low cross, because that would increase the probability of scoring. He brought a lot of interesting things including high lines and compactness to remove space for the opponents etc but he didn’t like training for offensive actions. For him, that was where the talent should express itself. Fine.
Jose play compact but way lower and likes the go up there fast. Also a guy who doesn’t overly train offensive patterns because again, talent.
Sure, on paper, it sounds familiar but you would be blind to not see the difference between the Spurs game (high line, a lot of pressing and counter pressing to get the ball on the right and then press the full back) vs the City game (low line, zero pressing almost and the only full back we pressed was Walker to get him out of position). Which means we change and adapt the setup. Offensively, we do not hoof the ball now, we try to go through the middle and break lines. We may fail more often than not, but intentions and instructions, which are down to the manager, are there and being executed.
We can always argue about some of the instructions on the offensive aspect, on why Lingard didn’t pass the ball faster when he intercepted against Arsenal early on, why we didn’t do this or that, but in other games, we press the full back with Pereira and we pass it to Martial to score. We can also argue why we do not seem to be able to get anything out of corners, but we don’t know what’s being trained or not. Maybe we still have positional issues and the players are not fully able to execute, so we need to keep drilling it, who knows? But to say Ole is simply out of depth is fallacious. There are progress but it’s taking time
Great sources, definitely more respectful than BBC or Telegraph.