Deconstructing Glen Johnson’s Goal v. Chelsea

A rare Johnson goal but came at the right time.

noel once again giving andy townsend a run for his money on play breakdowns...

does terry need to be that tight to luiz, though?  seems like he's not only concerned about leaving space for suarez to run onto, but also that hendo will get past luiz... just seems like chelsea's captain has too much to worry about there when he should be able to stretch the spacing a little bit more.  that wudve allowed ashley the couple paces to the left that, with his insane range, cuda covered that run.

not that i give a flying birdy about chelsea's defensive problems, so long as they continue to have them, but surely luiz is a good enough defender that terry doesnt have to be micro managing that situation...  lots of issues for avb to sort out, 3rd place is there for the taking!!!!!!

if Johnson was played on the wing, Kuyt wouldn't be the defender he is today.

I'm not going to get into the finer points of tactics and player positioning (although I think Noel is right about Glen Johnson).  Just wanted to say that Johnson's goal looks better every time I watch it.  There's something about a late, game-winning goal that makes the sun seem brighter and the air seem cleaner.

Yes, it is one of those simple somethings that the Manchester United game was ABSOLUTELY SALIVATING for. 

Because its like SUCK IT BEAT US NOW SUCKERS!!!

I still think Johnson should try out on the wing. Kyut has seem to be replace by Henderson this season, but Johnson more ideal choice, we have Kelly and other youngster lining up behind for their chance.
I suppose Bale and A.Johnson(ManCity) play LB before convert to LW with great success. G.Johnson can be the next making of a great RW.

He need not has to score goal like he did in Chelsea game running from deep (how many time we saw this anyway), He got pace and trick up his sleeve and love to take on defenders up to the by line. Big Carroll and Suarez will benefit from his play.

I say, try a couple of game for G.Johnson as RW, with a weaker opponent (which we have lost points this season), see the result.

c'mon, man - really?  homie just breaks it down beyond a shadow of a doubt as to why you dont make that move and you still want to see it? 

if andy johnson ever played LB it wud've been at the borough academy, cuz he's always been a LW/RW since he's played first team ball.  transitioning bale from full back to mid was more natural cuz he was so young and raw. johnson's 26.  id rather he focus on honing his defensive craft than on learning a new position. 

we'll buy our winger/wide attacker and then we just may have the best wide options in the league considering bellers, maxi, kuyt, enrique, johnson, downing and tbd top notch twinkle titted wonderkind...

Johnson is downright the best attacking right back in the league when he can keep his hamstrings in tune. In fact, I'd say we have probably got close to the two best attacking fullbacks in the league. Top posts, Noel.

I can't stop laughing, I keep picturing that Johnson is actually seeing the field and the players with the orange highlighted areas and the arrows. 

*big ass orange square appears outta nowhere*

here I go here I go here I go

I miss getting high.

Give yourself a present this holiday season...

Lucas at 1:31 anyone?

By the way, the music just sucked all the testosterone out of me.

Who would have thought you'd ever miss those Eastern European club mix compilation soundtracks?

Great analysis Noel, you have finally buried once and for all my own assumption that Johnson could be played on the wing :)

Got it. So keep Johnno at RB.  

I'm in full support, as long as we keep a good defensive covering winger (workhorse) like Dirky.  In light of this, Hendo is clearly not the best choice and fits in WAYYYYY better in the Gerrard role (now branded the Gerrard role in general, no matter what team.)  So if we ever do buy or get a new right winger and Johnno stays at first choice RB for years to come we should probably find a Dirky-esq type cover and successor.

movement can be taught, natural flair and skill (and dirk's drive btw) cannot.  hendo is already the dirkesque rw, so cash would be best spent on a wonderkind that learns the ropes on the defensive/movement side of things.

Either that or play with a true double pivot, including a player comfortable slotting into the back line. Have a Javi Martinez-type slotting into a back 3 and Lucas ahead of the defense, and the wingers can come inside and the fullbacks can bomb on all they want.

i salivate at the thought of a bilbao double dip: martinez and muniain...

Alves also plays in a team that dominates possession in nearly every match, which makes it more acceptable to a fullback who's a weaker defender.

The counter-example is Tottenham, who play Bale on the wing in front of Essou-Ekotto and he somehow finds plenty of room to build up a head of steam.

You might notice that in the 13th-14th minute Johnson got all the way to the Chelsea six-yard box without a clearing run from his winger. He doesn't need to be a fullback to be fast and a big threat. 

People obviously will continue to want Kelly because he is so, so much better at defending. Johnson is often at sea and there are plenty of examples from this game alone where he is lost and Chelsea get a goal chance because of it.

The reality is that Liverpool have two good right fullbacks, not perfect ones. But since we have no proper right winger, there are times when it makes sense to play a converted striker there (Kuyt) and times when it makes sense to play a converted fullback there (Johnson). Sometimes a narrow winger is great, but sometimes we also could really use Johnson's pace there. 

Any argument that involves "Harry Redknapp thinks it's ace" as a point in its favour is on shaky ground from the beginning. And while it's nice that Johnson had a few solid moments from a winger's position in the 13th minute, Liverpool only won the match because he made a run that would be impossible from a winger's position, and today was about breaking down that goal and why it can only be made from a deep starting point.

Perhaps I'll have to work up the motivation to re-examine past discussions, like the way zone 14 impacts player roles and tactics in attack and defense, or how fullbacks who provide width with narrow wide attackers changes the angles of attack in a side's favour while a stacked defensive trio or quartet (depending on defensive priority) is a more fluid counter against the break.

I love Kelly, but right now there isn't a top side in England or in international football that would start him over a fit Glen Johnson, except perhaps against a side with a deadly and traditional left winger who stays wide. Chelsea and the Manchester clubs wouldn't; the Spanish giants wouldn't; Bayern or the German national team wouldn't. To do so is tactically outdated and hobbles a team against most sides.

Like I said, one of these days I'll revisit some of those old posts with a 5000 word monster, and I'm sure somebody will still think Johnson should be at right wing. I guess it was my fault for not finding the time to pull that off today and thinking that winning the match with a run that could only be made by a fullback kinda spoke to his value as an attacking fullback.

Well I half agree and half disagree. Think you have it dead right with regards to Arry. However, despite a wonderful goal I just think Johnson is an absolute liability in defence. Sometimes we can get away with that (like yesterday) but in the long run I would much rather see Kelly there.

I'm not sure the results argue that Kelly makes LFC's defense any stronger or that Jonno is an absolute liability. Johnson has presided over 2 clean sheets (plus what he did on Sunday), as has Martin "World Class" Kelly. The only time we've been taken behind the wood shed was with the Slovak in the Half-Shell out there. My point being, we have one of the tightest defenses in the league - My Favorite Martin Kelly AND Glenny Kravitz have played their part. 

Oh, and @Noel -- bad days need bacon. As Ron "Fucking" Swanson teaches us...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

I love Kelly but with Kuyt and Johnson being there on the right I feel like almost negates a need for a more defensively minded fullback. Kuyt helps cover for Johnson because he runs like a workhorse and defends like one, allowing Johnson to run forward safely. Of course there will be mistakes made but that happens in any position. I kinda feel if Johnson was moved up he might lose those pacy runs he makes all of a sudden because if he was further up, wouldn't he be marked more closer by the opposite fullback? This is pure speculation on my part though

The one sure way to get people to stop seeing Johnson as a winger has nothing to do with the number of words you post. The task is to prove he can defend and defend well, because when Kelly comes in people generally feel the defending at that spot improves noticeably. That's not a lack of appreciation of volantes, zones, or any of that. Fans just like defenders to be able to defend -- go figure.

And about the wheeler-dealer, eternal England manager-in-waiting, be nice. You're talking about Harry "19 of 21 points against sides outside the top 7 this year" Redknapp. In other words, a guy who's getting his squad to do exactly what we want to emulate. And he does it by putting the fastest players he's got on the wings to attack, attack, attack. 
Against bottom 13 sides, I'd be quite happy to see Kenny try out a "fast" lineup of Suarez-Bellamy up top and Downing-Johnson on the wings and just run at them again and again, Tottenham style. Sheer pace and aggressiveness have their merits and you never know, we might do better on the scoresheet. Bellamy and Johnson have some serious pace and scoring threat compared to the slow kids Carroll and Henderson(!).

but, the whole point ol' boy painstakingly made questioned the effectiveness offensively of johnson playing further up the pitch since he is a natural attacking fullback.  So, if the offensive gains are questionable, then the question becomes if playing kelly at fb, johnson ahead of him is more defensively sound than johnson at fb with kuyt ahead of him.  to me that's a wash because kuyt is so good covering. 

so, if you agree with all that, its questionable at best that you would actually gain anything by pushing johnson up the field; plus, your effin with chemistry and asking jonno to learn a new position, both of which are unnecessary set backs when our defense is extremely solid and our offense is seemingly on the brink of something special.  now, if we have a series of injuries to our wide players, ya, of course, johson becomes an option there, but why fix it when its not broke at this point y'know?

and just very quickly - did you see the move where hendo popped the ball around cashley, vaulted him and then sprinted onto possession again?  did that seem at all to be a demonstration of a slow, athletically limited player?

If that's how it goes, then let's just say we have 3 at the back, just exclude Johnson. Now he's not a defender. That's all Kenny needs to do and the team will be in top form once again, right? 

"Fans just like defenders to be able to defend -- go figure."
'Fans' also like to measure midfielders' worth by goal involvement, and strikers purely on goal output; the kind of outdated, unidirectional thinking that this blog has been working pretty hard not to accomodate.

Johnson may be positioned in a back 4 on the sky team sheet, but he is not primarily a defender. Nor do I think he's as horrible at defending (or Kelly as incredible at it) as is often portrayed as fact. If you're isolated 1-on-1 with an attacker coming at you with pace, 15 yards from the sideline, there's a chance you'll get beaten every now and then, particularly when you're playing against what is still a world class side (and you're not named Jose Enrique). And doubly so when your winger abandons you and your midfield leaves a mile of space in front of you for attackers to pop up in.

This is an absurdly condescending response. I agree that Johnson > Kelly at RB and Kuyt > Johnson at RM, but you're responding to an articulate, reasonable post as if it were stupid. Johnson scored that goal yesterday because he was playing at fullback. Agreed. But Chelsea also scored their goal because he was playing at fullback. That's certainly harsh on him, as Adam and Enrique fell down on their jobs as well, but you can't just let Malouda run into the box unimpeded that way because you're so worried about the overlap. What's more, if Malouda's final ball wasn't total shit, Johnson might've gotten beat for another goal or two. He was looking very weak in one-on-ones all game, and I--despite being one of Johnson's biggest supporters--was hoping Kenny would take him off. Thank God I was proven so horribly wrong.

So, yes, Glen Johnson, as a wonderfully gifted attacking fullback, brings many things to the team that he wouldn't as a right midfielder. Furthermore, he is not nearly as poor defensively as most would have you believe. Nonetheless, it's far from absurd to think, in certain games, he might be more useful at RM. I don't even think it's true--I just think Purify offered a good argument for why it might be so.

Also, the old "'Arry's an idiot" thing really isn't as funny when his team, despite not being any more talented than ours, just beat us 4-0 and is in a much better league position.

I've put 6000-10000 words per week, every week, up on this blog for the past year as a hobby. Throw in photoshop work, chalkboards, adding up stats, and digging around for that last link on a day when there seems like there's nothing out there and damnit I really need to go to bed and it adds up to a not insignificant investment. Now, just to be clear, I never came into this looking for any kind of fame and fortune. And we truly are lucky to have one of the best communities out there. And Fowler knows in all the content I get my share of shit wrong, especially since I'm my own editor, too. And most of those aforementioned top commenters don't mean anything negative when they take issue or disagree or whatever.

Moreover, most of the time it doesn't bother me at all—in fact, most of the time I enjoy it, because our commenters really do kick ass and what's the point if everybody agrees with you completely?

But every once in a while when you're having a crap day, or can't get something to work quite right, or you've just spent an hour tracking down that last link and you're bloody tired and not sure why, really, you've bothered doing any of this. Well, then the fact that no matter what you say or how you say it you're never going to get things so that everybody's happy just makes you, every once in a while, want throw up your hands and say fuck it.

If I was too snippy or condescending with one of our better, more regular commentators, and it bothered either you or him, then as I'm sure some kids somewhere are saying, my bad.

Nah, no harm done. I could tell when I read your reply it was one of those things, like hearing about Carroll's price (woops, it just got mentioned again - ouch!). Sam had it right that I was more trying to add some depth to the discussion than anything else (of course, I agree Johnson is a fantastic attacking FB), although you can see from one of my other posts I think experimenting with Johnson at RW situationally might be fruitful.
Fwiw, it's getting close to a year with Kenny and we haven't seen it, so it may be a moot point. 

Well damnit, I just posted something kinda dickish on your Johnson comment because I thought you were poopin' on Noel's gingerbread house. "my bad". 

Noooo worries.

Carroll's price... urge to kill... risingg...!

you mean getting paid 15m to take carroll on as our change-up, big lug, potentially devastating foil for the pass an move?  that price? ;)

*Should I get the popcorn ready?*

No, I'm just having a bad day, which inevitably leads to wondering if a spare job at McDonald's would have been a better life choice than falling ass-backwards into this gig, which in turn probably leads to any comment I make coming across more offended and annoyed than it probably should be given that we're lucky to have what's likely the best commenting community out there.

If Purify thinks it's as out of line and condescending as Sam does—and maybe it is—then he's free to call me rude things, because I'll probably deserve it.

Very well thought out write-up of this perfect team effort. There were lots of times where we looked like vintage Spring 2010 KK LFC as opposed to the awkward stuff we've seen most of this year.

I wonder if you do plan to revisit this whole Johno as a winger discussion in the future if you'll examine his play in the two games last year, Stoke and Chelsea, where we played the 3-5-2. I feel that he was a veritable winger in these games. I just don't remember the efficacy of his play, only the overall resoluteness of our defense. I think ultimately some of us look at the conversion of Bale from RB to RW as a potential inclusion of both Johnno and Kelly. Moreover, this could be our long-term solution to eventually replace Kuyt who has once again shown his full value over the weekend.

I think at this point, the first thing I'd re/visit would be Johnson's ability as a defender relative to other RBs, because as it stands I think that the inevitable mistakes that any player at his position makes are blown out of proportion by the widely believed narrative he can't defend—which wasn't helped by his time under Roy Hodgson, when he was asked to sit on the edge of the area and defend like a center half, something he really isn't very good at. In any case, I imagine it would likely be almost impossible to review last year's two matches meaningfully at this point. Though my recollection of them was that the three man defense worked because Liverpool's attack kept the opposing fullbacks pinned back and Stoke and Chelsea didn't have any wide threats playing from more advanced positions, allowing Liverpool's core of three screened by Lucas to outnumber and dominate the central areas without being stretched wide and forcing the team into a choice between staying a gap-filled three-man unit at the back or pulling the wingbacks back into a five-man unit.

Well in.

"Get yourself fucked, Ashley Cole" may be my new favorite tweet of all time.  Well done, gents.

Love, Cheryl.