One moment he’s putting in a last ditch tackle to keep Liverpool ahead and the next minute he’s making a horrendous back pass that dooms his team to a draw. Is he worth the risk?
After many fans thinking they’d seen the last of him when he was left out of the side by Brendan Rodgers, who only gave him 3 Premier League starts in 2013 until September, Martin Skrtel is back to starting nearly every game, even after Liverpool signed 3 centre backs in the summer (Sakho, Toure, Ilori). But what’s even more shocking are some of Skrtel’s almost ‘Jonjo Shelvey-esque’ performances since he’s been back in the starting line up.
The prime example of this was Liverpool’s away defeat to the hands of mighty Hull City when, in my eyes, he was the best player on the pitch… aside from when his deflection gave Hull the opening goal… And when he failed to close his man for Hull’s second… And when he headed the ball into his own net to complete Hull’s victory…
Putting these glaring mistakes behind I would argue he was our stand out performer in a side that lacked energy and decisiveness. He made several exceptional blocks, tackles and interceptions that have been ever-present since the start of the season. But lately some of these fantastic pieces of defending are being blotted out due to some dreadful pieces of defending, especially from set pieces.
All 6 foot 4 inches of Martin Skrtel is completely and utterly useless at corners, free kicks and even long throw ins. In fact he’s not just useless, he’s a liability. I genuinely believe that even I could’ve stopped Vincent Kompany from scoring that equaliser on Thursday. All he had to do was step in front of his man and head the ball away. But no. Skrtel first needs to try and wrestle his man to the floor and, failing that, focus entirely on ripping the shirt from his opponent’s body.
What Skrtel should be doing is concentrating on winning the white round thing that is flying towards the penalty box. Some players have a tendency of ball-watching, where they concentrate too much on the white round thing and don’t notice that the man they’ve marked has made a darting run to collect the aforementioned white round thing. Skrtel has the opposite problem, man-watching. He seems entirely obsessed with marking his man that he doesn’t see the simple solution of winning the ball before it gets to the opposition.
This is something that Mamadou Sakho does extremely well, attacking the ball, not the man. In this way he avoids giving away stupid free kicks or penalties that Skrtel could easily be penalised for if the referees paid any attention to pushing and shoving in the box, and if done correctly, means the opponent can’t do anything with the ball because they never receive it in the first place.
However this isn’t an extraordinary new phenomenon for Skrtel, he’s been grappling with players like a WWE fighter for years. What’s extraordinary is why this issue hasn’t been sorted out. Either the coaches haven’t picked it up in the first place, which is highly unlikely since everyone else has, or Skrtel just hasn’t paid any attention to any advice given to him in the first place. This is a shame, considering some of the priceless defensive work he puts in the rest of the time. Well, most of the time…
In the 17 games that Skrtel has started, Liverpool have only finished 3 of those games with clean sheets. In the two games where Skrtel didn’t feature in, Liverpool picked up 2 clean sheets. If you watched Chelsea vs. Liverpool on Sunday you can probably see why. Skrtel’s man marking for Eto’os winner cost the reds the match. This time Skrtel was ball-watching and not his usual man-watching. Eto’o lost him and, thanks to a poor piece of keeping from Simon Mignolet, scored his 5th goal of the season.
So why does Brendan Rodgers insist on keeping in the side? Why not swap him for Vice-captain Daniel Agger or the experienced Kolo Toure? The only explanation I can think of is that Rodgers obviously believes Skrtel’s heroics outweigh his hindrances. Furthermore since Liverpool’s arguably best central defender, Sakho, looks to be out for at least a month, Skrtel better start proving why he’s playing every week.
The prime example of this was Liverpool’s away defeat to the hands of mighty Hull City when, in my eyes, he was the best player on the pitch… aside from when his deflection gave Hull the opening goal… And when he failed to close his man for Hull’s second… And when he headed the ball into his own net to complete Hull’s victory…
Putting these glaring mistakes behind I would argue he was our stand out performer in a side that lacked energy and decisiveness. He made several exceptional blocks, tackles and interceptions that have been ever-present since the start of the season. But lately some of these fantastic pieces of defending are being blotted out due to some dreadful pieces of defending, especially from set pieces.
All 6 foot 4 inches of Martin Skrtel is completely and utterly useless at corners, free kicks and even long throw ins. In fact he’s not just useless, he’s a liability. I genuinely believe that even I could’ve stopped Vincent Kompany from scoring that equaliser on Thursday. All he had to do was step in front of his man and head the ball away. But no. Skrtel first needs to try and wrestle his man to the floor and, failing that, focus entirely on ripping the shirt from his opponent’s body.
What Skrtel should be doing is concentrating on winning the white round thing that is flying towards the penalty box. Some players have a tendency of ball-watching, where they concentrate too much on the white round thing and don’t notice that the man they’ve marked has made a darting run to collect the aforementioned white round thing. Skrtel has the opposite problem, man-watching. He seems entirely obsessed with marking his man that he doesn’t see the simple solution of winning the ball before it gets to the opposition.
This is something that Mamadou Sakho does extremely well, attacking the ball, not the man. In this way he avoids giving away stupid free kicks or penalties that Skrtel could easily be penalised for if the referees paid any attention to pushing and shoving in the box, and if done correctly, means the opponent can’t do anything with the ball because they never receive it in the first place.
However this isn’t an extraordinary new phenomenon for Skrtel, he’s been grappling with players like a WWE fighter for years. What’s extraordinary is why this issue hasn’t been sorted out. Either the coaches haven’t picked it up in the first place, which is highly unlikely since everyone else has, or Skrtel just hasn’t paid any attention to any advice given to him in the first place. This is a shame, considering some of the priceless defensive work he puts in the rest of the time. Well, most of the time…
In the 17 games that Skrtel has started, Liverpool have only finished 3 of those games with clean sheets. In the two games where Skrtel didn’t feature in, Liverpool picked up 2 clean sheets. If you watched Chelsea vs. Liverpool on Sunday you can probably see why. Skrtel’s man marking for Eto’os winner cost the reds the match. This time Skrtel was ball-watching and not his usual man-watching. Eto’o lost him and, thanks to a poor piece of keeping from Simon Mignolet, scored his 5th goal of the season.
So why does Brendan Rodgers insist on keeping in the side? Why not swap him for Vice-captain Daniel Agger or the experienced Kolo Toure? The only explanation I can think of is that Rodgers obviously believes Skrtel’s heroics outweigh his hindrances. Furthermore since Liverpool’s arguably best central defender, Sakho, looks to be out for at least a month, Skrtel better start proving why he’s playing every week.