Isak’s Liverpool debut, Amorim, and more

In his exclusive column for CaughtOffside, former Liverpool striker Stan Collymore discusses some of football’s biggest talking points, including Alexander Isak’s debut for Liverpool, Ruben Amorim’s struggles at Man United, Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze at Arsenal, and more.

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My takeaways from Alexander Isak’s Liverpool debut

I watched Alexander Isak very closely against Atletico Madrid, until he went off the pitch. The first thing is that Arne Slot has got to manage the situation well with Ekitike, because he has started life as a Liverpool player very well. All of a sudden, it’s absolutely the carbon copy of when I joined Liverpool as a British record transfer. Ian Rush was there and Robbie Fowler was there. They scored a lot of goals the season before I came. I come into the squad, and human nature is riddled, so they would have been thinking “why is he taking my place?” – that was Fowler in my case. He was on the bench for the first game of the season of my debut against Sheffield Wednesday, when he should have been on the pitch.

In terms of Isak’s performance itself, one of the most important things that I was looking for was his relationship with Salah – it was okay, but it could have been a lot better. From a striker’s perspective, I’m looking to create connections with the players around me – for me to get the best out of myself, to get the best out of them and likewise. The connection actually was more with Wirtz. As the first half went on, I think that Wirtz started to look for Isak. Isak was pointing where he wanted the ball and he was making the runs. And both his relationship and his connection with Gakpo and Wirtz was encouraging.

In terms of the discipline, he’s got to be like Erling Haaland in his first season at Man City – hold it up, lay it off, get in the box. Because there isn’t going to be loads of space in behind because every team that goes to Anfield, most teams that play at their own ground against Liverpool are going to defend deep. So his legs are going to be cut off for a greater or lesser degree. He’s just got to get in the box and do what Haaland did: tap-ins. He may not like it, but that’s going to keep him ticking over.

So my rating for Isak’s debut is a very solid 8/10. The only caveat to that, and I’d ask Liverpool fans with an open mind, is the relationship with him and Salah. If one’s getting the ball and looking for the other, happy days. Liverpool get lots of individual goals from both players and they get a really good collective attacking threat. If one player thinks they’re the top man, then there could be a problem.

Liverpool’s current approach is unsustainable

Liverpool’s way of winning matches with late goals is unsustainable. They are the beneficiaries of scoring late goals and all of the things that come with that, they have shown character, great belief, absolute belief that you’re going to score in the first minute or the last minute. But they’ve got to start keeping clean sheets, and that’s going to be down to the protection of Van Dijk and Konate by the likes of McAllister and Gravenberch, which I don’t think has happened enough yet. I’m a big fan of Frimpong and Kerkez, but they’ve got to start doing some proper defending.

Three or four clean sheets in the next six or seven games for Liverpool would mean rectifying the issue, but if they continue in the same vein, they’re going to drop unnecessary points in a Premier League season whereby they could, and should, be winning the league by 9-12 points.

And thinking about the Champions League, that is a level where they’ll concede a second, they’ll concede a third and concede a fourth if they’re not at their best. That’s where clean sheets are going to be really important, clean sheets win trophies. There isn’t a winner of a Premier League title or a Champions League that at some point isn’t keeping clean sheets along the way to be able to give them the confidence to be able to go on and get those sometimes lucky 1-0s later on.

This Liverpool team, with arguably the world’s still best central defender, with Konate that’s still a very good central defender, and with two players that you signed in Frimpong and Kerkez, that are both very good going forward but also should be good enough going back, they have to be keeping clean sheets.

Ruben Amorim is not tactically flexible enough at Man United

We’ve been duped as football fans. There is only one way to play. I grew up watching football and playing football where there was a multitude of systems, and they were all very different. I think that if you are a coach worth your salt, you have a plan A, plan B and plan C.

I think that what’s happened is that because Pep Guardiola has said this is the way that I’m going to play, win, lose or draw, unfortunately other coaches come in and say the same. They believe in playing a certain way and that way alone. We’ve seen it with Russell Martin and his struggles at Rangers. We’ve seen it with a very stubborn Jose Mourinho, and now we’ve got Ange Postecoglou at Nottingham Forest, who were battered by Arsenal.

What on earth happened to coaches saying “I haven’t got the players to play 3-4-2-1, I’ve got the players to play 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 or 4-4-2.” Ultimately, I think every manager that sticks their colours to the mast of one way of playing deserves everything they get. I have no sympathy for any coach or any manager, whoever they are. I’m a Villa fan, and Unai Emery is the same..

Ruben Amorim is a victim of the mantra, this issue for many modern coaches and managers. He’s going to play plan A, whether he’s got the players to play it or not. I think that if you are going to be a manager that goes on and has great success, you have to forget what Pep Guardiola does. Forget what other managers do. You might have to play one week against Arsenal with 4-4-2. You might have to play the next week in Europe with 4-3-3. And that’s where Amorim has gone wrong. He’s not tactically flexible enough.

Noni Madueke is capable of displacing Bukayo Saka

I love what Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke have been doing. I think I wrote in this column that I was a bit unsure about Madueke and whether he had the ability to step up, and Eze was obviously very late in the day, was touted to go to Spurs. But my word, I love wide men that go on the outside of a full-back five or six times a half, drive the opposition’s back four back towards their own goal, whip it in, and then anything can happen.

The thing that I love the most is that Madueke has played himself into form with England, and that’s then got him into the Arsenal team – perhaps earlier than he expected with injuries. And now he’s saying to Bukayo Saka, “I want to take your place for club and country”. And I think that’s a very old school, really noble thing to do. It’s a competitive environment. And for me, if you were to pick a team now to go into match number one of the World Cup next summer, I would pick Madueke over a fit Saka.

The reason why is because Madueke, by going outside of people and putting crosses in the box, is giving a lot more ammo for the likes of Harry Kane than Bukayo Saka, who when he cuts in, you have to score. But if you’re looking about getting the best out of Harry Kane, and Gyokeres for Arsenal, what Madueke and Eze are doing is top class. They’ve brought a new dimension as far as I’m concerned to Arsenal, and I’m a big, big fan of what they’re both doing.

West Ham’s problems are bigger than Graham Potter

I just think that West Ham fans will agree with me that their problems comes from the top, from the likes of David Sullivan and the board. There’s a lot of unhappiness about the way that fans are treated, whether it be pricing or other things at the London Stadium.

They’ve got rid of David Moyes, which was an arguably good choice at the time. But then they’ve had a couple of managers subsequently that are all over the place. Lopetegui and Potter are very different types of personalities and very different types of character.

I think that West Ham off the pitch need to go back to basics. They’ve got to get basic recruitment right at the price point of anything from £15-40m. They’ve got to get those players right and I don’t think they have done it enough. I don’t think their recruitment has been good since the Conference League team started to break up.  Obviously the natives aren’t happy in regards to David Sullivan’s tenure there. I think their argument is a very clear one, that he’s not the right man at the right club at the right time.

Wolves giving a new contract to Vitor Pereira is smart business

The context is that Wolves haven’t spent big over a number of transfer windows because the decisions of the club’s hierarchy. Added to that, Jorge Mendes has taken his eyes off the Wolves ball, so they haven’t been able to push forward.

A lot of my mates are Wolves season ticket holders, and Vitor Pereira has given some hope and identity and spirit back to them. I think that if you can’t outspend teams and outspend your rivals in a bottom half of the table scrap, then you’ve obviously got to look at the players that you’ve got. They lost a couple of key players, so they’ve had to look in-house as to who can get a tune out of people, who can galvanise people, who can bring people together. And I think the way that Pereira has done that is as good as any manager in the Premier League. He’s listened to supporters, going to the pub with them and all that stuff. He’s brought people on board.

I think it’s a lesson for other clubs in that the personality that you have as the manager is ten times more important than any CEO, chief executive, analyst, data guy, owner going on television, because what they do is permeate through the club, and Pereira’s connection between him, players and supporters is excellent.

Whatever happens at Wolves this season, whether it’s staying in the Premier League comfortably, whether it’s a relegation scrap or whether they go down, I think that most Wolves fans would be happy if Pereira stayed as their manager. He has done a cracking job.

Why does Jose Mourinho keep getting these big jobs?

As long as he puts himself out there and he puts himself out there on television, and tells everybody how great he is, Jose Mourinho is going to keep getting these high-profile jobs. I guess the difference here with Benfica is that he started with them, he’s Portuguese, and it might be a kind of staging post for the Portuguese national job and some sort of retirement.

I just think it’s really lazy from Benfica. When you’re looking at a club like them, you’re competing at the top of their league with the likes of Porto and Sporting every season, and you’re looking at competing in Europe. And to hire Mourinho, who presided over Fenerbahce’s exit from the Champions League, doesn’t bode very well in his abilities to be able to do it with Benfica.

I just think that for Benfica’s ownership structure, they should have just had a look at who’s out there, who’s hungry, got a really good attractive style of play, who’s going to make the club better than when they leave it. Jose Mourinho, since leaving Inter Milan, has not left a club in better shape than he left it. Tottenham, Man United, Fenerbahce, most of the supporter base will say that he’s not made this place better. This is a fact, and I’m more than happy to say this.

Benfica is one of the world’s biggest clubs, not just one of Portugal’s biggest clubs or Europe’s biggest clubs. I think it’s a lazy tapping from their owners, and I think that it will bite them on the backside.