Movement Off The Ball

Liverpool V. Oldham Athletic (FA Cup)

Liverpool lost stunningly, giving up goals in added time before the halftime break, and within a couple minutes of re-taking the field after the half.  The 3-2 final score was remarkable, and Reds supporters can take some solace in the fact that Sturridge was fouled just before the second OA goal, and had Gerrard (on as a substitute) hit a millimeter lower on the crossbar, he'd have been a hero and Brendan Rodgers called a genius for saving the game.  Ah, well...

Anyway, buck up Reds fans.  Your team does some things very, very well, as we can see in the following 5 pictures of a counterattack resulting in a (tame) shot by Sturridge:




With a takeaway at midfield, the ball is passed (dashed red line) to Suarez.  In this shot, the ball is just about to hit his foot; note the time in the yellow circle.  Sturridge and Borini are just getting ready to take off...

...Suarez runs for 10 yards or so with the ball and then hits it for Borini who has run slightly diagonally toward the right side of goal.  Sterling has stayed touchline wide allowing Sturridge room to cut in from the right flank.  Suarez's pass is perfect...






...Borini need only backheel his first touch into Sturridge's path to set him in on goal.  But notice that less than 4 seconds has elapsed.  Borini has run from midfield, diagonally, covering very close to 40 yards.  That's world-class speed, and if you look at the first freeze-frame, you can see he's changing direction to begin with, not starting from a "sprinter's stance" and on a field that was covered with 5 inches of snow 36 hours prior to game time.  Slipping was the order of the day!  That's seriously fast/hard running off the ball...

Sturridge simply continues his run, now with the ball and hits the shot more or less directly at the OA GK.  In 6 seconds, using a rough Pythagorean analysis, Sturridge covered 60 yards from inside his own half, almost to the right touchline.  That, too, is some fast movement.







The last point in this play is that Luis Suarez (whatever you may think of him) is one of the hardest working players in the game:
In England, we love a striker that will run themselves into the ground for the cause of the team, and sometimes adore them yet more if they are from another part of the world and take it upon themselves to prove their worth to their new team through hard work. While Luis Suarez often makes the headlines for the wrong reasons, no one can deny his work rate is second-to-none, and he has arguably won the fans over in spite of his misdemeanours as a result of it.  However, Suarez is streaks ahead of anyone else, having won the ball 16 times in the attacking third, with the closest player to him on 11. Along with Joe Allen, Rodgers clearly has his players putting in the work, though that is simply not enough for his team at the moment. Raheem Sterling is joint second behind Suarez, along with Steven Pienaar and former Liverpool man Charlie Adam (11), but their ball winning has not paid enough dividends, with 9 teams having scored more goals than Liverpool (23), despite them having more shots than any other team (323).  Suarez has been fantastic this season, and he is one of few strikers nowadays that is of great worth both with and without the ball.
(details here)
As Sturridge takes on the shot, which was not a very clean strike, Suarez shows his irrepressible optimism and runs yet another 10 or 12 yards forward (short red lines in last two photos) just in case the GK spills the ball (which both did in this tie at times; the second such bobble by Brad Jones cost Liverpool the game).  Clint Dempsey is another one who chases such lost causes, and is frequently rewarded:
Leo Messi'll fall into the same category; he's happy to score regardless of the degree of difficulty/lack of "wow factor."  Point being, run, and run hard.