Liverpool FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2014 - Mod Note in OP, 1/09

Super-Rush

i heart chewy louie wrote: »

We're going to have to play a lot better than that if we're going to retain our title.

There's a lot of football to be played before Christmas.

5live

5live wrote: »

A long time yet, i reckon.

He is only 19, still growing and developing. He is nowhere near a finished product and, imo, will not be for 2-3 years yet. Why would he go to sit on Madrids or Barcas bench? Also, if overplayed like Owen, he will be injured more and worth less to us either as a player or a saleable asset.

I agree that improvement is needed but not at the expense of stunting what could be our best player. There are problems evident defensively at the club since Rodgers took over. Hopefully improving the quality of the 3 new defenders over those they replaced will take us a long way towards a solution but i haven't seen Rodgers being overly concerned with the lack of cohesion between whatever 2 CBs he has picked thus far and that concerns me greatly.

It looks like a lot of teams will park the bus against us this year and it will be interesting to see what solutions Rodgers will try to pick them open.

Its going to be an intetesting season again:-)

Park the bus? Perhaps 2nd half but 1st half it was all Villa, they should have been a few more up. Ridiculous carry on with team selection from Rodgers and some today weren't fit to wear the jersey. I was disgusted with some of them tbh

mosstin

rarnes1 wrote: »

Park the bus? Perhaps 2nd half but 1st half it was all Villa, they should have been a few more up. Ridiculous carry on with team selection from Rodgers and some today weren't fit to wear the jersey. I was disgusted with some of them tbh

Not fit to wear the jersey? Steady the **** on. They were poor, desperately poor, no doubt, but that is WAY over the top.

mosstin

mosstin wrote: »

Not fit to wear the jersey? Steady the **** on. They were poor, desperately poor, no doubt, but that is WAY over the top.

You think being desperately poor is fit to wear the jersey?

They need to shape the fcuk up and show some bloody pride and fight

astonaidan

GotTheTshirt wrote: »

He clearly fell over and got straight back up. That did not look in the slightest like a dive.

Oh come off, you dont drag your feet like that if you fall over, he was chancing his arm and realised as soon as he didnt hear the whistle he got up cause had he argued it, he was gone

mosstin

rarnes1 wrote: »

You think being desperately poor is fit to wear the jersey?

They need to shape the fcuk up and show some bloody pride and fight

Of course I do. Every time a player underperforms then, he's not fit to wear the jersey? That's a nonsense.
Players need to look at themselves after today's performance, sure, but rabble rousing, kneejerk crap like the above doesn't help.

K-9

I suppose if your expectations was a title challenge, well, realism and objectivity wouldn't be strong points!

Charlie19

Disappointing match but on the plus side Lalanna had an alright debut and the Moreno lad looks like he could turn out to be a little gem of a signing.

I dont think Sterling would of made much difference if he had started as there was very little room behind a very deep Villa defense.

Plenty of football left to get it right.

Bowlardo

Charlie19 wrote: »

Moreno lad looks like he could turn out to be a little gem of a signing. .

He cost 20 million...he's want to be good....but yes he is an excellent player

Charlie19 wrote: »

I dont think Sterling would of made much difference if he had started .

he would have put villa on the back foot and we might have got the first goal. Villa would have had to come out then and we would have destroyed them
They have our number ...it's a slip but once the players we have gel we will be grand
top 4 again
chelsea are going to piss it ...be great if we got second

Charlie19

Bowlardo wrote: »

He cost 20 million...he's want to be good....but yes he is an excellent player


he would have put villa on the back foot and we might have got the first goal. Villa would have had to come out then and we would have destroyed them
They have our number ...it's a slip but once the players we have gel we will be grand
top 4 again
chelsea are going to piss it ...be great if we got second

I have to say that I'm not looking past fourth as I think that be a great achievement considering we've lost Suarez.

I just hope Rodgers wasn't giving Sterling a rest while thinking ahead to the CL, I'd like to think that it was because of the games prior to Villa.

Utopia Parkway

rarnes1 wrote: »

All well and good but we have spent a lot of money this season and a poor season won't cut it. Improvement is needed asap.

As for resting Sterling, how long do you think he'll actually be at Liverpool?

Ara Jaysus.

~Rebel~

Bowlardo wrote: »

He cost 20 million...he's want to be good....but yes he is an excellent player

Moreno cost 12m.

Sea Sharp

Crappy game, but **** happens.
Lovern, Moreno, Manquillo, Lallana, Markovic, Balotelli.
That's 6/11 players with little or no experience playing with Liverpool. There's going to be growing pains. It took a few months for months for Rodgers to get the best out of the squad he took over and the same rules apply if the majority of the players on the pitch were picked up this summer.

5th or 6th by Christmas, and then the team will gel enough to push for top 4 in the second half of the season.
Champions league: We'll be lucky to make it out of the group. And will get knocked out in the first round if we make it.

dogbert27

I criticized Coutinho in the match thread but thinking about it, he has developed an understanding with Sturridge and Sterling. He was playing with 3 "strangers" yesterday with Lallana, Markovic and Balotelli.

Lesson to be learned is get into a winning position first and then rest the players.

If Sterling started I believe Villa would have had a different game plan in the first 20 mins.

Henderson's energy was wasted sitting back beside Gerrard.

I like the CB pairing but it seems like neither one of them has taken the responsibility yet of marshalling the whole defence.

Vicxas

This pretty much sums up our performance yesterday.

dogbert27

Just saw a video of an Aussie fans reaction saying it was like watching a team of Glen Johnsons!!

Pyjamarama

Jaysus some amount of negativity. It was a shocker of a performance but so was city at home to stoke but I don't think anyone took that as a sign they're doomed?

We were meh against Southampton, decent in spells against a top class city side and we blew spurs away. We haven't been **** all season as some think. Its going to take time for the new signings to gel. And some of them are young players that need nurturing. For the last two season Rodgers teams have started slowly she picked up the pace in the 2nd half of the season. Granted we won our first few games last year but we played poorly in them. Anyone panicking is either a) overreacting massively or b) waiting for a chance to get the boot in. We know which posters are which.

klose

rob316 wrote: »

I don't rate Sakho at all he looks so awkward with the ball at his feet there is no way rodgers bought him. Lovren and skrtel is the way forward when he is back fit, they could build a very good partnership.

You would rather skrtel play?!? Hes been a pretty much a constant in the team bar the 4-5 months where carra played and weve shipped goals continuously while hes played, lovren has been at fault for a couple of goals already so far, inexcusable from sakho to give the corner but lovren got done defending it. He is off to a bad start, he can shout and scream and organise the defence all he likes but hes not defending well at the moment.

slingerz

Outside of starting Sterling what was so off with team selection??

Mario was poor and didn't look interested to me.

Lacking a top class controlling midfielder for all that Hendo and Gerrard offer

Should play with 2 strikers all the time as it keeps the opposition on the back foot

OwaynOTT

Fescue wrote: »

Don't you worry, Liverpool are going in the right direction. With a manager who has a lot of room to improve and the energy to do so.

Those other teams have old men whose best days are behind them.

Ageist b@st@rd! If mike was still around he'd be very upset.

rarnes1 wrote: »

Park the bus? Perhaps 2nd half but 1st half it was all Villa, they should have been a few more up. Ridiculous carry on with team selection from Rodgers and some today weren't fit to wear the jersey. I was disgusted with some of them tbh

From the 20th minute it was mostly Liverpool, not just the second half. Unfortunately it was all rather ineffective.

~Rebel~ wrote: »

Moreno cost 12m.

Yeah but we never signed Reus to provide competition at left back, I fear he will go the route of Riise.

Benimar

slingerz wrote: »

Outside of starting Sterling what was so off with team selection??

Mario was poor and didn't look interested to me.

Lacking a top class controlling midfielder for all that Hendo and Gerrard offer

Should play with 2 strikers all the time as it keeps the opposition on the back foot

The last line answers your opening question.

Henderson too deep, Balotelli isolated up front. It screamed out for the diamond formation.

Harry Palmr

Calmed down yet?

I'll assume Kess was at the game so it'll be good to get his eye witness report.

All managers have strange and disquieting blind spots, Rodgers biggest has been his unwillingness to buy an ink-blotter of a central midfielder - someone like Fernando who ranges across about half the pitch closing down, tackling and turning defence into attack. He won't score many but he will prevent plenty and when it's not going well a draw is more likely and that's more points. What do points mean*?

The other obvious issue is the formation, the diamond clearly makes the best use of what Liverpool have as long as there are two bodies who can play up top, the rest can be moved around to make the midfield four work well enough.


























*Points mean prizes.

Soft Falling Rain

Still can't over how bad that was, to not even really trouble Villa at Anfield is simply baffling.

Not the end of the world though, just a shocking day at the office. They'll bounce back.

Harry Palmr

Ludogorets 10 behind the ball no doubt (they have five Brazilians).

rob316

My biggest issue yesterday was we didn't start with two strikers. Rodgers was trying to be smart trying to fit in all these attacking midfielders behind balotelli. The diamond is the best formation we destroy teams when we play it.

Also Wtf is with the atmosphere in Anfield it's so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. The silence can't be helping the team.

el rabitos

I think if your going to be a Liverpool fan in the modern era you need to accept that while we're a top club we can't and (rightly IMO) won't compete with Chelsea, City, Utd for players who are already made men.

We're going to be promoting youth and buying young with the aim to develop our own stars. If you don't have a sugar daddy or oil money thats the only way to compete & i'm all for it.

Theres going to be lots of bumps in the road & i dont see us competing for the title every year, but i think with every cycle where our young players mature we can compete. i think as long as you can stay in the top 4 then we're doing great to keep the players we have and have a run at the title every couple of years.

Rodgers frustration was obvious yesterday & he talked too much, but as i said, we're not in a position to be losing the few 'ready' players we have, ie Sturridge, Allen for stupid reasons on international duty. We need those players to be complimenting the young players. Not relying on a front 3 of players making debuts at Anfield.

For any fan complaining that we lost to villa with that team we had out then theres lots of ready made teams in those money pits in London or Manchester.

MR NINE

I was watching on my phone so maybe i missed something, but why have i seen 10+ posts abusing borini, what did he do wrong? I admit he didnt have much of an impact, but why all the abuse towards him? Balotelli and markovic were very poor and they started and are arguably first choice. Borini is fourth choice, came on in a game where we were struggling to create, and we continued to struggle to create. Blaming that defeat on him is just people having it in for him. Sakho, balotelli, markovic, rodgers and the English international team are all more culpable for that defeat

BoardsMember

Didn't see the game. Can't say I was surprised at the result. How was Gerrard's performance? Did he contribute much?

jesus_thats_gre

Pretty poor result and even poorer performance. I think that the first half of our season is going to be impacted badly by the amount of new players we brought in. It simply takes time for the dust to settle - and that's before factoring in Suarez leaving.

Beyond that, the defence really is a major concern.

SuperTortoise

BoardsMember wrote: »

Didn't see the game. Can't say I was surprised at the result. How was Gerrard's performance? Did he contribute much?

No he did'nt but no LFC player did anything of note yesterday.

Now, playing with Gerrard against teams that park the bus is as good as playing a man down, he sits too deep to effect the game in those situations,

klose

Defensive coaches at melwood evaluating the defence...

djPSB

dogbert27 wrote: »

I criticized Coutinho in the match thread but thinking about it, he has developed an understanding with Sturridge and Sterling. He was playing with 3 "strangers" yesterday with Lallana, Markovic and Balotelli.

Lesson to be learned is get into a winning position first and then rest the players.

If Sterling started I believe Villa would have had a different game plan in the first 20 mins.

Henderson's energy was wasted sitting back beside Gerrard.

I like the CB pairing but it seems like neither one of them has taken the responsibility yet of marshalling the whole defence.

Villa's game plan was set in stone once they got the early goal, it didn't matter who we had on the pitch.

Villa were poor too I thought, just we were worse.

Rodgers got the formation wrong, hopefully we see the diamond from now on.

djPSB

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Calmed down yet?

I'll assume Kess was at the game so it'll be good to get his eye witness report.

All managers have strange and disquieting blind spots, Rodgers biggest has been his unwillingness to buy an ink-blotter of a central midfielder - someone like Fernando who ranges across about half the pitch closing down, tackling and turning defence into attack. He won't score many but he will prevent plenty and when it's not going well a draw is more likely and that's more points. What do points mean*?

The other obvious issue is the formation, the diamond clearly makes the best use of what Liverpool have as long as there are two bodies who can play up top, the rest can be moved around to make the midfield four work well enough.



*Points mean prizes.

The lack of an ink blotter midfielder wasn't the reason we lost yesterday.

Villa created very very little from open play.

A soft goal and a very dis jointed attacking performance is what cost us yesterday.

mada999

havent a clue why lallana was subbed for sterling... it should have been markovic off.... lallana was just coming into the game...then we would have 2 wingers who actually try and beat players on the pitch... would have kept ballotelli on tbh

There will be days like that
I'm surprised at the expectation some folks in here have, every team goes outand plays poorly every so often and drops points. After 4 games its too early to be getting worried.
However, I'm not a fan of changing tactic from the off with this team, fair enough if its not working after first half but diamond needed all games imo. If we get the odd hammering so be it

Raif Severance

mada999 wrote: »

havent a clue why lallana was subbed for sterling... it should have been markovic off.... lallana was just coming into the game...then we would have 2 wingers who actually try and beat players on the pitch... would have kept ballotelli on tbh

Lallana was probably our most Dangerous Player in that Game. 2 of our Best Chances came from him.

But since he just came back from an Injury, I can understand why BR subbed him.

michael999999

Origi starts for Lille.

Agent Coulson

Yesterday showed how short we are of real midfielders.

Gerrard & Lucas can't do it anymore for 90 minutes. So with Allen and Can out it left us with only Henderson.

We seem to have plenty of attacking midfielders in Lallana, Coutinho & Sterling who can rotate or replace in case of injury.

If we were to lose both Henderson & Allen for any amount of time I would really worry.

jesus_thats_gre

mada999 wrote: »

havent a clue why lallana was subbed for sterling... it should have been markovic off.... lallana was just coming into the game...then we would have 2 wingers who actually try and beat players on the pitch... would have kept ballotelli on tbh

You would assume it is a match fitness thing. It was his first match back after all.

It could also be down to how BR plans to use him midweek.

Harry Palmr

michael999999 wrote: »

Origi starts for Lille.

Half time, they've have 60% of the possession and 2 shots - both off target. He'll fit in at Liverpool when he returns

8-10

mada999 wrote: »

havent a clue why lallana was subbed for sterling... it should have been markovic off.... lallana was just coming into the game...then we would have 2 wingers who actually try and beat players on the pitch... would have kept ballotelli on tbh

Yep this, was disappointing

michael999999

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Half time, they've have 60% of the possession and 2 shots - both off target. He'll fit in at Liverpool when he returns

And he scores!

Ciano35

michael999999 wrote: »

And he scores!

And gets an assist 3 minutes later

Harry Palmr

Too good for Liverpool clearly.

Just spotted Jordon Ibe is on bench for Derby in the big East Midlands game right now.

SlickRic

Jordan Ibe about to come on for Derby.

Knex*

Raif Severance wrote: »

Lallana was probably our most Dangerous Player in that Game. 2 of our Best Chances came from him.

But since he just came back from an Injury, I can understand why BR subbed him.

Used to crash around the 70 minute mark for Southampton, anyway. Was not expecting him to play much longer, regardless of form.

Same for Sterling. Season is longer than just one game, lads. If he played either for longer and they picked up long term injuries, we'd be giving Rodgers more flak.

segadreamcast

Has this been posted here? http://www.irishmirror.ie/showbiz/celebrity-news/mario-balotelli-scored-liverpool-fan-4256100

I know it's a red-top celeb story but if there's even a scintilla of truth to it, he's going back to old ways and just being a bit more covert about it. The main bit about it doesn't worry me too much but it's more the detail...

A new striker who has yet to score, smoking and drinking a few days before a match is not a good sign.

mosstin

segadreamcast wrote: »

Has this been posted here? http://www.irishmirror.ie/showbiz/celebrity-news/mario-balotelli-scored-liverpool-fan-4256100

I know it's a red-top celeb story but if there's even a scintilla of truth to it, he's going back to old ways and just being a bit more covert about it. The main bit about it doesn't worry me too much but it's more the detail...

A new striker who has yet to score, smoking and drinking a few days before a match is not a good sign.

People need to realise that paper doesn't refuse ink. There were the stories after the Wolves friendly that he'd kicked someone in the head. Baseless. Rumours before yesterday's game that he was ill and wouldn't play. More crap.
He'll just have to go out and perform so that people spend less time worrying about what he does off the field. And, seriously, do any Reds swallow this crap?

LuckyLloyd

Kerrigooney wrote: »

We were rubbish this time last year as well. Scraping 1-0 wins and not appearing for second halves. We were putting points on the board but we were crap. It'll take a bit of time I think.

@rarnes I'm not excusing **** performances...I'm just saying they happen to every team.

At least we don't have to wait a week to put it right...seems we're playing in some champions cup league or something on Tues. Might be worth a watch.

Last year we had Suarez still to come in at this stage.

Gbear

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Last year we had Suarez still to come in at this stage.

That didn't magically fix everything though.

It still took half the season for it to click.