Liverpool FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2014 - Mod Warning in OP, 10/12

Turtyturd

Being Ghostbusters.

whatawaster

RasTa wrote: »

Potential for what?

I think if Sterling, Coutinho, Henderson, Markovic, Can, Moreno, Sturridge et al reach their full potential, we might be looking at regular top 7 finishes. It's a big if.

LuckyLloyd

whatawaster wrote: »

I think if Sterling, Coutinho, Henderson, Markovic, Can, Moreno, Sturridge et al reach their full potential, we might be looking at regular top 7 finishes. It's a big if.

Regular top 7 finishes? That's no good to us!?

Iused2likebusts

RasTa wrote: »

Potential for what?

Top 4 is no chance at this stage could potentially win the Europa league if sturridge can get fit and a keeper can be signed. Next season challenge for top 4 if a decent striker is signed to cover sturridges inevitable injuries and Gerrard will need to be replaced. The 3 league games sturridge started was 6 pts against southampton city and spurs and things looked quite positive. Rodgers biggest mistake in the window was not getting a proven goalscorer with pace and a keeper. In general I think the squad is quite strong.

Harry Palmr

whatawaster wrote: »

I think if Sterling, Coutinho, Henderson, Markovic, Can, Moreno, Sturridge et al reach their full potential, we might be looking at regular top 7 finishes. It's a big if.

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Regular top 7 finishes? That's no good to us!?

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooosh.

LuckyLloyd

Harry Palmr wrote: »

The difference is no one thought Hogdson would or could get Liverpool out of the long ball rut he put the side in. Rodgers for all his miss-steps is adapting and looking for a way to improve things.

Rodgers has regressed back to his points total through this many games in his first season:

2010-11 = F:21 A:22 Pts:22 (finished 6th on 58)
2011-12 = F:20 A:12 Pts:30 (finished 8th on 52)
2012-13 = F:23 A:23 Pts:22 (finished 7th on 61)
2013-14 = F:42 A:19 Pts:36 (finished 2nd on 84)
2014-15 = F:21 A:24 Pts:22

People need to keep looking at the above. It points to last year being an outlier for Rodgers. What we're getting now is probably all he is long term.

Hodgson had Torres.

This season we have Lambert and Ballotelli.

How anyone can properly judge this season when we've basically being playing with no strikers is beyond me.

Turtyturd

Iused2likebusts wrote: »

Top 4 is no chance at this stage could potentially win the Europa league if sturridge can get fit and a keeper can be signed. Next season challenge for top 4 if a decent striker is signed to cover sturridges inevitable injuries and Gerrard will need to be replaced. The 3 league games sturridge started was 6 pts against southampton city and spurs and things looked quite positive. Rodgers biggest mistake in the window was not getting a proven goalscorer with pace and a keeper. In general I think the squad is quite strong.

I'd say it's more an outside chance than no chance, there's still a little thing called February to come.

passremarkable

Stop Searching My Posts wrote: »

How did the pitch look?

Rodgers was moaning about it after the game, saying it was terrible; although I did hear that the groundsman was a committee signing so it isn't something we can blame Rodgers for.

Pitch looked fine from where I was, buit muddy around the goal mouth but that's to be expected especially as the goalkeepers do some of their warm just to the side of the goals. Pitch should never be an excuse.. Two teams playing on it after all

5starpool

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Rodgers has regressed back to his points total through this many games in his first season:

2010-11 = F:21 A:22 Pts:22 (finished 6th on 58)
2011-12 = F:20 A:12 Pts:30 (finished 8th on 52)
2012-13 = F:23 A:23 Pts:22 (finished 7th on 61)
2013-14 = F:42 A:19 Pts:36 (finished 2nd on 84)
2014-15 = F:21 A:24 Pts:22

People need to keep looking at the above. It points to last year being an outlier for Rodgers. What we're getting now is probably all he is long term.

Looks like the start of next season will be a good one then as we are bang on trend!

Harry Palmr

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Rodgers has regressed back to his points total through this many games in his first season:

2010-11 = F:21 A:22 Pts:22 (finished 6th on 58)
2011-12 = F:20 A:12 Pts:30 (finished 8th on 52)
2012-13 = F:23 A:23 Pts:22 (finished 7th on 61)
2013-14 = F:42 A:19 Pts:36 (finished 2nd on 84)
2014-15 = F:21 A:24 Pts:22

People need to keep looking at the above. It points to last year being an outlier for Rodgers. What we're getting now is probably all he is long term.

Thank you for seeing the future and so saving me from wasting time with hope.

Dickerty

5starpool wrote: »

Ya, given the fact that Mignolet seems to be permanently dropped, if we don't sign a new keeper before our second league game in Jan (Sunderland on the 10th) I'll be astounded. It wouldn't surprise me to see Mignolet shipped out for around 5m either. It's more than just 'taking him out of the spotlight'. If you do that for games vs Utd, Arsenal and a cup quarter final then it's just crazy.

I'd be happier with Migs as backup than Jones, as least the former has occasional good games, and might benefit from competition off the pitch to raise his game. But a really top drawer keeper is a MUST if we are serious about regular top 4 four placings...

Dickerty

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Rodgers has regressed back to his points total through this many games in his first season:

2010-11 = F:21 A:22 Pts:22 (finished 6th on 58)
2011-12 = F:20 A:12 Pts:30 (finished 8th on 52)
2012-13 = F:23 A:23 Pts:22 (finished 7th on 61)
2013-14 = F:42 A:19 Pts:36 (finished 2nd on 84)
2014-15 = F:21 A:24 Pts:22

People need to keep looking at the above. It points to last year being an outlier for Rodgers. What we're getting now is probably all he is long term.

OR - people need to ignore this, cause no 2 seasons are the same. 2010 and 2011 were with a different team, different squad of players - how does that apply??

My first house had 2 bedrooms, my current house has 3, and as such has more space. Ipso facto.

MR NINE

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Rodgers has regressed back to his points total through this many games in his first season:

2010-11 = F:21 A:22 Pts:22 (finished 6th on 58)
2011-12 = F:20 A:12 Pts:30 (finished 8th on 52)
2012-13 = F:23 A:23 Pts:22 (finished 7th on 61)
2013-14 = F:42 A:19 Pts:36 (finished 2nd on 84)
2014-15 = F:21 A:24 Pts:22

People need to keep looking at the above. It points to last year being an outlier for Rodgers. What we're getting now is probably all he is long term.

Dalglish finished on 52 points and oversaw the signings of carroll, adam, downing and henderson for almost 100m. Rafa brought us to 7th place and signed aquilani, keane and johnson for roughly 60m. Why were you outraged when they were sacked? Why did you want them to be kept on and yet half a season of diappointment after the best leaue campaign in 25 years and youre baying for blood?

Kirby

Because the kop don't sing songs about Hodgson and Rodgers. They never played for the club. You can be as inept as a manager as you want, if you have "hero" status, people will still support you.

But I think you knew that.

garra

rarnes1 wrote: »

Hodgson had Torres.

This season we have Lambert and Ballotelli.

How anyone can properly judge this season when we've basically being playing with no strikers is beyond me.

And why do we only have Lambert & Balotelli - apart from Sturridge's injury which could have been forecasted in a worst case scenario - the buck stops with Rodgers for our mediocre strike force.

Gbear

garra wrote: »

And why do we only have Lambert & Balotelli - apart from Sturridge's injury which could have been forecasted in a worst case scenario - the buck stops with Rodgers for our mediocre strike force.

Not if he was told it's Balotelli or nobody.

Pyjamarama

Kirby wrote: »

Because the kop don't sing songs about Hodgson and Rodgers. They never played for the club. You can be as inept as a manager as you want, if you have "hero" status, people will still support you.

But I think you knew that.

They do song songs about Rodgers tho.

Look at this stage we know the regulars who want him gone and they're the same people who got on board with him around March last year. Those who can't see that he's a young manager who will make mistakes but has shown an ability to learn from them. No he still has a big weakness (defensive coaching) that he needs to sort but outside if dreamland managerial signings he's as good as we're gonna get.

I truly believe that he has the potential to be a truly special manager. Long long way to go for him to get there but last year was a great accomplishment. And to say last year was all down to one player is the kind of thinking I expect from back page sun readers.

rob316

garra wrote: »

And why do we only have Lambert & Balotelli - apart from Sturridge's injury which could have been forecasted in a worst case scenario - the buck stops with Rodgers for our mediocre strike force.

It doesn't, you can guarantee Rodgers wanted a proper replacement for Suarez like any manager would not Balotelli and Lambert!

Gits_bone

rarnes1 wrote: »

Hodgson had Torres.

This season we have Lambert and Ballotelli.

How anyone can properly judge this season when we've basically being playing with no strikers is beyond me.

Because Rodgers is deciding to.

MR NINE

Kirby wrote: »

Because the kop don't sing songs about Hodgson and Rodgers. They never played for the club. You can be as inept as a manager as you want, if you have "hero" status, people will still support you.

But I think you knew that.

I honestly didnt think having played for the club would excuse underperforming as a manager. Thats ridiculous. Ive never been, but im fairly sure the kop sing songs about rodgers on a regular basis. I know there was plenty banners last season.

LuckyLloyd

MR NINE wrote: »

Dalglish finished on 52 points and oversaw the signings of carroll, adam, downing and henderson for almost 100m. Rafa brought us to 7th place and signed aquilani, keane and johnson for roughly 60m. Why were you outraged when they were sacked? Why did you want them to be kept on and yet half a season of diappointment after the best leaue campaign in 25 years and youre baying for blood?

It was Benitez's first bad season in 6 years at the club
Dalglish got to the finals of two of the three competitions we were involved in

Both were club legends. Not really hard to understand tbh.

whatawaster

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

It was Benitez's first bad season in 6 years at the club
Dalglish got to the finals of two of the three competitions we were involved in

Both were club legends. Not really hard to understand tbh.

No doubt your solution is to sell all the crap players we have just bought, without giving them a proper chance, and at a huge loss, and replace Rodgers with Benitez.

That is what Spurs would do. But it's the wrong thing to do. We have chosen this strategy, of buying young players. If we then choose to only give that strategy a few months to work we will be far worse off.

rossie1977

rossie1977 wrote: »

current odds have liverpool finishing 8th on 57 points come the end of the season.

........
2014-15 = F:21 A:24 Pts:22

So far we've played 17 games and have 22 points, from the remaining 21 games I am expecting 45 points so that'll have us finish on 67 points

That expectation is based on me thinking we will be better over the next 21 games than Man Utd (not at the level of City or Chelsea) have been over the first 17.

That won't yield 4th place but I'm mindful that the bookmakers have Liverpool at 7/1 for a top 4 finish, that's effectively a 1 in 9 chance, unlikely but certainly not out of it and as we all know things can change quite quickly.

Top 4 Finish (Boylesports odds)
Man United 1/9
Arsenal 2/5
Southampton 11/2
Tottenham 11/2
Liverpool 7/1

Southampton are imo going to drop away admittedly at a slow rate, Spurs I feel are playing to their level and won't improve.

5 points between Arsenal and Liverpool, the gap will certainly be less than that at some stage I expect so I think it's all to play for

MR NINE

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

It was Benitez's first bad season in 6 years at the club
Dalglish got to the finals of two of the three competitions we were involved in

Both were club legends. Not really hard to understand tbh.

Benitez, of course i understand, I was disappointed to see him go. But six months ago you were claiming rodgers was the right man and you were fully behind him. Now six months of disappointing form and underwhelming signings, all very reminiscent of rafas last season, and youve turned on rodgers, not just criticising him but portraying some vicious hatred as though he takes a daily dump on your corn flakes. Thats the part thats hard to understand.

As for dalglish, I find it hard to understand. Our league form was awful under him. The cup runs were good. However, winning a league cup is minor compensation for an awful league campaign. Much like it will be this season. I dont understand how you can feel dalglishs second tenure as liverpool manager was better than rodgers'. Dalglish was out of the game for ten years and hadnt succeeded in the game for 20 years. It showed. I dont get why being a club legend should make any difference, i hate this sentimental ****. Dalglish made bad signings, he oversaw bad league campaigns, he made a fool of himself in the press. All the things you lambast rodgers for, you think dalglish should be excused because he was a great player?

smileyj1987

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

It was Benitez's first bad season in 6 years at the club
Dalglish got to the finals of two of the three competitions we were involved in

Both were club legends. Not really hard to understand tbh.

I have to agree with you on this Lloyd . They where both legends and did deserve more time especially rafa . His hands where tied during that final season . The club was broke and a change of manager was the last thing that should have happened .
With Kenny it was a joke , he won a trophy got to another final and the team finally looked like it was clicking under him .
So yeah both club legends and they got treated so poorly it's unreal .

Harry Palmr

smileyj1987 wrote: »

I have to agree with you on this Lloyd . They where both legends and did deserve more time especially rafa . His hands where tied during that final season . The club was broke and a change of manager was the last thing that should have happened .
With Kenny it was a joke , he won a trophy got to another final and the team finally looked like it was clicking under him .
So yeah both club legends and they got treated so poorly it's unreal .

When was this?

garra

garra wrote: »

And why do we only have Lambert & Balotelli - apart from Sturridge's injury which could have been forecasted in a worst case scenario - the buck stops with Rodgers for our mediocre strike force.

I'd imagine he didn't forsee Sturridge not getting further than August and Ballotelli being so useless.


It was mentioned plenty of times in the summer that failing to sign a top striker could cost Rodgers his job. I think it could well turn out to be true unless he can pull a rabbit from a hat in January.

The club made an almighty stupid gamble going for the waste of space Ballotelli

MD1990

We did get a point with 10 men (it was only 7 mins) & completly outplay Arsenal. It was probably our best performance of the season alongside the Spurs game & hopefully the players will grow in confidence. We have 3 games coming up that we could hopefully get 7-9 points & then get Sturridge back.

We also seen how in Rodgers last 2 seasons we greatly improved after christmas. We also have alot of promising young players but some patience is needed which most fans understand. We greatly overachieved last season.

Also in the summer Rodgers wanted Sanchez then Remy. Not his fault the club couldn't sign one of them.

smileyj1987

smileyj1987 wrote: »

I have to agree with you on this Lloyd . They where both legends and did deserve more time especially rafa . His hands where tied during that final season . The club was broke and a change of manager was the last thing that should have happened .
With Kenny it was a joke , he won a trophy got to another final and the team finally looked like it was clicking under him .
So yeah both club legends and they got treated so poorly it's unreal .

I wanted both Rafa and Kenny to stay and be given time.

I still hold the view Rafa should have been given more time but there was lots of stuff happening at the club and tbh at the time it was the least of our worries.

In hindsight, Kenny left at the right time. Picking up 19 points from the final 57 just didn't cut it. The league cup was great though.


I think Rodgers should be given to the summer at the very least. The team will have to show a lot of improvement to convince he's the man to bring us forward. I think he deserves the chance to show that. Get a bloody striker in asap and see what we can do. If one isn't signed in the 1st week of Jan I'll be worried tbh.

Pilsbury Doughboy

#RodgersIn

Boom_Bap

#RodgersShakeItAllAbout

Just as a thought. Realistically, Arsenal and Spurs are the rivals for top 4 (I'm assuming Utd stay in the top 4). Both are 5 points ahead of us with 63 points to play for.

Personally I don't think we'll get it and didn't even before a ball was kicked. However, there's no reason we shouldn't give a bloody challenge.

Imo, the team needs to pick up a high points total over the Christmas and then add a signing or 2 early Jan and hopefully build on momentum.

That's my optimistic view.

My pessimistic view is finishing on 49 points going on current ppg...

Agent Coulson

Pilsbury Doughboy wrote: »

#RodgersIn

Goal?

He probably would do a better job than Jones alright.

garra

rob316 wrote: »

It doesn't, you can guarantee Rodgers wanted a proper replacement for Suarez like any manager would not Balotelli and Lambert!

We know he wanted Sanchez, I'm actually sick of hearing about how he wanted Sanchez. But failing to get your first target should never be an excuse for not having an adequate 2nd choice with the money he had available this summer. People talk about the committee but Rodgers has final veto on any target and he is responsible for our blunt strike-force. End of.

Hollister11

We have just resigned Torres





































Sorry I missed

Mr Alan

whatawaster wrote: »

No doubt your solution is to sell all the crap players we have just bought, without giving them a proper chance, and at a huge loss, and replace Rodgers with Benitez.

That is what Spurs would do. But it's the wrong thing to do. We have chosen this strategy, of buying young players. If we then choose to only give that strategy a few months to work we will be far worse off.

You have to admit that there is incredibly large question marks over our transfer strategy? And that if we persist with a strategy indefinitely with a strategy that is clearly not working, we could potentially be even worse off again? That's a scenario you're not mentioning above & is just as likely imo.

Transfers are the biggest problem for me.

I genuinely can't recall a manager at a top club who has spent so much on transfers & having so little to show for it.

Maybe in time it'll improve hugely, but that aside, for the nearly quarter of a billion spent under Rodgers tenure to date, we should be seeing so so so so so much more.

It's not unreasonable that if we spend well over £100m in a single window, we expect to get a real return from those players pretty quickley. If we were messing about in the bargain basement like we were forced to do so often under Benitez & Houllier I'd be much more forgiving, but we're not. We are spending monstrously large sums of money. While getting rid of people like Danny Agger & Pepe Reina for nothing, or sometimes at a cost to LFC. Mind bogglingly bad stuff.

We got rid of Pepe Reina in the summer, and it cost us money. Now Brad Jones in our first choice keeper. Let that sink in.

Lovren, Lallana, Sakho, Lambert, Ballotelli.....these are not players we bought for "potential", this is not a "long term strategy", we bought these players to make an impact & they simply are not - Lallana is the best of the bunch, but for the money paid it's still not an acceptable level imo. And being totally honest, it's very unlikely any of the above, other than Lalanna as a squad player will ever have much of a career at Liverpool.

5starpool

MR NINE wrote: »

Benitez, of course i understand, I was disappointed to see him go. But six months ago you were claiming rodgers was the right man and you were fully behind him. Now six months of disappointing form and underwhelming signings, all very reminiscent of rafas last season, and youve turned on rodgers, not just criticising him but portraying some vicious hatred as though he takes a daily dump on your corn flakes. Thats the part thats hard to understand.

As for dalglish, I find it hard to understand. Our league form was awful under him. The cup runs were good. However, winning a league cup is minor compensation for an awful league campaign. Much like it will be this season. I dont understand how you can feel dalglishs second tenure as liverpool manager was better than rodgers'. Dalglish was out of the game for ten years and hadnt succeeded in the game for 20 years. It showed. I dont get why being a club legend should make any difference, i hate this sentimental ****. Dalglish made bad signings, he oversaw bad league campaigns, he made a fool of himself in the press. All the things you lambast rodgers for, you think dalglish should be excused because he was a great player?

Our league form under Kenny was awful in the second half of his full season. In the first half of that season and the second half of the season before it was markedly improved on what came either side of it.

I didn't want Rafa or Kenny to be sacked, although I can concede that with Kenny it may have been the right thing to do, but I still would have liked him to get a bit more time. I'm not calling for Rodgers to go now either although I'm bitterly disappointed by this season so far and confused and angered by a lot of the things I've seen on the pitch. Sacking him is not likely to improve things enough to get top 4. If he is still here this time next season though and we are not looking much improved I can see my mind changing there.

The only Liverpool manager I vehemently wanted gone from the club was Hodgson, and I think everyone here will agree with that one. From about late October (after the Goodison derby defeat mostly) I was on that bandwagon. Houllier I also thought ran out of steam and we needed a change, but I certainly wasn't in the same ballpark of feeling about it as I was with Hodgson.

Gits_bone

Rodgers tactics rely on pressing high in the first 20 minutes, going all out for goals and winning the game in that period. When teams don't concede in this time then Liverpools press is gone and they knock it around us.

Mr Alan

rarnes1 wrote: »

Just as a thought. Realistically, Arsenal and Spurs are the rivals for top 4 (I'm assuming Utd stay in the top 4). Both are 5 points ahead of us with 63 points to play for.

Personally I don't think we'll get it and didn't even before a ball was kicked. However, there's no reason we shouldn't give a bloody challenge.

Imo, the team needs to pick up a high points total over the Christmas and then add a signing or 2 early Jan and hopefully build on momentum.

That's my optimistic view.

My pessimistic view is finishing on 49 points going on current ppg...

Our next run of games is a god send.

It's about as soft a run of fixtures as anyone can hope for. Hopefully at the end of that, the league table will look a lot healthier & we can start thinking about trying to sneak over the line into a top 4 place.

Mr Alan

Mr Alan wrote: »

Our next run of games is a god send.

It's about as soft a run of fixtures as anyone can hope for. Hopefully at the end of that, the league table will look a lot healthier & we can start thinking about trying to sneak over the line into a top 4 place.

That's what I'm hoping for

A few losses over the Christmas and panic stations will really kick in

5live

Harry Palmr wrote: »

When was this?

You can't have forgotten the heroic 5 minutes when Carroll looked like a footballer and actually scored:pac:

smileyj1987

Harry Palmr wrote: »

When was this?

The two games against city , the game at home to city in the league . Beating Everton in the semi final . Then the fa cup final too . It really did look like Kenny was going to get the best of Andy Carroll .

Mr Alan

I'd prefer Andy Carroll in my team ahead of Lambert and/or Balotelli tbh.

Gits_bone

Mr Alan wrote: »

I'd prefer Andy Carroll in my team ahead of Lambert and/or Balotelli tbh.

Amen!

Carroll is quality. Will win every single header and useful defensively too.

smileyj1987

smileyj1987 wrote: »

The two games against city , the game at home to city in the league . Beating Everton in the semi final . Then the fa cup final too . It really did look like Kenny was going to get the best of Andy Carroll .

I'm Kenny's biggest fan but have a look at the 2nd half of that season.

19 league games from the new year to May. We picked up 19 points from a possible 57.

Put it this way. If Rodgers did the same this season we'd be relegated come May.

smileyj1987

rarnes1 wrote: »

I'm Kenny's biggest fan but have a look at the 2nd half of that season.

19 league games from the new year to May. We picked up 19 points from a possible 57.

Put it this way. If Rodgers did the same this season we'd be relegated come May.

I still believe he could have turned it around . Some of the games the team played in that part of the season where unreal . Plus you have to add in the fact the woodwork that season was unreal . Over 30 times it was hit .

5starpool

rarnes1 wrote: »

I'm Kenny's biggest fan but have a look at the 2nd half of that season.

19 league games from the new year to May. We picked up 19 points from a possible 57.

Put it this way. If Rodgers did the same this season we'd be relegated come May.

Our current run of form is barely better than that. We had a decent first half of the season that time though. If Rodgers gets 35 points or so from the last 21 games he can claim there is an improvement but it'll still overall have been a terrible season unless we have some silverware in the cabinet to show for it. 57 points, the league cup and the semi finals of the EL will be enough to see him at the club next season I reckon. 57, lose to Chelsea and nowhere in the other 2 cups might not be.

5live

Gits_bone wrote: »

Amen!

Carroll is quality. Will win every single header and useful defensively too.

And will be out for half the season injured also.

Gits_bone

5live wrote: »

And will be out for half the season injured also.

That is a good point. Himself and Sturridge could work on their partnership.