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

tok9

You know it's been a bad weekend when we start talking about Rafa again.

klose

Not defending rodgers dealings but the market when rafa was around had "value" todays market is bat**** crazy. What would Torres cost when leaving atletico for us in todays market? Reina? Alonso etc...

Harry Palmr

LOAN WATCH

Texieria - Full game in 3-2 away defeat
Wisdom - played full game in 0-1 away win
Ibe - played last 25 mins in 1-2 away defeat
Origi - Played full game in 1-1 home draw - failed to covert a peno
Ilori - Injured
Assiadi - unused sub
Coates - injured
Alberto - No game

On old friends - Conor Coady is the toast of Huddersfield right now, they love his crisp midfield bossery.

Harry Palmr

tok9 wrote: »

You know it's been a bad weekend when we start talking about Rafa again.

Certainly is when you consider how ropey Napoli have been bar beating Roma.

JohnDaniels

Chucky the tree wrote: »

I never said it was bad but his hit rate is not 50/50 if you include all transfers and if that's going to happen with Rodgers it should be counted for Rafa as well.

Excluding the two kids bought for the youth team, Yesil and Texeria. Rodgers has done very little shopping in the bargain basement. Something like 17/20 players have been £7m+

Lord Trollington

NukaCola wrote: »

Is "If things keep going the way they are" the new "Net spend"?

What turn of phrase should be used?

If we continue to play at the level we're at we should end up with 55-60 points and probably finished around 7/8th place.

Boom_Bap

One major thing that is being overlooked, but always gets brought up when Sanchez is mentioned, a big kick in the nuts for us is that players don't want to come to play for us. So it's not as easy as identifying the player we need and getting a medical done and signing a cheque. Mikatyran, Willian, Salah, Falcao (i believe he was) in recent years have been targeted, but chose not to come to us. I'd say Salah is the one that is kicking himself for that now given that he's barely making the matchday squad.

Mr Alan

JohnDaniels wrote: »

Excluding the two kids bought for the youth team, Yesil and Texeria. Rodgers has done very little shopping in the bargain basement. Something like 17/20 players have been £7m+

Which simply shows he has got some real backing in the market.

I suspect with the excuses he is starting to roll out around the transfer committee, lack of coaching time and lack of finances, FSG will be scratching their head & losing patience quicker than people here realise.

NukaCola

Calling a managers signings appalling when 9 signed a few months ago is so harsh its unfair.

Apart from Aspas, Borini, Assaidi and possibly Alberto every other player bought has a future with the club, wether its squad or first team. Based on the state of the squad BR inherited I think the squad is in a healthy state both financially and talent. The average age of our squad is 23 dont forget.

NukaCola

Lord Trollington wrote: »

What turn of phrase should be used?

If we continue to play at the level we're at we should end up with 55-60 points and probably finished around 7/8th place.

Was just kidding around....

Mr Alan

NukaCola wrote: »

Based on the state of the squad BR inherited I think the squad is in a healthy state both financially and talent. The average age of our squad is 23 dont forget.

Then why are we playing so poorly & showing no signs of improving?

5starpool

Johnson is far from our worst defender this season tbh.

Mr Alan

5starpool wrote: »

Johnson is far from our worst defender this season tbh.

That honour goes to Señor Lovren

Lord Trollington

I was away yesterday and wasn't in the match thread.

What was peoples opinion on on Sissoko challenge on Allen.

How was it not a red considering the view the referee had. Leg breaking I thought.

Chucky the tree

JohnDaniels wrote: »

Excluding the two kids bought for the youth team, Yesil and Texeria. Rodgers has done very little shopping in the bargain basement. Something like 17/20 players have been £7m+

I don't think it's any different to spending £3m in 2007/2008 era for example. The problem with Rodgers is that when you buy young players you need to give them time before calling them a hit or a miss. Not to mention lumping all the summer signings in when comparing Rodgers record in the transfer market is allow incredibly stupid.

Agent Coulson

Lord Trollington wrote: »

I was away yesterday and wasn't in the match thread.

What was peoples opinion on on Sissoko challenge on Allen.

How was it not a red considering the view the referee had. Leg breaking I thought.

Newcastle should have had 2 players sent off.

I said yesterday even down to 9 men they would have beaten us.

Lord Trollington

Mr Alan wrote: »

That honour goes to Señor Lovren

A very simplistic view to blame Lovren for our failings. To me I think our attacking play is nothing short of abysmal. We've only conceded 3 more than Chelsea and Man City.

It's a complete system failure.

NukaCola

Chucky the tree wrote: »

I don't think it's any different to spending £3m in 2007/2008 era for example. The problem with Rodgers is that when you buy young players you need to give them time before calling them a hit or a miss. Not to mention lumping all the summer signings in when comparing Rodgers record in the transfer market is allow incredibly stupid.

If not stupid, then impatient and/or short sighted.

Mr Alan

Chucky the tree wrote: »

I don't think it's any different to spending £3m in 2007/2008 era for example. The problem with Rodgers is that when you buy young players you need to give them time before calling them a hit or a miss. Not to mention lumping all the summer signings in when comparing Rodgers record in the transfer market is allow incredibly stupid.

Last summer & Jan was horrendous too tbh. Are we allowed judge them yet?

Lord Trollington

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Newcastle should have had 2 players sent off.

I said yesterday even down to 9 men they would have beaten us.

I recorded the game and watched in full not knowing the result and for the whole 70 odd minutes before we conceded I was waiting for us to kick on and up the tempo.

It never happened. A shocking performance, our worst under BR in my opinion.

redzerdrog

Allen is a decent squad player nothing more nothing less, I don't think his transfer could be classed as a hit though as I would be far from upset if he was to leave tomorrow and we recoup the fee, Actually I would be thrilled if recouped the fee.

Saying that 80% of the first team squad could leave for the fee they were bought and I would be ****ing delighted with the business

5starpool

klose wrote: »

Not defending rodgers dealings but the market when rafa was around had "value" todays market is bat**** crazy. What would Torres cost when leaving atletico for us in todays market? Reina? Alonso etc...

JohnDaniels wrote: »

Excluding the two kids bought for the youth team, Yesil and Texeria. Rodgers has done very little shopping in the bargain basement. Something like 17/20 players have been £7m+

The transfer market now is undeniably more expensive than it was 5 or so years ago and 5m then was like 10-12m now realistically. Saying that though, we also have far more money to spend, as do all English teams, which is why prices have gone up as much as they have.

Alberto/Aspas would have cost 2/3m in Rafa's time probably, and Torres 40-50m I'd say, but proportionately we are still spending probably the same on fees/wages compared to income than we were in 2008 or so.

As big a fan as I was (and still am) of Rafa I don't think if he ended up coming back to the club that it would be a good thing as he is still a very divisive figure and if it came to it my better judgement says to move on to someone new.

Rodgers will be here for the foreseeable though (rightly), and I hope that some of his signings improve properly. Selling and replacing the likes of Allen, Sakho, Lovren, Balotelli and a couple of others would be again risky, expensive and take more time than I'd like.

Chucky the tree

Mr Alan wrote: »

Last summer & Jan was horrendous too tbh. Are we allowed judge them yet?

Yea, calling them horrendous is extremely dumb though.

Mr Alan

Lord Trollington wrote: »

A very simplistic view to blame Lovren for our failings. To me I think our attacking play is nothing short of abysmal. We've only conceded 3 more than Chelsea and Man City.

It's a complete system failure.

I'm not blaming him for our failings.

Our lack of cutting edge up top is semi-understandable due to Sturridge's absence. However, our defence, once of the most expensively assembled in the Europe, looking like a pack of clowns at every opportunity I actually blame on Rodgers/coaches more than the players. There's no way they can all be as bad as they look.

5starpool

Lord Trollington wrote: »

I recorded the game and watched in full not knowing the result and for the whole 70 odd minutes before we conceded I was waiting for us to kick on and up the tempo.

It never happened. A shocking performance, our worst under BR in my opinion.

How many times this season have you said that now I wonder? There is a lot of competition and it just gets more depressing.

Mr Alan

Chucky the tree wrote: »

Yea, calling them horrendous is extremely dumb though.

You don't think last summers transfer activity was horrendous? What planet are you on?!

Agent Coulson

Lord Trollington wrote: »

I recorded the game and watched in full not knowing the result and for the whole 70 odd minutes before we conceded I was waiting for us to kick on and up the tempo.

It never happened. A shocking performance, our worst under BR in my opinion.

It's simple things like Henderson a rightsided CM playing on the left wing.

Sterling who plays his best just behind the front 2 put out on the right wing and not in the game at all.

Balotelli playing on his own up front having to drop into his own half to win the ball then turn a run a 4 defenders with no support.

At times the two fullbacks were the highest players in attack leaving the CB exposed.

Yesterday Gerrard had no defined role he just seemed to wander all over the pitch. He wasn't playing the DM role or the number 10 role.

All of the above has to be Put on Rodgers!!

Pro's don't jUSt do those kind of things unless the manger tells them too.

Harry Palmr

Be interesting to know what's happening at board room level, has anyone sent down a memo yet I wonder or picked up the phone for a conference call just to wonder out loud at the lack of tactical and coaching cohesion.

Agent Coulson

What about poor Linda!!!!!! She has had no clean sheets to tweet about

Come on Liverpool do it for Linda!!!

mav79

Agent Coulson wrote: »

It's simple things like Henderson a rightsided CM playing on the left wing.

Sterling who plays his best just behind the front 2 put out on the right wing and not in the game at all.

Balotelli playing on his own up front having to drop into his own half to win the ball then turn a run a 4 defenders with no support.

At times the two fullbacks were the highest players in attack leaving the CB exposed.

Yesterday Gerrard had no defined role he just seemed to wander all over the pitch. He wasn't playing the DM role or the number 10 role.

All of the above has to be Put on Rodgers!!

Pro's don't jUSt do those kind of things unless the manger tells them too.

You can also add playing Couthino too far forward.

Borini having at great game on the right side against Swansea to only get a small amount of time on the left yesterday.

And after Johnsons best performance of the season at LB against Swansea and Manquillo having a good game at RB the full back positions were changed up again.

These are all Rodgers calls so he has to take responsibility if they fail.

Chucky the tree

Mr Alan wrote: »

You don't think last summers transfer activity was horrendous? What planet are you on?!

No, I think it's to early to judge most of them and others aren't terrible players.

Mignolet - Solid keeper with some big flaws, he's still young though and he's still one of the better keepers in the league

Sahko - He's already, looks like we over-paid but I'd like to see him get more of a run.

Luis Alberto - Not looked good, deservers more time.

toure - Not bad for a free

cissokho - Not bad for a loan move

Illori - Jury still out

Moses - terrible but only a loan.


Honestly don't see how that can be classed as "horrendous". I mean horrendous for me is signing Andy Carroll for £35m.

Mr Alan

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Be interesting to know what's happening at board room level, has anyone sent down a memo yet I wonder or picked up the phone for a conference call just to wonder out loud at the lack of tactical and coaching cohesion.

Rumour is that the relationship between Rodgers & his bosses is not all that great at the minute as Rodgers has been briefing the media to try absolve himself of any blame for our poor start which they don't like.

Apparently Rodgers is also behind Gerrard talking to the media about his contract situation as Rodgers/Gerrard weren't happy about Gerrard not being tied down yet.

rob316

Mr Alan wrote: »

Rumour is that the relationship between Rodgers & his bosses is not all that great at the minute as Rodgers has been briefing the media to try absolve himself of any blame for our poor start which they don't like.

Apparently Rodgers is also behind Gerrard talking to the media about his contract situation as Rodgers/Gerrard weren't happy about Gerrard not being tied down yet.

All speculation

Mr Alan

Chucky the tree wrote: »

No, I think it's to early to judge most of them and others aren't terrible players.

Mignolet - Solid keeper with some big flaws, he's still young though and he's still one of the better keepers in the league

Sahko - He's already, looks like we over-paid but I'd like to see him get more of a run.

Luis Alberto - Not looked good, deservers more time.

toure - Not bad for a free

cissokho - Not bad for a loan move

Illori - Jury still out

Moses - terrible but only a loan.


Honestly don't see how that can be classed as "horrendous". I mean horrendous for me is signing Andy Carroll for £35m.

Too early to judge senior professional players who have been at the club over a year?! And those opinions on those garbage players?! Alright now I'm starting to think you're taking the piss

5starpool

Chucky the tree wrote: »

No, I think it's to early to judge most of them and others aren't terrible players.

Mignolet - Solid keeper with some big flaws, he's still young though and he's still one of the better keepers in the league

Sahko - He's already, looks like we over-paid but I'd like to see him get more of a run.

Luis Alberto - Not looked good, deservers more time.

toure - Not bad for a free

cissokho - Not bad for a loan move

Illori - Jury still out

Moses - terrible but only a loan.


Honestly don't see how that can be classed as "horrendous". I mean horrendous for me is signing Andy Carroll for £35m.

Sakho and Mignolet were no better really than those they were brought in to replace (Agger and Reina) and Sakho himself looks to have been replaced in the pecking order when all fit. The rest contributed nothing positive really, and the only necessary ones were probably Cissokho and Toure as backup. Some of them may come good (as Henderson did after a poor first season) but it doesn't look great right now.

I can't see Alberto or Ilori being given time to actually try and stake a claim in the first XI unless they get it in training. I'd rather keep Wisdom than Ilori also.

Mr Alan

rob316 wrote: »

All speculation

I'm pretty sure Mike knows I'm not on the board or coaching staff. As such I think it's clear I was just advising what the "word on the street" was

Chucky the tree

Mr Alan wrote: »

Too early to judge senior professional players who have been at the club over a year?! And those opinions on those garbage players?! Alright now I'm starting to think you're taking the piss

So your opinion of Lucas or Suarez didn't change after 1 year? That's interesting.

NukaCola

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Be interesting to know what's happening at board room level, has anyone sent down a memo yet I wonder or picked up the phone for a conference call just to wonder out loud at the lack of tactical and coaching cohesion.

Sure what do they know about fusebol.........

Rodgers will just send them a manuscript on how great he is and they would agree

In all seriousness though, they are probably looking at the table and see us 3 points off our most realistic place and aren't panicking. They probably have faith in the man that had us playing great football for 18 months prior to the start of the season and probably realise that all teams would go through a bad spell when you lose strikers like Suarez and Sturridge through injury. That will change obviously if things dont improve.

GotTheTshirt

Mr Alan wrote: »

Then why are we playing so poorly & showing no signs of improving?

Many of our most recent signings have had injury troubles to different extents, they''re all coming into a situation with loads of other new signings, one if not more were signed on a long term view.

I'll add that losing Sturridge has made things a lot more difficult for them in that we've lost arguably our best player and the team has had to reflect that. I realise it's up to our manager to negate this as well as he can( Imo I don't think he has), but it's still a consideration.

I just caught up since last night and the only sweeping answer I can give to the blanket of posts is, take a deep breath and give Rodgers a bit of time, yeah things aren't going well but the first weekend of November isn't the time to be going nuts, go nuts in the first week of January if things don't improve. This team has been together a wet weekend, I'm as pissed off as anyone but the manager has built up some credits. 18 months we got better and better, one poor spell after a huge upheavel this summer shouldn't be any cause for panic.

Mr Alan

Chucky the tree wrote: »

So your opinion of Lucas or Suarez didn't change after 1 year? That's interesting.

I always thought Lucas was decent. Anyone here will be able to attest to that. He was bought as a squad player who would hopefully learn & turn into a first team player over time. Exactly what he did until injuries scuppered him.

And literally from his first game I thought Suarez was the dogs bollox.

MD1990

Chucky the tree wrote: »

No, I think it's to early to judge most of them and others aren't terrible players.

Mignolet - Solid keeper with some big flaws, he's still young though and he's still one of the better keepers in the league

Sahko - He's already, looks like we over-paid but I'd like to see him get more of a run.

Luis Alberto - Not looked good, deservers more time.

toure - Not bad for a free

cissokho - Not bad for a loan move

Illori - Jury still out

Moses - terrible but only a loan.


Honestly don't see how that can be classed as "horrendous". I mean horrendous for me is signing Andy Carroll for £35m.

You are not a solid keeper if u have big flaws.

Chucky the tree

5starpool wrote: »

Sakho and Mignolet were no better really than those they were brought in to replace (Agger and Reina) and Sakho himself looks to have been replaced in the pecking order when all fit. The rest contributed nothing positive really, and the only necessary ones were probably Cissokho and Toure as backup. Some of them may come good (as Henderson did after a poor first season) but it doesn't look great right now.

I can't see Alberto or Ilori being given time to actually try and stake a claim in the first XI unless they get it in training. I'd rather keep Wisdom than Ilori also.

Mignolet vs Reina
I agree. But Mignolet has age on his side and is still a few years off his peak compared to Reina who is arguable on the downside of his career. You can include wages as well but meh, whatever. To describe the signing of Mignolet as horrendous is just wrong though.


Similar with Sakho who is much younger than Agger. We signed him as a 23 year old with 151 caprs for PSG, I'm happy to give him longer than a year before claiming he's "garbage". I must be crazy though.

Chucky the tree

MD1990 wrote: »

You are not a solid keeper if u have big flaws.

Of course you are. Most solid keepers have big flaws, that's the difference between solid and world class.

MD1990

Boom_Bap wrote: »

One major thing that is being overlooked, but always gets brought up when Sanchez is mentioned, a big kick in the nuts for us is that players don't want to come to play for us. So it's not as easy as identifying the player we need and getting a medical done and signing a cheque. Mikatyran, Willian, Salah, Falcao (i believe he was) in recent years have been targeted, but chose not to come to us. I'd say Salah is the one that is kicking himself for that now given that he's barely making the matchday squad.

We should like City a few years offer huge wages for player like Sanchez. Use the 20m to buy Markovic & instead use that to offer Sanchez 200k+ a week.

NukaCola

Sakho has also only played 20 odd games.

Mr Alan

GotTheTshirt wrote: »

Many of our most recent signings have had injury troubles to different extents, they''re all coming into a situation with loads of other new signings, one if not more were signed on a long term view.

So it's the injuries fault now :rolleyes:

GotTheTshirt wrote: »

I just caught up since last night and the only sweeping answer I can give to the blanket of posts is, take a deep breath and give Rodgers a bit of time

He is in his third season & it does appear the more he puts his own stamp on the team, the worse it gets. I hope I'm wrong.

GotTheTshirt wrote: »

yeah things aren't going well but the first weekend of November isn't the time to be going nuts, go nuts in the first week of January if things don't improve.

In August people were saying give it a month.

In September, give it two months

Etc etc etc

It's a quarter way through the season now & you're saying he should apparently get 5 months of total dross before it's alright to point out it looks like we're in big trouble?!

GotTheTshirt wrote: »

This team has been together a wet weekend, I'm as pissed off as anyone but the manager has built up some credits. 18 months we got better and better, one poor spell after a huge upheavel this summer shouldn't be any cause for panic.

He is using up his credits. We've played 1 decent match all season, yet the fans & media haven't turned on him. That's more credit than most get.

If his poor spell continues to Christmas it'll be irreparable IMO.

Harry Palmr

God know I'm not one for chopping managers (though Watford seem to be suggesting they might be over-rated!) but the owners will have to be keen to see a turnaround in performance levels if not results (no one expects LFC to beat Madrid or Chelsea really) in the short term.

I just wish I could see why Rodgers thinks 4-2-3-1 beats 4-4-2 diamond, its not an inherently more secure formation if only because of the weakness of the rear guard against dead balls and the lack of legs from Gerrard - the whole quarterback BS has to be ended, everyone has worked that out. The captain has been wandering forward more in recent games but to what end? One near chance to score against Hull I think is sum total. Sterling has been marooned, playing Moreno as a wing back with no one releasing early balls is utterly pointless. One up front is insane if the one is Balo.

---

Migolet
Manq---Two Poor CBs here--Moreno

---

Can

---

Hendo--Lallana (or Coutinho)

---

Sterling

---

Borini--Balotelli

kryogen

Mr Alan wrote: »

Then why are we playing so poorly & showing no signs of improving?

Poor coaching explains a fair bit of it actually. The team has been bad defensively for a long time now, there has been no improvement in that department at all, ye conceded a lot of goals last season too but had Suarez in unbelievable form and Sturridge banging them in too, Sturridge was particularly impressive in the run in but the defensive deficiencies were there still.

NukaCola

MD1990 wrote: »

We should like City a few years offer huge wages for player like Sanchez. Use the 20m to buy Markovic & instead use that to offer Sanchez 200k+ a week.

I think there is room in our transfer policy to offer a big deal to a marquee style signing for the right player as well as bringing through potential like Markovic.

Obviously not every window as that is unsustainable.

Mr Alan

NukaCola wrote: »

Sakho has also only played 20 odd games.

It's 28 games I believe.

He's an international player in his mid twenties with loads of top level experience who cost aporox £20m.

How many games does it take before it's ok to have an opinion on him?