Liverpool FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours 2016/2017

Sappy404

Vanolder wrote: »

Other teams are coping fine with the number of games...

No team has played more games this January. Besides, my point is that the Chelsea match taking place on 31st Jan instead of the 1st Feb is irrelevant. It's not the word 'January' in the date that's the problem.

5starpool

Sappy404 wrote: »

No team has played more games this January. Besides, my point is that the Chelsea match taking place on 31st Jan instead of the 1st Feb is irrelevant. It's not the word 'January' in the date that's the problem.

3 of our games could barely be counted though in terms of tiredness for most players.

Vanolder

Vicxas wrote: »

They've got better depth, we like to play childer and give them experience.

How many kids have we given appearances to compared to the other top 6 teams this season? I've no idea myself...

noodler

noodler wrote: »

Aye, we seem to be resting and still not reaping the benefits.

Indeed, I read somewhere that it was reckoned Klopp was giving starters a mini winter break by not playing them in cup games.......... we should therefore reap the benefit over the coming months

Harry Palmr

Vanolder wrote: »

How many kids have we given appearances to compared to the other top 6 teams this season? I've no idea myself...

Define kids first, Chelsea would be bottom of the list obviously.

Liverpool "kids" list as defined by me (more a case of senior experience than actual age hence Stewart in the list) the minutes are overwhelmingly in the cups.

Ojo 104m (2 apps)
Gomez 270 (3 apps)
Stewart 370 (6 apps)
TAA 520 (6 apps)
Ejaria 430 (7 apps)
Woodburn 278m (4 apps)
Wilson 25m (1 app)
Randall 46m (1 app)
Grujic 200 (4 apps)

Sappy404

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Define kids first, Chelsea would be bottom of the list obviously.

Liverpool "kids" list as defined by me (more a case of senior experience than actual age hence Stewart in the list) the minutes are overwhelmingly in the cups.

Ojo 104m (2 apps)
Gomez 270 (3 apps)
Stewart 370 (6 apps)
TAA 520 (6 apps)
Ejaria 430 (7 apps)
Woodburn 278m (4 apps)
Wilson 25m (1 app)
Randall 46m (1 app)
Grujic 200 (4 apps)

I can barely remember Grujic playing. I vaguely recall him coming on in a League Cup game, that's it.

Both he and Ojo looked conspicuous in their absence at the weekend. Was any explanation given for their whereabouts?

mayordenis

Yea Grujic has been injured for a couple of months, close to a return I think.

Riesen_Meal

Sappy404 wrote: »

I can barely remember Grujic playing. I vaguely recall him coming on in a League Cup game, that's it.

Both he and Ojo looked conspicuous in their absence at the weekend. Was any explanation given for their whereabouts?

Grujic is injured and posting Serbian basketball news on his Facebook with the boredom the last week or so...

S'ton's latest potential striker purchase looks less than inspiring......... Manolo Gabbiadiani for £14m ish + maybe £3m ....... 30 goals in just over 100 apps last 3.5 seasons.

The ole £s don't buy much striker these days it seems.

Sappy404

Fieldog wrote: »

Grujic is injured and posting Serbian basketball news on his Facebook with the boredom the last week or so...

I thought Grujic was back in training as of 2 weeks ago. Hmm. No word on Ojo though?

Sappy404

Augeo wrote: »

S'ton's latest potential striker purchase looks less than inspiring......... Manolo Gabbiadiani for £14m ish + maybe £3m ....... 30 goals in just over 100 apps last 3.5 seasons.

The ole £s don't buy much striker these days it seems.

Bookmarked for when we buy him this summer for £40m.

Vanolder

Chelsea, Man City and Spurs have all given more time to young players (under 20) in the league this year. As for lack of depth , Sakho has been available all season... Klopp knew Mane would be off from the start of the season...

I think it is more a case of teams knowing how to stifle Liverpool presently and Klopp not changing it up rather than fatigue... The team also badly needs a striker.

Agent Coulson

Looks like Burnley have beaten us to the signing of Brady.

Bloody FSG being cheapskates again.

Turtyturd

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Looks like Burnley have beaten us to the signing of Brady.

Bloody FSG being cheapskates again.

Palace offloading him already?

Harry Palmr

Sappy404 wrote: »

I thought Grujic was back in training as of 2 weeks ago. Hmm. No word on Ojo though?

Grujic got tackled in training by Wiji and picked up a knock, Ojo is playing - U23s yesterday for example. I watched the first half and decided not to watch the second so bad a match was it. Ended 0-0 v Sunderland.

LuckyLloyd

NukaCola wrote: »

City had Aston Villa and West Ham in the last 2 games at home. No one can say for sure but I would have been amazed if City couldn't have finished the job. City won 10 drew 2 and lost just one game in their last 13 games.

I go back to where the league was in our hands with 3 games to go and that was against Chelsea. When we lost that it was out of our hands no matter what happened, and with 2 games to go it was unlikely City would buckle if we are being honest. I'm not saying the Palace game meant nothing but its not the game that lost us the league.

We lost the league at home to Chelsea. And not because of Gerrard's slip, but because we were overall completely outfoxed and came out with a panicked frenzied mentality.

Pepp1989

Until we discover a way or player to break down teams that sit back, we will continue to struggle.

murpho999

Sappy404 wrote: »

No team has played more games this January. Besides, my point is that the Chelsea match taking place on 31st Jan instead of the 1st Feb is irrelevant. It's not the word 'January' in the date that's the problem.

Are people really accepting tiredness as a factor for our performances in January?

No European games.

3 FA Cup matches played with mostly second string.

So in January, we had 3 premiership games, Sunderland, United and Swansea and two League Cup Semi-final legs involving the full team.
That’s 5 games up to last Wednesday.

Any top pro at elite level should be able to handle that.
The only game that could use tiredness as an excuse is the Sunderland one as it was ridiculously close to the City game on New Year’s Eve.

The problem has been Klopp’s team selection and tactics, especially as the month unfolded and the team struggled for confidence.

A full strength team should have been played on Saturday. They would have won comfortably, and the club would have a whole different mood going into tomorrow’s game as opposed the gloomy cloud hanging over it now.

I like Klopp as a manager, he has done wonders for the team since he has been there. I also appreciate that he is in the early days of Year 2 of a long term project. Just hope he himself has learnt from the last week and realise where our vulnerabilities lie and correct them.

A win tomorrow would be fantastic, silence the critics and get the team back on track.

Need to push on, once we get to April, our last 9 games are a good run and opportunity to score points and secure our top 4 place which we all would have taken at the start of the season.

Korat

Agent Coulson wrote: »

Looks like Burnley have beaten us to the signing of Brady.

Bloody FSG being cheapskates again.

You don't want to be frittering away money on a budget player with a track record like his. Playing international football and scoring in major tournaments is overrated.

Harry Palmr

Korat wrote: »

You don't want to be frittering away money on a budget player with a track record like his. Playing international football and scoring in major tournaments is overrated.

That was a "whoosh" post!

Milkers

Pepp1989 wrote: »

Until we discover a way or player to break down teams that sit back, we will continue to struggle.

Also in games where we dominate possession it might help to actually bother defending instead of going "oh my god these peons have the audacity to actually take the ball off us and run towards our goal! What do we do now?"

Harry Palmr

I've just seen we are second in the Fair Play League so all is not lost!

noodler

Korat wrote: »

You don't want to be frittering away money on a budget player with a track record like his. Playing international football and scoring in major tournaments is overrated.

Harry Palmr wrote: »

That was a "whoosh" post!

The sideswipes Brady gets on here for being Irish, and I don't mean you two posters, is unreal.

Agent Coulson

Korat wrote: »

You don't want to be frittering away money on a budget player with a track record like his. Playing international football and scoring in major tournaments is overrated.

Knex*

Lallana named England POTY

https://twitter.com/England/status/825991991691530244

Sappy404

murpho999 wrote: »

Are people really accepting tiredness as a factor for our performances in January.

No European games.

3 FA Cup matches played with mostly second string.

So in January, we had 3 premiership games, Sunderland, United and Swansea and two League Cup Semi-final legs involving the full team.
That’s 5 games up to last Wednesday.

Any top pro at elite level should be able to handle that.
The only game that could use tiredness as an excuse is the Sunderland one as it was ridiculously close to the City game on New Year’s Eve.

The problem has been Klopp’s team selection and tactics, especially as the month unfolded and the team struggled for confidence.

A full strength team should have been played on Saturday. They would have won comfortably, and the club would have a whole different mood going into tomorrow’s game as opposed the gloomy cloud hanging over it now.

I like Klopp as a manager, he has done wonders for the team since he has been there. I also appreciate that he is in the early days of Year 2 of a long term project. Just hope he himself has learnt from the last week and realise where our vulnerabilities lie and correct them.

A win tomorrow would be fantastic, silence the critics and get the team back on track.

Need to push on, once we get to April, our last 9 games are a good run and opportunity to score points and secure our top 4 place which we all would have taken at the start of the season.

Klopp has gotten it badly wrong a few times in the last few weeks (and is still playing Firmino out wide for some reason) but the fixture congestion - 10 games in 32 days - can't be ignored. It's that congestion that has had a knock-on effect on what players can play what games, which has resulted in the stiffs being played in the FA Cup games.

We've also missed Mane, had a half-fit Coutinho, a misfiring Origi and Sturridge and a frankly outrageous situation with FIFA regarding Matip, our one good centre-half, not to mention Emre Can failing to adequately deputise for Henderson and an 18yo playing 90 minutes at RB. So it's not all fixture congestion, but it's not all on Klopp's tactics either.

You could argue that the above should have prompted us to step up our interest in our summer transfers and paid the January premium(or in the case of the Mane issue, had an additional squad member since the summer) but when your main targets are youth players with no Premier League experience (Pulisic, Dahoud) perhaps that's not the answer either.

NukaCola

murpho999 wrote: »

Are people really accepting tiredness as a factor for our performances in January?

10 games in 31 days. How is it not a factor? Is it the main reason? Absolutely not.

Bandana boy

murpho999 wrote: »

Are people really accepting tiredness as a factor for our performances in January?

I know I am not , 4 of the games at home
3 against a lower division
2 against teams that will be in a lower division come the summer

We have been inept and I cannot think of one positive from our play in that time , it is something far more sinister than a bad run of games or luck or tiredness.

I trust Klopp to sort it out , I just wish he would hurry the F up about it

Umaro

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

We lost the league at home to Chelsea. And not because of Gerrard's slip, but because we were overall completely outfoxed and came out with a panicked frenzied mentality.

I feel like we'll be debating this for years to come!

But for the slip, we'd probably have been looking at a 0-0 draw. Some of you might have read this before, its from a biography of Mourinho written by Diego Torres:

1. The game is won by the team who commit fewer errors.

2. Football favours whoever provokes more errors in the opposition.

3. Away from home, instead of trying to be superior to the opposition, it’s better to encourage their mistakes.

4. Whoever has the ball is more likely to make a mistake.

5. Whoever renounces possession reduces the possibility of making a mistake.

6. Whoever has the ball has fear.

7. Whoever does not have it is thereby stronger.

Source

And that's how Chelsea played that day. Super defensive and waited for us to commit an error.

Maybe we could've prepared tactics that protected against this, but I don't know how you can legislate for the last man back falling over and gifting the ball to the opponent.

In the second half Gerrard seemed to lose his head completely, and the rest of the team followed him.

Korat

Harry Palmr wrote: »

That was a "whoosh" post!

Hands up, I've no idea what 'Robbie Brady' related discussons have gone on in the LFC thread before.

He's no Shane Long anyway. :P

murpho999

Sappy404 wrote: »

Klopp has gotten it badly wrong a few times in the last few weeks (and is still playing Firmino out wide for some reason) but the fixture congestion - 10 games in 32 days - can't be ignored. It's that congestion that has had a knock-on effect on what players can play what games, which has resulted in the stiffs being played in the FA Cup games.

We've also missed Mane, had a half-fit Coutinho, a misfiring Origi and Sturridge and a frankly outrageous situation with FIFA regarding Matip, our one good centre-half, not to mention Emre Can failing to adequately deputise for Henderson and an 18yo playing 90 minutes at RB. So it's not all fixture congestion, but it's not all on Klopp's tactics either.

You could argue that the above should have prompted us to step up our interest in our summer transfers and paid the January premium(or in the case of the Mane issue, had an additional squad member since the summer) but when your main targets are youth players with no Premier League experience (Pulisic, Dahoud) perhaps that's not the answer either.

NukaCola wrote: »

10 games in 31 days. How is it not a factor? Is it the main reason? Absolutely not.

This is down to squad depth and transfer market activity. We knew these games were coming and we were not prepared.

We knew we were losing Mane, and injuries are always a risk and we should have stronger bench for these eventualities.

Our problem also is an inability to defend that has rocked confidence. Not a major problem when scoring 4 goals a game but a major problem when the goals dry up like they have.

Potential Underachiever

Korat wrote: »

Hands up, I've no idea what 'Robbie Brady' related discussons have gone on in the LFC thread before.

He's no Shane Long anyway. :P

You clearly don't read this thread often because that poster has used the same Robbie Brady 'joke' multiple times now, hopefully that's the last of it there's only so many times someone can go to the same well, then again flogging the same joke to death is popular round here.

Korat

Potential Underachiever wrote: »

You clearly don't read this thread often because that poster has used the same Robbie Brady 'joke' multiple times now, hopefully that's the last of it there's only so many times someone can go to the same well, then again flogging the same joke to death is popular round here.

Indeed that was a 'Woosh'. Thanks for explaining the reference.

Harry Palmr

Knex. wrote: »

Lallana named England POTY

https://twitter.com/England/status/825991991691530244

and the Tallest England Dwarf 2016 Award goes to.....

Buford T. Justice XIX

Sappy404 wrote: »

Klopp has gotten it badly wrong a few times in the last few weeks (and is still playing Firmino out wide for some reason) but the fixture congestion - 10 games in 32 days - can't be ignored. It's that congestion that has had a knock-on effect on what players can play what games, which has resulted in the stiffs being played in the FA Cup games.

We've also missed Mane, had a half-fit Coutinho, a misfiring Origi and Sturridge and a frankly outrageous situation with FIFA regarding Matip, our one good centre-half, not to mention Emre Can failing to adequately deputise for Henderson and an 18yo playing 90 minutes at RB. So it's not all fixture congestion, but it's not all on Klopp's tactics either.

You could argue that the above should have prompted us to step up our interest in our summer transfers and paid the January premium(or in the case of the Mane issue, had an additional squad member since the summer) but when your main targets are youth players with no Premier League experience (Pulisic, Dahoud) perhaps that's not the answer either.

In fairness to Klopp, if he's playing Firmino and Sturridge in the same team, Firmino has to be the one playing out wide. The wide forwards have to do a lot of work tracking back and regaining possession and Sturridge doesn't tick that box at all.

With Sturridge out wide, the FBs will repeatedly get caught up in 2 v 1s whereas, in the middle, the wide forwards can tuck in and reduce the overload in the center.

Turtyturd

Someone should retire their commenting on other posters rather than contributing to the thread 'joke'.

Nerdlingr

All this talk of making changes to the team, not playing your best line-up... its a load of bull sh*t. We had a team out the last day that should easily have beaten Wolves. Nothing to do with the kids coming in. Apart from Randall, Woodburn and Ejaria, (the latter two were probably our better players!) the rest of the team should have been well able to deal with a team 18th in the championship. They had a 4th choice 20yr old goalkeeper and he didn't have a save to make for about an hour . Lambert himself said he made 6 changes to the wolves team and had four 18yr olds in the squad, but nothing is being made of that.

5starpool

Korat wrote: »

Indeed that was a 'Woosh'. Thanks for explaining the reference.

He didn't explain it, that was his 'unique' perspective on it.

The actual reference is that one person said we should sign Brady as Milner isn't a left back and Moreno is rubbish and nearly everyone else entirely disagreed that we should sign him as he isn't good enough. It has been mentioned a few times over the last few weeks since.

Harry Palmr

Sturridge shouldn't be playing at all - Firmino central, Origi one flank and Wij or Ojo the other, obviously not an issue hopefully with Mane's return but Klopps solution was utterly counter-productive and indeed counter-intuitive for me.

Kerrigooney

Harry Palmr wrote: »

I've just seen we are second in the Fair Play League so all is not lost!

And that's part of the problem right there...we're too bloody nice.

klose

Ejaria picked up an injury and out for a while according to klopp.

8-10

murpho999 wrote: »

A full strength team should have been played on Saturday. They would have won comfortably, and the club would have a whole different mood going into tomorrow’s game as opposed the gloomy cloud hanging over it now.

Had that happened and we don't get a win tomorrow, all the blame would be on having played the full strength team in the FA Cup to lower league opposition 3 days earlier.

The only premier league teams that played close to full strength in the FA Cup this weekend were Crystal Palace and Hull, both losing by 3 goals

Every other EPL team rested first choice players, I think all of them even played a second choice goalkeeper.

I agree that the team wasn't strong enough, but I disagree that it needed to be full strength. I just hope we're prepared for tomorrow's game. Ill-preparedness has been what's cost us, along with a good plan B

doc_17

NukaCola wrote: »

10 games in 31 days. How is it not a factor? Is it the main reason? Absolutely not.

Time to prepare for the opposition is a huge benefit. 10 games in 31 days leaves no time for that. And considering our squad is so weak, it hit us hard.

Kerrigooney

Turtyturd wrote: »

Someone should retire their commenting on other posters rather than contributing to the thread 'joke'.

I already thanked this post but I just thought I'd say "thanks" as well...just to be sure.

Kerrigooney

klose wrote: »

Ejaria picked up an injury and out for a while according to klopp.

We're out of the cups now so he probably wouldn't have got another game anyway. I like the look of him though. I thought himself and Woodburn were the only 2 to come out of Saturday's shambles with any credit.

Buford T. Justice XIX

LFC's last 15 games played across 59 days... Next 15 to be played across 102 days...

https://twitter.com/empireofthekop/status/826037492960870404

Korat

5starpool wrote: »

He didn't explain it, that was his 'unique' perspective on it.

The actual reference is that one person said we should sign Brady as Milner isn't a left back and Moreno is rubbish and nearly everyone else entirely disagreed that we should sign him as he isn't good enough. It has been mentioned a few times over the last few weeks since.

I now feel less informed.

Football threads aren't for the casual observer.

Ole turty is getting a bit rattled of late................. tick tock klipp klopp

OwaynOTT

Buford T. Justice V wrote: »

LFC's last 15 games played across 59 days... Next 15 to be played across 102 days...

https://twitter.com/empireofthekop/status/826037492960870404

Too much rest now!

OwaynOTT

Korat wrote: »

I now feel less informed.

Football threads aren't for the casual observer.

This one is like a mixture of arrested development and sunny in Philly with a little bit of Archer thrown in because of all the in-jokes, running gags, call backs and huge douchebags.