Liverpool FC Team Talk, Gossip, Rumours 2024/25

machiavellianme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118094620#Comment_118094620

I never said that they were uncatchable, just that they aren't clustered within a point of others. They are on a particularly easy run at the moment and there's still 75% of the season to go.

Cartman78

We were a bit off it today for some reason...seemed to be lax in terms of pressing and passing, and generally seemed tentative all over the pitch.

And Brighton are a very well coached, organised, disciplined and reasonably talented outfit.....but having said that, blowing a 2 goal lead at home to anybody is sloppy and infuriating

theoneeyedman

Daws are gonna kill us. We've drawn 3 games we should really BA e win, led twice v City, 10 men for 2nd half v Chelsea and rarely threatened, and then 2 up today.

St least 4 points of not 6 gone a begging at home, a killer.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118095070#Comment_118095070

Don’t forget Brentford, leading with 10 mins to go.

Ken Tucky

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118094702#Comment_118094702

Agree..he is young. I'd rather have Gomez in instead of him if Matip isn't playing.

Needs a bit more time but think he will be good. Positional play today was all over the place

Why didn't Matip start? Probably our best CB this season

ltd440

We were bang averages today,but we've won most of the games that we were average in so far .

I'm very optimistic about the rest of the season to come because we're 3 points behind and will get improved performances , also don't know why people think Chelsea won't drop points, it's October ffs Spurs were top this time last season and look where they finished

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118095107#Comment_118095107

Chelsea are not Spurs, better squad, players have experience of what it takes to win the league and a top class manager. So there is no comparison.

MarkY91

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118094698#Comment_118094698

Drawing with Liverpool is not "failing miserably" not quite sure what you have been watching but it's certainly not Ehat everyone else has been watching.

yourdeadwright

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118094698#Comment_118094698

They have played Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs away & City at home

Who else is there?

yourdeadwright

Westham next weekend is a massive worry espically with Madrid midweek

We are missing quality in midfield right now

machiavellianme

Ole is giving a management masterclass. Play a combined 70 year old strike force and thump Spurs. Hopefully that'll save him. Its a shame we don't play Spurs till Christmas as they might have a new manager bounce by then.

Agent Coulson

That was the 24th game in a row unbeaten across all competitions now.

18 wins and 6 draws.

63 goals for and 19 against.

BorneTobyWilde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118095313#Comment_118095313

Klopp out

Utopia Parkway

Another tricky game next weekend away to West Ham. Might need to win it as well as Chelsea have a handy home game. Don't want that gap to become 5 or 6.

ratracer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118095313#Comment_118095313

Best run since 1989, but apparently the sky is falling…… 🙄🙄

BorneTobyWilde

Ole got it very wrong tactically against us, but United are not a bad side, it was a great gift of 3 points. Had Ole got it right and beat us they'd be above us in table now. Had our last two results being in a different order 2-2 last week, then 5-0 today we'd be happy. We do need a couple of bodies in Jan though, and maybe to sell Ox, Minamino, Phillips , Williams. Not good enough, move them on, and bring in two proper midfielders

Agent Coulson

Great to see Elliott at the game today as well, He was doing an amazing job as Gini's replacement until the injury.

Agent Coulson

Lallana got to say his goodbye to the fans after missing out due to the pandemic.

https://twitter.com/CaoimheSport/status/1454477592103473161?s=20

Agent Coulson

Naby's hamstring according to Klopp.

theoneeyedman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118095561#Comment_118095561

Thought he was holding his hammer alright...... FFS!

Lad is a crock unfortunately.... if it's not his ar5e it's his elbow.

BorneTobyWilde

Thiago and Fab will be okay for West Ham hopefully, we really need to make use of Firmino in midfield and play Jota up front.

BorneTobyWilde

You could never say Firmino can't play in the most forward position in midfield, when it's where he drops to 80% of the time, so why not play him in the hole, Jota ahead.

SlickRic

It's so fúcking frustrating that our midfield is falling apart.

Honestly, if any of Fabinho, Thiago, Elliott or a full 90 from Naby were available, we'd have maintained enough control to win that. Even Milner instead of having to bring on Ox might have been enough.

Girly Gal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118095745#Comment_118095745

That's true, but, it was mentioned more than once on here that Gini needed to be replaced, all the midfielders you mentioned either have a history of missing games through injury or in Milner's case age means he was never going to be able to play every game ( the United game was one game too far for him, he needed a rest) and while Eliot's injury couldn't have been predicted, like most 18 year olds at this level his performances over the course of the season were likely to be inconsistent. As far as I recall I don't think Henderson, Fabinho and Thaigo started any match last season in midfield together!

jebidiah

Couple of man tears for Lallana taking that lap. He is one of those who gave it all, but physically wasn't 100% up to it. I think a lot of people give that kind of player a lot of stick, but you and I dont know how much effort they are putting in behind the scenes. Klopp always spoke very highly of him and I think he can be very proud of what he achieved on the pitch for Liverpool, and for what he must have done to lift those around him off of it.

Could we see him come back in a coaching role in the future?

BorneTobyWilde

Chelsea have 2 defeats in 8, and Brentford really should have had 5 goals against them, Chelsea stole those points.

As for Liverpool, I honestly don't recall last time we lost a game. What we need is some midfielders back fit, Thiago, Fab, Milner, Keita, Elliott , it's pretty shocking to lose all of them. It's like last season, except with midfielders.

theoneeyedman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118096252#Comment_118096252

One defeat in the league, Liverpool have 4 draws from 10 games, which is 8 points, or almost as bad as 3 defeats.

Draws can be a killer.

.G.

While I'm defo not and never will be pessimistic about the reds that was two points dropped today and as we learned with Rafa its the draws that kill you. We've got 8 midfielders and 5 are injured, you can rant about Gini this or whatever but that is pure bad luck. We've been here before though and I hope we've learned a lesson and have some quality midfield talent lined up for January first. Just stay with Chelsea until then. Still think City are the team to beat. Chelsea's underlying numbers are insane, mental hot streak they're on and surely can't be kept up for the full season, so assuming they will drop off we need to be close to take advantage. The way I see today is we gained a point on City and we can sort out the 3 deficit to Chelsea when we play them if it hasn't sorted itself by then. None of the others are our concern though, we've our own shite to sort, too many draws so far.

~Rebel~

On the subject of January signings - with Norwich all but guaranteed to go down, I wonder if they might sell us Cantwell on the cheap? He's out of contract in the summer, and we were apparantly interested in him in the past. Can play midfield, and wing forward.

Also, since we have both Adrian and Karius still on the books, I wonder if it might be worth offering Kelleher on loan to Brentford in January? Most of his gametime for the season will come before then anyway, and they've lost their keeper to a long term injury, so could be a great opportunity for him to get high quality game time.

BorneTobyWilde

We did put the ball in the net 4 times, on another day they'd count, very small margins.

rob316

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118096325#Comment_118096325

It's not bad luck. Ox and keita are crocks, Thiago not much better and milner is 35. We knew that before the season started, we knew not replacing a player who never misses a game would leave a whole in an already stretched and aging midfield.

Don't pretend any of this is a surprise.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118096555#Comment_118096555

I think Brighton might feel they should have taken all three points, they had the ball in the net 3 times, small margins indeed.

Potential Underachiever

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118094591#Comment_118094591

I think it's allowed that posters can vent some frustration after poor results, drawing a match after being 2 up against Brighton is poor whatever way you look at it, people can say as much if they like, you seemed to be having a meltdown about any minor criticisms against the team, moreso than people losing the plot over the match.

Riesen_Meal

I'd start Tsimikas against Athletico, Robbo looked running on empty yesterday....

.G.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118096903#Comment_118096903

Them all being injured at the same time is the bad luck. Just look at the defence now, all of them perpetually staying fit to the point some of them are angry they aren't getting enough minutes.

Yes we could expect some midfielders to miss games just not at the same time, 8 lads should be more than enough for a team that play with three. Jones is getting more minutes this season as he progresses, another midfield body probably prevents that. If anything Ox is the concern for me, he's truly terrible these days and offers nothing when he plays, assist aside yesterday. Gini was offered a contract and didn't take it, it is what it is.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118097099#Comment_118097099

I think it was fair to assume the midfielders would be missing quite a bit, Keita 15, Henderson 13, Fabinho 9, Thiago 3, Ox serious knee injury, Milner 15, absences over the past couple of years due to injury (combined 277 games)

By comparison, Gini missed 11 games due to injury during his time with Liverpool. I really don’t give the club any credit for going into the season expecting our midfielders to remain relatively injury free.

corcaigh07

Sign Gini on loan?

~Rebel~

I'd guess a bigger part of the problem is that we already had so many midfielders, in a market where it was very very hard to sell. It was probably hard to justify another quality midfielder when Henderson, Fabinho, Thiago, Keita, Jones, Elliot, Ox, and Milner are all there, without selling first.

And I know people will say the 9th guy should just be a body - but that's just not something Liverpool does, and seems like it would only add more deadwood to the squad in the longer term. Every one of those names above either came through the youths, or was bought to be a serious member of the first team, and I think anyone coming in will be the same. Think Elliot's injury was the real ball-kicker, and just something from an awful challenge from behind that you can't really legislate for.

.G.

Exactly. And for all anyone knows a 9th lad could get a 6 month injury in his first training session. Stuff happens we just have to deal with it. I can't be arsed being angry about stuff I can't influence or control, the club were happy to go with what they had and they know more about it than me. I still think even though some of them are injury prone its massively unlucky for them all to be gone together. Last season we could mitigate it by playing midfielders in defence for a while, I don't think the reverse can be easily achieved so if the situation persists I expect the club to act in January.

TitianGerm

Maybe we're just saving all our midfielder money for Bellingham. Jesus I'd love it if we signed him.

eigrod

I wonder would Joe Gomez be able to do the Fabinho role.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118097233#Comment_118097233

Not sure why PSG would go for that... I mean, he's having a bit of trouble nailing down a starting spot, but he's playing in every game for them. Starts about half their games, and invariably comes on as a sub in the rest.

jones

The midfield issue is a funny one. Last season was a "freak" losing all our defenders but with Gini going we knew we were in a real danger of the same thing happening the midfield this season (especially given the injury record/age of most of our midfield) but we did nothing.

How did they not learn from last season? I get the usual stuff about Klopp wanting a small squad etc but they should have signed someone who could do a job. You can't legislate for what happened to Elliot so that's fair enough but personally i think Ox is gone, i keep wanting him to hit the form he had a few years ago before the injury but its just not going to happen. Keita is a walking injury. Milner is just getting too old to consistently play these high intensity games. Thiago has had no luck with injuries since joining and even Henderson and Fab are missing a decent amount. As for Jones i really cant work out if he's rubbish or on the verge of being great but he's young and i'm hoping he'll come good. Gini was ever present in the midfield for x number of years and the longer the league goes on it just look like madness to have not replaced him (i don't buy the Elliot was his replacement line - he was never going to play every game).

I don't mean to sound overly negative but i just think it seems mad we're in the territory of "oh who could have foreseen all these injuries in one area of the team" it literally happened last season. We've dropped so many points now from winning situations and while Brighton are a good side at 2 nil up at home we need to be winning that.

ps another thing i've noticed (which happened again yesterday for Brightons first) we always seem to be on the wrong end of X player has scored his first league goal for X team. Seems to have happened a good few times this season already and not even sure what it means but i'm sure there's some lesson in there.... or maybe i'm just crazy :-).

Fitz*

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118097303#Comment_118097303

Would he also help the HG quota? Not sure what happens with him, not playing domestically. I'd love to sign him too.

BorneTobyWilde

Klopp doesn't know his limitations, or the teams. Chelsea parked the doubledecker bus once they got ahead at Brentford, did the same to us as Anfield. We were 2-0 up, with a makeshift midfield, Keita off injured, just see it as a training exercise and put 10 people in our first third of the pitch. Take the points and move on in the hope we get some player back fit. Allowing Brighton to play on the shoulder of a high line, come on man

BorneTobyWilde

I think with CL next round looking likely, TV money looking amazing, stadiums full, and no indication of Boris shutting anything down again, that FSG might loosen the purse strings. So much money coming in this season

BorneTobyWilde

3 wins in Group Stage so far = 8m You lose you get nothing, a draw is 1.5m. We don't need to even win against Atletico, could play the b team, but with the money involved it will be full strength , or as strong as we can be considering.

Agent Coulson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118097303#Comment_118097303

And he does his cruciate in the first league game and there will be talk why did the club waste £100m on a teenager when they could have signed 3 midfield players for that money.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118097972#Comment_118097972

There really wouldn’t. No one is saying we shouldn’t have signed Ox because he suffered a knee injury, we all saw his quality before the injury and regret the fact that he isn’t the same player after. If we sign Bellingham, the risk of injury is always there, but he is young. What we know about our current midfielders is that there is a history of regular niggling injuries, and that they are not young.