Neil, Gibbo and Jim discuss what went wrong at White Hart Lane, look towards Southampton and ponder whether they could ever match the prowess of Ian McGarry.
Music this week from Filter Distortion and Bird.
Direct link to CITYTALK: IAN MCGARRY’S BIG NIGHT OUT
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At last someone has woken up to Sterling. I have been saying for weeks that the southern press has been snowing us about him. He is no Ryan Giggs or Gareth Bale, and will never be. My plan would be to sign him up and flog him off before everyone else catches on to how unproductive he is and will be. In two years time he will be the new Shaun Wright-Phillips. Yesterday’s man.
Why is no-one talking about the key issue at the football club? Gerrard this, Sterling that, Enrique ??.. Blah blah… What are the numbers?… The facts?…
V Spurs we had 65% possession, we lost the game… pointless passing doesnt work,we had 0 Liverpool players scoring, we have beaten 3 teams this season,Reading, Wigan and Norwich, we have 16 points, we are 4 points ahead of the bottom 3, it’s our worst start for 20 years, we have won 2 home games this season…. The issue is the manager!!!.. Why is he not head of the ‘next managers to be sacked list’…??The luckiest man in the world who has the best job in the world…. His convoluted tactics don’t work,his players look bemused and he talks in riddles.. He is the Irish David Brent….!!
But I am feeling like I am the only one who seems perturbed… He spent 11m on Borini, who is an embarrassment to the club/shirt… How can he be preferred to the ‘Biggun’??… Allen is starting to look very average, Assaidi looks very weak and genuinely scared to put a foot in… And Sahin isn’t at the races… But this appears not to matter, he has hoodwinked the nation… In itself very clever and manipulative but surely LFC deserve better… I am devastated!!
I think many others are now wondering.
Kenny’s problem was the need to justify his signings, even in the face of their obvious inadequacies. Plus he had much of the season without Lucas, Suarez and Gerrard. In truth we played some lovely football last season, better in fact than any we have played this. The team needed a bit of a tweak only, but BR has spent all this season ridding the team of Kenny’s boys, unless they prove they can play elsewhere a la Enrique, in which case they become Brendan’s boys. He started his tenure by eliminating Carroll, Kuyt, Maxi and Bellamy. How effing inept was that????
Kenny won against the teams we have lost to this season. I thought Kenny had lost it, but I now realise I was wrong. Praise for possession is ludicrous; you can’t manage Liverpool like a mid-table team. We are now apprehensive about the likes of Southampton, ffs. I am over BR – he is too pupular with the Southern Press for my liking. Football is played over 90 minutes,full pitch. We now control the middle third only, ship goals all the time and attack crowded goal areas. Every time the opposition gets the ball I expect us to concede, and they win ALL of their corners. We get no advantage from corners whatsoever – SG just pumps them over for the defenders to start a counter attack.
Rant over…
Kevin good points well made.
At best, Rodgers has put us back 5 years. At worst, we’re the new Villa. With Kenny, even with his over priced signings, we were heading in the right direction. You can’t help but look at Steve Clark and think, ‘That could have been us’.
There is a lot of blind Liverpool fans out there. But as the saying goes, ‘In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king’. And, that’s only because people believe the bull he talks. That’s why he had to rid the dressing room of the experienced players, they would have just laughed at the nonsense he comes out with.
I hope and expect the Reds to pick up a few victories over the coming fixtures. The only problem being, these victories will only ‘paper over the cracks’. Hodgson all over again?
@Stephen – “That’s why he had to rid the dressing room of the experienced players, they would have just laughed at the nonsense he comes out with.”
Which experienced players did he rid the dressing room of? These are our transfers out from the summer: Aurélio, Amoo, Darby, Kuyt, Maxi, Aquilani, Bellamy and Adam.
Maxi and Bellamy pushed for moves back home, Kuyt’s move was all but done before Rodgers arrived, Aurélio had already stayed longer than his body allowed and Darby and Amoo don’t count as ‘experienced’. That leaves Aquilani – hardly in a position to laugh at anyone – and Adam. Other than that Carroll went out on loan.
The experienced players still here include Reina, Johnson, Agger, Skrtel, Carragher, Gerrard, Lucas and Suarez – all of whom seem happy with his methods.
Now what was that about coming out with ‘nonsense’?
They aren’t good points – they are ridiculous! I keep hearing about this great football we played last season, but I must have blinked for those times despite watching pretty much every minute of every game. The football this season is on another planet and to me our league position boils down to nothing more than lack of being clinical (which you can change with personnel) and a bit of luck.
@Kevin Barry re the first Sterling post – are you actually serious? He is 17.
Stephen. After last week I want to say this is not a personal attack on you but a genuine attempt to understand the bewilderment I feel reading your comment.
@Stephen – ‘even with his over priced signings, we were heading in the right direction’.
I’d like to ask how losing 10 of our last 18 league games under Kenny can be considered heading in the right direction. There’s only one direction that’s going in and it’s the Championship.
Yes, his signings were over priced but Suarez aside (as his deal was agreed before Kenny’s return even if it was signed a few days after his arrival) which of those over priced signings do you think were good signings despite the price?
When you say a lot of Liverpool fans are blind I’m inclined to believe you based on your comments. Last week you accused me of trying to point score. In light of that I’m genuinely interested to know if you were disappointed at Kenny’s sacking to the extent you aren’t prepared to give his replacement a fair go unless he comes up with immediate success. We don’t know how the future will pan out under Rodgers but I’m certainly prepared to give him a fair go. Are you? Finally, I’d like to ask you what you would do next if you had control of LFC, bearing in mind the past can’t be undone. Would you sack Brendan and if so who would you replace him with?
Kevin, Mike, Stephen, I do share your concerns to some extent, but no need to sound so hostile towards BR, I guess.
I disagree that we look worse than we did last season.
To say that Dalglish was taking us to the right direction while now we are set 5 years back is not right either. We were horrible last season. Horrible, clueless and there was no direction whatsoever. Players just kicked the ball about, and didn’t have much clue about positioning, etc. Steve Clark who now works wonders at WBA, where was he last season? Why didn’t he set it right at LFC when he had a chance?
With BR and this season’s display, I have the following issues:
– BR speaks too much. That might be endearing to the press, but ultimately, it harms the club. Too much talking the talk, and most of it is needless, especially when it comes to internal affairs, such as Sterling’s contract, etc.
– Gerrard. We all know what a player he was, and still can be. He is not being used to his power. Moreover, the way he is being used, disrupts the game and causes more damage to us than threat to the opposition.
– Aimless passing about on our half, wasting time when we are a goal down, and then just hoofing the ball out to nowhere and losing possession – is that tiki taka or tiki whacka? Something is not right there. If there is ‘death by football’, it’s more often our own ‘death’, not the opposition’s.
– Reina’s distribution – kicking it long on to Sterling, when there are big lads marking him, and he has no chance to win the aerial.
– Pace on the flanks, particularly Sterling’s, is not being used wisely. Sterling developed a habit to get the ball, and then instead of running fast and squaring the ball to Suarez, Enrique or whoever is in the box, he stops in the middle of the park, then tries to demonstrate his dribbling skills, trying to outplay 2-3 defenders, impressing the rival managers with his footwork. More often than not, he is being dispossessed. As a result, the momentum has gone, the defenders have grouped up, and we can’t get through them, or worse, we get a counter attack to defend…
– We almost do not use our counter attacks. Barcelona, by the way, scores more on the counter attacks than from positional attacks. We almost do not.
– Set pieces. We are being woeful defending them, and horribly wasteful on the ones we get. And we get plenty. Not sure about the exact stats, but it looks like we score about 1 out of 20 set pieces.
– Midfield. It simply doesn’t work the way it should. Neither in attack nor defence.
– Players sometimes look like they are scared to shoot on goal. They prefer to pass back or to the flank when there is a clear space and opportunity to shoot from the longer range.
– The only thing that was good last season, was our defence. It doesn’t work the same way now, and again, not because we have bad defenders. In fact, they are maybe best in the league.
That’s about it. If we sort it, we’ll be ok. Ultimately, the system that BR likes to talk about so much, is flawed. And that’s more the system’s fault than the players’.
Still, we look better this season. And the fact that we lost points on ref decisions… let’s see: ManUtd game: 2-3 points. Everton – 2 points, Swansea 2 points… and some other games, too. We’d be in a much better position with all the points that we were robbed of. Which doesn’t excuse the flaws I have listed, of course.
Jim fair points well made, however you touched on something there: Reina, Johnson, Agger, Skrtel, Carragher, Gerrard, Lucas and Suarez – if you can’t ‘do something’ with that spine of a team then something is wrong. Time will tell, and I hope he does, but the jury is still out.
As for ‘nonsense’: playing one of the best attacking midfielders in a pedestrian role, when the team is struggling to score, is crazy. That is not how you create a fortress.
Karen you ‘hit the nail on the head’, it’s not the players’ fault, it’s the poor game plan or system. It’s obvious he’s told the players not to shoot from range. I feel sorry for our more talented players. I’d love to slap Rodgers across the face with a wet fish and say, “Behave yourself!!”
Peep Show+Jamaican cake>>>>>>>>>>Samantha Mumba, every time.
I love the way last season is going down in folklore as a few tweeks away from greatness. It’s not how I remember it.
I think we were more than a “few tweaks away from greatness” last season, but equally our play – generally speaking – was better than our final league position suggested.
The last 3 months of the season were a write-off after the Carling Cup final win. Fourth place was already (practically speaking) out of reach and although it shouldn’t happen, players can switch off when there is nowt to play for but pride. We looked like a team that couldn’t wait for the league season to end.
I don’t know how many times Kenny got Pepe, Agger, Lucas, Gerrard and Suarez on the pitch at the same time, but it wasn’t many. Add to that the Suarez racism distraction, the influx of new faces and inevitable season of ‘bedding in’, and I don’t think a first trophy in 6 years plus another final, including victories (in all competitions) against the Mancs (both sorts), Chelsea, Arsenal and a league double against the Blue Shite is all that bad. Like this year, I watched far too many “how did we not win that” games and if things had been left as they were, it is difficult to see how LFC would not have improved their 2011/12 league showing.
I’m not a Rogers basher and it’s ludicrous to talk in terms of dumping him after one season, let alone half of one, but for the same reason it made no sense to ditch KD either. Basket case clubs like Chelsea specialise in that sort of shite and we shouldn’t be copying them.
As for KD’s signings:
– the jury is still out on Henderson; he could go either way at this point – presumably he’s been England’s U-21 captain for this long because others have spotted something in his play. Perhaps when he finally gets a stab at his favoured midfield role we’ll find out one way or the other
– Downing has been a flop, but there was nothing irrational about his purchase given the season he’d just had at Villa (leading the PL assists)
– as KD famously said, Carroll cost £-15m, not £35m. Does Carroll (still 23) plus £15m in exchange for Torres look a bad deal right now? A couple of good seasons from Carroll from this point on and he has significant resale value that Torres, 29 in March, just does not have.
So, let’s have more realism about what we can reasonably expect from Rogers in his first 12 months, but equally let’s stop pretending everything about the previous season was an unmitigated disaster. My personal opinion is that having called on KD in their hour of need the club owed him a bit better than he received in the summer, but what’s done is done. Let’s get behind Rogers and the boys and see where this experiment takes us.
@Brownie. To be honest mate, without trying to patronise you, I think you couldn’t be more right. I agree 100% with everything you’ve said. My problem is I’m turning into a troll. I don’t think what I put is inaccurate but you’re right – it’s not the full picture. This is what trolls do when we get into debates about things we feel passionate about. Stephen was right, it’s point scoring. I just don’t understand why we can’t get behind the club again. We’ve had some problems, we’ve still got a few problems but we’ve got what we’ve got. I think we’re jumping to conclusions too early. I say to my kids – ‘never worry about something that might happen’ i.e. only worry about things that are actually a problem rather than anticipating problems. Yes, be vigilant but not hysterical. My fear is this sceptiscm is seeping into the atmosphere at Anfield. Have you seen some of the atmosphere generated around the country in the Prem. In that league we’re certainly in the relegation zone. Anyway mate, nice to hear some realism devoid of prejudices.