Liverpool Banter Archive September 13 2014

13 Sep 2014 22:42:22
I saw nothing wrong with any one player today, except maybe a player position (playing 2 forwards upfront was the way to go). It was the team tactics, strategy and "killer instinct" in the final third that was missing. We look like world beaters when in possession and racing forward, but clearly vulnerable when having to defend in our third. I've said it before and will say it again - some new or additional defensive coaching is badly needed. I think the back four is finally good enough, but the tactical positioning in set pieces, and even in open play, is not at the level it should be.

I've read a few comments here where last team's year is seen as vastly superior. I disagree. Sure, Suarez is gone, but I think we are still a better overall team. Lovren and Sakho look good and getting better every game. From what I saw the other night, Emre Can will be the defensive maestro and attacking threat of the future. And I'm counting on Balotelli, Lallana and Lambert (and Rodgers using them efficiently) to make up for the goals shortfall.

We have to go with two upfront!

Went to watch the villa home game last year and it's the same same. We should have started more direct, as people are saying two strikers and go at them high tempo from the start. We would have the confidence to go all out attack, once we are in the lead against this type of team we hammer em. Alternatively we get be ten by a set play gaol and the they defend for the entirety. Personally would have started with balotelli and borini

14 Sep 2014 09:10:50
Do Lovren and Sakho really look good? Against spurs they were awful and we were lucky not to concede. Yesterday was no better, we were just lucky villa rarely attacked but the amount of times moreno and manquillo had to put in sprints and slide tackles to cover for that pairs mistakes was ridiculous. How £36 million worth of center backs can't notice that every single set piece is aimed at senderos and deal with his threat is beyond me. Individually they both have the ability to be world class center backs but together, at the moment they both look awful. New defense coach needed? The villa one will do, he's worked wonders with Aly Cissokho, who looked a different player yesterday.

14 Sep 2014 10:02:17
Kingkenny

I would never get an answer clear on this issue mate.
Every time Someone or Me raise a concern over Lovern and Sakho. We get bullied by some stats and French international games.

I need to sit down with Adam or whomever with a pen and paper and start writing down all those good qualities on Sakho. I can't see it on the scree, I am sorry.

That was not against the player, But would love to hear from people who has a better say on the game than me.

Past 4 games, they have been poor individually and as a team.

Agree with you on Cissokho, Kingkenny. He really looked good yesterday. I remembered all the slating he got on here all year long.

13 Sep 2014 22:44:38
I took you're advice and used the search engine to see the other comments about Markovic, I would like to say I have been bigging the guy up to anybody that would listen, and for the price we paid I expect him to hit the ground running. not need half a season to "bed in" may seem a bit hard but for £25 million that's what I want to see, same goes for Lallana, after the excellent display against Spurs last week I was expecting fireworks today, what I saw was awful, and I am sure we will improve, he wasn't the only one today but I did expect more, maybe that's our bad game out of the way, I hope so, some player have to take the chance of losing the ball when attacking the defenders, didn't see much of that today, anyway the pain is subsiding now and I will get behind the team for the next game and shout my lungs out.

Lazar was £20m but your point still stands.

14 Sep 2014 11:36:19
Ken

Ed002 points stands. He was dead spot on.

Maybe not half a season but also maybe not one full game! Don't care how much you cost you deserve more then one game to be judged on. Henry scored 1 in his first 10 games or so. Then looked what happened.

13 Sep 2014 22:24:08
Does anyone else think that Brendan was trying to make a point to the England setup by resting sterling, but it backfired with the result, also why on earth play Gerrard and hendo deep when we were clearly lacking bodies up front, still we are two points better off from the results against the same teams last season

Why would he try to prove a point to England Rob? he has a massive opening game in the Champs League on Tuesday and thought (wrongly) we had the players to cope with Villa.

Because he made such a fuss about Sturridge in the press that I think he wanted to make a point, also the villa game was the harder one of the two I reckon

13 Sep 2014 22:16:11
I think we all know it was a poor performance, but what did we expect with 6 of our new signings starting? 4 of them making their home debuts.

Players need time to gel, it was always going to take time, and I doubt Rodgers would have started so many new signings if we hadn't have had so many players injured. Sturridge, Allen, Johnson, Skrtel, Flanagan are all out.

Personally, I'd have started Sterling and was disappointed to see him on the bench. He is by far our best player. Would we have rested Suarez if it were him? No, in my eyes 4 days is more than enough time for him to rest and be ready to go again.

Anyway, keep your chin's up though lads, as Tommy Irish red said we will come back stronger.

Red Rum

13 Sep 2014 22:47:45
I don't blame players as much as BR. Playing Hendo as holding us utter rubbish. 4-3-3 is bot working. Resting sterling. Playing only one striker.
Listening to some fans here on midfielders getting goals another one.
Costa scores 3, As if Chelsea ain't have attacking midfielders.

I think there heads where thinking about Tuesday.
We best bring our boss game then!

Don't know what you expected with 6 of our new signings but I expected better. It is the third game of Moreno 4th of Lovern, balotelli is not new to the PL and neither does Lallana. No way we will have the run of last year so we need to pick points in these home games. Based on the performance of today when we will gel eventually it may be too late for top 4.

You cannot compare suarez and sterling when it comes to fitness.For me he needed the rest

14 Sep 2014 00:38:54
Wasn't that the reason, We bought proven plsyers from PL?

Bring another excuse mate.

Have they ever played together?

Sort your attitude out Harry!

Red Rum

They're professional footballers, the time to gel stuff is a bit of nonsense. Costa alone has more goals than our entire team- did he need 'time to gel'? There's loads of other examples, but in general if a player is good enough they'll fit in wherever they are playing.

That said, we played poorly as a team, neither the new players nor old were impressive.

A bit of a contradiction there RDL mate.

You say it's nonsense that players need time to gel, yet you say we "played poorly as a team", surely that validates my point? You go on to use Costa as an example. Costa was one of 3 new players who started for chelsea today if you include Courtois. We had 6. 3 of the back 4 are new and the full front 3 are new. You can't just field a brand new team and expect them to know each others' game. Look at Spurs last season.

If we are going to integrate players we need to do do it ideally a couple at a time not 6.

People seem to disagree with my point, but I'd like to hear one of the ed's opinions if possible (If your still awake that is).

Red Rum

{Ed001's Note - I agree completely mate, that was my thoughts too. The team were slow to attack because they needed to look for an option, rather than knowing there would be one there and just playing the pass.}

Alright- better example. Soton- lost their starting LB, starting and perhaps best CB, one of their starting RBs, their captain, and their primary striker. Yet they still managed to make things tough for us and stuffed (an admittedly poor) Newcastle side today. They don't seem to be having issues really. You will occasionally have miscommunication between new players, but I don't see it as a valid excuse at all for a completely anemic attack that only managed one shot on target.

The team was poor, but for me it had more to do with playing far too conservatively than anything else. Rather than push forward and attack, we played the ball backwards constantly. We were a goal behind for 75 minutes and yet probably still spent 10 minutes knocking it around between Sakho, Lovren, and Gerrard/Henderson even when we could have gone on the attack.

14 Sep 2014 06:25:59
RedRum

At this rate, all the players would gel by mid December.
I am sorry mate, But that's what the Coaches and manager's are paid for to get plsyers gel and play a formation together.

So how many ll retain their place in the next game? another set of individuals?

14 Sep 2014 06:29:07
Red Rum

forget my attitude mate, If players showed up 10% of mine on the pitch, We would have walked away with all 3 points.

We can provide comparisons to back up our relevant arguments all day. History suggests that some players need time to adjust and some just click straight away.
Its something that no one can predict with any real certainty.
However, players should be given more than just the odd game before they are written off or built up as heroes.
Familiarity and practice makes everyone more effective, so that would suggest that in general, players do need time to gel.
I made the point after the match that our issues were down to a combo of tactics, player familiarisation and match fitness of our front 4, I stick by this.
I have no problem with BR tactics from the start(except one up top), dropping Henderson deeper shows he has acknowledged the weakness from last years corresponding game. The fact that change of dropping Henderson deeper proved to weaken other aspects to the extent it did was a negative we couldn't overcome. But I'd much rather see him be brave and smart enough to make changes than not.

13 Sep 2014 21:12:53
30 passes forward, 3 passes back to the keeper.

13 Sep 2014 20:54:49
It's amazing how quickly things change. no hope after City, wonderful after Spurs n back to no hopers again today!
How fickle fans can be! We will be alright this season, we know we are behind City n Chelsea ability wise, probably on par with Arsenal with Utd being the unknown. But let's not write off our chances so soon, we were poor today but with the exception of Chelsea, the others have been at times also. I be more concerned if this kind of disjointed performance came later in the season.
Out of our front 4 offensive players, none have them have played together before(barring brief sub minutes). 2 of them missed pre-season through injury so will be lacking match fitness as is Balotelli.
So it shouldn't be a surprise that we lacked fluidity. but this will come.
If there are criticisms, I would ask why all 3 started? Knowing that all 3 would need to be subbed at some point, it leaves little flexibility for changes.
After 30 minutes, it was clear that a tactical change was needed and I would have liked to see Lambert brought on.
This waiting 60 mins to allow your tactics the chance to work is sensible, but not compulsory every game.
As it happened, BR actually made the changes when we were starting to get the upper hand and the changes took the away the impetus we were gaining away from us. But he was committed to this by selecting the 3 of them.
Also, the impetus we had gained was helped by his decision at half time to push Henderson further forward. He should have done this earlier, having both him and SG sat in front of the 2 centre halves against a team sitting so deep was negative.
Although I don't have major issues with resting players, I'd prefer to rest them when they go off the boil, not when they are the form player!
On a positive note, at least Skertel can't be blamed for our failure to keep a clean sheet!!!

To be fair, each of the performances was completely different. We were mediocre against Soton, looked good against Spurs, and were very, very poor today, thus the differing reactions to each game.

The issue for me is I've seen and know we are capable of doing much better than we did today- there's more than enough talent on the pitch to at least look competitive against the likes of Villa and to be honest only losing by one was a bit flattering to us. 1 shot on goal all game is just poor, no way around that.

13 Sep 2014 20:16:13
I looked at the line ups and thought Hutton, Senderos, Baker & Cissokho was one of the worst assembled defences in BPL history and then they embarrassed us.

13 Sep 2014 19:59:26
Our attacking play in both home games has been ridiculously slow and we seem to have reverted back to 'pass it around the back until the other team is set for us' form. I don't quite understand why we've moved away from the more quick attacking strategy that worked so well for us last season and against Spurs?

14 Sep 2014 07:04:58
It is BR's favourite formation. The 4-3-3 with plenty of passing, but little penetration.

13 Sep 2014 19:22:25
Not sure about 4th this season but we shall see.

13 Sep 2014 19:11:07
Eds fellow reds, great strides forward last year .fallen right back this year 75%of ball and only 2 shots .very DISAPOINTING will struggle to make top 5 this year .

13 Sep 2014 18:57:20
Not playing great but playing better than we were! It can be soooo frustrating to watch us at times. Borini looks like he is coming on.

13 Sep 2014 18:31:01
Villa are maintaining a really solid defensive and midfield line. We're struggling to get through.
I can see what Stevie and Hendo are trying to do. Play wingers behind the defense.
Would be great if Lallana and Markovic could take a man on, on the wings, and get behind the defence.
Balo is holding up play, which is nice to see, but the next step is try to bring in your teammates into the guy.
Come on fellas, get going!

We're really lucky to have Henderson, he's becoming a darling of the Kop

13 Sep 2014 18:42:46
Dont bluff. Henderson has been absolutely quiet till now. which match are u watching?

Henderson was probably our best player today and was one of very little positives we could take away so ask yourself, what game were you watching?

If not 100% Henderson has given atleast his 90% in every game.

13 Sep 2014 17:24:09
Good to see BR rest Sterling for his game and hope Lallana and Markovic will have a good game. Come on Reds let's do it and put 3 points in the bag. My prediction is 3-1 for the Reds with a brace by Balo.

It was a poor decision that can cost us 2-3 points today. he was consistently our best player, I think our top goal scorer this season and he is exactly what we needed to break the av organised defence. complacency from . shocking. q half performance credit to av extremely well organised in defence way better than usbr assuming raheem is not injured

13 Sep 2014 18:25:16
Seems it was a bad move to rest Sterling. We look toothless without him.

13 Sep 2014 18:55:02
Can't see the sense in it when we already lost sturridges pace.

13 Sep 2014 16:59:12
Just wanted to say good luck to Lallana on his Liverpool/Anfield debut and Markovic on his first LFC start :)

13 Sep 2014 16:50:00
Also really happy to see Marcovic start.
Can't pretend I knew much about him before he signed -so I went the YouTube route.

I was not impressed at all, djimi traore could look good on there and Lazar didn't!

But his two cameo appearances this season have completely won me round.

Just hoping he doesn't quit football to take us a in bolts records!

Ynwa

13 Sep 2014 14:18:56
Really looking forward to seeing new boys today. Time to earn their first step towards "legend" status.

13 Sep 2014 11:44:28
Gosh! Finally the International break is over
Time to enjoy some real meaningful football