Liverpool Banter Archive February 24 2017

24 Feb 2017 16:54:16
A question for the Eds, in response to some of the GK bashing going on below and Harry's point that we haven't prioritised GKs in the past few windows.

Have we tried and missed out on any GK targets in the last 5 years, to your knowledge? I'm picking the last 5 years as its at least that long ago that Reina started going off the boil. Until the end of Rafa's tenure, at least, I would've pick Reina over pretty much any other GK in the league for several seasons.

Or am I reading too much into this and its really the coach who is the problem?

{Ed001's Note - we tried to get a few before settling for Mignolet. Begovic springs to mind, but he was not willing to leave Stoke at that time due to setting up a Stoke based charitable foundation at the time. Mignolet was almost a last resort signing to be honest.}

24 Feb 2017 17:19:25
Thanks Ed001, did we also try for Cech or was that an infamous smokescreen?

Would Begovic be interested in coming to us now, or is he another who now wants to stay in London?

{Ed001's Note - I don't know of any attempt for Cech. Begovic might be interested, but not sure he would be someone we should try for now.}

24 Feb 2017 18:13:43
The Begovic ship sailed a long time ago as he is no better than he was when we wanted him in 2013. As for Migs being a last resort, he has played like one as he was at the bottom of the list for a reason.

24 Feb 2017 18:58:16
I'd rather Begovic than Hart.

24 Feb 2017 20:45:48
Adrien from WHU would be a worth taking punt.

24 Feb 2017 21:05:02
Should have gone for Pickford last summer.

2 seasons ago I tipped him as a future star and I am just an armchair football fan. He was so noticeably going to be a top player. It is truly astonishing not one top Premier League team had the foresight to bring him in. Perhaps it was because he wasn't exotic enough? Hope he comes back stronger from his injury. He has the potential to be the best English player in this generation.

24 Feb 2017 22:34:55
Adrian?
Surely you're jokin?
Arguably the only keeper worse than Migs in the league!

25 Feb 2017 08:53:57
I rate Butland and Tim Krul.

25 Feb 2017 11:18:34
Good to see people actually realising the importance of a solid backline and GK along with attackers.

25 Feb 2017 11:48:26
I wonder if Butland is an option?

Is the general consensus that Karius has the potential, in which case maybe we go after an older keeper who can pass on knowledge as well as doing the job (Begovic? ) or do we buy younger a la Butland or Pickford, for example?

25 Feb 2017 12:18:41
Butland is too flappy for me. Really not an upgrade on what we have.

I reckon Karius, Ward and Manninger will be the 3 keepers next season anyway. We have committed to Karius now; or at least Klopp has. We have to get used to that I guess. With support and some good coaching, Karius could be great.

There is the problem though. We don't have a good goal keeping coach.

25 Feb 2017 13:07:24
I've not seen enough of Butland before his injury to comment on him reliably, but if he comes back next season and is as good as everyone says, I'd like us to go for him end of next season if Karius doesn't improve.

25 Feb 2017 19:06:29
Spot on, MK. BTW, Is it too much to ask that we support the GK Klopp has entrusted with the position before talking about who may replace him if he screws up?

24 Feb 2017 08:51:40
Ed1 what's your take on the klopp era so far?

do you feel his signings have workerd/ not worked? And, going forward, what would you see as a good way to cure our defensive and goalkeeping frailty? Is a change of coaches required or another more defensively minded one needed in the background.

For me, klopp still has a few players to move on from Rodgers time. Who just don't seem to have stepped up as much as others. Some like lallana are a different class now.
I think the goal keeping coach must be a problem area. The club hasn't changed that as far as I'm aware. Too many keepers are failing with similar areas of their game. Same on the defensive side of the game. We just don't seem sure in what we need to do.

I think this summer will see another clear out like last year. Klopp will move on who doesn't fit. And maybe bring in 2-3 first team players to fill the gaps.

Sorry for the long post. Your wisdom is much appreciated :)

{Ed001's Note - it is too early to judge his signings really. So far they have mostly been successful, but they have not had time to settle in and show if they are just a flash in the pan or if they struggled to settle in the UK or whatever.

I don't see an issue with our defending that wouldn't go a long way to being cured with a change of goalkeeping coach. I like John Achterberg, he is a genuinely nice guy and I really hope he becomes a successful coach, but right now he is not doing a good job and needs, either replacing or someone over him running the coaching sessions.

The main problem with the defence is poor recruitment in the past. The club signed players unsuited to the role they are being asked to perform. Lovren panics too easily and is far too rash to be a ball playing defender, which is what he was signed to be. Clyne is positionally poor, being nice, and hopeless at marking, particularly in the air. He also lacks quality delivery on a regular basis and struggles with his passing, all things needed to play the attacking wingback role. Less said about leftbacks the better! Though, thankfully, Klopp has been able to get decent performances there out of a player who was signed for a central midfield role he is utterly unsuited to.

The signs have been good that recruitment has been improved, with players targeted to suit the roles Klopp wanted filled. He wanted pace up top and signed Mane. He wanted physical presence, workrate and the ability to get up and down the pitch with a decent range of passing so he added Wijnaldum. He wanted a calm presence at the back and picked up Matip. Only Karius was a questionable signing, but he has not had the chance to establish himself, partially due to injury, partially due to having had so little work to do in his first few games.}

24 Feb 2017 11:30:24
The GK coach really is an odd situation, Achterberg has been at the club for 8 years now and is widely regarded (by fans anyway) as not being good enough, yet he has been kept on as GK coach by Hodgson, Dalglish, Rodgers and Klopp? Our last few GKs (first team and backups) have all shown the same problems, poor command of the area, poor at collecting crosses, poor decision making and poor communication.

Is it a case of him being a poor GK coach, are the above problems due to his poor coaching and if so how/ why is he still at the club, or are we just terrible at signing GKs, are we not able to see that they do not possess the ability to deal with / do the above and if so who is to blame?

24 Feb 2017 11:38:00
Well said Ed.

24 Feb 2017 12:52:05
Excellent appraisal, Ed. In the end, this is still BR's team and the mess he left still lingers on. Klopp has been very good for us overall tho, he has had his issues as well which he needs to face. The GK coach is a problem and needs to be fixed. We cannot expect our players to be improving if they are getting bad coaching, that's just a fact. I hope Klopp sees this and changes the GK coach cos right now, our GK's seem to be lacking the right coaching guidance they need to improve.

As for transfers, early signs show that Klopp has done a good job identifying players who fit his system, something BR had no clue about as all he did was throw stuff on the wall and see what sticks. It will take a while for him to move players who don't fit his style on and get in the players he wants. Till then, we go again vs LC on Monday.

24 Feb 2017 14:56:33
Guys .

Stop blaming BR now. He has long gone now.

I don't like this attitude of laying blame on someone who is not here now.

So is the opposite true then? The others who are performing - Firminio, Coutiniho (he came when Benitez was in charge? ) Origi, Lallna, Milner.

So will he get credit due to the same logic?

The team is Klopp's now and he is responsible for the tactics, subs, team and the result.

Cheers.

{Ed001's Note - did you really just say that about Coutinho?}

24 Feb 2017 15:20:50
Rafa must've signed Coutinho when he was about 14 then!

24 Feb 2017 14:55:30
It's a mix of both Scarface. Mugs was terrible back in his good old days at Sunderland. He was never going to improve. Karius is pretty much on the same level atm with optimism and hindsight of him improving. The problem lies in our recruiting. I don't want us to target the DDG'd and Courtios but there are awful lot of good GK's around Europe. ( I can't name any maybe Begivoc for an example )

You just can't buy a pro and hand over to any coach to make him a Buffoon. It's simply a terrible idea.

Karius makes basic simple mistakes over and over again which is a worrying sign.

Not bashing player or coach but we don't prioritise GK's and Defenders as much as we splash money on attackers.
And out style of play means we should be brining world class defenders and excellent goal keepers.

24 Feb 2017 14:58:28
Over the years the club has spend a truck load of money on attackers and hence we are strong in that front while our defence and GK's remains woeful and need to be coached? After spending over £300 million on transfers alone What are we left with? £9 mill Migs and £6mill Karius? It's all about priorities. If Klopp prioritise a good GK and 2 class defenders in summer, The club would make every effort to get them.

We always start the season with a dodgy defence and pay the price by the midway conceding goals up down and centre and this has been going on since ages. We have lost the title on two occasions courtesy of our awful defence.

We score goals for fun coz we have absolute quality up front while we concede goals for fun coz we have terrible players at the back.

Stop blaming others while the problem lies elsewhere.

24 Feb 2017 16:26:14
I may be wrong, but what I think samikewell was getting at when they said "he came when Benitez was in charge? " Was more rhetorical to make a point that people don't give rodgers credit for some of the signings (like the ones previous stated as well as phil) and of course as he obviously didn't people say no rodgers signed him. a tool to accentuate his point and make people give credit he may or may not deserve. Then pointed towards when he says about "credit due" for these signings. Either way I do not think he was genuinely asking that. On the other hand the question may be so ridiculous and unbelievable that I myself can't believe it and have thus assumed suck such silliness not possible causing me to read into it too much. Bugger me who knows.

24 Feb 2017 17:15:56
Ed1, who would you like to see coach our GKs? Frans Hoek?

{Ed001's Note - Xavi Valero.}

24 Feb 2017 18:18:56
Klopp has brought in Karius as the kid is clearly talented so let's see what happens with him moving forward cos he will be no.1 next season, instead writing his obituary after 10 mealy games. If that was the standard for judging players, half the team would already be gone by now. NBTW, BR did good things BUT do not outweigh the bad, sorry to say. If he screwed up or succeeded in some shape or form, he should get the blame or credit respectively whether he's here or not.

25 Feb 2017 11:22:56
Explain me Noah what at this moment are the glaring difference in qualities between Ward and Karius except the 10 PL games Karius played which has been again terrible? Tell me what was the need of buying another young gamble when you could have kept Ward as the second choice and brought a Class GK.
Please don't tell me we never had money. We spend £34 mill on Mane and £25 mill on Wijnaldum the same window.

25 Feb 2017 12:19:07
Harry, Karius was rated one of the best GKs in the bundesleague last year. Ward is clearly talented but doesn't have anything like the same experience or proven performance at the top level.

Karius needs time to settle and prove himself, he may have made a couple of mistakes but you can't judge a guy's career after 10 games.

{Ed002's Note - He needs at least 3 years transition.}

25 Feb 2017 13:02:58
Zimbo

Best rated GK don't go at £6 mill. Stop fooling around or stop bluffing. It was another gamble like Matip which has not worked well. Like the boss claimed he would need another 3 years of development. All moving round the same circles. Someone who does the basic errors every week cannot be rated as the best GK in Germany.

25 Feb 2017 19:41:50
Harry, that is a false equivalence that has no basis in fact. If you can get good value for good money, is that not good business? If your theory was the case that quality players should cost stupid money, what is Matip doing here or is Matip not up to your liking as well? If that was the case, how did we get a young promising Xabi Alonso from Sociedad cos he definitely did not cost stupid money yet was/ is top class? I can keep going as it is that easy to destroy your simplistic thesis.

LC got Kante for 8.5m and how did that turn out? If you want Kante now, it's 50m, easy. Your god Rafa bought 70 players through out his LFC reign and prolly like 10 of them panned out? Great scout, Rafa is, eh? Karius is clearly talented and we have seen glimpses of it. If your expectation was for him to become Reina, DDG or Courtois (all who were awful when they first arrived) right from the off then, that's your luck as the rest of us live int he real world where GK's make mistakes.

Karius will be the starter whether we like it or not and BTW, there are no top class GK's out there anymore so saying we need to get one is stupid ans none are available. Karius is the guy and we support him. End of.

24 Feb 2017 00:47:32
Genuine sympathy for Ranieri, think sacking a manager who's done the impossible for you. but saw someone mention Rafa in the other rumours page and had me thinking.

Not having a go but everyone is praising Klopp and saying it's the best football we've played in years, so under which manager do you think we played our best football? Can argue Rodgers in his near title winning season but for me has to be rafas team that finished second.

Had an absolutely lethal attack that could switch from defending to attack in an instant and had three of my favourite all time players at their best; gerrard as an absolute monster of a CAM running through defences and causing chaos with pure ability and strength, alonso controlling the midfield with absolute class, and finally fernanado doing what made him a legend. can say Suarez was better and regardless of how he left with us is still my favourite striker we had, just had everything; pace, power, touch, finishing and the ability to in a few seconds end a game.

Also have to single out Suarez against Norwich (the one he got four) as the best ever performance I've see from a player. Was in the stand at anfield and OMG that just wasn't human. Was that brilliant you didn't notice how bad the rest of the team was and would've single handedly dismantled anyteam on that form.

Your favourites?

24 Feb 2017 05:44:20
For me during the Rafa era. 2008/ 2009 period, we were about 2/ 3 players away from being the best team in Europe in my opinion.
Xabi, Mascha, sissoko, torres and of course Stevie. It was a real shame during that period that we did not achieve more, but credit where it's due to the likes of man utd at the time, they were simply superb.
That Rafa team was defensively sound, didn't we lose all of 6 games during two premier league seasons but unfortunately drew an obscene amount. In my 31 years on this planet, that was certainly my favourite era where we looked our best (discount late 80's please, I was too young)

24 Feb 2017 06:30:55
Rarely under Rafa did we play great football for sustained periods. Some great players and performances but far too defensive for mine. Rodgers had some great football and some dross. Evans for me as Kopp hasn't been here long enough to judge and as an Aussie, it was too hard to follow when Kenny was in charge the first time.

24 Feb 2017 08:37:26
How far back are we going?

No team has improved on 1987/ 88 but I could go back further.

24 Feb 2017 09:04:27
I find it really hard to compare when Klopp is still mid-era. one consistent thing I can remember tho is that we've consistently struggled to beat teams that park the bus. Altho rafa, BR and Klopp had vastly different systems / styles, I think a lot of that comes down to never being able to secure enough talent and creativity to consistently break teams down.

24 Feb 2017 11:19:26
Rafa had everything in his team. Class and Mass all over the pitch. Liverpool ranked the best club in Europe under his regime. Assembled the most complete team in decades. He was also the best tactician I have ever seen at Liverpool. 4-1 at OT, 5-0 against Real stands out.

24 Feb 2017 13:01:17
Rafa's team had better players than Klopp's team right now BUT I have to say, we did not see the type of TEAM performances under Rafa, like we are seeing under Klopp. Klopp's team is true heavy metal football. Fast, fluid, devastating and unplayable for most of the time. BR's team can't even compare as we only saw that in a 6 month period of his 3.5 years here as the other three years were utter dross so that is a false comparison. IMO, Klopp's system is built to last and seems like set on solid foundations provided the right players are there cos right now, he doesn't have them fully. If Klopp had the WC players Rafa had or the front 4 BR had for those six months with a better defence, I shudder to think what we would have been like.

24 Feb 2017 13:06:17
Thought Rafa assembled an absolute phenomenal team that was very well balanced. Had the best midfield (Alonso, mascherano, and gerrard) which was so perfectly balanced, a top defence, keeper, and world class forward. The only thing I don't remember him getting was a top wide player.

For example if you take that team that finished second and add someone like Mane then would probably be a contender for world's best team.

24 Feb 2017 13:40:04
Rafa was a fine manager but his teams were never great to watch. I think people forget this, at key times he set up too defensively and it cost him the league title.

I remember one away game in the middle of the season we finished 2nd when he named a team for an away game against mid table opposition (West Brom I'm thinking but not sure) with something like 8 or 9 defensive players (the 2 sub full backs played as midfielders that night) .

By the time he took the brakes off the team in the last third of the season the league was gone.

Will always love Rafa and what he did for the club, but when discussing what team was best to watch since the 80s I don't think a Rafa team really comes into it.

24 Feb 2017 15:04:09
None of the current players would get into a Rafa's team except may be Mane on the right while the whole Rafa team will walk into our team atm. That backline including GK was exceptional. Under Rafa we had 11 leaders on the pitch.

Rafa has already taken Newcastle to its best state in 8 months.

24 Feb 2017 15:31:27
I think the best LFC team I have seen was the one Rafa took to the 07 CL final.

Wide players were probably the only weak link that season as Kewell, Pennant and Gonzalez never really showed up most games, so Zenden, Bellamy, Gerrard or Kuyt were usually on wide duty!

Just look at it though; Reina, Dudek, Finnan, Arbeloa, Carragher, Hyypia, Agger, Riise, Mascherano, Alonso, Sissoko, Gerrard, Zenden, Crouch, Bellamy and Kuyt.

That was some side! Cannot believe we lost to that Milan side, but beat the stronger Milan with a weaker LFC side 2 years earlier!

24 Feb 2017 15:34:47
I agree, Rafa assembled but the best 11 in years, as we know the issue is our squad. Rodgers tried to address it by buying as many players as he could and then playing them all out of position. Klopp seems to be taking his time to assess exactly what he needs and hopefully will buy just a few to really improve the first 15-17 players. The most frustrating thing I've found is that we're we still haven't managed to secure a keeper worthy of a top 6 team since reina left. That would make the world of difference to our teams in these last few years.

24 Feb 2017 18:54:12
Why can't managers see the obvious, I agree, a top goalkeeper would make a huge difference, this would mean about ten points saved over the season .

24 Feb 2017 18:30:03
Harry, Mane ahead of Kuyt and Matip ahead of Skrtel are just two off the top of my head. BTW, how many player did Rafa buy to arrive at that team, Harry? 70 or so? Great scout of talent, was Rafa, eh? NOT!

As Fitzy said, Rafa had class players but sometimes he preferred to not lose a game instead going for the win which explains why he bottled the PL in 2009 after losing just two games and drawing ELEVEN (22 points dropped) . That might as well be 7 extra losses. This is where Klopp's team is better as he always tries to win WHEREVER we play. That's why we are very difficult to play against vs any team in the PL right now on our day.

Rafa was a great manager no doubt BUT at critical times, his baffling tactics have cost us games and points and the CL of 2007 where he played Kuyt as a lone striker vs an aging Milan backline. In fact, he bottled his tactics in Istanbul before that and had it not been the sheer will of the team and the fans (and a bottle job from Milan), we wouldn't have won that final. Rafa is not all that you make him out to be, my friend.

25 Feb 2017 11:27:01
Rafa won 2 league titles at Valencia after being 10 points behind the leaders Real at one point. In fact since his departure Valencia had 15 temparory or permenant managers all failing miserably. He is and always a world class manager if you know what a manager role is at a club.

25 Feb 2017 11:10:32
In my time as a Liverpool supporter ive watched Liverpool finish second 3 times. The treble winning Houllier side with Owen up top, Brendan's Suarez led team and Rafa's more tactically astute team. Think what you want about Rafa but the team he assembled with Reina, Carra, Alonso, Masch, Gerrard and Torres was up there with Real, Barca, Man Utd, Chelsea as the top teams in europe at that time.

I have high hopes for Klopp and feel genuinely happy/ lucky to have him at our club but we are a long way from the quality of that Rafa team currently. I'm not hating on the current squad, I'm just saying.

25 Feb 2017 11:39:29
Rafa love him, but far too political, doing the same at Newcastle right now, he just can't help himself.

25 Feb 2017 19:48:27
Spot on, Coming. Harry, a good manager manages the team to get results and does not pass his time playing politics, airing our dirty laundry and being a control freak hence, ruining opportunities to win the PL BUT still managed to bottle it cos his ego wouldn't allow him to see things clearly. Rafa was always a politician from his days at Tenerife, Valencia, to LFC, Inter and now Newcastle. Unlike many, I don't have a short memory and remember all the problems he himself caused even tho the owners were mostly responsible. I was glad they were all sent packing, Rafa included and thankfully, are NEVER coming back.