08 Feb 2015 13:48:44
so 14 matches to go and we have to face tottenham, arsenal, united, soto, city, chelsea . six tough games winnable though, here is the real problem - games against stoke and swans away . and relegation fighting teams like albion hull qpr and burnley . well top 4 ain't happening for us. let's make peace with that.
not as long as we keep changing our team for no apparent reason. and i don't understand why give gerrard his last derby match just for sake of it . we could have started sturridge got them two goals down and then have gerrard on for a derby win. or played ibe in front and had markovic in his usual place . and when lucas got injured, he could hv got lovren on and moved can ahead instead of introducing allen or introduce markovic and have ibe move ahead and get gerrard at defensive role .
i mean we have options, quite a few of them and rodgers just picks the worst possible one every time . a lot of fans would get nervy seeing ibe at wingback and gerrard up attacking
08 Feb 2015 14:41:28
Ibe was awsome at RWB he did a lot of tracking back and running plus he gives us another goal scoring threat, I think we need to take it up a notch and put markovic at LWB instead of Moreno.
I do think that Rodgers' decision making could cost us the top 4 though.
Everton were there for the taking yesterday and bringing Allan on and not taking Gerrard off was really bad decision making.
Taking coutinho & sterling off then bringing sturridge on was stupid aswell those 3 in the last 10 mins could have easily got us a goal.
But he showed yesterday that he doesn't have the balls to make the big decisions.
I actually thought Ibe played within himself a little bit, and he still looked good!
I've seen him play for Derby and the cameos he has had for us and seen him sprint a lot quicker. Only twice when he got crosses in from the byline did his pace really show. I think Moreno is doing fine, I think Allen is a fine player. The reaction he gets is similar to the one we had when we played Lucas/Gerrard as DMs at the start of the season. You can play one but not both.
Allen has a place it just isn't beside Gerrard. ever. Rodgers decision making is bizarre at times. Though I give him credit because at the start of the season I was adamant he couldn't and would never learn how to organise a defense and he seems for one reason or another to have done that.
Allen is nowhere near a fine player. That's the funniest thing I've read all weekend. He is a shocker and is nowhere near good enough.
IMO, I thought Allen played well vs Everton. But was he good because Everton parked the bus or was he good because he was atually good? A bit of both, I would say. BR`s decision making is still suspect and that would cost us Top 4 more than anything.
Thought Allen was poor, gave the ball away, knocked off the ball too easily and lost 50/50's. Him and Gerrard are not good enough to play in such a crucial position, for different reasons of course.
You are correct on that point, Dennis!
08 Feb 2015 21:50:11
Not read a whole lot on here since the game, but Allen was better than Hendo on Saturday evening. I thought he did a good job in the middle, sometimes he doesn't move it fast enough but he broke play up and is often open for a pass. Hendo was poor, not really sure what was up with him, just couldn't get himself into the game I felt.
Ibe was good. I felt he could have been quicker to potential tap in off Sterling's (?) cross. But he was bright and showed great maturity.
Can only feel Coutinho had a knock, otherwise replacing him was poor. Sterling seemed to disappear out of the game once Sturridge came on. Not sure if he just struggled to find space between McCarthy, Barry and Besic or he was just knackered, but when he was replaced I had almost forgot he was even still on!
Form often goes out the window for derby games, so a point isn't terrible, should have won though. Really big games coming up, confident of dispatching spurs Tuesday and then we'll hopefully really push on for top 4.
If we line up with Allen and Gerrard in the starting line up against Spurs, i can see them taking us to the cleaners. Gerrard is past it and Allen is about the poorest midfielder I've seen at Anfield since Istvan Kozma. When a team lines up against us and sees those two in the line up, they can almost smell three points.
Hendo and Allen and Gerrard were as poor as each other.
But in fairness the whole team looked off the pace.