Mil-ing Around

Good luck trying to get our forwards to play the ball around the box the way his team seems to. Has there ever been a successful Dutch coach in the Premier League? This is one hell of a gamble that we really didn't need to take.

I'm definitely not saying he's a bad manager. He might be a great manager. He might be tactically better than Klopp. But what I'm saying is why take the risk in the current situation? There is always going to be a dip post Klopp, it's kind of inevitable or expected. So just mitigate that risk and just steady the ship. Why take the gamble right now, it makes no sense. I've never heard of this guy, most fans won't have, many players wont have. It's crazy to give him the job at one of the biggest clubs in the world and hope he can handle it. He doesn't have the status to buy him time if it goes wrong. Hodgson was a stupid appointment because of his style of play and character. De Zerbi, might not be great, but we know what we are getting. We know his style of play but more importantly the players know his style. They would buy into him more because of his experience here. We need to keep our good players not risk losing them. Slot is the kind of gamble you take with a shit squad, hovering around 8th in the league. You don't need to take this kind of gamble with the team we have, it's mental.

If it's this guy, it's a pretty stupid appointment. Why take the risk on a manager from the Dutch league? Have they not seen how Ten Haag is doing We aren't in a bad situation, do I think Klopp is leaving us with this amazing squad the media keeps talking about?...no. But it isn't rubbish either. This is a good team, it's possibly 2 or 3 transfers from being a great team. Why the fuck would you take the risk and bring in a guy who has no experience managing at the highest level or even playing at the highest level? It's stupid. He doesn't know the league. He'll have no pull in attracting top players. If things go badly we'll likely lose our good players. Why would the guys with 18 months left renew contracts for this guy? Some of you scoffed at De Zerbi, but I said it from the start, just get someone with premier league experience. Steady the ship and review it in 18 months time. No need to do anything fucking stupid when you have a good team. This is a crazy appointment, the risk isn't even worth it.

You'd play Nunez? I was more thinking play mo up there or even try Mac Allister as a false 9. Something/anything that doesn't involve Nunez in the starting 11. We beat Everton if we play good football and pass the ball at the right times. We can cut them open. What we don't need is chaos, that's exactly what Everton would want.

It can't be corrupt lads. We are different in this country. The colour of our passport makes us immune to money and bias. Don't you know that once a referee puts on his kit it automatically wipes his memory of any allegiance he had the day before? Neville is a shouty little fucking knob. Who the fuck is he to say it 100% can't be true. Never mind that Forest questioned the integrity of the referee on VAR, BEFORE the game. Never mind that Clattenberg is an ex referee and definitely has way more information than Neville/Carragher or the rest of us. He knows the inner workings and knows refs personally. Maybe just fucking maybe it is true? Why not shut the fuck up, and let an investigation take place before you shout your mouths off, maybe there is a can of worms that needs to be opened. The arrogance of them two last night was what was embarrassing. Never mind the decision on 2 out of 3 of those penalties. The main stream media is pathetic, it's jobs for the lads, keep the controversy to a minimum to protect your pay packet. Not one of them says "hang on this has happened so many times some of it may be true" Wake up, it's happened in other major European footballing countries, so it might be happening here too you idiots.

. We will win the next 5

How people can blame Van Dijk or say he can do more for this goal is fucking crazy. This is the first run made by Mateta. He is VVD's man and he covers his run towards the near post. Robertson is picking up the other forward. Mateta makes a 2nd movement and run to go behind VVD towards the centre of the goal. Van Dijk stops and adjusts to cover this. At this point his position as the left sided centre back is perfect. Mitchell is about to cross the ball, if he goes low and hard VVD is at the front post and he clears it. If Mitchell tries to lift it, Van Dijk heads anything away in the centre of the 6 yard box. (If it goes back post it's Robertson's area) Once the cross goes through Endos legs Van Dijk realises there is nobody making the spare man and he still tries to get there. By the time the ball is played wide to Mitchell (before he even touches it) there is 3.2 seconds before it is in the net. In that time you expect Van Dijk to cover 2 runs by the striker, stay in line with Konate and jump out and block Eze? You people are fucking mental. Look at Konate in every screenshot he does nothing. He looks at Eze 3 times in that build up. And still doesn't step to his left. Jones also doesn't cover himself in glory. He's standing behind Eze and he jumps out suddenly to press Walton, he should have waited and passed him on to Ibu before pressing out again. Or just let Endo and Mac Allister press and stayed behind Eze. We have 6 players in that position (7 including Konate). They have 5, our lack of communication and discipline for this goal is shocking. But to expect Van Dijk to do more is stupid.

Yeah maybe you're right about Lijnders. I thought Buvac left because he wanted us to continue to be more attacking and gun-ho? And Klopp was slowing starting to think that wasn't the way to win finals and the league. (That was one rumour the other was that he had less and less influence and Klopp was listening to Lijnders more) But maybe you're right and Lijnders has too much influence in making us play a different style. A more controlled style. He smells like the guy who would have pushed for this inverted right back shit, that's for sure. I still think Klopp somewhat sticks to his pressing and aggressive style though. I don't think anybody can stop him or influence him doing that. I think the trouble right now is the players he's signed. They can't do it. But Klopp keeps making them try. They don't press very well and are often out of position. £200 million on Diaz, Nunez and Gakpo. Add another £155 million on Endo, Mac Allister, Gravenberch and Szoboszlai. That's a £355 million re-build. How many have showed signs of being truly top class? For me only Mac Allister so far. It is early days for that midfield, so we can't be too harsh. New country, tough league, different tactics, they deserve some slack. But that attack has had 2 seasons and they are still looking brainless and lost. No-cohesion, hardly much improvement and they still don't know what the other is going to do next. They are even pretty shit off the ball and can't press as a unit properly. The tactics need the right players to carry them out or change the tactics to suit them. But should we force the rest of our good players to play differently to suit the players that aren't as good?

I agree, but Klopp and Linjders haven't become bad coaches over night. The players are to blame for these slow starts. What's on Klopp is that he signed these players. Endo & Mac Allister are pretty slow and the attackers are pretty brainless. If they can't carry out the game plan, keep the ball, track runners, press correctly it all falls down pretty fast. Tbh mate our squad knows city more than anybody. They've chased them down to see them win every game twice (and win them effortlessly) Our team will wake up today and have a feeling that it's probably over. Not a feeling that we are still in with a great shout. So the pressure will be off in that respect. Add to that Jota, Trent and Alisson will get some more minutes and match sharpness against Atlanta. I think those 3 will make a huge difference and we'll win the next 6. But I just don't see city dropping points. They are on for another treble. They will be fully focused now. Our only hope is if City and Arsenal meet each other in the champions league semi final. Those games take it out of you. It might make city drop points somewhere.

I think we will win all 6 now actually. Alisson, Trent and Jota are back. 3 quality players. Also the pressure is off now. Sadly I think city will win all their games and it won't matter what we do. That's the killer. We've taken 1 point out of 6 in a title race. The form/confidence has been lost because of that attack. The defence and the midfield will be shaking their heads at how we are out the FA Cup, didn't win there in the league and didn't atleast get a point yesterday. That many missed chances then transmits to the rest of the team. Especially when the stakes are high. So they then make mistakes too. Missing chance after chance builds its own pressure, in a title race it's magnified.

The tactics can be questioned for sure. We are far to easy to get through and attack. Too many gaps, but why? Are Klopp and Linjders really that bad at setting up a team? History will tell us they aren't. They haven't suddenly totally lost the plot, forgot how to coach and position our players. The more logical explanation is that the players arent (or can't) do what is being asked of them. There is an argument to say that we should then set up differently to suit the players we have, and sometimes I'd agree. What Klopp has got wrong is his signings recently. The attack isn't good enough and he over hauled the midfield but bought 2/3 players with no pace (Endo, Mac Allister and Gravenberch isn't very quick either) But when you set up a team, and the attackers don't follow the plan or the patterns of play, it all falls down like a deck of cards. The slower players in the midfield have too many gaps and too much ground to cover. Our tactics (if executed properly, by everyone, are supposed to stop that happening) Those attackers lose the ball so fucking quickly it's a joke. They can't keep the ball for 5 seconds. They do brainless shit over and over. Neither of them know what the other one is going to do next. We can't sustain attacks anymore. We can't pin teams back anymore. We don't push teams back anymore .The midfield can't catch up play most of the time to ring fence the box to not let them out. Why? It's because the front 3 lose the ball in such cheap and stupid ways that we are immediately countered. Shit first touches, terrible passes, awful decision making. The midfield and defence probably can't believe we are out of the fa.cup and didn't get 3 points against United. They must have zero confidence in that front 3 right now. If you don't know what your team mates are going to do next football is hard. They miss control basic passes, turn into blind alleys, don't win headers and can't even create a chance when breaking 5v2. Doesn't matter what tactics you put in place, if 3 or 4 of your players arent good enough, you can't expect the other 7 to cover them. Not at this level and not in a title race when the stakes and pressure are so high.

That's it in a nutshell. Perfectly describes my point. And it's not just Nunez btw, Diaz probably wouldn't see that pass either or he'd cut back inside and try and shoot with his right foot. No point in replying to him mate, he hasn't got a clue. The minute someone posted the league table or stats you just know they don't have a fucking clue about what some of us are saying here. He'll even watch that video code posted above and think "oh well maybe next time" People think I'm bashing this attack and I think they are all totally shit. They aren't. They are good players but not great players or potentially great players. They have qualities and work fucking hard and play with a passion that I admire. We might even win the league with them, it's definitely not over. Our issue with them is Arsenal are good, really good, solid defence, good tactics, decent midfield and good wide forwards. All at a good age. They aren't going away. While City have pep they won't drop off, even after he left Barca, the tactics and philosophy he installed helped the next two managers keep that consistency and success. They aren't going away. We know how high the levels are going to be here for the next few years, we've been part of it already. You have to be bloody good to win this league and dangerous in attack to create a constant threat to worry your opponents, wins games and put pressure on everyone else. We are scraping through games at times, we don't look good in lots of moments and "largely" it's because our attack doesn't kill teams off and have a synergy that is a constant threat. Arsenal have it. City have it. We don't. If it was all down to coaching you could get any player from any club and make him brilliant and effective. You can't.

Exactly. Of course Firmino and Mane missed chances, no attacker scores every chance. But just look at how they made opportunities for each other and the type of chances they missed compared to what our attackers miss now. It's night and day. If Klopp, one of the best attacking managers in the world, can't get these guys to be ruthless attackers after 2 years, it's probably not going to happen for them. Yeah I agree, Klopps job as a coach is to get these players in the positions for them to be threatening. Our system and tactics do that over and over. They have to then execute. If anyone has ever watched the 15 minute training videos the club allow the press to view you'll often see them playing 6v6 with full size goals, on a tiny pitch, to mimic situations like yesterday. Fast counters/transitions, out numbered defenders, forwards have to find the right pass to create a good quality opportunity to finish. It's drilled into them. And that's why Klopps was going mental yesterday. When the pressure is on, in real game situations, they can't do it. Yeah for sure, I'm not shitting on them. They are good players but they are not top class players. They've still done great this season but sadly Arsenal aren't going to magically fall away, that squad is young enough to be around for another 5 years. City won't fall off a cliff and other clubs are also improving. If we want to continue what Klopp has built we probably should just cash in on 2 or 3 of them now. Everything behind the attack is in good/decent shape. If we can find higher quality forwards with better intelligence and better football brains we should just do it now. It'll keep us right up there with City and Arsenal in the coming years. I'm expecting a dip when Klopp leaves anyway but my fear is we persist with them and hope they come good and that could leave us much further behind.

And your fucking stupid if you think Klopp isn't the big factor for us being right up there. Not sure if you got the news but he's leaving and he ain't taking the attackers on holiday with him. You're also dumb if you think the next guy is going to get this team to perform at that level next season. The problem here is not the amount of goals we score or the quality of our shooting (although that needs improving). It's how we create the chances to score. United are a mess. We played against a shit back 4 yesterday and a dog shit goal keeper. We broke on them multiple times in 2 games, we had extra players, out numbered them, but we couldn't even put a chance on a plate for someone to finish. I didnt post this thread 4 months ago because I knew it would happen in these two games against United. It was pretty obvious back then and now it's being highlighted. Against a low block they struggle and even in an open game like last night, they struggle. They lack composure, ability and decision making. They don't see the right pass at the right time, don't make the correct runs and don't have the football brains to carve out really good chances for each other. You want to win the big prizes and be one of the best teams in the world? Well this attack ain't getting you to that level. They aren't bad players but they aren't great players. And if you want to win leagues and champions leagues consistently you need great players.

Made this post 4 months ago, was pretty obvious then that this attack isn't good enough. Dave U has promised me he's handing out week long bans for anyone who replies with how many goals we've scored or screenshots of Salahs stats. We've replaced Firmino and Mane with some pretty average forwards. They certainly won't get better when Klopp leaves that's for sure. Maybe that's one of his reasons for leaving (amongst many) because he's fiercely loyal and he won't just sell them to replace them. But deep down he knows. He's not stupid. You can't break through in the situations we've had against United 4v2, 5v2, 3 on 3 and not create a guilt edged chance in 180+ minutes of football. It's fucking criminal. It shows a lack of ability and composure and talent. Keepers great Defence good Midfield decent, maybe needs one more top class player Attack...you could easily sell 3 or 4 of them