PODCAST: Liverpool 2 Arsenal 2 - Match Reaction

Well, that was a laugh and a half…

Would be good to see Diaz on the pitch at the same time as Darwin, but that’s not gonna happen, is it, seeing as they ostensibly play in the same position, or at least seek similar spaces? I have a probably irrational suspicion that if anyone were to have some sort of inherent understanding with Darwin, it is Diaz, but we’ll probably need a change in formation for that to take effect.

Diaz probably not going to be the same player again. How many fucking players do we get ruined by injury

It was a bit startling to hear Paul go after Virgil in such a big way. Completely agreed with him too. 

Difficult for the refs not to stop play when a player is faking it to stop momentum.  The only sanction I can think of apart from adding on generous time would be to make any player who has caused the game to  stop wait until the next stoppage before coming on. 

Good pod, slightly harsh on arthur fowler however, when we currently have a worse arthur in our squad. 

13 hours ago, Chris said:

It was a bit startling to hear Paul go after Virgil in such a big way. Completely agreed with him too. 

Yeah. Weird one mate. I properly lost it immediately after the second goal. You can’t see it on telly but he did this kind of little “not arsed” face and shrug as he picked the ball out of the net. Just not having that from a player and leader of his standing. A true leader doesn’t get to just be an individual - and especially not when the chips are really down.
 

I totally get that the injury inflicted by that absolute Blueshite cunt has probably messed with both his body and his head in ways we’ll never fully understand. However he now needs to find ways of dealing with that which don’t involve shrugging off big fucking errors or making embarrassing mistakes in the first place. 
 

We one hundred percent need a left-footed centre half this summer to put pressure on his place. No-one can be a default first choice any more.
 

Don’t get me wrong, I reckon he can have another five years at the very top - he’s that good. However, he needs to earn every one of those years rather than just be handed them. He’s got to learn to adapt his game and (more importantly) his mindset to the changes in his body as he ages and deals with the after effects of serious injury. 

15 hours ago, aws said:

Difficult for the refs not to stop play when a player is faking it to stop momentum.  The only sanction I can think of apart from adding on generous time would be to make any player who has caused the game to  stop wait until the next stoppage before coming on. 

I agree with that suggestion.

Re the head injuries, I'd sub anyone off with a suspected head injury for a mandatory 10 minutes for a HIA as per the rugby union. If they pass, they can return to the field. It would cut the bluffing out immediately. 

I presume Trent playing as a hybrid midfielder was to counteract Arsenal having Zinchenko doing similar for Arsenal all season and matching the numbers in there but also because Klopp said we couldn't hold possession v Chelsea. 

1 minute ago, Razoray said:

I agree with that suggestion.

Re the head injuries, I'd sub anyone off with a suspected head injury for a mandatory 10 minutes for a HIA as per the rugby union. If they pass, they can return to the field. It would cut the bluffing out immediately. 

I should have excluded players injured as a result of a foul. Agree about the HIA but you’d have to allow replacements which would slow everything up even more. 

3 minutes ago, aws said:

I should have excluded players injured as a result of a foul. Agree about the HIA but you’d have to allow replacements which would slow everything up even more. 

I agree that it would slow the game up and would hurt you tactically but would players pretend to be injured for tactical reasons only to be subbed off for 10 minutes? 

Any mention of Paul Parker always reminds me of this. A bitter prick

https://twitter.com/PaulHHZ/status/1645520310605676546?t=DHhpUwNuP2Xqu73Zgrfs0A&s=08

46 minutes ago, Razoray said:

I agree that it would slow the game up and would hurt you tactically but would players pretend to be injured for tactical reasons only to be subbed off for 10 minutes? 

No and it would sort out the fakery but you wouldn’t want to penalize a team who has just had a player genuinely clattered in the head. 

Enjoyed that again. You's didn't touch on why the players can only play with the fans involvement. Paul has mentioned tonnes of the times the tactical requirements to be a Klopp player, particularly a midfielder. Those 2 things would be interesting to discuss, why do we need the fans more than other teams and are Jurgens tactics so special we can't move away from or only sign very specific players. Tactically we're not as fluid as the great teams of the past, Mo is an issue on this as he's essentially a right sided wide forward who limits the amount of formations we can play.

Another aspect you didn't touch on is the impact on Robbo if Trent becomes another 6. City and Arsenal both become back threes when their fullback head into midfield, in our case we would be losing our 2 biggest goal creators over the last 5 years in exchange for what? Just buy a midfielder that brings the stability we need and leave the fullbacks run rampage up the pitch.

Finally the biggest fundamental difference I have in opinion is what we learned from that. The concensus was nothing, I completely disagree. I think we learned we can still play when the attitude is right, we were aggressive in everything we done from 40 minutes on. This wasn't like the Utd game, this was against a proper side and we smothered them and ran riot, we tackled hard and often, how many times have we done that this season? City at home is all I can think of. My young lad played in an u9 tournament on Saturday,  he plays in the first team at that age but was giving a dig out to these lad who play 3 or 4 divisions below. Chatting to the coach after the 2nd game he asked me my opinion on the difference between the 2 sides, ability wise not a great deal in it but the main difference was they are Liverpool 2023 compared to 2019. This side was all about checking to see if the lad on the ground was OK, would they like a cup of tea while they're down there, would they like Alison to say a little prayer for them (remember Jesus was basically dead on the ground for a few minutes in the reverse fixture)? Nunez has been castrated since his red, it's only Robbo and Milner that ever leave the foot in, the 2019 version while not dirty had Sadio, Gini and a younger Milner who you knew where coming back for more, that's all this needs, aggression and plenty of it will sort all our problems. 

3 hours ago, aws said:

No and it would sort out the fakery but you wouldn’t want to penalize a team who has just had a player genuinely clattered in the head. 

They would have a replacement for the 10 minutes and if a player has gone down after having been deemed to have been clattered in the head then surely he should be assessed. 

I just think it should not be on "our" time. 

If it takes longer than a certain amount of time for play to restart without the player being subbed, the other team could have the option of an extra, say, 2 minutes plus stoppage time at the end. A solution needs to be found even if it’s not perfect.

Gabriel head "injury" plus the Thiago/Nunez subs took 3 minutes and 30 seconds, the Trossard/Kiwior substitution took over 2 minutes, Saka was yellow carded for time wasting and still there were only 6 minutes injury time. 

The current system encourages teams to waste time. It also can't be good for the brand to stop the play for 3 minutes when the atmosphere is at a high pitch, when the fans have to watch a fella pretend his head is sore and tv watchers have to listen to Neville, Tyler and Carragher waffle on about the best league on the world for a few minutes while the atmosphere dies a slow death. 

Makes no sense. 

The ref can simply pretend to not see the guy if he knows he's taking the piss.

4 hours ago, No2 said:

Enjoyed that again. You's didn't touch on why the players can only play with the fans involvement. Paul has mentioned tonnes of the times the tactical requirements to be a Klopp player, particularly a midfielder. Those 2 things would be interesting to discuss, why do we need the fans more than other teams and are Jurgens tactics so special we can't move away from or only sign very specific players. Tactically we're not as fluid as the great teams of the past, Mo is an issue on this as he's essentially a right sided wide forward who limits the amount of formations we can play.

 

Another aspect you didn't touch on is the impact on Robbo if Trent becomes another 6. City and Arsenal both become back threes when their fullback head into midfield, in our case we would be losing our 2 biggest goal creators over the last 5 years in exchange for what? Just buy a midfielder that brings the stability we need and leave the fullbacks run rampage up the pitch.

 

Finally the biggest fundamental difference I have in opinion is what we learned from that. The concensus was nothing, I completely disagree. I think we learned we can still play when the attitude is right, we were aggressive in everything we done from 40 minutes on. This wasn't like the Utd game, this was against a proper side and we smothered them and ran riot, we tackled hard and often, how many times have we done that this season? City at home is all I can think of. My young lad played in an u9 tournament on Saturday,  he plays in the first team at that age but was giving a dig out to these lad who play 3 or 4 divisions below. Chatting to the coach after the 2nd game he asked me my opinion on the difference between the 2 sides, ability wise not a great deal in it but the main difference was they are Liverpool 2023 compared to 2019. This side was all about checking to see if the lad on the ground was OK, would they like a cup of tea while they're down there, would they like Alison to say a little prayer for them (remember Jesus was basically dead on the ground for a few minutes in the reverse fixture)? Nunez has been castrated since his red, it's only Robbo and Milner that ever leave the foot in, the 2019 version while not dirty had Sadio, Gini and a younger Milner who you knew where coming back for more, that's all this needs, aggression and plenty of it will sort all our problems. 

Our results against the top 6 are good. Drawing with Arsenal just feels a typical kind of result, it would be equally typical to lose against Leeds. I think we can only learn anything from this game if it carries over to the next two and we see for the first time that the players have actually learnt something for the first time this season, that they need to show the same fight and aggression against the shite sides that they do against the side. It shouldn't take an incident to rile them, they should be livid from the start and eager to show their worth.

The blueprint for solving the 'injury' time-wasting was rolled out at the World Cup. Face 14 minutes injury time once and you won't do it again.

Our PGMOL and PL / FA officials know far better than those shit foreigners though.

18 minutes ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

Our results against the top 6 are good. Drawing with Arsenal just feels a typical kind of result, it would be equally typical to lose against Leeds. I think we can only learn anything from this game if it carries over to the next two and we see for the first time that the players have actually learnt something for the first time this season, that they need to show the same fight and aggression against the shite sides that they do against the side. It shouldn't take an incident to rile them, they should be livid from the start and eager to show their worth.

Our record against the top six isn't really that great. Nor is it that great against the top 11. It's more of a case of our home record being pretty good.

Lost at City, lost at old Trafford, lost at Brighton, lost at Arsenal, lost at Brentford, drew with Chelsea, drew at Fulham. Three wins against Newcastle (ten men), Villa and a terrible Spurs side aren't really enough for me to class it as "good"

16 minutes ago, Chris said:

 

Our record against the top six isn't really that great. Nor is it that great against the top 11. It's more of a case of our home record being pretty good.

 

Lost at City, lost at old Trafford, lost at Brighton, lost at Arsenal, lost at Brentford, drew with Chelsea, drew at Fulham. Three wins against Newcastle (ten men), Villa and a terrible Spurs side aren't really enough for me to class it as "good"

 

It's better than the 2 points from 15 that we have against the 5 teams that we have played in the bottom 9. If that was anyway normal, we'd be right up there. 

3 minutes ago, Razoray said:

It's better than the 2 points from 15 that we have against the 5 teams that we have played in the bottom 9. If that was anyway normal, we'd be right up there. 

Man that's grim.

We didn't even manage a solitary goal in our away games at Bournemouth, Everton, Wolves, Palace and Forest.

Born This Way is a weak facsimile of Express Yourself by Madonna.  Express Yourself should be played full blast through speakers tied to lamposts throughout the country at 7.30am every day.  These are FACTS, Dave.

Also, Jota's contribution to the first goal, and therefore subsequently the whole comeback has been criminally overlooked.  He got the ball in a tight space, turned and laid off a fantastic progressive pass - one of the few good passes up to that point - then drove forward with purpose, overlapped on the outside, eventually receiving the ball and cutting it back into a dangerous area.  Absolutely superb play it was.

I don't think it will be long until we all feel that Darwin coming on won't add that much to our progress.  Something has to change.  Yes, it may be instilling new patterns of play - I hope so.  Or it might be that the whole Ward moving on, and Klopp selecting an underperforming Jota over him are related and we have picked up a dud.

A few controversial opinions there...

Hold on, that implies that I don't also blast out Madonna's 80s catalogue, which would be completely false.