PODCAST: Man City 4 Liverpool 1 - Match Reaction

You did well holding off the realisation that Top 4 ain't happening until now, Dave.  I jumped on that train a few weeks ago.

We've got to stop thinking about what we're CAPABLE of, and look at what we are actually doing.  It's poor, and the sample size is substantial.

On that, and I know it's not pertinent to this game, but I am wondering when we stop thinking about Darwin's POTENTIAL and actually look at what he's doing.  As I say, in no way relevant to the City game, but it's the same talking point I keep hearing - "we're capable of...." / "when Darwin hits form..."

I didn’t see the game yesterday as I was travelling (so not AWOL). However, listening to the pod, there’s no consideration of Klopp’s role in the falloff. Everything discussed is about the failings of individual players but surely when there’s such a collective collapse, we have to look wider than that?

I could not love Klopp more. I think he’s the best manager in the world and would be gutted if he left. I also feel that this season is a perfect storm of loads of different things all hitting us at once and then that leading to a further mentality collapse. 
 

However, when are we going to question the formation or tactics? If we can’t press, why set up to do so? If the midfield is a mess with three in there, why switch to two and expect it to be better? 
 

Got to say, the level of criticism from Dave aimed at Trent with barely a passing reference to the fact that he’s been exposed all season by the way Klopp has set up the team is a case in point. “Fraud move” is an incredibly harsh way to describe an attempt to offer some fight. He’s been under the most glaring of spotlights all season for both Liverpool and England and his head is quite obviously battered. He then tries to show something as a local lad in a humiliating performance and yet it’s a “fraud move”? Why aren’t we looking at Klopp’s  failure to either protect him or improve him?

Also, the idea that he can’t play in midfield just “because” doesn’t stack up for me. With a player of his talent, if the manager can’t find a way to harness him for the good of the team, that’s on him.
 

We can’t say that every player has fallen off a cliff while blaming it on each one of them as an individual. This is a team sport where the manager makes things work collectively. I think it’s time to discuss that now. We’ve called the players gutless. It’s now Klopp’s turn under the spotlight, surely?

53 minutes ago, Paul said:

I didn’t see the game yesterday as I was travelling (so not AWOL). However, listening to the pod, there’s no consideration of Klopp’s role in the falloff. Everything discussed is about the failings of individual players but surely when there’s such a collective collapse, we have to look wider than that?

 

I could not love Klopp more. I think he’s the best manager in the world and would be gutted if he left. I also feel that this season is a perfect storm of loads of different things all hitting us at once and then that leading to a further mentality collapse. 
 

However, when are we going to question the formation or tactics? If we can’t press, why set up to do so? If the midfield is a mess with three in there, why switch to two and expect it to be better? 
 

Got to say, the level of criticism from Dave aimed at Trent with barely a passing reference to the fact that he’s been exposed all season by the way Klopp has set up the team is a case in point. “Fraud move” is an incredibly harsh way to describe an attempt to offer some fight. He’s been under the most glaring of spotlights all season for both Liverpool and England and his head is quite obviously battered. He then tries to show something as a local lad in a humiliating performance and yet it’s a “fraud move”? Why aren’t we looking at Klopp’s  failure to either protect him or improve him?

 

Also, the idea that he can’t play in midfield just “because” doesn’t stack up for me. With a player of his talent, if the manager can’t find a way to harness him for the good of the team, that’s on him.
 

We can’t say that every player has fallen off a cliff while blaming it on each one of them as an individual. This is a team sport where the manager makes things work collectively. I think it’s time to discuss that now. We’ve called the players gutless. It’s now Klopp’s turn under the spotlight, surely?

Agree with you about Trent. Apparently Jurgen thinks he cant play in mf but Elliot can and that is baffling because Trent is continually exposed and outnumbered whenever Harvey is shoehorned in. 

2 hours ago, Paul said:

I didn’t see the game yesterday as I was travelling (so not AWOL). However, listening to the pod, there’s no consideration of Klopp’s role in the falloff. Everything discussed is about the failings of individual players but surely when there’s such a collective collapse, we have to look wider than that?

 

I could not love Klopp more. I think he’s the best manager in the world and would be gutted if he left. I also feel that this season is a perfect storm of loads of different things all hitting us at once and then that leading to a further mentality collapse. 
 

However, when are we going to question the formation or tactics? If we can’t press, why set up to do so? If the midfield is a mess with three in there, why switch to two and expect it to be better? 
 

Got to say, the level of criticism from Dave aimed at Trent with barely a passing reference to the fact that he’s been exposed all season by the way Klopp has set up the team is a case in point. “Fraud move” is an incredibly harsh way to describe an attempt to offer some fight. He’s been under the most glaring of spotlights all season for both Liverpool and England and his head is quite obviously battered. He then tries to show something as a local lad in a humiliating performance and yet it’s a “fraud move”? Why aren’t we looking at Klopp’s  failure to either protect him or improve him?

 

Also, the idea that he can’t play in midfield just “because” doesn’t stack up for me. With a player of his talent, if the manager can’t find a way to harness him for the good of the team, that’s on him.
 

We can’t say that every player has fallen off a cliff while blaming it on each one of them as an individual. This is a team sport where the manager makes things work collectively. I think it’s time to discuss that now. We’ve called the players gutless. It’s now Klopp’s turn under the spotlight, surely?

When's it the owners turn then?

2 minutes ago, Moo said:

 

When's it the owners turn then?

Come on Moo, be fair the owners get questioned every single day, even when we're winning!

They've let Klopp down spectacularly over the years, and it's been worse since the title win (bordering on sabotage at times), but once the transfer windows are closed you have to use the hand you're dealt.

We've seen this before from manager's unable to adapt once their main tactical plan has been sussed out or has failed (Houllier's refusal to do anything other than play on the break being the glaring example).

20 minutes ago, Creator Supreme said:

Come on Moo, be fair the owners get questioned every single day, even when we're winning!

 

They've let Klopp down spectacularly over the years, and it's been worse since the title win (bordering on sabotage at times), but once the transfer windows are closed you have to use the hand you're dealt.

 

We've seen this before from manager's unable to adapt once their main tactical plan has been sussed out or has failed (Houllier's refusal to do anything other than play on the break being the glaring example).

Klopp gets questioned on the forum every day too, and rightly so he's made mistakes.  I've thought for a long time we're not getting 4th and that Klopp could have done something with the formation to help us this season.  But as I've said before I think he's made the decision to take the longer view and not throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Get the new forwards playing in the formation we will use longer term and hope to scrape enough points this season to qualify for the CL, then address the major system failing (the midfield of course) in the summer. It was a big call and it's not worked short term, it remains to be seen whether it will be the right call long term.

As for the owners, they don't really get questioned on the podcast (though I haven't listened to yesterday's one yet) and that's fair enough if the presenters don't want to go there.  But I thought Paul's post was suggesting it might be time to look a bit closer at Klopp on the podcast, so I don't think it's unfair to ask, FSG too?

Fair does mate. It's an arsehole of a season, I'm just glad it will be over soon.

FSG aren't the reason our away record is so appalling. Generally we're posting after games and that's what we're discussing. Personally FSG are pretty much the last thing on my mind when I'm discussing a game.

They might be to blame for us being unable to stay at the top of the league, but it's Klopp and the players who are responsible for us being THIS bad. So most of the talk is going to be on that.

There'll be plenty of time to talk about them in the summer window, depending on how that plays out.

On Trent and midfield, I'm not saying he can't play in midfield. I'm saying he probably can't play in midfield in the way our midfielders have played under Klopp. If we want to do something different then sure, he could play there. There's obviously a reason he's never been played there by Klopp.

The point about not protecting him well enough and helping him out more is absolutely valid. I think that was the plan yesterday by playing 4-4-1-1. It didn't work though, he was still exposed constantly and usually through no real fault of his own.

The decision to go charging off like that is either just a terrible, reckless decision or it was about trying to make people think he's working harder than the rest, hence the 'fraud move' comment. I'm not calling Trent a fraud, just referring to that specific act.

If I recorded it today I might have worded it differently, but equally I might not have as that's how it looked. It was definitely what I thought at the time when he did it, and it's a safe bet it didn't go down well with other players either who will have seen right through that.

What do you reckon the deal is with Trent Dave? Are there any rumours of him wanting a move or having beef with anyone? I've never seen a player with such a relentlessly miserable boat.

No idea mate.

But since he came into the team we've basically been brilliant the entire time (Covid season apart) so this is all new to him. He's never experienced bad times in his career until now so he has nothing to draw on to know how to handle it and get through it.

15 minutes ago, dave u said:

No idea mate.

 

But since he came into the team we've basically been brilliant the entire time (Covid season apart) so this is all new to him. He's never experienced bad times in his career until now so he has nothing to draw on to know how to handle it and get through it.

And this is where a decent captain should be helping him through it.

1 hour ago, Creator Supreme said:

And this is where a decent captain should be helping him through it.

He's too busy shagging the three lions while singing God save the king. 

Our away form is so bad because the opposition are more likely to go for you when they are at home, so they go for us and we absolutely shit our pants. Klopp needs to take a lot of blame, what do we do in training, why has not one thing been learnt all season not a single thing, we haven't improved one single aspect of our play or know where players especially new players should be. It's like every single person in the side has been given their own specific tactics and no one else in the team knows each others. Trent chase down a goalkeeper, nobody covers the space they all just watch. They do not fight at all if you called any of our players mothers, wives and daughters whores they'd slowly walk away and the other players would pretend they didn't hear it.

Even Klopps post pressers are the formulaic words of resignation and being stumped. I dont give a shit about not winning challenges in the right spaces, if they aren't doing it this far into this season they aren't doing it for the rest so look to miminise the weaknesses. I don't know what it is just do something, anything that looks like we do any kind of work during the week. This post sounds exasperated but I'm not, I'm resigned to it, we let the team stagnate and a transfer policy of seeing a financial opportunity for a money ball transfer alongside doing the absolute minimum we can get away with each transfer window has left a hugely unbalanced side. Bajcetic being important at the time isn't a good sign of squad development its a sign of how badly we've managed the squad.

I thought it was Nunez baldy was goading after their goal.

10 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

I thought it was Nunez baldy was goading after their goal.

Thought so myself at first but it was Tsimikas. 

3 minutes ago, KMD7 said:

Thought so myself at first but it was Tsimikas. 

Don’t doubt it Dec, I’m blind as a bat these days, plus Nunez would have reacted 

2 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

Don’t doubt it Dec, I’m blind as a bat these days, plus Nunez would have reacted 

 Ha ha now that you say it he definitely would have nutted him. 

5 hours ago, Creator Supreme said:

And this is where a decent captain should be helping him through it.

Don't think it's an England club thing, I just think he's shite.

Henderson is a luxury, you can carry him when your top players are performing and you're all over the opposition, but when the shit hits the fan he just doesn't have the ability.

Any side pinning its hopes on Henderson or Milner has got serious systemic problems. 

2 hours ago, Captain Howdy said:

I thought it was Nunez baldy was goading after their goal.

No-one goads a Uruguayan.

2 minutes ago, dave u said:

 

No-one goads a Uruguayan.

True

People don’t mention it much but our passing has been shit this season, we cant retain possession or control games without getting the basics right. How many aimless chips into midfield have we seen , our passing was superb last season, this has nothing to do with fatigue. 

11 hours ago, Creator Supreme said:

And this is where a decent captain should be helping him through it.

Henderson might be many things but he is not a bad captain. Are you saying he is?

8 hours ago, CapeRed said:

Henderson might be many things but he is not a bad captain. Are you saying he is?

Fucking hell.  He's a terrible captain.  

First of all, he's a coward who will never make a tackle, or take the ball in pressure situations - if the ball comes to him while he's being pressed, he'd prefer to put a team mate in trouble than deal with the situation.  He's usually in no-man's land when we need him to be positionally astute.  I don't know any prem player since Ronaldo who makes a worse first of leading by example. 

Second, he's got no tactical nous.  He's never made an in-flight change to how the team's set up.  In fact, he can't even spot the runners he's responsible for - too many opposition players just waltz by him into dangerous areas, and he doesn't track them.  He does like to point, but no-one bothers taking any notice.  He certainly wouldn't have the brains to cover for Trent for example.  

He's a born follower, not a leader.  And he's entirely typical of the players that will ultimately be responsible for Klopp's demise.  Not his fault at all, but a sense of misplaced loyalty means he's retained when he should have been shipped out.  

All that said, and I'm not being facetious here, but he does do a great job as ambassador for the club.  That's what he should be doing now.  

4 minutes ago, stringvest said:

 I don't know any prem player since Ronaldo who makes a worse first of leading by example. 

I couldn't disagree more.  I don't watch England, but I've heard or read much about him being a "captain amongst captains".  The younger lads especially look up to him.

I'm not saying he should be a shoe-in for the first 11, but to say he's been a terrible captain after what's happened over the past few years is to ignore a lot of contradicting evidence.  I know you don't like him, Stringy, but come on, man, that line above is way off.