Man City Vs Liverpool (August 25th, 2014)

[magicrat]

All last night did for me was confirmed what I already knew ...we are not as good as city , new players need time to adjust , we will miss Suarez and crucially Mig is probably not good enough at the very top level . I wished we had spent our efforts pursuing a top keeper instead of a striker .

IMO the team could have been improved more by doing this and just keeping Borini .

It's an issue we will end up having to sort out I'm sure and it's too late this window now

[TheRedMachine]

Good job we bought defenders to cut out conceding stupid goals. Fuck me. Never thought the keeper was good enough and we are still missing a massive prescence in front of the back foour. We just don't have enough protection there with Gerrard playing where he does. How Louvren is an upgrade on Agger is beyond me, but still ealry days and lots of talent to bed in. Top four will be a big acheivement this season.

[Bjornebye]

I don't like the look of Can. I looks like a right wanker. 

[Jairzinho]

Johnson is a nightmare, and so is Skrtel. No top defence can operate with either of these clowns involved, we need to get Napoli on the line and offer them back to Rafa for pittance.

 

 

Why not, Funnneeee? They have operated for in a top defence before. For us. Johnson has gone, mentally and physically, but I'm not seeing Skrtel as some big weakness in this side. We concede lots of goals because the whole side, as a unit, doesn't defend very well. Which is on the manager.

[Jairzinho]

I don't like the look of Can. I looks like a right wanker. 

 

Agreed, on the second part.

[Gym Beglin]

No Suarez = no title challenge. Deal with it.

Nothing would have changed if we had kept him, he'd have been banned until October. And we wouldn't have had the money to spend on half the new players.

 

Like Dundalis says, I'm fine with not challenging for the title this season, I think next year (and the next 5 or 6 years after that) can be our 'era'. Rossiter, Brannagan, Chirivella, Ibe, (and I like Lussey) all on the cusp within 18 months and the continuing development of Can, Markovic, Moreno, Coutinho and Sterling.

 

 

I do think that we're missing that player with magic in his feet though. We looked quite pedestrian up front last night when faced with City's brick wall, and our 3 front players were very narrow. That's fine if you've got a magician to nutmeg a player and make something happen, but we don't. Our joy came when we eventually started pressing down their right hand side and got to the by-line a couple of times.

[bouncebrigade]

Martin Tyler should be shot with a ball of his own shit.

[bouncebrigade]

I don't like the look of Can. I looks like a right wanker. 

 

I tend to agree.

[El Dangerous]

Did Lambert get credited with the goal then?

[billypilgrimnz]

Did Lambert get credited with the goal then?

 

He did his best to screw it up.

[Bjornebye]

Martin Tyler should be shot with a ball of his own shit.

 

I will be nicking this line. Quite a few in our work could do with that. 

[Gym Beglin]

Why not, Funnneeee? They have operated for in a top defence before. For us. Johnson has gone, mentally and physically, but I'm not seeing Skrtel as some big weakness in this side. We concede lots of goals because the whole side, as a unit, doesn't defend very well. Which is on the manager.

To be fair, I think I've explained why I don't think Skrtel cuts it in a defence that pushes up.

The defence doesn't work well as a unit, as you say, but considering that Skrtel has been at the club for six years, should he not be better at helping organising a defence than he is?

 

Don't let his goals last season cloud his performance as a central defender. Like I say, if he want to QPR then he's probably look brilliant, but QPR are wank and so his brand of agricultural defending looks wonderful. He's got no recovery pace and he's not clever enough or organised or confident or vocal enough to be part of a central defence pairing that needs to play 25 yards further up the field than a normal defensive line. Considering his size, he doesn't clear out enough headers for me either, he seems to get his positioning all wrong and he ends up 'challenging' for the header against a smaller player when he should be utterly destroying them.

 

I look around at City signing Mangala, and Chelsea signing Zouma, and it's pretty clear that athleticism, power and pace are pretty high value stock in a centre back. Sakho is sat there like chopped liver, the equal of both of them.

[Gym Beglin]

He did his best to screw it up.

Go easy on him, it's nerves, do you remember Crouchie's first goal for us? Doesn't matter how it goes in, just be in the right place, and he was.

[Denny Crane]

Not the end of the world as away at Manchester City is not an easy game. Don’t think we learned too much. Sterling is a right handful and puts the shits up everyone. Sturridge is not the ideal lone striker but it wasn’t through lack of effort yesterday as he gave it everything. Coutinho thrives on movement ahead to pick out passes if that does not happen he struggles.

 

Whoever Rodgers sticks in defence will perform less than the sum of their parts as the manager is not arsed about that side of things. Hopefully he realises it is a bit more than a man shouting loudly and pointing as the idiots on here seem to suggest. I would also seriously consider that Schnerdlin and Wanayama made Biscan look better than he is. But he is not rubbish but at first glance nothing special, the sum he went to Southampton for was fair.

 

I don’t rate Mignolet that highly but I think the worse thing we can do is change his game. He looks uncomfortable coming off his line and moving around. Certain keepers are brought up that way having  played like that since a very young age. You don’t just turn up one summer and try and rebuild a keepers game who has played 250odd games. Play to Mignolets strengths or if you are not happy get another keeper.

 

People will realise when a keeper moves only a few feet forward it changes the angles and the last goal was the perfect example. It’s not as easy as the sweeper keepers make it look, Mignolet did not know where he was.

[El Rojo]

I looks like a right wanker. 

 

Brave admission, whatever about the grammar.

[Jairzinho]

To be fair, I think I've explained why I don't think Skrtel cuts it in a defence that pushes up.

The defence doesn't work well as a unit, as you say, but considering that Skrtel has been at the club for six years, should he not be better at helping organising a defence than he is?

 

Don't let his goals last season cloud his performance as a central defender. Like I say, if he want to QPR then he's probably look brilliant, but QPR are wank and so his brand of agricultural defending looks wonderful. He's got no recovery pace and he's not clever enough or organised or confident or vocal enough to be part of a central defence pairing that needs to play 25 yards further up the field than a normal defensive line. Considering his size, he doesn't clear out enough headers for me either, he seems to get his positioning all wrong and he ends up 'challenging' for the header against a smaller player when he should be utterly destroying them.

 

I look around at City signing Mangala, and Chelsea signing Zouma, and it's pretty clear that athleticism, power and pace are pretty high value stock in a centre back. Sakho is sat there like chopped liver, the equal of both of them.

 

We played a much higher line than this five years ago. At times Pepe was playing higher up the pitch than our back four now. 

 

Alongside Carragher do you think Skrtel had any scope for organising the defence? And now we've bought Lovren, apparently with the specific job of organising the defence.

 

I certainly haven't let his goals cloud my judgement. I thought he was excellent defensively last season, in a system that made his job, and whoever was playing next to him, almost impossible. We're doing the same this season. Weak goalkeeper that doesn't command his six yard box, let alone 18 yard box, 34 year old deep lying playmaker protecting the defence, and two full backs that spend most of the game in the opposition's half. We'll concede loads of goals this year, and it really won't matter who the centre backs are.

 

City and Chelsea will have better defensive records than us because their full backs defend excellently, they've both got better keepers, considerably in Chelsea's case, powerful holding midfielders, and generally have a level of control in matches that we don't have.

[El Dangerous]

Do we even push our defence up? Seems to sit deep just as much as they are high. I thought that idea went out the window when we decided death by shit loads of counter attacking goals was a better plan than death by football.

[deiseach]

Last night shows why it was important to engage in massive lulz about the Mancs when we had the chance. In the long run, we're all dead.

[Gym Beglin]

We played a much higher line than this five years ago. At times Pepe was playing higher up the pitch than our back four now.

 

Alongside Carragher do you think Skrtel had any scope for organising the defence? And now we've bought Lovren, apparently with the specific job of organising the defence.

 

I certainly haven't let his goals cloud my judgement. I thought he was excellent defensively last season, in a system that made his job, and whoever was playing next to him, almost impossible. We're doing the same this season. Weak goalkeeper that doesn't command his six yard box, let alone 18 yard box, 34 year old deep lying playmaker protecting the defence, and two full backs that spend most of the game in the opposition's half. We'll concede loads of goals this year, and it really won't matter who the centre backs are.

 

City and Chelsea will have better defensive records than us because their full backs defend excellently, they've both got better keepers, considerably in Chelsea's case, powerful holding midfielders, and generally have a level of control in matches that we don't have.

You can claim he was excellent last season, but we conceded 50 goals in the league, so something doesn't tally.

I think Mignolet is an easy target, lazy target even, and it's a popular one nonetheless. I don't see Hart being a sweeper keeper, or Cech or Courtois for that matter. But what they do have is confidence in the players in front of them, and in the case of City it's Kompany who leads (but Zabaleta is hardly timid, same with Demichelis), and in the case of Chelsea it's Terry and Cahill being vocal and being confident.

 

I think Skrtel is a confidence vortex, he sucks in people around him. He's basically a 6'3" lad who was taught how to head a ball and clear a ball, and to be fair it's gotten him far, but Liverpool of today is different to the Liverpool of 2 or 3 years ago. He was good enough back then, he's not good enough now for this team.

 

It's a young team, he needs to be a leader, he turns 30 in December, the young lads in the team are looking to him as an experienced pro. I think Mignolet is cut from the same cloth, a meek man, and this is where perhaps the biggest problem lies, that we've got two players in the centre of our defence who are very meek.

 

As you say, the other issue is a 34 year old speed walker operating as a defensive midfielder. He's not good enough to get away with this now, the cracks are turning into holes. If Gerrard was Pirlo, then I could accept that two people could do more running for someone who ostensibly is a maestro and orchestrates the team, but he isn't, and he doesn't, so it's getting harder and harder for me to rationalise that two other midfielders do all his running for him.

 

Gerrard could be instrumental in Europe, but in the hurly burly of PL life I think he's going to get found out more and more this season.

[El Dangerous]

I don't agree that Mignolet is completely shit but you'd be pretty naive to believe he doesn't need to step it up. A good solid defence and DM might help him out bit it would also cut in half his chances to impress with great saves. The keepers mentioned aren't exclusively 'sweeper keepers' but they're not shy coming off their line and they command their box. I'm not writing off Mignolet, but he needs to improve facets if his game that don't exist right now.

[Jairzinho]

I disagree on Skrtel, and I think the 50 goals is no evidence of individuals not having good seasons. Put Cahill in our defence and it wouldn't have been much different, similarly Skrtel in Chelsea's. Every single goal in the history of ever can be described as an individual error by someone but I think it's quite misleading. Trying to say Player A cost us this many goals, or player B won us this many points etc, all utter tripe. Obviously I could be completely wrong and we'll concede 27 goals this year like Chelsea did last, but I won't be. It'll be near 50 again. Lovren/Skrtel/Agger/Toure/Coates/Sakho, it'll make minimal difference whilst we continue with the current shape/style/philosophy/organisation/set up etc.

 

Certainly agree on the midfield, if you did a combined midfield three from us and Juventus it would be Pirlo/Vidal/Pogba. They also, obviously, play in a less physically demanding league, and just generally weaker. I'm not entirely convinced that our good performance in the league last season is evidence that having a playmaker as our deepest midfielder is the way to go this. I honestly think I'd rather Stevie played about 15/20 games this year, much further up the pitch.

[KMD7]

I think those two have far stronger squads than the rest. No shame in not getting near them.

 

Consolidate our place in the top four this year. A cup and get out of our CL group. Would be a very good season for me.

 

I'd be made up with that too.

[Dicko]

I don't know if it's been mentioned but Simon Mignolet Is a fucking obscenity of a goalkeeper.

 

Other than that carry on.

[Mook]

I wasn't as down last night as I usually am after a defeat, there were positives to take from the game & very few teams will take points away from there this season.

 

Our bench looks infinitely stronger & that was sans Lallana & Balotelli, we need to dust ourselves down & aim to get three points at White Hart Lane on Sunday.

[Brigant Moloch]

Gerrard was very poor once again, Lovren was abysmal, Johnson wasn't our worst defender so that's a big improvement, Coutinho was in Toure's pocket (last week the same, Wanyama bullied him). Lambert's goal was a positive obviously, Markovic's cameo too. In Moreno we have leftback position sorted for ~8 years. Sturridge was too isolated, Sterling tried hard. As expected, the weak point was the Skrtel-Lovren-Gerrard triangle, Stevie's and The Leader of Men's positioning and defensive awareness are very poor, completely lost their men countless times while we had our best CB and DM on the bench.

 

Anyway, still very early. And MARIO. Fucking MARIO lads!