Manchester United 3 Liverpool 1 (Sep 12 2015)

[tlw content]

Well on the bright side it was marginally better than the West Ham performance. Of course there’s also the distinct possibility that the Hammers are better than this Manc side so I’m not sure how much to read into that. This was bad. Very bad in fact, but at least we scored and managed more than one effort on target, so there is that.
 
In terms of a positive, I’m afraid that’s all I got. We’re just a bad team aren’t we? I mean, I look around the league and I see a dozen or so sides who look better than us right now, including the likes of Everton, Leicester and Palace. 
 
After those three clean sheets to start the season we’re back to normal now and have let in six in two games. So yeah, despite all Brendan's big talk the defense is still an issue. We’re not bossing games and dominating possession either, so the midfield is still an issue. And most depressing of all, we’re creating virtually nothing so the attack is a big problem too. Aside from that though we’re fuckin’ golden.
 
I wanted to wipe the slate clean and forget about last season, but I’m at the end of my tether with Rodgers now. Five games in and I’ve had enough already. It’s not about the results, it’s about what my eyes are telling me when I watch us. This is a terrible team right now and there’s nothing at all that is even hinting that things might get any better. If they were just showing me something, anything, I could put these last two results to one side and get behind Rodgers, but there’s NOTHING.
 
Just what is it going to take for him to scrap this one up front bullshit? When the line up was announced, virtually everyone thought it would be a midfield diamond with Ings up front and Firmino playing as an attacking midfielder. Instead they were shunted out wide and neither of them made any kind of impact on the game. Why the fuck would you do that?
 
What’s Brendan’s problem? If he wants to be married to this 4-3-3 system, then why is he overloading the squad with number 9’s and 10’s? In that system there’s only room for one of those (there’s no 10 in his 4-3-3), which means others are then stuck out wide in positions they aren’t comfortable playing. It’s stupid. If you’re gonna play that system, buy some fucking wingers, numbnuts.
 
When he appointed his new coaching staff he said it was to take the team “in a different technical direction”. More buzzwords and bullshit. What’s different now to last season? Aside from us creating even fewer chances I don’t see much difference at all. No wonder Pascoe’s lad was gloating about this defeat on twitter.


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[stringvest]

Great stuff Dave.  Though you're probably going to get the ironing board thrown at you at home :)

[StevieMax]

Good well-balanced report on a dire performance.  

I spent the whole first half trying to work out what the midfield was supposed to be doing (other than giving the ball away).  It was more unbalanced than a Scotsman at Hogmany.

(loved the women playing pool analogy).

[Biscao]

Great report.

[TSC]

Notwithstanding the contridiction re Firmino it's all a bit depressingly accurate.  Can't see where the next league win is coming from to be honest, wouldn't be confident of beating Norwich coming of a euro Thursday away, although Coutinho will no doubt make some sort of creative difference.  Don't know how good Bordeaux are but if they've anything about them then that's probably a formality.  We may scrape past Carlisle like.

[dennis tooth]

Elephant in the room is fsg need to go

[Baltar]

If anyone mentions that stupid fucking cliche about playing poorly but winning is a sign of a good team, I will shoot them. We played terrible in our first 2 games but won them. We played badly in the subsequent 3 games and lost 2 and narrowly escaped defeat in the other one. We're playing shit because we are shit, not because we're potentially a good team.

This is all down to Rodgers. Last season was down to him and we have carried on from where we left off from last season. Rodgers is not able to turn this around. We will keep seeing these terrible performances throughout the season and we'll get wins because of the quality of certain individuals we have which the 'lesser' teams can't afford to buy. But that's not enough, not when we've spent the money we have. Even fucking Pardew is light years ahead of Rodgers. Lots of teams are playing much better than we are, teams who have inferior players so it's clear that the manager is not up to it, he's out of his depth and should accept this and do the honourable thing by resigning.

[dave u]

There's not a chance he'll resign. Too much money at stake, he'll stick it out until the bitter end regardless of how bad results are. They'll have to sack him as he's not walking away.

[bigal]

First 30 minutes we had 3 free kicks around the half way line. What do we do with every one of them? Pass it backwards or sideways then back. No intention of getting forward, no thought that a big £30m forward might like a ball into the box to attack. Clueless.

[ritchie]

Yep. Overloading the squad with number 10s and 9s and persisting with 4-3-3 shows just how full of shit he is. Especially when one of those 9s and one of those 10s are stuck wide in the 4-3-3 when all logic beforehand suggested it was a diamond which would have actually had players in the positions they're good at (Milner wide, Firmino attacking midfield, Ings up front, Benteke with actual support).

 

Absolute shithouse tactics designed to protect Lovren because he signed the useless cunt. Why play as cowardly as that if you couldn't organize a defence if your life depended on it. And they're fucking shit United.

[s(k)aturation]

If he resigned now, I'd have as much respect for him as I did the moment after we beat Man City 3-2 at Anfield.

 

Very considerable.

 

But that won't happen, as Dave U says, so my respect for Brendan back then turns out to have been misplaced.

[Pureblood]

God help the next manager.

[s(k)aturation]

Or hopefully, he'll help himself.

[Pureblood]

Yeah, that'll work.

[dennis tooth]

God help the next manager.

As long as he dont win any trophies and can hoodwink the fans for a few years he will be safe, americans love white teeth as well as john henry says 'Floss thru the dross ride the floor flouride boy'

[Frank Dacey]

Great report, Dave, spot on in all respects.

Incidentally, Bordeaux's last result was a draw with PSG, which made them the first team to take points off them this season...

[goose]

I'm sure I remember Rodgers saying that he set out to win every game. We obviously went there with the sole intention of trying to sneak a draw. I'm ok with that in theory, if only because of how easily we've been beaten by the top teams previously. Lots of mid table teams do it when they play away. However, there are three things that the mid table sides seem to be able to do which Liverpool under Rodgers cannot.

1 defend properly, particularly from set pieces.

2 counter attack

3 offer some kind of threat from set pieces

 

Other than that, everything is fine with our away strategy. It's just the home form that's a worry.

[jimmycase]

Spot on report there. Sums up everyone's opinion on the manager. He's not turning this around without devine intervention and even then, it would only be shortterm respite.

[bossy]

God help the next manager.

This seems to imply that we are being unfair on Rodgers by expecting a coherent playing style, ambition and good results. I'd say it was the minimum requirement of any manager at any football club.

[Pureblood]

I just think whoever it is will be in for a tough time.

[Paul]

I just think whoever it is will be in for a tough time.

Agreed. It now goes with the territory. That's why I now believe we must hire a proven winner. There aren't any short cuts and the fans - absolutely rightly - will not accept mediocrity.

[bossy]

I just think whoever it is will be in for a tough time.

Of course they will, it's why they get paid the big money. You'd expect that somebody suitably qualified and skilled would be able to get us playing with purpose.

[dennis tooth]

If the job was easy it wudnt matter who we apointed

[Pureblood]

Agreed. It now goes with the territory. That's why I now believe we must hire a proven winner. There aren't any short cuts and the fans - absolutely rightly - will not accept mediocrity. 

 

Absolutely.  It's a shame we have mediocre owners.  

 

It has gone full circle.  Get rid of Rafa and hire the steady hand.  Get rid of him and appoint the club legend.   Sack the legend and get the up and coming prospect.  That hasn't worked so let's revert to the proven winner again.  Why didn't we do that in the first place...

[xerxes]

I just think whoever it is will be in for a tough time.

I disagree. I don't think the players we have are that bad, I do think they are being badly managed. Even the managerial elite would not complain about the money Brendan has had to spend.

 

You may be right that Brendan has royally fucked things up, but I think things could be turned a little easier than you might imagine.