To all those posters who think Carra is past it and shouldn't be playing anymore....

[Randy Marsh 14]

What match did he do his shoulder in, was it Spurs away? I can't be arsed checking like, but I think it is. We've lost 5 out the past 7 in the league and conceded some horrendous goals in the process. I know we've been shit all year like, but that tells it's own story. We miss him badly.

[Randy Marsh 14]

Too right we were rock solid before Carra got injured.

 

Oh sorry got that wrong we were fucking shite then and we are have got shitter.

 

We have been shite all season Coop I agree, but we look ten times worse without Carra in there. We defend like a pub team.

[Carradona 549]

Seriously though, has anyone else noticed this problem of communication within our team? They just don't seem to be talking or shouting at eachother on the pitch. The other teams we are playing all seem to be fairly vocal (with the exception of Villa...they were pretty silent too).

[WrongIslander 1]

What match did he do his shoulder in, was it Spurs away? I can't be arsed checking like, but I think it is. We've lost 5 out the past 7 in the league and conceded some horrendous goals in the process. I know we've been shit all year like, but that tells it's own story. We miss him badly.

 

Sorry but that reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons where Lisa challenges Homer's reasoning by suggesting because there are no bears and she has a rock that the rock is the reason why. Homer of course buys the rock. I believe this is also Liverpool's transfer policy pre Comoli (at least I hope it pre dates him!)

[RedKnight 5,660]

You'll always here Carra on the pitch shouting "out" to players when we move the ball out of defence.

[piscinin 4]

If you compare one player's strengths to another's weaknesses you'll get a pretty useless comparison. All things considered Agger is by far the most complete defender, Skrtel flits between the sublime and the ridiculous so often now you begin to wonder if you can rely on him, and Carragher is great for a deep backs to the wall game or alongside a really good defensive fullback.

 

All that being said, with the midfield being as porous as it has the last couple of seasons and the extra challenges some of our fullbacks have presented to our center backs none of it is all that surprising.

[Son of L8 266]

I honestly doubt we'd be all that much more solid at the back with Carra back in the side at the moment... Just a different sort of vulnerable. Carra / Agger would probably be our best pairing and some sort of improvement over Agger / Skrtl though, who just dont seem to fit together. Personally I hope and expect to see the Greek in on Sunday, as we're going to be doing battle with the knuckle-draggers. He is a potential liability, but with our defense at the moment its all about picking the right combination of liabilities for the situation at hand.

 

Absolutely right though in saying that there's major communication and organization problems at the back. I dont see Carra as a great organizer, but at least he does open his gob... Even if its just to scream unintelligibly at younger players and push them about.

 

The sunset of his career is approaching, but until new defenders arrive we could still do with Carra fit and in the side. Limitations aside, he does bring something that none of the other backs do.

[diego 0]

His influence on the playing style has been negative for more than two years. His dirty tricks - undermining other players and Rafa and his leaking of self-interested analysis to Usher and Bascombe - his politicking for lucrative contracts and future coaching positions in the club - justified his sacking some time ago.

[Carradona 549]

At least King Kenny understand how vital he is to our club going by what he had to say the other day.

 

Martin Kelly would also benefit and learn more from playing in a back four that included Carra than one without him.

 

Anyone know when he is meant to be back?

[JohnnyH 6,519]

It's sickening the treatment Carra gets by some of our fans. In short, they are the clueless section of our support.

 

I appreciate what you are saying and you are unquestionably correct when you say that Carra will greatly improve our defence when he’s fit again. However, as I’m sure others have said, this is more a sign of how poor our defence is then how good Carra is. That sounds a lot harsher then it is meant to. Carra is still a very good CB. Obviously not as good as when he was in his pomp, but still very good. However, our defence was bloody awful with him in it too recently, so there are more issues here then just bringing back Carra.

 

Also, I’ve highlighted your comment above as it is something I’ve seen said by a few people. What sickening treatment is he getting? I know one or two don’t like him because of some perceived excess of power he may have around the club, but other then that I don’t see anything that could in anyway be considered sickening. I don’t think questioning how good Carra is now is in any way sickening treatment of the lad. It happens to every ageing footballer. No player should or ever will be above fair criticism .

[Carradona 549]

I appreciate what you are saying and you are unquestionably correct when you say that Carra will greatly improve our defence when he’s fit again. However, as I’m sure others have said, this is more a sign of how poor our defence is then how good Carra is. That sounds a lot harsher then it is meant to. Carra is still a very good CB. Obviously not as good as when he was in his pomp, but still very good. However, our defence was bloody awful with him in it too recently, so there are more issues here then just bringing back Carra.

 

Also, I’ve highlighted your comment above as it is something I’ve seen said by a few people. What sickening treatment is he getting? I know one or two don’t like him because of some perceived excess of power he may have around the club, but other then that I don’t see anything that could in anyway be considered sickening. I don’t think questioning how good Carra is now is in any way sickening treatment of the lad. It happens to every ageing footballer. No player should or ever will be above fair criticism .

 

The sickening treatment I speak of is exactly what you mention there, Johnny. Except I believe it to be far more than just "one or two people".

 

It's a pity this search function on here is broken otherwise I could bump a particular thread from about 6 weeks ago in which there were plenty of people having a go at him for that very reason. People calling him all sorts and forgetting about the commitment and loyalty he has shown to us over the past 15 years (at least).

[TheHowieLama 10,886]

I'd have Hyppia back.

[dennis tooth 1,240]

Why are people so fucking blinkered when it comes to Agger?

 

What has he done to justify a starting place in our side. Did you all miss his completely shocking attempt at a tackle for their first goal tonight? He's a big wuss and needs to learn how to get stuck in (same goes for some of our midfielders).

 

It's sickening the treatment Carra gets by some of our fans. In short, they are the clueless section of our support.

 

I'd agreed with you on your last post until you wrote this.

 

Agger is a good player, yes he has made some mistakes lately and has a poor injury record but Carra has made just as many mistakes for me over the season. They've all been poor so to defend one and lay into another is a bit silly for me.

 

We need him back asap, for me, I would not sell any of Skrtl/Agger or Carra, I'd sign a top CB and make the other 3 fight it out. It's going to be hard enough to find one class CB never mind 2 or 3 and Skrtl is better than this season shows not sure why his form has dropped so badly. One thing neither Agger or Skrtl did yesterday involved hoofing the ball forward. Kenny won't fix the defence overnight but I think we will see a massive improvement over the next few games. These are the same players who kept clean sheet after clean sheet under Rafa, maybe they overacheived but they are not as bad as this and last season suggests, a bit more balance and beleif and a decent to class left back is what we need. I think people under estimate the problem not having good full backs can do for a defence, Glen has also been poor on the right side. I'm sure Kenny is aware of all of this.

[Wor Horse 11]

Get rid of Agger and Skrtel and get Cahill and Shawcross and get Carra to nurture them through.

 

Agger's made of crisps and Skrtel is a fucking shithouse, some Eastern European hardman he is.

[Lee909 11,540]

I agree with that

Subotic would be a good player but would cost about the same as Cahill and Shawcross combined.

[ngogswilly 348]

Agger and Skrtel havn't exactly covered themselves in glory. But our midfield is just getting bypassed in alot of games and its basically a constant onslaught against our back 4. Mistakes have been made, but its the law of averages.

 

You look at United and they are so solid right from the forwards down to the backline. They all work together well and most importantly they support their back 4. Because of that the opposition doesnt get as many chances to test them.

If United had a midfield letting them get bossed I'd bet you my nutsack that Ferdinand and Vidic would make a fair few mistakes too because they would be having to deal with alot more.

 

Carra would solidify us a bit more but hes not going to stop the goals. We need every part of the team working as a unit. Right now we look horribly disjointed all over the pitch.

[Wor Horse 11]

Telling ya though, for all his hoofing, Carra wouldn't have let Taylor-Fletcher run through him like Agger did last night.

[dennis tooth 1,240]

Get rid of Agger and Skrtel and get Cahill and Shawcross and get Carra to nurture them through.

 

Agger's made of crisps and Skrtel is a fucking shithouse, some Eastern European hardman he is.

 

I wish it was that easy, sell two and buy two. Simples.

[PaulMcC 13]

None of our centre backs are good enough. We've been shit at the back with Carra in the team too.

 

Agger would be good enough alongside someone who's class in the air and has a bit of pace. Agger was giving orders out last night i noticed, telling Skrtel were to be etc.

 

The biggest problem last night was Poulsen and Meireles.

[JohnnyH 6,519]

The sickening treatment I speak of is exactly what you mention there, Johnny. Except I believe it to be far more than just "one or two people".

 

It's a pity this search function on here is broken otherwise I could bump a particular thread from about 6 weeks ago in which there were plenty of people having a go at him for that very reason. People calling him all sorts and forgetting about the commitment and loyalty he has shown to us over the past 15 years (at least).

 

I know some people like to get stuck in. Sometimes I think it’s a reaction to the perception that some people can see no wrong in Carra and so the negative response can go overboard. Probably not dissimilar to the regular Rafa back and forths with the so called pro and anti Rafa groups. One group are perceived to be overly critical so the other group come in over the top in the other direction. The truth is, as always, somewhere in the middle.

 

I actually think Carra probably does have more power at Anfield then any other player. And I have no doubt in my mind that he will have said to the CEO or owners that he didn’t want Rafa as the manager anymore. But I’d have to question whether there is anything actually wrong with that. You want opinion from your senior staff. A decent and proper CEO will take it onboard and give it the amount of credence he thinks it deserves. Carra cares greatly for this club. But he is also human. Some things he would like to see happen could in the long term be really good for us. Some could be really bad. Apparently Carra was one of the players who endorsed Hodgson. That’s fine. So did a few well established posters here. Nothing wrong with that. It didn’t work out, and I think Carra would openly accept that now as have the others that supported his appointment on here. So we move on. Is Carra a poor judge of player or manager? No one knows, and we won’t know until he cuts his teeth in management.

 

But I agree that any of our established players getting abuse is wrong. Especially one so committed to us. However (there’s always an however) I’ve even noticed it myself that whenever Carra had a shocker on the pitch, I’d actually be quite nervous of mentioning it because I knew I’d get launched on by a number of people and be accused of been anti-Carra. A certain poster here (although not on this website) once accused me of hating scousers and the people of Liverpool because I once questioned, after a few bad games, whether or not we should look at replacing Carragher with a quicker and more skilful centre back. He is untouchable in some peoples eye’s and that will cause resentment in some cases.

 

What were we talking about again? Oh yeah. Your right. Abusing Carra is bang out of order.

[Wor Horse 11]

I wish it was that easy, sell two and buy two. Simples.

 

It really really is.

[dennis tooth 1,240]

It really really is.

 

Great idea on paper but we couldn't even get that fullback Young to sign for us. Any player we go for is likely to draw in other bids from clubs, even if players want to come to us, 2ndly selling Agger and Skrtl won't be easy, do you know how hard it is to get 2 top cb's? I don't think you do. I think thats just champ manager talk.

[Wor Horse 11]

Great idea on paper but we couldn't even get that fullback Young to sign for us. Any player we go for is likely to draw in other bids from clubs, even if players want to come to us, 2ndly selling Agger and Skrtl won't be easy, do you know how hard it is to get 2 top cb's? I don't think you do. I think thats just champ manager talk.

 

Suppose. To be fair though we wanted Young under RH and H&G. NESV and Kenny are a better prospect!

[Turkish Delight 322]

We have 3 promising young centre halves in Kelly, Wilson and Ayala at the club. My preference at the moment would be to have Carra playing alongside either Wilson or Ayala with Kelly on the right and to see whether we can develop a long term partnership between the three of them over the next 18 months while utilising Carra's experience.

 

Skrtel is not good enough and for all of the talk of Agger's ability on the ball the first thing I want a defender to be able to do is defend. If he can't do that then he shouldn't be playing. The Greek was a stop-gap and can't be relied on consistently so is a non-starter for me.

 

I do agree with the points about centre-mid. I think Lucas and Meireles have their uses but we need someone who will dominate and provide proper protection to the defence. Not conceding goals is not all about the defence.

 

Kelly apart the full backs need replacing too.

[dennis tooth 1,240]

Suppose. To be fair though we wanted Young under RH and H&G. NESV and Kenny are a better prospect!

 

Yep, we are still an unstable club atm.

Hope it is that simple though and we can just go out and do that but both above and below Kenny is a bit of a shambles right now.

So far he seems to have accepted moving forward with what we have, he doesn't seem to be in charge of tranfers, not even 100% sure he is picking the team after yesterdays selection.

We don't have a CEO, Commolli seems to do what he wants and is seemingly everywhere a once, scouting young players who are nowhere near ready to help us right now and from the media we seem to be looking at 'potential' attacking players but not much about defenders. He seems to be a law unto himself and has the freedom he doesn't seem to have got at other clubs, he has a 50% success rate on his transfers. Also not sure if we are gong to get funds to sign established players.

NESV are not showing direction it appears from the outside and still assessing a lot of stuff and reluctant to repeat mistakes of previous years.

 

Just to add, this is all a judgement based on what I am seeing so far, admittedly I have not a clue on the actual so this is all theory but that's how it looks to me. I do back the owners over the longer term and am happy with Kenny but not much else. I'm not panicking though as I see others do as I think we will get better.