Should Gerrard be dropped?

[LFC 6 Times]

Fucking atrocious yesterday, and im the lads biggest fan. Whats happened to his shooting as well i havent seen him catch a ball cleanly for years, look at shelveys shot in the 90th minute yesterday when was the last time steve absolutely smashed one?

[Bjornebye]

he needs to be played up front in between sterling and suarez. no way can he be as effective in the centre of midfield, or even give him a free role behind the front 2 and have him on the edge of the box like lampard has been. he is our best finisher and still our biggest threat.

[WaltonRed]

He was poor but his head was probably battered from being bumped by the powers that be for the millionth time in his Liverpool career

 

It does our heads in so it'll do his head in too

[ritchie]

He was poor but his head was probably battered from being bumped by the powers that be for the millionth time in his Liverpool career

 

It does our heads in so it'll do his head in too

 

In truth he hasn't been playing well for a while. He's really struggled so far in Rodgers' system. He can't keep giving the ball away the way he is in midfield because we're conceding a goal every game because of it.

 

Playing Thursday would have been a factor on Gerrard's performance as well. At his age now I wouldn't start him in two games close together.

[ritchie]

Giggs has made 25 league appearances in each of the last three seasons, and 11 of them were off the bench last year.

 

That's where Gerrard should be; different styles mean he's deteriorated far more quickly (similar to a last ditch defender like JC being shot to pieces a good five or six years younger than Hyypia), but he's in the same boat; a past-prime legend that no top club should seek to build a team around.

 

You'll get a lot more out of him by giving him 15 - 20 starts per season, you'll get much more of the 'real' Gerrard by using him sparingly. No one in their right mind thinks that Shelvey is in the pantheon of legends, but rotating him with Gerrard will be good for everyone.

 

I expressed similar sentiment last season, and I've seen nothing to convince me otherwise. Whacking Gerrard in as an automatic starter as soon as he comes back from injury is naive or overly sentimental depending on the angle of who is doing it, but it won't get us anywhere either way.

 

Giggs doesn't play internationals either - and neither does Scholes. Whilst Gerrard was running himself into the ground at the Euros, Giggs and Scholes were resting their legs. As they have every summer for a long time.

 

Gerrard will have another gruelling 2x90 minute games for England now before Sunderland; Giggs and Scholes will have their feet up. So he'll turn up for the Sunderland game shattered.

[Tony Moanero]

Giggs doesn't play internationals either - and neither does Scholes. Whilst Gerrard was running himself into the ground at the Euros, Giggs and Scholes were resting their legs. As they have every summer for a long time.

 

Gerrard will have another gruelling 2x90 minute games for England now before Sunderland; Giggs and Scholes will have their feet up. So he'll turn up for the Sunderland game shattered.

 

Hang on, Giggs was playing Olympic football.

 

Get with the picture, dick-head.

[ritchie]

I don't understand why so few people get this. If we fill the team with players like Allen (who I like), Henderson (who I hate), Sahin, Downing, Borini etc, we''ll never ever score goals.

 

We need to have players who can make those difficult passes, and surging runs. Try a flick or bit of skill. Players like Gerrard and Suarez.

 

Simply recycling useless possession around our own half for 90 minutes isn't going to get many goals, and you don't get points for useless possession.

 

Yeah, but you can't have those players in the midfield three, you need to have them in the front three. The midfield three need to keep the ball ticking over, and keep us in possession, then you've got attacking full backs to provide width and three forwards to provide the creativity and goal threat. That's the system. Allen, Shelvey and Sahin are also creative players, they aren't water carriers, but, crucially, they can keep the ball in midfield. They were keeping the ball yesterday (although Sahin was quiet) and not giving it away cheaply.

 

What you can't have is one of the midfield three constantly giving the ball away the way Gerrard is. Often through simple passes as much as hollywood ones. It was killing us yesterday and it was at West Brom.

[ritchie]

Hang on, Giggs was playing Olympic football.

 

The Olympics was effectively a pre-season tournament. But even so that's the only summer tournament Giggs has played in. If he'd been at Euros and World Cups every other year since he was 20 then he wouldn't still be playing in the Premier League. And retiring from international football has helped keep him fresh. Scholes too.

[piscinin]

Siggurdsson the guy who played the same role for Swansea as Gerrard is here, had an almost identical pass %.

 

Get over it people, passes go astray, sometimes defenders even resort to nefarious tactics like tackling and shit. We need to be able to defend when we can't manage 100% possession.

[silverlining]

Yeah, but you can't have those players in the midfield three, you need to have them in the front three. The midfield three need to keep the ball ticking over, and keep us in possession, then you've got attacking full backs to provide width and three forwards to provide the creativity and goal threat. That's the system. Allen, Shelvey and Sahin are also creative players, they aren't water carriers, but, crucially, they can keep the ball in midfield. They were keeping the ball yesterday (although Sahin was quiet) and not giving it away cheaply.

 

What you can't have is one of the midfield three constantly giving the ball away the way Gerrard is. Often through simple passes as much as hollywood ones. It was killing us yesterday and it was at West Brom.

 

So this amazing sytem means that nobody in the midfield three has any responsibility to attack or make forward passes? All they have to do is keep passing the ball amongst themselves and occasionally to a defender.

 

Sounds ace. I think we'll win lots of games with this system.

[Tony Moanero]

If he'd been at Euros and World Cups every other year since he was 20 then he wouldn't still be playing in the Premier League. And retiring from international football has helped keep him fresh. Scholes too.

 

Agreed.

[lebron]

He is what he is. What he's always been really. You take the good with the bad.

 

Disagree completely with this. One pass and you have 2 on 2 with your central defenders. To me that says your 2, yes, 2 defensive midfielders are fast asleep. That the eventual pressure comes from full backs who were but seconds ago 30yds further up the pitch than them is a credit to them. Defensive midfielders not covering fullbacks in a system which has fullbacks camped in the final 3rd is a joke and the fact gerrard and johnson are taking stick for it is an even bigger joke.

 

And Gerrard's set pieces are fine. Not perfect, but good enough. You only have to see Agger's air-header to know our issue with set pieces is a bit more involved.

 

I've watched the goal(s) again now just to see if my memory had deserted me completely. My initial point was actually to defend Gerrard (somewhat) in this particular situation, as Zigackly correctly states (not often we agree!) we should be able to deal with losing the ball that high up the pitch. We can't do it all the time though, but that's another discussion. Regarding this particular goal I might have been a bit harsh on Glen too, but the fact is that after playing the ball to Cazorla, Podolski still managed to outrun Glen (as well as the DMs). I don't think he's that much quicker than Glen, so there was probably a combination of all our players not believing this would be dangerous enough to go full speed towards our own goal. Sahin isn't very quick, but you would think Allen wouldn't be outrun that easily. Anyway, as a right back it should still be Glen's job to follow the run of the LW (Pod) when he's in a position to do so don't you think?

 

A whole series of bad decisions as well as being outrun (as we were all day tbf). Some credit should probably be handed to Podolski too. He goes full pelt from his own (mid) half, and outruns both our CMs and Johnson before having the cool to trap the ball under pressure. The pass to Cazorla was class too, and caught both Agger and Skrtel off guard.

 

I've lost track of where I was going with this, so I'll stop right here:-)

[TheHowieLama]

Podolski worked his ass off all game and no one in our side - least of all Gerrard, wanted any part of a battle with Diaby.

[piscinin]

I've watched the goal(s) again now just to see if my memory had deserted me completely. My initial point was actually to defend Gerrard (somewhat) in this particular situation, as Zigackly correctly states (not often we agree!) we should be able to deal with losing the ball that high up the pitch. We can't do it all the time though, but that's another discussion. Regarding this particular goal I might have been a bit harsh on Glen too, but the fact is that after playing the ball to Cazorla, Podolski still managed to outrun Glen (as well as the DMs). I don't think he's that much quicker than Glen, so there was probably a combination of all our players not believing this would be dangerous enough to go full speed towards our own goal. Sahin isn't very quick, but you would think Allen wouldn't be outrun that easily. Anyway, as a right back it should still be Glen's job to follow the run of the LW (Pod) when he's in a position to do so don't you think?

 

A whole series of bad decisions as well as being outrun (as we were all day tbf). Some credit should probably be handed to Podolski too. He goes full pelt from his own (mid) half, and outruns both our CMs and Johnson before having the cool to trap the ball under pressure. The pass to Cazorla was class too, and caught both Agger and Skrtel off guard.

 

I've lost track of where I was going with this, so I'll stop right here:-)

 

haha!

 

Yeah I'm with you. I don't mean to absolve anyone of all blame, but seriously WTF were allen and sahin doing? It was like they didn't even exist. Britton routinely used to cover those runs at swansea, I guess Allen needs to learn that he has that responsibility now.

[ritchie]

So this amazing sytem means that nobody in the midfield three has any responsibility to attack or make forward passes? All they have to do is keep passing the ball amongst themselves and occasionally to a defender.

 

Sounds ace. I think we'll win lots of games with this system.

 

It's about playing the right ball.

[zigackly]

haha!

 

Yeah I'm with you. I don't mean to absolve anyone of all blame, but seriously WTF were allen and sahin doing? It was like they didn't even exist. Britton routinely used to cover those runs at swansea, I guess Allen needs to learn that he has that responsibility now.

 

I think you can probably blame half the team for that goal. Gerrard gave it away cheaply, the defenders were miles away from the midfield, none of the midfield dropped into the space to mark Cazorla, the fullbacks were over-committed, and Pepe might have done more too.

 

To blame it solely on Gerrard is the work of a genuine lunatic though, or someone who just hates Gerrard.

[ZonkoVille77]

So this amazing sytem means that nobody in the midfield three has any responsibility to attack or make forward passes? All they have to do is keep passing the ball amongst themselves and occasionally to a defender.

 

Sounds ace. I think we'll win lots of games with this system.

 

That's a far too simplistic view of it.

But if it was followed at least somewhat we might have 3 points now instead of 1.

[ZonkoVille77]

I think you can probably blame half the team for that goal. Gerrard gave it away cheaply, the defenders were miles away from the midfield, none of the midfield dropped into the space to mark Cazorla, the fullbacks were over-committed, and Pepe might have done more too.

 

To blame it solely on Gerrard is the work of a genuine lunatic though, or someone who just hates Gerrard.

 

Zig I think people are more pissed off with his overall attitude and lack of leadership than those particular individual mistakes.

[zigackly]

Zig I think people are more pissed off with his overall attitude and lack of leadership than those particular individual mistakes.

 

Is it not possible to have more than one conversation in a thread now?

 

I'm pissed off with those things too, but let's have some sanity and not blame him for 9/11 etc.

[FrenchEyeGlass]

He has been absolutely rubbish and I can imagine he cares much anymore - we aren't going to win anything anytime soon.

 

But I have too much anger and vitriol dedicated to the owners to reserve any for our best player ever.

[ZonkoVille77]

Is it not possible to have more than one conversation in a thread now?

 

I'm pissed off with those things too, but let's have some sanity and not blame him for 9/11 etc.

 

Fair enough. Still think his presence on the pitch makes a huge difference. Not only to our team but to opposing sides who know what he is capable of.

Just tired of watching him give up so easily these days. It's usually the sign of a player in decline and I think we are definitely seeing that.

[Delmar]

Some silliness here. 9/11 was not Gerrard's fault, that was all Benitez.

[TheHowieLama]

To SL's point - Diaby showed yesterday what we are lacking in the third midfield slot - won the ball in the middle third - looked up made a quick, accurate pass to a player forward of him then broke at pace beyond the ball to a more dangerous position probably a half dozen times - as a team I can't remember us doing that once.

[lebron]

haha!

 

Yeah I'm with you. I don't mean to absolve anyone of all blame, but seriously WTF were allen and sahin doing? It was like they didn't even exist. Britton routinely used to cover those runs at swansea, I guess Allen needs to learn that he has that responsibility now.

 

Yeah, at least until Lucas comes back, or Sahin comes back to full fitness. We looked properly unbalanced in the middle yesterday, particularly when they had the ball.

[MLB]

Shelvey came on and immediately started playing the type of passes - long and short - that Gerrard should have been playing all game.