The Woolster

Absolute bollocks, but if people repeat this enough I'm sure it will stick.

You've repeated the "resting with the ball" bollocks enough times as well, thankfully it doesn't seem to be sticking...

So here's the rub for me. Swansea spent most of their time passing backwards and sideways in their own defensive 1/3rd and they managed only a couple of % points more of possession?!?!?!!?

 

We on the other hand went hell for leather, tried high risk penetrative passes and dribbles at every opportunity and managed only 2% less?!?!?!?!?

 

I can't wait till he's convinced Gerrard and Suarez to cut out all that risky penetration stuff. And of course the inevitable reduction in chances (30% nice).

 

I'm worried that his whole strategy appears to revolve around reshaping our two best players to fit his pretty rigid system. At least benitez, for all his control-freakery, had the smarts to create a system with a big enough hole in it that Gerrard could do whatever he wanted.

The thing is, just because he did that at Swansea, does not mean he will do it exactly the same here. Our attacking players are (in theory) better than Swansea's, we should be able to keep possession higher up the pitch (as we did last season) better, and whilst we may create less chances than we did before, they should hopefully be of better quality.

But we won't really know until we have had a fair few more games.

I don't think he's good enough for either the left or the right. Anyway see for yourself how he scored his goals. As always turn the sound off

 

[YOUTUBE]rZeE2f_ZPVY[/YOUTUBE]

Can't go on Youtube at work, but at this stage I have to agree that he should be central. I also think Suarez would be more effective starting wider, and I hope they are swapped around.

Anybody who thinks Swansea having 57% possession and Liverpool having 55% are even comparable as an achievement, are fucking morons. We are Liverpool, most teams will sit back against us and allow us to have the ball.

 

Swansea who obviously were regarded as a "lesser" team weren't afford such luxuries.

I guess I must be a fucking moron then!

Unless of course I wasn't actually saying it was an achievement, but using it to show that we also kept possession pretty well too, irrespective of what the opposition did.

Lets not discount the fact that Swansea had the majority of their possession in their own half either.

Not sure where he started games but the positions he scored from are mainly centre/right of centre.

Fabio Borini Statistically compared to Liverpool Strikers | Opta Stats

Fabio Borini: Most Productive Starting Position

Using the stats available on Fabio Borini we’ve found that Fabio Borini scored the majority of his goals when he was started as a left-wing forward (LWF). He scored five of his nine goals when started as a LWF and averaged a goal every 1.4 games in this position (5 goals in 7 starts) whilst managing a goal every 3.5 games when started as a right-wing forward (RWF) and a goal every 3 games when playing the centre forward (CF) position.

The stats are taken from Whoscored I think, and to honest I am not sure how much I trust them as I think they use starting position rather than an average position, but apprantly he mainly started on the left of the attacking 3, which is also what Rodgers seems to think his best postion is.

It's not a complete change in philosophy, but the system(s) is much different. Movement patterns both with and without the ball, different players press in different zones etc. It will take quite a bit of time i think before all the players are comfortable and it comes naturally to them rather than having to think twice about what they are going to do next. I think towards the end of this season we'll start to really get to grips with it, but i obviously think and hope we'll get results along the way.

Thats more or less what I am saying (dunno if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me ot be honest, just had a couple of lunch time pints), I just think its not that massive a change and that we should be able to get to grips with it by mid season rather than towards the end. Like I said, its working on the training ground on the patterns of play. Its not a complete change in style, such as Big Sams direct football to Sammy Lee's pass and move, which what I was originally commenting on.

The players we had were already very comfortable in possession. The keeper was already an acomplished sweeper keeper. The players we had were already some of the best in the league at winning the ball back. They have the the abillity and experience of doing these things, they are just being asked to do it slightly differently and in diffeent areas. Its a slight change in mentality that will come through practice and repitition.

There is big difference between playing a passing brand of football and playing a possession based style of passing football

He was comparing Rodgers coming in after Kenny to Sammy Lee coming in at Bolton after Big Sam left!

By the way, Swansea had 57.6% of possession last season, we had 55%, so there wasn't really much difference in the possession stakes. (so far this season we've had 53.3%, but only 3 games, so can't read much into it). I think its fair to say we also played possession football last season, we just played it a bit differently. The difference is a slight change in mentatlity rather than complete change of philosophy, and its one that the players should be able to adjust to relatively easy. I would hope it won't take more than a couple of months of hard work on the training ground to get used to his patterns of play. The skillset of the players is all there, they are not being asked to do anything they either can't do or never have done, they are basically just being asked to be more patient, be prepared to start again and to press higher up the pitch.

Its not like we didn't pass the ball around before hand!

I'd immediately promote Ngoo to the first team bench. He's scoring goals and physically he has enough about him to handle playing against senior players. Championship is probably about his level, but he could offer us something we don't currently have and is worth a punt.

I agree. I went the reserves game against Palace and he attempted a bicycle kick, it was a bit like one Crouchie's efforts, although he completely mised the ball. But, it was a sight to behold, and I want the chance to see it again.

In the front three? I figured he played a bit deeper than that, like Silva does.

 

That said, Silva can push right on up there, no reason Suso can't. I've seen him more for Spain lately, and he seems a little deeper. Looking forward to it, though.

From the bits I saw of that tournament (admittedly limited), Spain seemed to be playing him in a kind of Modric role. I think as a young lad though, he was only ever going to come in on the right for us, too hard for him to come in and control the game from the middle at his age. I think he's been great there for the reserves.

I downloaded it as m4a and converted to mp3 but the questions are barely audible? Problem on my side?

 

Good and interesting answers in any case.

I found it a lot easier to hear the questions and responses on the Youtube versions rather than the TAW audio version.

He only signed a 3 year contract, so think he only has a year left, as I doubt its been extended.

Apparently Wenger went cold on M'Vila when reports of a terrible attitude started to surface.

I think I read that he beat up some young lad.

Should probably have said that whilst the transfer fees might not be too different, M'Vila's wages would probably be higher I would have thought.

Or maybe he rates both but realises M'vila is not what we need and would probably be nearly 10m more expensive than Allen? The only way we'd buy M'vila is if we were selling Lucas.

I'm not on either side of this discussion, as I haven't really seen enough of either to have an opinion of who is the better of the two, but when it was reported that Arsenal were interested in M'Vila, the asking price was stated as 'only' £17-18m, which surprised me. Only press reports though, so don't know how true.

I'm happy with either.

I think that Allen is a decent player, I don't think that he is signally better than the rest - but that is not why he is being bought. Not a single Red was declaring last season " What we really need is for Kenny to go out and buy Joe Allen".

There might not have been any (although there were probably some) who said lets buy Joe Allen, but there were plenty of us who said we need another midfielder with the attributes that Allen has who can both play alongside Lucas and replace him if he is out injured.

Joe Allen will help Rodgers - but he will not advance the squad.

 

It will be interesting, and telling, to see whether we have any competition for this bargain.

Liverpool increase bid to £15m for Joe Allen of Swansea - Telegraph

Initially, Rodgers was blocked from bidding for Swansea players unless a rival club made an offer. He agreed this as part of his move to Liverpool, but only on condition his former players were not the subject of interest from other teams.

 

That obstacle was removed when Tottenham made an approach for Allen, 22, prompting Rodgers to make his move.

I don't think having no competition for a signing is telling when it comes to whether it is a good signing or not anyway. Different teams have different needs and requirements, different budgets, different targets or may just know that the particular player might not have any interest in joining them.

Don't know why that many people are complaining about Allen's fee.

 

I understand and to some extent agree with the argument that we should spend the fee on pacy attacking player(s) instead, but I don't have a problem with 15 million if we are going to go after Allen. OK, maybe he's only worth 10 or 12 million, but it's not a huge markup and given Rodgers' obvious desire to bring him in they were always going to get the full release clause.

Ex-fucking-zactly

His 'market value' probably is around the £10-12m looking at similar players, for example Arteta went for £10m last season, who has a lot more experience, but has zero sell on value really, Meireles went for that price range twice, Henderson went for a bit more but was probably worth about that. And his value to us is probably a little more due to us having a new manager and he is an ex-player of his who knows exactly what the manager wants, there is clearly value in that, even if you can't really measure it.

But for years we complained about the manager not always being backed to get his targets when he only needed a few million more, Simao and Dani Alves spring stright to mind, and I think the manager should be backed. That does not mean he should be free to spend what he wants, but if it means paying say 20-30% over the odds to get someone who he thinks we need rather than his 2nd choice, then so be it, as sometimes it has to be done.

Get yerself on maxxed, footytorrents, *.ru etc and you too can see why inferring a player's tactical deployment from a statistical average position is unwise (even with a sample size of just 3).

With a 2 year old and a pregnant wife, I don't have the time I'm afraid. But If you have gone back and watched a couple of Swansea games, then fair enough.

By the way, I wasn't just going on average position, but also the heat maps showing all the touches which have Allen having the majority of his touches in his own half and Gower what looked about 60/40 in the attacking half. This is the opposite of when Britton played.

I may be wrong here put I believe that Masherano played further forward than Alonso going by average position on many occasions.

You may well be right, but they are different types of players being asked to do different things.

Average position? I watched the games.

So you watched the full 90 minutes of both Swansea against Stoke and Spurs, which were both 3pm kick offs?

I reckon these guys probably watched the games as well

Joe Allen Statistics

Requires the receiving players to move into positions to accept those kind of passes. That'll be one of they key things rodgers has to fix.

 

When britton was out Rodgers never used Allen as DM. He used other players. I think it'll be the same here. Spearing would cover Lucas but with Allen in support it would be more like the spearing who played alongside Lucas rather than the one we saw at the end of last season.

Thats not actually true. Even if it was, Britton played in 35 league games last season, so we are talking a sample of 3.

I've checked out the average positions in 2 of those games on Soccernet, Home to Stoke and Home to Spurs. Gower is the player who came in for Britton in both those games, and his average position was slightly higher up the pitch than Allen.

You shouldn't be looking to sell your best players, but every player has a price, and that should be higher than their 'value' if you really don't want to sell, especially if it is one of the big spenders.

I'd say Agger's value is between £15-20m, so we shouldn't be selling for anything less than £20m, but probably closer to £25m.

The important thing is, of course, who you get to replace them

So spurs are the example for us to follow, not being dismissive of what they have done over the past few years as they have finished above us 3x on the bounce. Although I would like to think we are setting the goals a bit higher than one time in the c/l in the ten years or so Levy has been there.

At the moment, Spurs can be an example for us because they have been finishing higher than us. If we can do in our transfer dealings similar to what they have, then we have a good chance of top 4, once we get into the top 4, we then have the higher spending power to spend how we traditionally have, with the intention of fighting for the league. Without a sugar daddy backing us, its one step at a time.

Me neither. The idea that without Champions League football we'd find an adequate replacement is fucking ridiculous.

Well, seeing as Spurs is being talked about in comparison to us at the moment, they picked up Vertonghen for a reported £10m without being in the Champions League, so its not so ridiculous.

You are right, its more like 48million, was not far though.

 

Its called the Transfer Price Index.

 

Also Heskey, 31million....

Having had a quick read, I would say this TPI still undervalues Shearer now. They have calculated the TPI using all the transfers in each season to get an average, so it is a good approximation to tell the difference between what an average player would have cost at different points (eg what Fletcher would have cost in Shearer's time). The 2 main issues are, without giving it too much thought, that there are more bosmans now than there were around Shearer's time, bringing the average down, but also the price at the top end of the market has increased quicker still than the average price.

Torres, on the back of an injury plagued and somewhat lathargic 6 to 12 months and having only managed to score over 20 league goals in a season once = £50m. Shearer on the back of being top scorer at the Euros, and having scored over 30 league goals in each of the previous 3 seasons = a lot more than £50m.