Jump to content

coachpotato

Season Ticket Holder
  • Posts

    3,470
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by coachpotato

  1. At any level of the game, it has always been the case that you firstly have to meet the challenge from the opponent, then impose your superiority in terms of tactics and skill. There’s been many a good team overcome by an inferior side because they haven’t competed enough in the first place. Sadly, you can’t expect officials these to days keep it a level playing field by ensuring excessive challenges and general skullduggery get the response they deserve. We should beat them easily, they aren’t as good a team as we are, we all know that isn’t always the outcome, but we were due to give United a good hiding and did so, I only hope the same occurs on Wednesday night.
  2. Remember that time he was commentating after one of our games and he played “The Party’s Over” after we got beat and we then proceeded to win all kinds for years afterwards. A real “You never win anything with kids” moment. He worked for Granada and I never really felt he was overly biased, although a few seemed to think he liked United and not us. Always thought he was decent as a commentator. Old school along the lines of Wolstenholme, Brian Moore, Coleman etc.. 91. RIP.
  3. Doesn’t matter about how big Villa are in relation to the two Scottish clubs, Villa are playing in a much tougher and competitive league, it is that which will test Gerrard as a Coach more than anything else, whether it’s Villa or someone else.
  4. Alisson is a big lad, it’s up to him to organise the other players at corners and free kicks, he’s effectively the captain in the box. For someone his size, he doesn’t seem to stamp his authority at dead ball situations, he should be flattening any fucker who gets in his way, and if you compare him to, say, Clemence who was quite slight in comparison when the game was much tougher, he really looks like a fanny at times. He makes good stops and is generally very good at 1 on 1 situations to be fair, but many teams best chances and tactics are relying on corners and free kicks against us so we need to be tougher all round when defending those situations.
  5. I think yesterday’s defeat hasn’t really surprised anyone on here. It was like when we were top of the league last season around Christmas/New Year time, many sensed then we weren’t playing well, despite the fact we were still top. We just knew things weren’t right and that there were issues that needed addressing that should have been addressed during the summer, and that then didn’t get sorted during the January transfer window either. Hence we struggled and had to rely on a really late surge, and a goal from Alisson, to get us into the CL places. That sense of deja vu has been around for a little while, remembering we hammered Palace 7-0 before starting a weak run, then seeing us hammer United 5-0 and drop points against Brighton and now West Ham, it might be playing on Klopp’s mind too, which could explain his “prickly” reaction after the game yesterday. Whether we have the manager and players to reinforce, change or tweak tactics should be something we see after the break. I hope we do see that change as we’re conceding too many soft goals currently. But all the tactics in the world won’t counter individual and collective mistakes such as some of those seen recently, and those mistakes might be because the players involved are not getting enough rest, or simply that they are getting older, and aren’t capable of regaining that 5% drop in performance that will happen. If that’s only happening to one or two then it’s not critical, but any more than that and it could be.
  6. We’re suffering from a lack of continuous improvement in the squad overall. With the players we have, we play the same way every week and half decent teams, well organised teams, are able to give us problems because they’ve been able to see how we are set up and counter that. Fair play, we’ve scored goals against teams too, because not all teams are able to maintain the discipline that is needed to keep us out, but whereas we blew away even decent teams a couple of seasons ago, we’re not able to do that now, unless you count United as a decent team of course. Changes in personnel are a part of maintaining success to keep things fresh and allow changes, they keep other teams guessing, it also allows you to alter your tactics and have variation. We haven’t had too many of those changes and, not to forget, we’ve had our share of injuries, which don’t help either. With the AFCON coming up, we’re going to be further weakened and I can see us dropping further points, however, I’m not convinced there’s a stand out team either from what I’ve seen so far, so it’s imperative we go again after the break and put together another 25 game run, today was poor, but that becomes a concern if there are similar performances in the future, we aren’t out of it, but we can’t afford to be as sloppy as we were today in too many more games.
  7. They can’t blame anything, or anybody else, without acknowledging they have been their own worst enemies, and responsible for their own failure to become the big club they have convinced themselves they would have been had Heysel not happened. Conveniently ignoring that they would have actually had to go on and win the European Cup first, (which of course was a given in their minds) then maintain that kind of form against a Liverpool team that beat them to both League and Cup in the following season, after they had signed Lineker.
  8. They’re missing Griezeman as he’s suspended. I wouldn’t believe any of the others until the team is named.
  9. I think Spurs fans should get their heads out of their arses and be reminded of the phrase “Beggars can’t be choosers”.
  10. Ideal world perhaps, but maybe we’ll see some returning soon and keeping themselves fit!
  11. But we’ve got a right back to cover Trent, and Gomez has played there for us and England, he could even be put into midfield to cover there, the difference is that even if we put square pegs into round holes in midfield, we still have round pegs in round holes behind them whereas last season we weakened both midfield and back four through injuries and moving midfielders back there.
  12. Brighton targeted us down our right side, as lots of teams do because Trent gets caught forward, a lot, and unless there’s a midfielder to cover that, then a CB has to come out of position as Konate did yesterday. Lallana might have given Potter more insight into how certain players play and that might have led to them finer tuning their tactics, they did play a very good game to be fair and were opening us up way too easily. We’re still getting van Dijk up to speed, Robbo has been out of sorts, an ineffective midfield, they met us at the right time and still didn’t beat us.
  13. Craig Hignett on Radio Merseyside last night said that Bellingham was in the bag, he couldn’t say who his source was (hmmm) but it was happening. I know, I know, but if it’s true, then we would appear to be changing the guard in midfield with the likes of Jones (20), Elliot(18) and Bellingham (17) to a much younger profile. It would at least show the club has recognised the need to move on (probably) Milner, Henderson and Chamberlain for age/unreliability reasons, possibly Thiago as well as he’s 30 and injury prone. Keita is 26 and cost £52m, he has finally shown some form, Klopp appears to like him, so he’s likely to stay. Fab is just turned 27 and our best midfielder IMHO, probably one of the first names on the team sheet when fit. There’s couple of the kids who’ve look promising and who might step up into squad places to maintain numbers such as Conor Bradley. Problem is that right now we’re down to bare bones and so perhaps the need is to either draft in defenders to cover in midfield, or change formation to make use of who we have got fit. I could see an argument to move Trent into midfield and play Williams or Gomez at right back, which could strengthen our defensive cover in an area many teams target us, and allow Trent to still use his undoubted attacking skills. We could try three centre backs as we have an abundance there (oh the irony!) and go 3-4-3 or 3-5-2. Yet, we’re still unbeaten, but while draws are better than losses, they’ll damage us, as we’ve seen in the past. Losing one, drawing one and winning one is better than drawing three. Despite all the above, Klopp never appears to be panicking and if he isn’t then maybe we shouldn’t be either.
  14. After the United game I thought we might give these a good hiding, after today it could go either way if we field the same midfield. It won’t be a pretty watch, it’ll probably be frustrating too, even more than usual against these, so a point pretty much guarantees us through to the knock-out stages and that’ll do. Just don’t let them win.
  15. Firstly, fair fucks to Brighton for having a go, Potter is turning out to be a decent coach and from Klopp’s comments during the week, he rates him and the way his team plays, and no doubt it will have annoyed him that Brighton were able to play their game and be so effective, I don’t think anyone could deny Brighton deserving a point from today. It’s always annoying when the likes of City drop points and we don’t fully capitalise, especially when we’ve been 2 goals to the good, and as for the disallowed Mane goal, not one Brighton player thought that was a handball, even the keeper, so if, technically, it was a handball then once again the law is being seen to be an ass. I thought we were pretty much in control until Keita went off, and I never thought I’d say that at one stage of his career at Liverpool, but even before then, Firmino and Jones played with little positive effect to the team and often, forward momentum was halted by their tardiness and mistakes. When AOC came on it left Hendo fighting an increasingly losing battle in midfield and Brighton got a grip that didn’t drop until a couple of minutes from the end. No team will do consistently well if a big part of one area of the squad is overly affected by absenteeism through injuries or suspensions, we don’t have to look too far to see how that pans out, so I fully expect the mistakes made last season in procrastinating over whether to strengthen will not be repeated, and if midfield continues to be badly affected then reinforcements should be identified and brought in at the earliest opportunity. Having said that, we’re only 3 points behind Chelsea, so they’ll have to live with the pressure of leading the field and it’ll be interesting to see how that pans out, on the bright side we are a further point ahead of City, and as I believe every point will count this season then that’s a small bonus on a disappointing day.
  16. Might be an idea to ask Klopp who he thinks might be the best person to take over from him, I don’t think he’d like it all to go shit shaped when he eventually decides to make the break.
  17. Midfield is offering nothing currently. No chances made going forwards, so it’s difficult to see what the kid Blair is like and Divock won’t do anything unless it’s put on a plate for him. Thought Jones and Oxlade might have been more influential.
  18. Sad. Seemed an all round good guy.
  19. Telling that Klopp said after the game that once we’d scored the fifth, it wasn’t about humiliating the opposition, but more about trying to ensure we got no more injuries. Almost like a tacit agreement that if we don’t take the piss, you don’t take any more liberties?
×
×
  • Create New...