Ne Moe Imya

Think if Lucas had stayed on we'd have won the game. Actually, if he'd been on from the start, as he should have been, we'd have crushed them.

Never post during the match because it's too easy to kneejerk but we were shocking in midfield that half. Need Lucas for Coutinho (or maybe Sterling) desperately. Or at least Allen. A midfielder, at any rate. I can't believe that this shower are walking the ball through our midfield with ease.

Perfect example of why the vote is tending towards "No." Never should be in that position unless at the very least he's alongside another player with pace and a good sense of position. By himself behind two attacking/pressing midfielders he's an absolute disaster today. Love him to bits, but that is a very big mistake by Rodgers to ask him to do that.

Basically, this sums it up for me. There would have to be some sliding scale based on the awfulness of the name (if something bland like "Arqiva Arena" will pay £50m/year, then "Tesco Stadium" has to pay £60 million and "The ExxonMobil Megaplex" would cost £100m). To us it will always be just Anfield anyway, so I don't know why any company would bother to give us anywhere near these figures, but if one of them is stupid enough to do it and it's not too embarrassing we should take their money.

Suarez Sterling Sturridge

He's a bit good, isn't he?

I'd honestly rather see Gerrard as a right back again. Johnson is shocking these days and with Flanagan injured, could be just the role to rejuvenate our captain's career. Probably not, but honestly, I didn't like him between the CBs tonight either, so it couldn't be much worse than that.

I can't believe how simple-minded this is, and it's a prevalent attitude on here for some reason. Of course it's better if we get our business done early, a la Sturridge. We have the player for a few extra games, they bed in quicker, and there's no chance of Spurs or Napoli nipping in and taking the player at the last moment. However, we have to understand that most of the control on how fast a transfer occurs is in the hands of the selling team. First of all, if it's a good player, like Salah, they will want them to play those last few games in January for them (just as we would like to see the player in red already). Secondly, they know that if it's a player good enough to tempt the likes of Liverpool, that they will have multiple offers. Thus, it's to their advantage to stretch things out, make noise in the press about the deal, try to shake another team into coming in and starting a bidding war. All of which means that a team such as ourselves, with a desire to get good value in the market, must sit and wait. City or Chelsea can come in and say "how much do you need to sign the deal today?" and pay a million or two more. We cannot. And unless we have a rare situation like Sturridge, where the selling team isn't playing him, the player is desperate for a move, and we're ready to pay the full asking price because we think it's still a god value, then we're going to wait. At some point late in the window the selling team will realise that no one else is going to come in, or the player will start to make his wishes known, or Ayre will finally admit that we will pay the extra million, or whatever, and the deal will be done. It's the nature of the beast in January. The selling club has every reason to delay the move and the buying club can't really do much about it except overpay. There are exceptions here and there, but for the most part, that's the way it goes.

Really need a win, even if it's a scruffy 0-1 with a goal from a controversial penalty. For this game, I'll happily take a result rather than a performance. Just need to get this fixture over with IMO, hopefully with 3 points, a few bruises, and nothing more. Not looking forward to seeing Lucas and Gerrard together in midfield. Any chance Allen is fit for this one? Even as a change off the bench after halftime, he and Sturridge coming in could make the difference.

Wow, that forum is just full of goodness. There's a thread called "Can we get 4th?" where they're pretty evenly split between those who have woken up to the new reality and don't think they'll get near 70 points, and those who are convinced that they're going to "go on a run" and beat us and Everton, and maybe Arsenal. A sample post:

Who on earth would spend 2000 quid on that thing when you could have this absolute beauty for £30: Liverpool Men's Retro V-Neck

I'm glad he's gone to Cardiff. He's a talented manager and connected with United so if he had continued to win titles in Norway you'd think the United board would start to look north with Moyesey thrashing about at Old Trafford. This way, Tan's insanity will inevitably cause a problem, maybe not this season but for sure by the middle of next season and he'll be sacked in bizarre circumstances. Hardly the kind of thing that would persuade the Mancs to ditch Moyes to pursue him.

He must be on quite high wages to be available at that price. Good left backs are really hard to find, just look around some of the top teams and once you get beyond the top 5 or 6 they are all pretty much average. I would think Real Madrid would have no problem rinsing some Middle Eastern owner for 20 million for Coentrao if he were on a reasonable wage.

Have to hold my hand up and say I was wrong about him. His first couple of years here he suffered from a seeming revulsion to the act of providing the final ball, of taking the responsibility for the ultimate success of the move, and I didn't think it was curable. He would constantly, CONSTANTLY get the ball in a promising position and then, rather than taking on a player or having a shot, retreat into a shell, cover the ball, turn his back to goal, and play a sideways/backwards pass. That kind of mentality is a problem, but not necessarily a crippling one, for a defensive midfielder, but for someone who plays further up the pitch it was a dealbreaker as far as I was concerned. The thing is, and I don't know how this happened, he's somehow sorted that out. I've seen Henderson do things this season that I literally wouldn't have believed him capable of. Taking on defenders, playing through balls even if there's a high chance it'll be cut out, even taking on shots from half-chances. I don't know whether to credit Rodgers, Henderson himself, Steve Peters, or some mixture thereof, but somehow Henderson grew a pair of bollocks over the summer. As for me, I thought it was the much-discussed "purple patch" at first, but he's now done it for long enough that I have to hold my hand up and say "I was wrong." Henderson is now not only a suitable squad option, he's worked himself into a position where he's borderline essential to our squad, and he deserves a lot of praise for doing so. Long may it continue.

Just watched that Lloris challenge on Young - I know Young dives all the time, but that is a definite penalty for me. It's going to be hilarious to watch the United fans so used to getting everything their way from the officials coming to terms with this. If even Webb is now hesitating to give them a penalty at Old Trafford, then who knows when they might get another one!

Injuries, red cards, and 0-6 to Spurs. Followed by Daniel Levy very publicly signing an iron-clad contract to employ Sherwood as their manager for the next 10 years.

Think this about sums it up. 3rd is about as high as I think we can realistically expect this season, but we could easily fall to fifth or even sixth if we have a key injury or two and sides around us continue to overperform. Therefore I'd take a certain fourth right now, though not without a bit of regret. The league will be won with around 85 points this season, which is quite low. Maybe even a bit less. We are probably not quite capable of getting 45 points in the second half which is the minimum we'd have to attain to even be close, so I think the league is probably gone already. But, then again, you'd have said the same thing about the CL at halftime in Istanbul, so who knows?

Is McLaughlin injured? Always thought he looked like a player for the reserves, must be about 18-19 by now. Plays in a similar style to how Johnson did 2-3 years ago when he was decent.

This thread ...

Really surprised by those who don't think the transfer committee has done a good job thus far. I remember reading an analysis of the greatest managers over the past 20 years or so and the very best had just over a 50% hit rate in terms of the number of players they brought in who were considered "good buys." I think there were another 25% "neutral" and 25% "poor buys" or somewhere in that vicinity. And that was the good managers. There were plenty with much worse records. I think that Coutinho, Sturridge, Sakho, and Mignolet more than make up for Aspas and Cissokho, who are really the only poor buys/transfers from this committee so far. Remember, you can't count Borini, Allen or Sahin because they all came in that first summer before we had the new heads of scouting that came over from City set up. If you could, it would be a lot closer.

Mourinho will set them up for a 0-0. We will still create a half-chance or two, the question is whether or not we will finish them. If we get an early goal I could see us coasting to a 0-3, if they were to nick one at a corner or something I could see it being a very dour 1-0. Hopefully Suarez will produce something out of nothing; this is the kind of game that will be completely changed by a single goal.

I hope Rodgers will be mentioning it to him sharpish. Being completely honest, if he gives away a penalty with one of these shirt-pulling moments in a game, he'll have no one to blame but himself. If I were the referee I think I would have already given one or two against him this season - some of them have been really blatant.

Good to know. *shakes head* Are there seriously people out there (real people, I'm not including whatever Frankenstein's monster-esque creation the Norwegian Everton Supporter's Club has cobbled together to make Reds look foolish on the internet) who think this is an open question at this point? As in, we seriously have to have a discussion about whether Rodgers should continue in his job?

What I wouldn't give for an Alvaro Arbeloa this window. Relatively cheap (didn't he come for 2 million?), plays both fullback positions without missing a beat, solid defensively and decent enough if not spectacular going forward. Go out and find us one of those, transfer committee.

I could see a surprisingly low-scoring affair coming out after all this talk of 5-5's. Suarez will score at least one, the only question is whether our midfield will put in a performance like the one at Spurs or whether we'll revert to form and get outclassed by the pace and power of Fernandinho and Yaya. If the former, we could win a 0-1 or 1-2. If the latter ... well, you hate to say it but we could be in for our first real hiding of the season.