an tha

Is right

We no longer have the legs in midfield for that.

The Palace lad baited Nunez all night and eventually landed his fish. We may not like it and some will call it shithouse behaviour etc - but it has been a part of the game at all levels forever. The Palace lad did it perfectly and Nunez was fucking stupid. Hopefully he learns from it.

Yeah. Trying to do it all in one window is not a good idea....trying to bed in too many new players at once and that is if you can get all that you want in one go Surely better to phase it all over about 3 windows - which IMHO should be this one, Jan and next summer. Out with the deadwood and the finished and in with the sort of peak age/in prime top quality players we need.

There is no doubt in my mind that we haven't got enough quality, reliability, legs and creativity in our midfield options. I find it strange that we are not addressing it - it is a weird blind spot that Klopp seems to have - and for someone who nails pretty much everything it is IMHO really weird. He must know Thiago is effectively going to be available for about half our games. He must know Henderson can't play 2/3 games a week at the level we need now. He clearly has no time for Oxlade - look at last season - whether he is fit or not it really makea no difference...he makes no difference. Keita - is it all suddenly going to come right after all this time? Well Klopp wouldn't start him over Milner or Elliott last night... Milner - great pro - 37 years old.....he wouldn't start games for any of our rivals now. Fabinho - literally the only midfielder at club who is reliable and trusted and in his peak/prime - that is criminal out of 9 of them. Then we have the kids - Elliott, Carvalho and Jones - it is good they are there, all squads need them - but they are just that - kids, and as yet they are unproven....time will tell on them and there is clearly talent there but they are learning their trade and a club of our ambitions should not be as reliant on them as we are - unless they are superstars ala Owen and Ronney for example when they broke through as players.......I'd say they aren't. It just does not feel right to me, the mix, the blend, the skill sets, the like for like replacements and cover within the group and worse still on the whole not enough legs (going both ways) reliability, quality and creativity. It is a glaring weakness and it is costing us and it is being exploited.

The day after the night before and it does not feel any better to me. Yeah i am pessimistic by nature - but it just does not feel right at the minute - it does not feel right to have so many injuries, it does not feel right to be starting Nat Phillips and James Milner - it does not feel right to have reduced our forward options from 7 to 5.... It does not feel right to literally have no midfielder to speak of who you can say is in his prime.....Fabinho might be the closest and he is 29 soon. It does not feel right that our midfield lacks physicallity, legs and creativity - and of course is made up mostly of the ageing, injury prone a and as yet unproven kids. This group of players have been incredible for about 5 years....the levels they have been at have been just fantastic - but it has always felt like the car has always been at full revs all the time to achieve what we have - and over time so much mileage running an engine flat out eventually wears it down - parts weaken, parts break, those weakened parts and broken parts cause problems with other parts and the engine loses its power..... It feels like this has happened to us.....IMHO we are in desperate need of new, prime condition, top of the range parts for our engine - to power us again....it does not feel like we have acquired them and it does not feel like we can rely on the existing parts to be as strong, powerful, reliable and efficient as they have been and as they need to be.

That Nunes lad at Lisbon off to Wolves it seems for £38m. Given our problems in midfield at that sort of price we should IMO be in there.

Read that he is supposed to be 6'2".....that Palace player must be about 6'6" then if that is case!

Klopp: Jürgen Klopp detailed the injury concerns Liverpool needed to contend with in the build-up to Monday evening's 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace at Anfield. The Reds were without Joel Matip due to a muscle strain for the Premier League encounter, which the manager expects to keep him sidelined for around two weeks. Roberto Firmino was also absent as a precaution, while Joe Gomez and Jordan Henderson were only deemed fit enough to be named on the bench due to fitness issues of their own. Klopp told his post-match press conference: "[Joel] will be two weeks. We will see with that. "The week was crazy; I have experienced a lot of weeks but that was like we had a witch in the building. Honestly, like every day somebody else pulled out [of training] for the craziest reasons. "In the end, Joey didn't start. Nat [Phillips] did really well, I have to say, but Joey didn't start because he only trained yesterday again. At the start of the week, [he had] a little issue. "Bobby couldn't make it. Hendo this morning, we got the information there was a little concern about something if he plays too long, so he didn't play that long. "That's the situation. It was not too cool"

Robno had his fingers strapped so deffo a problem yeah. Going back to Keita - agree totally with what you say about Hendo State of us fitness wise at the moment....staggering how many problems have with fitness/injuries.

Surprised he couldn't get on the park tonight. It does not bode well though IMHO if he isn't seen as ahead of Milner, Elliott or Carvalho. Maybe he is still not right after this illness he has had - maybe we feel he hasn't trained enough and isn't ready - suppose we will see in coming weeks what is what...but for a player who misses too many games anyway with injury it must feel pretty grim to not get nod when you are available and we have players missing.

The whole midfield discussion is of course one that has been raging on here for ages. It just feels like a weird blind spot with Klopp - which is so strange as he nails pretty much everything.

Now that is proper shithousery and the kind that clever fuckers do....maybe would have got the Palace lad a red card

Fair do's....i just don't see that much entitlement on here generally...but it is all about perception i suppose. For me all our problems link back to the midfield.. It is where our injury prone players are a problem and in games it is all too often all played in front of the opposition... Ball is moved (slowly too often) left and right and then nothing really....maybe a hopeful looping ball into the box. For me the midfield has been a bit pedestrian for a while now - it lacks legs and physicallity. The front three often made it look better than it is. Its lack of legs means it does not press like it used to, is easier to play through and it offers very little going forward. We really do need to improve it IMHO. It needs an injection of pace, physicallity and creativity and it also needs more bodies that are robust enough to stay fit/be available when needed.

Oh he goaded him alright and he knew what he was doing and of course he netted his fish.....sadly

Where is the entitlement? I think league is gone already and it has nothing to do with entitlement it is solely down to knowing what it is we are up against. Man City got 93 pts last season - do you think they'll be worse this season? Sadly i don't and therefore my view is we would need a minimum of 94 pts to win title this season. That means dropping a maximum of a mere 20 pts all season - we have already dropped 4.....leaving 16. To get 94 pts now from here we need 92 fron 36 which is about 98 over a season form. Sadly i just can't see how we do that.....now of course the 'ask' to win it may only be a more 'normal' 85/86 pts - but with those cheating bastards Man City can you really see that being case? We have already failed to pick up titles with 97 and 92 pts due to where they have moved bar to...So for me it is not about 'entitlement' it is just about the sad reality of what it takes now to overhaul those cheating bastards.

The fact he has had a go at heading the Palace player just before it and got away with it makes it even worse and more idiotic.

The attitude problem is not just about how many red cards he has or hasn't got.....it is in my view a character trait he has - it has led to a red card here tonight, yes - but that is not to say i feel he has a disciplinary problem. It is for me (and i said it when i voted no to signing him in the poll on this thread) just a feeling i get with him that his attitude is not good.

Do you think we will over those 36 games be able to go at the more or less 100 pt over a season pace it will highly likely require for us to win title from here?

We really need two things in midfield badly.... 1. Pace/Legs 2. Creativity The lack of both is hurting us.

He'd argue that when all fit it is a great squad......and he would be right. The problem is too many of the players in it are injury prone and at the moment we have a shit load of injuries all at same time. We've also run down our forward options. End of last season we had: Mane Salah Diaz Jota Firmino Origi Mimamino We now have: Salah Diaz Jota Firmino Nunez There is little doubt in my mind that it is weaker now and that does not bode well for the cups when we need to rotate and of course like now with Jota and Firmino out and Nunez now suspendef for 3 games we are down to 2 forwards..... We have IMHO reduced our squad depth, and not got rid of injury prone/unreliable players. Does Klopp really trust Naby Keita - he couldn't get on park tonight ahead of 37 year old Milner and two unproven kids.....Oxlade we all know the score, Thiago is a luxury/bonus player who will miss about half the games across season..... Suddenly when you dig down the cracks are there - we should have moved on some deadwood and added a midfielder and another forward this summer IMO.

Deffo strikes me as having an attitude problem and it has reared its head just 2 games in. Can he/will he learn from this......i suppose we are gonna find out.

In my view a minimum of 94 pts will be required to win league.....meaning there was 20 to play with at start. We have spunked 4 of them in first 2 games and spunked them against dross. Just a mere 16 (probably maximum) left in 36 games...... It is more than uphill now - even this early the odds are massively against us winning it now.

Superb goal that

And down to 2 fit/available forwards we go To go with our 1 senior centre half Just fucking brilliant this.