Liverpool - post match thread.

[1961_vintage]

Yesterday we were poor yet again but the worrying aspect for me is that the players don't look as if they're buying into what Pep is trying to do

Could be that for a number of them they can see that they are unlikely to be part of his plans.

 

[Father Paul]

Fine margins Ric. Luiz gets an early red card and we are looking at least one point against Chelsea. Either KDB or Aguero takes any of their chances and you are talking 3 points and there were one very decent call for a penalty in the game. We get the three points and you are talking one huge confident boost and a chance for the team to build some momentum. As things turned out they got all 3 despite us being the better side for large periods of the game and they never looked back since. You probably totally disagree but that is one huge slice of luck imo.

Agree we should have won that game but the way Chelsea put us to the sword in a ruthless fashion when presented with the opportunity demonstrates a cutting edge which sadly we lack.
Some shite defending aside that is the main reason we are ten points adrift at the mid point.

 

[FantasyIreland]

Could be that for a number of them they can see that they are unlikely to be part of his plans.

This is a valid point,i think,for many,the writing is on the wall and the individuals concerned know it.

Some cant be arsed buying into it and some just arent capable.........and while its a bigger job than most predicted,the positive for me is that,while he appears to be struggling at present,i'm sure Pep didnt underestimate the size of the task and i'm even more convinced he'll know excatly what it will take to turn things around.

It's not easy,and its currently very frustrating,but people,with our best interest at heart,need to have strength,faith and patience - it will come good and plenty of present opinion is going to look very silly in the very near future.

 

[Father Paul]

To be fair, Aguero has scored 10 in 13 league games this season. Not sure who you hope will better that for us?

As for Silva, I don't agree that he is being marked out of too many games. He's still one of our best performers, including today, and on the occasions when he is tightly marked then that should free up space for others.

Those two aren't the problem for me. Far from it, in fact.

I just think we need two new full backs, a centre half and a centre mid. And possibly a keeper. Not going to happen in January though, sadly!

Can't blame Silva for much and Kun's stats are good. However, he is tending to be tad slower these days and seems to go missing a lot more than in the past. This may be getting to him as demonstrated by his dark moments. Does not seem to be enjoying his football I think Pep would sell him if a good offer comes in and a replacement can be found.

 

[nick rolfe]

Coaching & management in business,life,sport etc is about improving what you've got and maximising the outcome.

Since Bobby in 2012 we have manifestly failed to build on the momentum and subsequent opportunities. The PL has changed,TV money has levelled the field & weve trod water waiting (wasting)four years waiting for Pep.

Pep has publicly told us that we are not good enough to be successful this year and the players have taken him at his word. Not good management.

Pep & Conte are both new to the PL. Conte quickly accepted that he would have to vary his approach after they were drubbed by Arsenal. They have won 13 games on the bounce since then. Good Management. Pep has chopped & changed tactics,structure,players,subs but repeated the same naive mistakes. Not good management.

We have gone from top of the league 7 points clear of Renters,to 4th,10 points behind. Draw your own conclusions.

Last night he should've started Sagna and made his substitutions on 65 minutes. We knew we had to score fron very early on but made no attacking changes until the 88th & 89th minutes. Not good management. IMO he should've subbed Sergio & Yaya for Nacho & Navas(Sane). Moved Kev to centre mid & Sterling next to Nacho and told them to get crosses into the box and shoot on site. Two shots in 95 minutes in a game we knew we had to score !! To little to late. Not good management.

The players look confused,lacking understanding,belief & confidence from Bravo at the back,Stones in the centre to Kun up front. If the players are drifting is it any surprise that we're getting disappointed.

This league will not change to suit you Pep.....Adapt or fail !!!

Agree with everything this post is spot on

 

[blue ranger]

City fans, opposition fans, pundits, journalists... all agree that Kolarov is dog shit... the only people who don't appear to see this are our management team... no idea why ?

My thoughts entirely. The decision to go into the current season with Kolarov and even Zabaleta whose legs have totally gone was neglect of the biggest order.

 

[BLUEMATT23]

It's a load of old bollocks. Fuckin great a number on the date has changed from 16 to 17. Big deal who gives a fuck

Here Here

 

[slicky202]

1 chance 1 goal. That seems to be the difference in all these tight games. I don't see how kdb can be on that wing when he's the only one that looks capable of creating anything

 

[MaineDAWG2008]

It's Peps first season. I believe in him. So should some of you. To call him a failure is an utter joke. Yes you r entitled to an opinion. But harsh criticism if u ask me.

Conte I herited a very good team. William, Hazard, Courtois, decent left backs, etc etc. You cannot compare that team to the players Pep inherited. Defensively we have been poor period and that was evident even under MP.

MP was lucky with first title win. Second season was predictable from start and it showed ESP with underperforming players under MP. Zabba, Clichy, Mangala, Kolarov, Navas.

Two left backs. A good Keeper and I think next season we will be better and Pep will have a style in place.

Give him time FFS

 

[tonea2003]

depressingly predictable yesterday, dont know what it is about anfield but i have never felt like we have a chance there

just glad it is out of the way,

they snuffed out our flair players and that was that

 

[mosssideblue]

Absolute bs. A good manager gets the most out of his players by motivating and instructing / coaching them to play a certain way. We have one of th e best squads in the prem. Certainly better than Liverpool's. If people are stating that pep needs to replace the majority of the team to be successful then I dont really rate him as a manager.

Do we really have a strong squad? For two seasons now I have claimed we can field the best 11, after that, the fall off in quality is quite stark. If several of that best 11 decide to take a day off, we are bound to struggle facing oppositions best 11.

 

[Adlab123]

Didnt see the second half as had to go out. Why was Kelechi not brought on until 89 minute when we needed a goal?

 

[Sunny Coast Blue]

This is a valid point,i think,for many,the writing is on the wall and the individuals concerned know it.

Some cant be arsed buying into it and some just arent capable.........and while its a bigger job than most predicted,the positive for me.is that,while he appears to be struggling at present,i'm sure Pep didnt underestimate the size of the task and i'm even more convinced he'll know excatly what it will take to turn things around.

It's not easy,and its currently very frustrating,but people,with our best interest at heart,need to have strength,faith and patience - it will come good and plenty of present opinion is going to look very silly in the very near future.

This is why the kids should be given a chance, endeavour, attitude , committed, if the experience on display produces such a gutless display what choice do we have.
At least we will have more about us and grow at the same time.

 

[blueinsa]

Make your mind up!

He has, he wants his Bobby back.

 

[hammocity]

It's Peps first season. I believe in him. So should some of you. To call him a failure is an utter joke. Yes you r entitled to an opinion. But harsh criticism if u ask me.

Conte I herited a very good team. William, Hazard, Courtois, decent left backs, etc etc. You cannot compare that team to the players Pep inherited. Defensively we have been poor period and that was evident even under MP.

MP was lucky with first title win. Second season was predictable from start and it showed ESP with underperforming players under MP. Zabba, Clichy, Mangala, Kolarov, Navas.

Two left backs. A good Keeper and I think next season we will be better and Pep will have a style in place.

Give him time FFS

Well said that man, 19 games in, ffs, old bacon face fucked up on a royal score first couple of seasons, give Pep time. I believe we will come good, Sane will get better and better when fit and hopefully he and Jesus will add some dynamism to our attacking play, Sagna and Clichy should be the default full backs, hopefully Vinny can return (not optimistic though) and form a defensive partnership with Stones. Remember Stoke, think it was New Years Day 1999, 1-0 down at HT in the third tier? Turned it around, eventually beating Gillingham at Wembley, nothing's decided at the turn of the year, nothing's won or lost just yet.

 

[Walking on the blue moon]

Coaching & management in business,life,sport etc is about improving what you've got and maximising the outcome.

Since Bobby in 2012 we have manifestly failed to build on the momentum and subsequent opportunities. The PL has changed,TV money has levelled the field & weve trod water waiting (wasting)four years waiting for Pep.

Pep has publicly told us that we are not good enough to be successful this year and the players have taken him at his word. Not good management.

Pep & Conte are both new to the PL. Conte quickly accepted that he would have to vary his approach after they were drubbed by Arsenal. They have won 13 games on the bounce since then. Good Management. Pep has chopped & changed tactics,structure,players,subs but repeated the same naive mistakes. Not good management.

We have gone from top of the league 7 points clear of Renters,to 4th,10 points behind. Draw your own conclusions.

Last night he should've started Sagna and made his substitutions on 65 minutes. We knew we had to score fron very early on but made no attacking changes until the 88th & 89th minutes. Not good management. IMO he should've subbed Sergio & Yaya for Nacho & Navas(Sane). Moved Kev to centre mid & Sterling next to Nacho and told them to get crosses into the box and shoot on site. Two shots in 95 minutes in a game we knew we had to score !! To little to late. Not good management.

The players look confused,lacking understanding,belief & confidence from Bravo at the back,Stones in the centre to Kun up front. If the players are drifting is it any surprise that we're getting disappointed.

This league will not change to suit you Pep.....Adapt or fail !!!

To be fair Conte's system is much easier to learn. There's a reason why his Italy team exceeded expectations in Euros despite not training together for a very long time. Pep did change tactics a lot, but I think he rarely betrays his fundamental concepts, and his changes did work more often than not, e.g. 2nd half against Arsenal.

It might be better had he made substitutions sooner, but who knows? Perhaps Pep has seen something worth keeping that we all missed. Or that he thought changes of personnel wouldn't have made much difference. Zaba, apart from the goal, did play an okay game yesterday and provided some semblance of support in attack. Nacho needs more games to polish his skills. Until then, he would probably remain a late impact sub. But this is a bloody conundrum. Kev started the game in the centre with too many passes gone astray. Not his day.

I think we're seeing a team in progress and as a result players make a lot of simple mistakes that is out of the coach's control. From the Chelsea game onwards (and even before that), it's game after game of sloppy passing not only in the final third, but also in our own half, and with the intrinsic frailty of our defence it is suicide. In the previous two games we got lucky but this time, not so much.

This may well be due to confusion and low confidence so I have almost nothing against our players, only hope that they learn as quickly as possible. And I will give the same amount of patience to Pep as I do to the players, for some of the things he has acheived since he arrived show promises of a great future. Yaya is one, and the Barca game another.

 

[blue ranger]

Do we really have a strong squad? For two seasons now I have claimed we can field the best 11, after that, the fall off in quality is quite stark. If several of that best 11 decide to take a day off, we are bound to struggle facing oppositions best 11.

But the truth is that in the summer we spent in the region of £150m yet still have the same deficiencies at full back, centre back in midfield. In addition we are lighter up front than we have ever been and have severely weakened ourselves in the goal keeper position. Surely we should have been able to expect some level of improvement?

 

[bluemc1]

Our squad is well overrated, heard for few seasons that we have the best squad and never agreed
Awful defenders have been with us a while so don't know how we can have best squad
Coming into this season I felt only Hart Silva Fernandiho De-Bruyne and Aguero were good enough and we got rid of one of those to hugely weaken that area
Shame we didn't have a strong manager to see what Klopps seen and put Milner at full back, he can do that in his sleep and for a few years yet

 

[ono]

Our squad is well overrated, heard for few seasons that we have the best squad and never agreed
Awful defenders have been with us a while so don't know how we can have best squad
Coming into this season I felt only Hart Silva Fernandiho De-Bruyne and Aguero were good enough and we got rid of one of those to hugely weaken that area
Shame we didn't have a strong manager to see what Klopps seen and put Milner at full back, he can do that in his sleep and for a few years yet

We have a lot of players who have a reputation which is far greater than their ability to play well week in week out.

 

[daflanger]

Yesterday Liverpool scored an early goal so we still had plenty of time to score. We were lucky not to go down 2 or even 3-0 because of some silly mistakes. But the problem yesterday was more going forward than it was defending. Our passing was poor and We didn't do well in the final third. If we had equalized, I am sure we could have gone forward and won the game. But we were poor in attack. I said earlier that Aguero should start on the bench and I think if he had started on the Bench we could have won the game!