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Shaq

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He's a big player, at times he did well for us," he added.

"But in critical situations, I felt tracking back and what we needed for the team in a relegation battle just wasn't there.

"He has got it in him, but he probably knew we were going to get relegated, he was going to the World Cup and had this big move - this move was probably done three, four months ago.

"He is a match-winner, but at times it was difficult to play in the same team. The manager would let him get away with certain things. We fell short, it's not just him, there are others.

'We were told to be water carriers for Shaqiri'
Adam also said that former Stoke boss Paul Lambert suggested Shaqiri's team-mates were told to be water carriers.

"He was the world-class player that we had in our team. Basically, we had to get him the ball to go and make something happen, which was difficult to take.

"We knew he was a match-winner, but we felt we should have had more respect from that point of view.

"When you have players that knew they were going to get a move whether they were relegated or not, it was inevitable what was going to happen.

"He felt Shaq was one who would keep us up - but we had others in teams who could win games."
Fat Charlie sounds a bit miffed hes in the championship.
 

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TBH, he would have cost about triple of what we paid though, maybe even more, if we had bought him then.

12,5 mill. Its a fucking steal.
 
Heh, I love how fickle football is.

This guy has been around for like 10 years now, no-one was really interested and all it takes is a single cameo in a meaningless pre-season game to shift opinions.

Though maybe it's also a sign of the optimism surrounding the club right now...
 
Heh, I love how fickle football is.

This guy has been around for like 10 years now, no-one was really interested and all it takes is a single cameo in a meaningless pre-season game to shift opinions.

Though maybe it's also a sign of the optimism surrounding the club right now...

Nah, I'm not on the title hype train at all but I'm very happy with his signing. He's always scored great goals, I'd much prefer he saves 5-7 goals for the matches that actually matter, preferably in the games where we struggle to break down park the bus away teams
 
Nah, I'm not on the title hype train at all but I'm very happy with his signing. He's always scored great goals, I'd much prefer he saves 5-7 goals for the matches that actually matter, preferably in the games where we struggle to break down park the bus away teams

Isn't this becoming a bit of a myth now, this totally overstated theory that we struggle to break down a load of teams? We score alot of goals, the games where we drop points are as likely to be the ones where we have brainfarts and throw away 2-3 goal leads. It's not often we face teams and struggle to score against them, and when it does happen, it's no more than it does to any of the other top teams.

The games where we dropped points at home last season:

Burnley 1-1
United 0-0
Chelsea 1-1
Everton 1-1
Spurs 2-2

More often than not, we battered everyone at home, but struggled on the road in a few games, where it's notoriously less difficult to open teams up, but easier to become intimidated by the home teams advantage. The games we dropped points in at home were big games, bar one. That happens, we just weren't good enough. Now these additions might bridge that gap, but this notion that we struggle to open up small teams at home, is nonsense with this current side.
 
Erm ive long had the fucking oompa loompa on the list motherfuckers.

I dont want to bump a thread though as any positive ‘I WANT SHAQIRI’ posts are usually misspelt (shaquiri) and accompanied by some other spacker who turned out to be a spacker like Soldado or Weimann.

So take my word for it.
I wanted the fucker since man was yout.
 
Isn't this becoming a bit of a myth now, this totally overstated theory that we struggle to break down a load of teams? We score alot of goals, the games where we drop points are as likely to be the ones where we have brainfarts and throw away 2-3 goal leads. It's not often we face teams and struggle to score against them, and when it does happen, it's no more than it does to any of the other top teams.

The games where we dropped points at home last season:

Burnley 1-1
United 0-0
Chelsea 1-1
Everton 1-1
Spurs 2-2

More often than not, we battered everyone at home, but struggled on the road in a few games, where it's notoriously less difficult to open teams up, but easier to become intimidated by the home teams advantage. The games we dropped points in at home were big games, bar one. That happens, we just weren't good enough. Now these additions might bridge that gap, but this notion that we struggle to open up small teams at home, is nonsense with this current side.
Yeah, we did struggle a bit with the ridiculous ‘park the bus at home’ shitty little teams (includes Man Utd) though.
Very happy we have another quick, strong player for those occasions. They can try and put two players on Salah, man-mark Mane, but we’ll still have another player running at or behind them, and occasionally scoring the outrageous. He tries a ton of high risk high reward passes too, something we’ve missed since Coutinho left.
We really do have a massive chance this year to be top 2, maybe even win it.
 
Isn't this becoming a bit of a myth now, this totally overstated theory that we struggle to break down a load of teams? We score alot of goals, the games where we drop points are as likely to be the ones where we have brainfarts and throw away 2-3 goal leads. It's not often we face teams and struggle to score against them, and when it does happen, it's no more than it does to any of the other top teams.

The games where we dropped points at home last season:

Burnley 1-1
United 0-0
Chelsea 1-1
Everton 1-1
Spurs 2-2

More often than not, we battered everyone at home, but struggled on the road in a few games, where it's notoriously less difficult to open teams up, but easier to become intimidated by the home teams advantage. The games we dropped points in at home were big games, bar one. That happens, we just weren't good enough. Now these additions might bridge that gap, but this notion that we struggle to open up small teams at home, is nonsense with this current side.

Yep, and in the Chelsea, Everton and Spurs games we were leading as well. 2 dodgy pens and a cross/shot that resulted in a goal.

You'd think that were we can improve the most is holding onto a lead and getting the 3 points. I think no other team dropped as many points as us from a winning position last season. The inclusion of Alisson, Keita and most of all Fabinho should see us improve there.
 
Isn't this becoming a bit of a myth now, this totally overstated theory that we struggle to break down a load of teams? We score alot of goals, the games where we drop points are as likely to be the ones where we have brainfarts and throw away 2-3 goal leads. It's not often we face teams and struggle to score against them, and when it does happen, it's no more than it does to any of the other top teams.

The games where we dropped points at home last season:

Burnley 1-1
United 0-0
Chelsea 1-1
Everton 1-1
Spurs 2-2

More often than not, we battered everyone at home, but struggled on the road in a few games, where it's notoriously less difficult to open teams up, but easier to become intimidated by the home teams advantage. The games we dropped points in at home were big games, bar one. That happens, we just weren't good enough. Now these additions might bridge that gap, but this notion that we struggle to open up small teams at home, is nonsense with this current side.

Fair point, I still think we are a little one dimensional at times and he'll certainly help with that.

12 draws or whatever it was cost us last year and not being able to control games against weaker sides.
 
Isn't this becoming a bit of a myth now, this totally overstated theory that we struggle to break down a load of teams? We score alot of goals, the games where we drop points are as likely to be the ones where we have brainfarts and throw away 2-3 goal leads. It's not often we face teams and struggle to score against them, and when it does happen, it's no more than it does to any of the other top teams.

The games where we dropped points at home last season:

Burnley 1-1
United 0-0
Chelsea 1-1
Everton 1-1
Spurs 2-2

More often than not, we battered everyone at home, but struggled on the road in a few games, where it's notoriously less difficult to open teams up, but easier to become intimidated by the home teams advantage. The games we dropped points in at home were big games, bar one. That happens, we just weren't good enough. Now these additions might bridge that gap, but this notion that we struggle to open up small teams at home, is nonsense with this current side.

Shouldn't West Brom (0-0) and Stoke (0-0) also be on the list of teams we dropped points to at home? If we also add that away defeat against Swansea (1-0) the "park the bus" myth seems to have legs to me.
 
He is turning out to be a superb buy. He has a huge passing range, and if he plays regularly could get 7-10 assists
 
When I heard he was available for 13M - I thought he was the ideal person to have on the bench. What we have seen in pre-season - is something I fully expect of him to replicate in all our games this season, there will be moments of magic or something from him. I don't expect him to track back and do all that defensive stuff at all because that is not him. But I am not surprised one bit by how good he can be because he is one of those players when playing for his national team - you see how creative and influential he is much like Gylfi is for Iceland. He will make a big difference.

All that aside - I don't want to be fooled like most of you are with FSG's purchase - they basically got a guaranteed creative/goal-scoring player on the cheap, and I don't care what they say - all we have done this transfer window is get a Goalkeeper, a defensive midfielder, and Shaq, I count Keita as last year's goods. I still want us to sign another attacking midfielder, if not then in reality we are starting the season short again in the player department. Also - I don't count Lallana as a new signing - more like a liability.
 
How is Keita last year's goods? He hasn't kicked a professional ball for us yet.

I agree we probably still need a couple of additions defensively and in attack, but we've definitely improved the squad and first xi.
 
How is Keita last year's goods? He hasn't kicked a professional ball for us yet.

I agree we probably still need a couple of additions defensively and in attack, but we've definitely improved the squad and first xi.
We've spent £175m more than any other club in the PL and only sold one player for £12.5m. I think FSG have to commended for digging this deep. I also think if you try to bring too many players in, it could unbalance a squad. I personally would like to see another AM come in but also appreciate it could demotivate an existing player who knows his playing time will be further limited. I think Klopp feels there's enough competition there between Shaqs and Lallana. If Sturridge can stay fit for majority of the season then we have a player that has the ability to score 20 plus goals (pro rata).
 
I get what Jan Riha is trying to say.

I've been coaching for over 6 years now. I'm UEFA B level with adults/kids/GKs, looking to eventually do UEFA A. So yeah, that's a roundabout way of me saying, I appreciate all that attempted jargon from him.

Anyways, like I said in the other thread. I was very impressed with Shaqiri. I actually didn't know he was that good (first touch, appreciation of space, combinations). I have never really watched him closely before. Technically he looks superb. In the same bracket as Bobby, Mo and Sadio. I was pleasantly surprised.

But then I also appreciate he was trying to impress on his debut and the problem with players like Shaqiri (and what makes them average players) isn't always ability, it's mindset. He could be world class one week, and then jogging around uninterested the next. The really top players do it week in, week out and set expectation of their own performance no matter the circumstance.

I kind of fear that a player like Shaqiri will be amazing in his first season, but then when everyone agrees he's a top player, he'll rest on his laurels and become a lazy shit. But right now he has a point to prove. Hopefully that will mean he'll take us to a title or so, before he reverts to type.


I was very happy we signed him primarily because I remember watching him years back on his trail of big clubs... I might also add that while loads of people were busy bleating about the VVD signing error last summer my main concern was the arrival of Salah dragging on and on because I knew without Mane we lacked pace. There is no pressure at all on Shaq due to a low release price and the fact that everyone has him tagged merely as a squad player, just like we did Salah before he exploded into our team.

Yes, undoubtedly, it is worrying to read the slagging towards him from Charlie Adam, Gary Neville etc, but although it is not really a full excuse maybe he didn't have the desire to be playing at Stoke at all.

It is a great life that I wish I'd had, being a pro footballer, but from a personal point of view imagine being a highly rated young upcoming player at a huge club like Bayern and then finding yourself tinkering around getting relegated at Stoke... hardly appealing is it?

Maybe he felt like his career was a failure, maybe he was just happy to drag in oodles of cash... who knows... I don't know the fella...

Which leads into the next point and why I am very optimistic about his signing for us, one week you are in a relegation battle with a bunch of crappy players around you and next week you've got 100,000 fans in New York and 60,000 fans at Dublin etc...

Maybe Shaq is going to realize that he has a chance yet again at a very big club and he will buckle down and work out that this is very likely to be his last shot at the big time and a chance to be the player he probably always wanted to be.

Anyway, my optimism is getting silly so... 13M is peanuts nowadays...

I'm hopeful, he looks technically very nifty indeed.
 
We've spent £175m more than any other club in the PL and only sold one player for £12.5m. I think FSG have to commended for digging this deep. I also think if you try to bring too many players in, it could unbalance a squad. I personally would like to see another AM come in but also appreciate it could demotivate an existing player who knows his playing time will be further limited. I think Klopp feels there's enough competition there between Shaqs and Lallana. If Sturridge can stay fit for majority of the season then we have a player that has the ability to score 20 plus goals (pro rata).
FSG haven’t dug deep at all, IMO.
We got 130m or whatever for Coutinho, won a lot of money in the CL and are in that competition again this season. And we were net positive under Klopp until last year.
It was about time they gave Klopp a few million to spend on players.
 
FSG haven’t dug deep at all, IMO.
We got 130m or whatever for Coutinho, won a lot of money in the CL and are in that competition again this season. And we were net positive under Klopp until last year.
It was about time they gave Klopp a few million to spend on players.
Under FSG we've broken the world transfer record on both a defender and a goalkeeper, calm it
 
I think fsg are playing the hand they've been dealt

I think, regardless of countinho, they would have spent big because of the atmosphere at the club at the minute. Everyone feels positive. That's not been the case since....when?
 
I think fsg are playing the hand they've been dealt

I think, regardless of countinho, they would have spent big because of the atmosphere at the club at the minute. Everyone feels positive. That's not been the case since....when?

FSG got us on the mega cheap but they have done pretty well IMO, I was sad to see Kenny treated the way he was but in truth that's the only thing they've done I didn't like.

They haven't ever really flashed the cash at us Abramovich style but then that was never gonna be their way was it...

IF they were to get on board and we could head towards a safe standing Kop then they would be absolute legends in my eyes.

It's always bugged me that they play Gerry so loudly at the start of a game... I can't ever remember the tannoy ever being required when we sang it without the record playing... matching Gerry is not easy especially when it's played so fucking loud, get rid of that altogether IMO... we would sing it without the record...

If FSG could return the Kop to former glories then they will have won my admiration forever.
 
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