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Are the players a bunch of bottlers?

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Mors

Mors

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It seems Klopp has kept his tactics the same as he always does, we don't set up any differently for a specific team, we play the way we do and that's that. Our form has nosedived in 2019, so is it just the players?

Since Jan - P9 W4 L1 D4 (playing 2 vs the top 6, losing 1 drawing 1)

Man City - P9 W8 L1 D0 (Playing 3 vs the top 3, winning all 3)

We've had our spine of the team available the whole time as good as - Alisson, VVD, Robinson, Salah, Mane, Firmino. Pretty lucky on that front.


If Klopp isn't pissing about with the tactics, is it just the players are bottlers? It's not like we've had an injury crisis to the midfield and attack of key players. The defence has been pretty solid. Our form prior to xmas in the league was amazing P19 W16 D3 L0
 
Define bottler. I think the pressure has gotten to the players and it's too much for them. They seem scared. If that makes them bottlers, then...
 
I think you're also overlooking the obvious factor that other teams are more motivated to get a result at the end of the season, than at the start where the can play an open game against us.

There's relegation at stake, Europe/CL.

And for the likes of Leicester, West Ham - pride.

And the like of Everton - bitterness. They celebrated that 0-0 result like they had won the World Cup.

Looking at our fixtures, we've got ONE more bitter rival left in Chelsea, who similarly will come to spoil the party.
 
No.. under normal circumstances 0-0s at Old Trafford and Goodison are decent results.

I can't help feel we need the full 27 now to win it from here though.
 
Right now as things stand we are having an unreal season in the league. It's been amazing.

The vast majority of other seasons, we'll be champions already and we would be talking about concentrating on the CL.
 
Not at all.

We haven't been great all season bar results. It's just now we aren't getting the results.

Only a injury time fluke prevented the same score earlier in the year.

When you are chasing a goal and you bring on Lallana you know where the problem lies.

Depth.
 
I think it's pretty obvious really and I said this recently in another thread. We had Coutinho, then both AOC and Firmino helped plug the hole in terms of drive from midfield coupled with intricate trickery in tight areas of play, in and around the opponent's box. This season we've lost AOC (his absence was felt at the tail end of last season too), while Firmino has been substandard. Keita hasn't fully settled and Shaqiri isn't fully trusted. So both the centre forward role and creative, driving midfielder role have struggled this season. So yeah, we have a "spine", but all isn't well with a couple of key positions.

Would anyone be happy going into next season with the same front three as first choice? I wouldn't. You can't rest on what worked last season, the key to success is to continue to strive to improve and this season the attack hasn't been as consistent or reliable. Maybe that's partly because of the lack of a regular AM, but whatever the cause or effect, Firmino has been subpar creatively and in terms of goals.

We're close, but we're not "bottlers", we need experience of winning, that's why cup comps can be crucial, silverware promotes a hunger to keep winning more, it's what we need. Not a 2nd place finish and then a few steps back. Which is usually the outcome.

I said weeks ago that we'll have fans saying we shouldn't have really challenged anyway, when we inevitably drop to 2nd place.

Here we are.
 
We have too many "nice guys", honest footballers. Sometimes you need larger than life villians like Roy Keane or a Ramos to take away some of the limelight so other players can stay under the radar and perform to their usual standard.

Also some of those players that are smart enough to stay down to just let the team have a breather to take on some tactical advice when the chips are down or when we are under the cosh.

For example yesterday we just keep hurrying the play, restarting the play immediately when it is obvious we are feeling the pressure. We keep making the same mistakes over and over. Someone should just stay down for a minute or two, let Klopp bark a few orders, clear the players' heads a little, try something different and hope the end result will be different.

All good teams does it, they are not the most popular teams but they are winners.
 
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No not bottlers, but very hard to put the blame on any one single thing...this team of ours is really strong...i mean the strongest in the league thats how much i believe in their ability. But what has let them down this season is bad and slow decision making in the final third. I think they have handled the pressure really well, yesterday was just a bad day at the office.
 
I dont think we are bottlers, Klopp has a tendency to tighten up in big games hence his poor record in finals. We would be better off going all out at 70 mins than they way we have looled simply to control games.

But the real issue is it looks like we simply ran put of legs around Dec/Jan and we dont have the ability to rotate like City do. Salah/Firmino have looked very flat and we just dont have enough quality in reserve.
 
Mors said:
It seems Klopp has kept his tactics the same as he always does, we don't set up any differently for a specific team, we play the way we do and that's that. Our form has nosedived in 2019, so is it just the players?
Click to expand...

Would that not be an issue too ?

Who doesn't know how to stop us at this stage ?
 
momoWASboss said:
[article]Chris Sutton: “It’s ridiculous to say Liverpool are bottling it. “It is not over yet, there are nine games to go. "Liverpool fans are bottling it, not the players."[/article]
Click to expand...

Saw this last night, and its probably true. Some of our fans are bottling it.
 
I still think the cup decision was the correct decision. Robertson looks fucked. Imagine him having another 6 or so games under his belt. He’d just be lying on the ground. When your options are the likes of Moreno you just cannot go full team every game for 60 games.
 
mark1975 said:
We went out of both domestic competitions in the early rounds when we had a 9 point lead at the top, so we could "focus on the league". Now we're 1pt behind City.

Great logic.
Click to expand...
I don't think we ever had a 9pt lead (all games equal).. we went out of the FA cup just after we lost to City and had the lead cut to 4pts.

I know you're pissed off that we went out early, as I was, but let's be honest.

We tried to win the Chelsea game but went out to a Hazard wonder goal. This was a game in a period when we had huge CL games and PL games against City and Spurs.

And against Wolves in the FA cup, we played 9/11 senior players... internationals... and tried to win the game by bringing on Salah and Firmino, but lost to another great wonderstrike from Neves.

Klopp trusted the squad and they let us down.

I've been very critical of the way he's disrespected the cups in previous years, and I made a point of saying I would only accept defeats in these competitions if we tried to win those games, and we lost to a top six PL opponent at home, or a top 10 PL opponent away from home. Unfortunately, both cases happened. It's life.

I'll have the same requirement of the team next year. We are not allowed to go out of the cup to lower divisions sides anywhere. But I think we should stop beating the team with the stick that we didn't try to win these games this year.
 
momoWASboss said:
I still think the cup decision was the correct decision. Robertson looks fucked. Imagine him having another 6 or so games under his belt. He’d just be lying on the ground. When your options are the likes of Moreno you just cannot go full team every game for 60 games.
Click to expand...

I think you just have to look at where Spurs are in the league to see the toll of extra cup ties, if you don't have a squad like City's.
 
As for "bottling it". Let's breakdown the definition of the term. I think many of our rivals are just throwing that term around as a stick to beat us with, because they've been so nervous all season that we might actually win it. There's a collective sigh of relief right now, that we are no longer top and in control.

"Bottling it" is when either:

1) You lose an insurmountable points lead - We've never had that. Had we beaten City at the Etihad, we would have.
2) You lose games to teams you should be beating and fall away from the title race as soon as you're actually mentioned in the race (see Spurs) - we've lost once all season and are still in it.
3) You are expected to win, are clear favourites, and you don't deliver - I don't think we've ever been clear favourites. Again, had we beaten City at the Etihad, we would have been.
4) You lose a narrow lead in the title race very late on, against teams you should be beating. Now this is what happened when we didn't win it in 13/14. We bottled it against Crystal Palace and threw away a 3-0 lead. Now, let's say City drop points and we have a 3pt lead over them going into the last 4 games (Cardiff, Huddersfield, Newcastle, Wolves). These are all teams we are expected to beat. Now if we can't deliver and lose that lead, even one so narrow, then yeah, we'd have bottled it.

So in answer to your question, are the players a bunch a bottlers? Well, we don't know yet. We will find out depending where we are after the Chelsea game.
 
gkmacca said:
No. As for posters on here: loads.
Click to expand...

Surprised you're taking such a black and white stance on this even though if the question posed by the thread is sensationalist.

You've posted at length in the past about the frail nature of our players and the fact that Klopp / this team needs to win something.

Do you think that this group of players is different to seasons past?

Ultimately I think this team is suffering from a lack of depth more than anything but the nervousness against Utd still grates.
 
keniget said:
Surprised you're taking such a black and white stance on this even though if the question posed by the thread is sensationalist.

You've posted at length in the past about the frail nature of our players and the fact that Klopp / this team needs to win something.

Do you think that this group of players is different to seasons past?

Ultimately I think this team is suffering from a lack of depth more than anything but the nervousness against Utd still grates.
Click to expand...

Yes, I do. The game against Crystal Palace in Rodgers' season, that was the worst collapse I've ever seen from a Liverpool team in terms of mentality. Absolutely shameful.

This current team isn't 'bottling' anything. It's struggling with its rhythm and the forwards are out of form. That isn't bottling it. People are buying into a cynical narrative created by the media. They're sounding like TalkSport listeners. And to focus on it after a DERBY game, at Goodison - the kind of fixture that we usually struggled with even in the days when we were actually winning titles - the kind of game in which we've often found difficult year in year out in recent years - is frankly disingenuous. What is happening is more about fan projection that club mentality.
 
What I've learned from this thread is that I really hope I'm not unlucky enough to be in some of your company whenever the zombie apocalypse comes. Your morale would collapse quicker than the French after Dunkirk and you would be among the hordes of the living dead before you can say "braaaaaaiiinnssssss".
 
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ibromurph said:
As for "bottling it". Let's breakdown the definition of the term. I think many of our rivals are just throwing that term around as a stick to beat us with, because they've been so nervous all season that we might actually win it. There's a collective sigh of relief right now, that we are no longer top and in control.

"Bottling it" is when either:

1) You lose an insurmountable points lead - We've never had that. Had we beaten City at the Etihad, we would have.
2) You lose games to teams you should be beating and fall away from the title race as soon as you're actually mentioned in the race (see Spurs) - we've lost once all season and are still in it.
3) You are expected to win, are clear favourites, and you don't deliver - I don't think we've ever been clear favourites. Again, had we beaten City at the Etihad, we would have been.
4) You lose a narrow lead in the title race very late on, against teams you should be beating. Now this is what happened when we didn't win it in 13/14. We bottled it against Crystal Palace and threw away a 3-0 lead. Now, let's say City drop points and we have a 3pt lead over them going into the last 4 games (Cardiff, Huddersfield, Newcastle, Wolves). These are all teams we are expected to beat. Now if we can't deliver and lose that lead, even one so narrow, then yeah, we'd have bottled it.

So in answer to your question, are the players a bunch a bottlers? Well, we don't know yet. We will find out depending where we are after the Chelsea game.
Click to expand...
Very good post.
 
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