Do you really not have any confidence in Ragnar, who'll almost certainly start, and has looked fantastic in preseason?
Arsenal v Liverpool Pre Match Thread
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Huge game, we could really do with beating a top 4 regular straight out the gate.
Fucking Moreno!
Hard to pick a team for this
Fucking Moreno!
Hard to pick a team for this
The only saving grace for Moreno would be that he'll be up against the Ox/Walcott and Bellerin (might be in our interests that we have Moreno against the pace of Hector, and his forward runs keeping him back) rather than having Alexis/ Ozil on the wing. Still doesn't fill me with huge confidence but it could be worse.
I don't get where this "he obviously likes lallana" stuff comes from. We had little options to choose from last season so he more played out of default. If you wanna talk about his love for one player you would say it's firmino who he always fits him in the team in whatever position.
I haven't seen enough of him, really. I'd never heard of him. He looked OK in what I saw. Bit pedestrian, maybe, decent passer.
Nothing special, really.
I think Klopp's comment post Barca game pretty much confirmed Firmino is the first name on the team sheet vs Arsenal. I like Grujic, and wouldn't mind him starting, but the fact he started as sub vs Barca again suggests to me he won't start (though he did have Hendo on the bench too).
Origi for me has done enough to start up top given Sturridge injuries, I'd be very disappointed if we go into Arsenal with a false 9, when we have a real one ready to go.
I sometimes think that I'm the only Liverpool fan on Earth who doesn't think Firmino is great.
No you're not.
Firmino is another irritatingly inconsistent player. Along with Coutinho, Can, Sakho, Sturridge etc.
It's our main problem. Well, apart from being useless at set pieces (for and against) and having the worst left back and goalkeeper in the League.
Lovren was consistently bad in his 1st season but was consistently good last year and Clyne is very consistently good. Milner, Henderson & Lallana are consistently average.
The hope is that the new guys Karius, Matip, Ragnar, Wijnaldum, Mane and maybe Grujic, Ings, Origi & Gomez bring some more solidity and reliability to the side to make up for the regular brainfarts from the rest of them.
You can carry one or two flair players who can't be relied upon every week but will be match winners on their day but you have to surround them with team mates who can put in 7 or 8 performances week in, week out especially in defence and centre midfield. The last few years it's been the other way round so not surprisingly, we could perform brilliantly and shockingly, sometimes in the same game.
It's our main problem. Well, apart from being useless at set pieces (for and against) and having the worst left back and goalkeeper in the League.
Lovren was consistently bad in his 1st season but was consistently good last year and Clyne is very consistently good. Milner, Henderson & Lallana are consistently average.
The hope is that the new guys Karius, Matip, Ragnar, Wijnaldum, Mane and maybe Grujic, Ings, Origi & Gomez bring some more solidity and reliability to the side to make up for the regular brainfarts from the rest of them.
You can carry one or two flair players who can't be relied upon every week but will be match winners on their day but you have to surround them with team mates who can put in 7 or 8 performances week in, week out especially in defence and centre midfield. The last few years it's been the other way round so not surprisingly, we could perform brilliantly and shockingly, sometimes in the same game.
He's in the Coutinho mold of could be amazing, but is very inconsistent. He was fairly wasteful at times against Barca.
Milner was not average last season, he was good overall, and contributed goals and lots of assists.
Your point about flair/ consistency/ luxury players is valid, and I won't get into my ongoing crusade of "consistency" being a quality that good players display, because they're good players.
But certainly with Lallana, Coutinho and Firmino all in the side, you only need to watch the EL final to see what can happen when all three are fucking shit
Couldn't agree more with this point. The top players are at the top because they play at consistently high levels, which is a trait that distinguishes them more than any other from "good" players.
Every player is capable of a great game, but the best players have great seasons (and usually many of them).
I think there's a re-writing of history with Milner because in the first half of the season he was poor, I mean really poor. He then had an excellent end to the season but judged over the whole year, he was not overall consistently good, far from it.
In that case, it could be argued that nobody was consistently good last season, apart from Clyne
I think Lovren was to be fair. Obviously his first season was a car crash but he put in regular strong and dependable performances last season.
Sturridge's fitness is inconsistent but when he plays he scores with astonishing regularity. And I don't think Lovren was consistently good last season. He was consistently better than he was the previous season but that's all.
The problem Sturridge has is that he doesn't "look" effective in Klopp's side. What I mean by that is, he doesn't look like he's grafting like the rest (certainly not as much as Origi for example), and I think some of what he offers gets lost thanks to that impression.
Sticking with the Origi comparison, it will be interesting to see what effect him leading the line has on the team vs Sturridge over the the next season.
Fuck me, what type of cunt inflicts their wedding on people on the opening weekend of the fucking season?!
I'd be swerving that for sure, & possibly sending them a shoebox full of shite as a wedding gift.
One of my friends has a kids birthday party on the Saturday (which I've managed to dodge, thinking our game was on the Saturday), and then the other has the wedding on the Sunday, fucking outrageous, and just to add insult to injury, I'm one of the select few friends who've been invited to the whole thing instead of the starting at 7pm reception. Fuming, better a bar with a fucking tele there.
Consistency is in the eye of the beholder it seems.
Last season, his first in a new team and new country with a change of formation and manager after 9 games, still yielded 11 goals / 9 assists = goal per 302.45 mins (goal or assist every 166.35 mins), that by the way was fractionally better than Coutinho but no doubt from far fewer shots, and he surely made a greater contribution to our defence via pressing/kms run. He's underrated on here but I thought he was great in the BL, was very pleased we bought him, and am excited to see what he can do in his second season and under Klopp.
I don't think anyone is ever that confident about playing Arsenal away, moron.
It's always a difficult game at any stage of the season
Blame the post, not the poster.
Yet I'm quite happy we are going there first game and that we have 4 top teams in our first six games. It may backfire but I'd rather play them before the transfer window closes, before their players have had much time with new managers and tactics (not relevant to Arsenal of course) and before their returning Euro/Am cup players are back up to full fitness. I believe Klopp will have us ahead in terms of fitness & preparedness too.
Yeah, maybe. It's not easy to predict Liverpool. We showed last season that we could give anyone a thumping, home or away.
I'm always made up when I get invited for the evening, watching other people get hitched is not much fun, not for a fella anyway.
Arsenal always start very slowly, I doubt this year will be the exception, & Wenger insists on giving all players three weeks off competitive games so there'll be a fair few important players for them missing.
I think that combined with our more aggressive pre season schedule bodes well, so I'm hoping it points to a win coming our way.
Yeah, hopefully we´ll attack and not go for a defensive style with only a false 9. Let´s set the tone for the season straight away with an aggressive, full throttle display.
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