Chelsea - Liverpool Pre Match Thread
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Hazard is looking well threatening for them again, and obviously they have a very physical midfield. They don't look to get the ball upfield any where near as quickly as us, and their defenders dominate their passing stats. Theoretically, they're a nightmare for us. Little open play, midfielders who tend not to gamble, and relying on the mercurial talents of Hazard and the bullishness of Costa in particular. I shouldn't be confident, but strangely I am.
Look at me! I have a special font! Because I'm special!
I don't think we can call Can 'mediocre' or anything else just yet.
Let's see what a full season under Klopp tells us. He has shown some genuine glimpses of promise and quality to afford him a little patience
It was a result of having to cut and paste that silly name and then making the font the same.
Will be very interesting to see how Klopp sets up and who he picks.
Hard to argue against the same team but can see where he could make a load of changes too.
I haven't seen him mentioned but away from home where Chelsea should be the aggressor wouldn't shock me to see Origi start.
Great to have so many possible options,
Ming/Karius
Lovern/Lucas
Can/Wjnuldem
Studge/Origi/Firmino
Coutinho/Lallana
I think the only definites are
Clyne
Matip
Milner
Mane
Henderson
I'll also be shocked if Coutinho doesn't start.
Hard to argue against the same team but can see where he could make a load of changes too.
I haven't seen him mentioned but away from home where Chelsea should be the aggressor wouldn't shock me to see Origi start.
Great to have so many possible options,
Ming/Karius
Lovern/Lucas
Can/Wjnuldem
Studge/Origi/Firmino
Coutinho/Lallana
I think the only definites are
Clyne
Matip
Milner
Mane
Henderson
I'll also be shocked if Coutinho doesn't start.
Strange So quick to strike. If anyone has done an about type face its ewe
Ha
I don't get this idea of protecting Karius from the Chelsea game. If he has a mare against Derby it would be just as damaging to his confidence. He has played away to Bayern and Dortmund so he is attuned to a big game., he is either ready or not ready, if ready play him I say because you just know Ming is going to cost us. I think I would rather have Lucas in goal than this clown.
It's not just a case of throwing him in and he either works or he doesn't, it disrupts an already jittery defense. They look like they might be (partly) getting their shit together with the inclusion of Milner and Matip. Why unsettle that in a big game by hooking the keeper for someone who's never kicked a Premiership ball, in probably our biggest game so far this season. It doesn't make sense, in that sense. Especially against a side that are likely to bombard us from setpieces, we don't know how he will manage against that in his first game. If you want an example of throwing in a new keeper and the risk, have a look at the huge fuck up he nearly made in one of the preseason friendlies, which most would put down to not being sharp enough.
I'm far from a Mignolet fan, but people have short memories about his qualities too, he's made some great saves this season to keep us in games.
Keepers don't always play exactly to form when they're just back from injury.
There's a load of muscle memory there which helps, as does the fact it's lot of instinct too. However the body's timing is often wrong thanks to slight lack of fitness & sharpness, which fucks everything up.
Then you have the confidence thing. Keepers are so utterly reliant on confidence it's untrue. More so than any other position with so the possible exception of a striker. Hence why the best keepers are often big personalities (or in other words, bonkers). Coming in & having a bad game will usually do a lot of damage.
Give him a cup game first imo.
Derby have scored 1 goal in 5 games. It's safe as it gets.
I don't have any preference in goals for this game, and I'm not sure I'd bring Can straight back in - he's had a very interrupted start to the season. Lucas out is a given.
Our front line absolutely needs to be as above. Lallana and Henderson deserve to keep their spots.
If Can was 100% I'd be tempted to put him in ahead of Wijnaldum but I think Wijnaldum is gradually finding out where he fits into this team and maybe for the greater good we need to continue to play him.
I can't figure out whether Luiz in for Terry improves Chelsea - it should, but I think Luiz is prone to mistakes and could be forced into some if we play with the same movement and fluidity up front.
Surely there's more upside to playing Karius than downside. If he has a marginally positive game in this big fixture he'll be deemed as off to a flyer. If he has a mare, it can't be any worse than what we've currently got.
I'm fed up of us being tentative with shit like this and I'm fed up of Mingoloid giving me heart palpitations every game. If Karius was bought as first choice and he's fit then play him.
I'm fed up of us being tentative with shit like this and I'm fed up of Mingoloid giving me heart palpitations every game. If Karius was bought as first choice and he's fit then play him.
I'm far from convinced he was bought to step straight in as no.1 though. You don't give the kind of contract extension Mignolet got to someone you've definitely decided to keep as no.2. I reckon Karius was bought as no.2 to either Mignolet or whomever we might buy to replace him, but on the basis that he himself is good enough to challenge for the no.1 spot in due course.
I'm not so sure. I think he'd have started as Number 1 if he hadn't got injured and I think he will be number 1 before we get to Xmas.
It's certainly not impossible, but how in that case do you interpret Mignolet's new contract?
An inexplicable mistake?
I don't get it either. He has played against Chelsea before (53,000 crowd) ... it's more likely he will get the willies playing with Lovren than because it's Chelsea !
BTW in that game against Chelsea (yes, I know it was a 'friendly' .. only it wasn't) he didn't face a single shot on target but 5 corners and 9 crosses ... so who do you prefer under them ?
I get both sides of the argument, but I'd feel better informed if I'd ever seen Karius play football. I know it's easy to say "he could hardly be any worse" but we've been wrong before with that kind of statement.
Why would introducing Karius 'disrupt an already jittery defence' ? They will have worked hard together as a team in training and if the backline has more confidence in Karius than Mignolet it'll actually increase their confidence. Karius seems a far more decisive keeper, with better distribution, and since shot-stopping is neither here nor there as regards team-work those are more important traits as regards the defence as a group is concerned.
He's good competition for Karius, and we didn't want him to leave on a free, seems pretty simple for me.
Until we have seen Karius regularly (regardless of whether it's the PL or not) it's going to be hard to claim he's a better keeper however I don't believe Klopp for one moment when he said he's been brought in 'as competition' for Mignolet. We were all aware of Ming's issues last season and Klopp surely could not have been blind to them regardless of his media comments in support. That and of course Karius was voted the #2 keeper in the BL .. that doesn't sound like someone brought in to warm the bench.
Mignolet has had a steady start to the season but do we wait until he fucks up to swap them ? And every match brings the likelihood closer. Or does Klopp presciently (is that a word ?) do it now ?
Might simply be because the opportunity to bring in Klopp's ideal keeper suddenly came up.
It's a good way to ensure your #2 keeper (who is good enough to start for a mid-table team) is happy to stay even if spending most matches on the bench. It's also a good way for us to ensure we have a competent backup .. as we've just witnessed. Imagine if that had been Bogdan.
No idea. If he does wait and show "loyalty" to Mignolet then, as you say, it is only a matter of time before some kind of awful fuck up will force his hand. And that's not just because Mignolet makes a lot of mistakes - he does - but all goalkeepers do. Karius will too.
It's a tricky one. Ideally he'd be Number 1 now, but that injury nixed that.
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