I don't enjoy this losing mullarkey

[StevieM]

Games are tight. Sturridge looks unfit, we're missing Coutinho and a few players are still settling. If we were getting battered I'd be worried, but a fit Sturridge, Suarez and Coutinho will make all the difference to us and will turn around the 1-0 differences in alot of these games.

The simple fact is though, we've either got really shit depth, or Rodgers doesn't feel a few players have settled in enough to be trusted yet. Young Alberto deserves a crack at this rate and I'd be looking to Ibe or someone else instead of Sterling, who looks short on confidence and ideas.

The crux of our problem though is that playing Gerrard deep isn't working, neither is playing Henderson wide to cover the centre back playing at fullback. We need to change it round, either give Allen a go when he's back or get Henderson back in the middle and push Gerrard forward.

This.

 

[StevieM]

We needed a CM/DM badly.
Aspas and Alberto arent looking like they will contribute much at all. Sakho was a lot of money for a CB (not that I dont rate him) and now we have CB's coming out of our ears and no one to bring in anywhere else.
Its all a bit of a mess.

For the record I would recall Borini citing Di Canio leaving. We need striker options, we had none last night.

See I disagree entirely with this.

We have 4 CMs - Lucas, Gerrard, Hendrson & Allen. That's enough to fill the 2 places we have. In fact there's an argument that were just not playing the best 2 thete at the moment

We have Sturridge & Suarez who's best position is at the front - both very good.

Where we're lacking is the attacking midfield positions - we have Moses for the left, Coutinho for the middle and then we start dropping in the likes of Sturridge, Suarez or Hendrrson in the right to varying degrees of success. Or backup is Aspas & a bunch of kids in Sterling, Alberto & Ibe. There's just not enough there for when one or more player is injured or off form.

The one obvious move that Rodgers seems determined not to do - is move Gerrard to that attacking line - despite it being the area he's played with arguably his greatest success under numerous managers.

 

[Ryan]

See I disagree entirely with this.

We have 4 CMs - Lucas, Gerrard, Hendrson & Allen. That's enough to fill the 2 places we have. In fact there's an argument that were just not playing the best 2 thete at the moment

We have Sturridge & Suarez who's best position is at the front - both very good.

Where we're lacking is the attacking midfield positions - we have Moses for the left, Coutinho for the middle and then we start dropping in the likes of Sturridge, Suarez or Hendrrson in the right to varying degrees of success. Or backup is Aspas & a bunch of kids in Sterling, Alberto & Ibe. There's just not enough there for when one or more player is injured or off form.

The one obvious move that Rodgers seems determined not to do - is move Gerrard to that attacking line - despite it being the area he's played with arguably his greatest success under numerous managers.

Yep, agree with this.

 

[LarryHagman]

We have 4 CMs - Lucas, Gerrard, Hendrson & Allen. That's enough to fill the 2 places we have. In fact there's an argument that were just not playing the best 2 thete at the moment

There's also an argument that none of them are much cop in CM.

 

[RedZeppelin III]

this is what rodgers said after the game the other evening -

He said: "The players have made an excellent start. We were disappointed at the weekend, we were a bit flat and subdued, and just couldn't really get going. Part of that was because of the players we have available, but I know that the players I have give absolutely everything.
"Now we can only concentrate on the league through to Christmas. We have to make sure we stay up in the top six in the league and keep fighting. Hopefully we can reinforce again in January."

and in the last few weeks he has made comment about needing a few more transfer windows to match what spurs are doing ..along with mentioning how he expects this to be like last season also where our form significantly improved in the second half . So it seems he's not completely happy with what we have at the moment and is very much still rebuilding , perhaps even changing our tactics also. The questions for me then are - when is this all going to come together ? and - have we been going about this in the best way , especially when it comes to signings ? .

I mean considering we really need to get back into the champs league asap should we not be looking as much as possible to spending money on players who will influence the first team significantly from the start ? Could the Aspas , Alberto , borini ,Ilori and even allen money not have been spent better on players for right now ? Ok it's not that easy if players of quality don't want to join but still i wonder if we have been clever enough with our budget . Anyway it seems a bit messy at the moment but hopefully it will all come together over the next few windows .

 

[mark1975]

I get your point Zep. As I said earlier, he did try to buy one of three big attacking targets and none of them came to fruition. In the past we've missed out on big players and bought the likes of Pennant, so I'd rather us go with the scenario of X player who we are interested in for a less prioritised role becomes available, so we go for him instead of waiting until further down the line, and we put our quest for an attacker on the back burner until the right one is available. That's the way I "hope" it is with us buying Sakho after missing out on Costa, Willian and whatshisfaceUkrainian. That it's a case of Sakho was someone we really wanted but were probably going to try and get in a later window, but when we missed out on the attacking targets, we decided to bring him in now.

I do think he's fucked up with a few players though, which is worrying. Illori and Alberto are young so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, but we've spent over £30m on Aspas, Borini and Allen.

 

[rurikbird]

Yep, agree with this.

I agree with everything, except the Gerrard bit. Stevie can't play in an advanced attacking position any more. If he is getting winded after 70 minutes in the Xabi role, how long will he last (and how effective would he be) in a Coutinho role? He tried to play box-to-box last season without much success, it's only when he moved deeper his performances improved.

 

[mark1975]

I agree with everything, except the Gerrard bid. Stevie can't play in an advanced attacking position any more and Rodgers can't do anything about it.

He'd be better there than deeper, less workrate, more direct threat. Even if he doesn't have it in him to do half the stuff he used to do, we'd still be better off defensively and offensively than letting him sit there trying 30 yard passes that don't come off and watching the game pass him by.

 

[rurikbird]

He'd be better there than deeper, less workrate, more direct threat. Even if he doesn't have it in him to do half the stuff he used to do, we'd still be better off defensively and offensively than letting him sit there trying 30 yard passes that don't come off and watching the game pass him by.

How much of an attacking threat would Gerrard be nowadays? He loses the ball easily under pressure, he doesn't have the sudden burst of pace to get past players (although he can still make occasional runs from deep), his thunderous shot is all but gone. His energy and work rate have diminished. Short passing and guile were never his strong qualities even his peak.

The only two world-class qualities Gerrard still has in his arsenal are long-range passing and reading and understanding of the game - both best utilized in a deep-lying midfield position. I have no doubt that the position where he is currently playing for Liverpool (as well as the national team) is the only position where he can be still effective at this level. If he is not effective enough as a DLP, the only solution is to drop or rest him. Moving him to RW or AM would only make things worse.

 

[rurikbird]

I think one big reason why our midfield doesn't work so well this season might be Lucas's fitness problems. Not sure why this is happening, but in almost every game this season we saw this pattern: Lucas plays a blinder for the first 30 minutes or so, OK in the next 30 minutes and poor in the last half-hour. When both of our CMs are running out of gas after an hour of play, it's awfully hard to win games.

We are missing Allen badly; if he could replace either Gerrard or Lucas for the last half hour (or start some games and be replaced later himself), we would be able to control games for the whole 90 minutes. How great it would be to have Lucas's "good" half-hour at the end of the game, when we need to preserve a 1-goal lead! I believe that Gerrard can still be effective as a DPL (we'll have to agree to disagree for now, Mark), but he needs a partner with a lot of energy next to him at all times.

BTW, I don't think Henderson would be a good partner for Gerrard in CM. They are too similar in some ways; it's better to have someone who is good at short passing and with a good touch.

 

[mark1975]

How much of an attacking threat would Gerrard be nowadays? He loses the ball easily under pressure, he doesn't have the sudden burst of pace to get past players (although he can still make occasional runs from deep), his thunderous shot is all but gone. His energy and work rate have diminished. Short passing and guile were never his strong qualities even his peak.

The only two world-class qualities Gerrard still has in his arsenal are long-range passing and reading and understanding of the game - both best utilized in a deep-lying midfield position. I have no doubt that the position where he is currently playing for Liverpool (as well as the national team) is the only position where he can be still effective at this level. If he is not effective enough as a DLP, the only solution is to drop or rest him. Moving him to RW or AM would only exacerbate the problem.

I wouldn't read too much into him playing their at International level, and his only goal of late has come for England when he pushed forward and seized on a chance just outside the box and let fly. He can still do it, less frequently, but I'd sooner see if he can pick things up there than invest time on waiting for Hollywood passes to come off while 80% of the rest of his game is hampering him and us in that deeper role.

 

[Dreambeliever]

We basically need to pray for no injuries to Sturridge, Coutinho, Suarez and Moses for the rest of the season. Simples.

 

[Gary25]

We basically need to pray for no injuries to Sturridge, Coutinho, Suarez and Moses for the rest of the season. Simples.

I wouldn't put Moses in the same bracket as Coutinho, Suarez and Sturridge in terms if importance but yeah, any injuries to our attacking players really does fuck us over.

Some transfer business needs doing in January.

 

[the_khl]

See I disagree entirely with this.

We have 4 CMs - Lucas, Gerrard, Hendrson & Allen. That's enough to fill the 2 places we have. In fact there's an argument that were just not playing the best 2 thete at the moment

We have Sturridge & Suarez who's best position is at the front - both very good.

Where we're lacking is the attacking midfield positions - we have Moses for the left, Coutinho for the middle and then we start dropping in the likes of Sturridge, Suarez or Hendrrson in the right to varying degrees of success. Or backup is Aspas & a bunch of kids in Sterling, Alberto & Ibe. There's just not enough there for when one or more player is injured or off form.

The one obvious move that Rodgers seems determined not to do - is move Gerrard to that attacking line - despite it being the area he's played with arguably his greatest success under numerous managers.

Some of us have said this for the past 6 months or so. Doesn't mean it's not still spot on, just kind of old news really and too late to do anything about.

The question remains did Rodgers even plan to do something about it during the Summer?

Henrikh wasn't going to be the answer either way as he's the one meant to be at the receiving end of the through ball, not the one hitting it, a bit like Moses. And Costa is a winger/forward type, so that leaves us with Willian, which I am not even sure has been a genuine target at all. I was told from several corners, that we indeed did want to buy Eriksen at one stage, but he was weighted and found too light. That's perhaps the only genuine creative playmaker we have been interested? I find that odd.

To me it seems Rodgers are acting a bit clueless in the market really. Is it because he has shafted his Swansea-days style of play? Or does he feel let down by some of his signings and is now trying something different in terms of style? Did he expect Allen or even Alberto to come in and prove vital cover for Coutinho? I guess not, why I reckon he's changing his concept, the possession stats so far certainly underlines that theory.

Swansea are now playing like how I reckon we were meant to be playing under Rodgers and I am well confused. Sadly I think the gaffer is too.

It's not all doom and gloom of course there are just some signals telling us that the supposed "red line" in Rodgers work has at least gone well rosy. Even if we should buy a great creative midfielder come January it is 6 months too late.

 

[rurikbird]

We basically need to pray for no injuries to Sturridge, Coutinho, Suarez and Moses for the rest of the season. Simples.

When players such as Aspas and LAR settle and start to contribute, the situation will not look as dire. But for now, yes, we lost Coutinho and have no one in the team who could possibly replace him.

Although let's not forget that only a few months ago we didn't have Coutinho or any other player of his type (if you don't count "better-than-Messi" Joe Cole). As usual, we get used to good things quickly...

 

[Dahuge]

Is not simply a case of both manager and player won the monthly awards and as such our form dipped? As soon as the month ends we will be back on form!

 

[hmmmmm1]

I wouldn't put Moses in the same bracket as Coutinho, Suarez and Sturridge in terms if importance but yeah, any injuries to our attacking players really does fuck us over.

Some transfer business needs doing in January.

A bid for Mata in January would be exactly what we need.

 

[StevieM]

A bid for Mata in January would be exactly what we need.

Except he wants to play central which still leaves us with a hole to fill on the right.