Ludogorets (A) - Wednesday 26th November
- Thread starter Frogfish
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I think it was really exacerbated by some of his gestures in the season after his first dalliance with Chelski. He scored the odd goal and then raced to the corner pointing at his name, doing a 'I'm the man' sort of gesture and snarling at a few fans. It's not really been the same for some after that series of incidents. I don't really blame him for that, as he was getting some flak anyway, but it didn't look very classy.
As I said it's not the best clip but it did strike me at the time as being a bit 'look at what I just did' - I'm probably over analysing.
I haven't seen anyone actually mention how brilliant Lallana's pass and Lambert's take-down and finish were. Superb, I really though that was the start of something. 🙁
Echo
Lallana was excellent throughout before, bizarrely, he was chosen to make way for Fabio Borini with a quarter of the game to go. The £25m man gave just one pass away all afternoon and completed every single pass in Liverpool's attacking third.
he had zero support but even then he was getting into dangerous positions far further up the pitch than Balo seems to.
Sorry don't agree with that Wiz. I was willing him on, praying he would do something and Sterling / Lambert were getting into decent positions but Coutinho's passing was abysmal at times v. Palace. At least he was starting to go on those lovely runs where he leaves 2-3 players for dead, he has hardly done that in a while, long may it now continue.
A draw is enough. In fact we could theoretically lose it and still go through if RM win their 2 matches and we beat Basel by enough to get the GD !
I remember it well. The game was on tv too.
Have you watched us play? Gerrard is doing more running than any other DM I've seen playing at the moment.
He's supposed to be a DM but either he's decided or he's been instructed to help out a mal-functioning attack.
The result is him being caught forward when we (constantly) lose the ball. That means he's often chasing back like a mad-man. He's doing double or triple the work of any other DM going around.
The reason the role worked last season - and it did - is because we played a very different style and game plan last season.
Without the speed, movement & finishing prowess of last season (no Suarez or Sturridge + Mario) Rodgers has switched to a truer tiki taki style.
But we lose the ball too often to make that effective, Gerrard is up front to help out and there's acres of space behind him.
He needs to be told - either you're up there or you're not; he can't be doing both cause it won't work. Without a Sturridge I think he needs to be up there cause we look absolutely impotent otherwise.
Indeed.
From the Guardian this weekend
[article=http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/nov/22/liverpool-suffering-luis-suarez-title-crystal-palace]Gerrard does not deserve trial by Opta but the number-crunchers can show you he has made fewer tackles, goals, interceptions and runs this season. One statistic in particular leaps out. Gerrard regularly covered 11km in matches last season. This season, he has not run that far once[/article]
Hes making less runs, covering less ground and winning less tackles. I genuinely think some people are not seeing whats going on with Gerrard, you notice him more than other players because you have become accustomed to watching him over the years but he really isnt bringing anything to the team right now, hes not shielding the back four and hes not injecting anything into the attacking quartet either. He hasnt upped his workrate to compensate for a drop in form, his whole game has gone backwards. Henderson is much the same, I havent seen him do anything of note in about 2 months.
Bib theory suggests:
Mignolet
Manquillo Toure Lovren Moreno
Allen Gerrard
Markovic Can Sterling
Balotelli
Mignolet
Manquillo Toure Lovren Moreno
Allen Gerrard
Markovic Can Sterling
Balotelli
I haven't seen anyone actually mention how brilliant Lallana's pass and Lambert's take-down and finish were. Superb, I really though that was the start of something. 🙁
Echo
Lallana was excellent throughout before, bizarrely, he was chosen to make way for Fabio Borini with a quarter of the game to go. The £25m man gave just one pass away all afternoon and completed every single pass in Liverpool's attacking third.
This is a valid point actually, during our poor spell over the last two months, almost all of Rodgers substitutions have made us worse. We were on the front foot against Palace, made the changes and then lost, we had momentum against Madrid away, made some changes, the it all fell flat, that in itself is quite worrying.
Billy Liddell @Liddellpool 30m30 minutes ago
Kolo Toure expected to start vs Ludogorets
It's a sad sign of the times that I'm happy about that.
Kolo Toure expected to start vs Ludogorets
It's a sad sign of the times that I'm happy about that.
Indeed, you've said once this year that you never want him to wear the shirt again. It's just such a sign of the times that it is a sign of intelligence on your point rather than a stick to bash you with.
The real question is if Allen, Gerrard and Can are to be the next tragic arrangement of midfielders Rodgers uses against Ludo. Which I can see evidence in if you look at recent playing time trends. Is Allen the deepest midfielder? Allowing Gerrard to just attack wherever he can find space with out too much running. I don't think it has much promise. But it could just be better than awful. So an improvement.
It'd only be pure complete stubbornness on Rodgers' part if Lucas doesn't play there.
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