Real Madrid Vs Liverpool

[mark1975]

Financial sense yeah, and maybe he's resigned to the fact we're unlikely to win, but we at least go down fighting. I kinda go with my original sentiment, it's a diplomatic way of dropping a couple of players who need to get their shit together ahead of Chelsea. People are over reacting though really. Gerrard has been non essential, Mario has given little and Lovren has been a walking fuck up, so I doubt resting them will be that catastrophic, our so called best team couldnt get near them two weeks ago. Maybe we need a change in approach and players that have something to prove.

 

[Best Believe It]

I also think that Lucas, Henderson and Coutinho might actually work better as a compact, pressing midfield against Real Madrid.

 

[gkmacca]

You play your best team against a top club. If your best team doesn't do well enough, you work on them and re-think your tactics. We've got red flags, not white ones. This is disgracefully small time from the manager. The only chance with a weakened team, given the standard of our second and third choices, is for Real to not bother and feck up. After which I guess it will be hailed as a genius move. I'm no lover of the myth of Saint Rafa, but he was an egomaniac who would never, ever, want to be humiliated in a game, no matter how out of sorts his first team was. Rodgers seems to be an egomaniac who will let the club be humiliated so long as he can exempt himself from the experience. It's semi-detached.

 

[Best Believe It]

Do we know our best team?

 

[mark1975]

Macca, we haven't seen the team yet. And in fairness, how long can ee keep waving the "best team" flag, before someone has the balls to have a rethink and try something different?

 

[gkmacca]

Do we know our best team?

We seem to know our worst if that rumour is true. We'll be playing it.

 

[SummerOnions]

Gerrard not playing this is a good idea

 

[mark1975]

"the best team" thing is rubbish really. If we've been playing our best team, then we're fucked, because it can't defend or score goals.

 

[gkmacca]

Macca, we haven't seen the team yet. And in fairness, how long can ee keep waving the "best team" flag, before someone has the balls to have a rethink and try something different?

I don't mind trying something different. But trying SOMEONE different? Well, who? I'd try Ibe, but he's off for the season. Who else? Anyone can try something different. There's no 'balls' in that unless there's some real logic behind it. Rodgers seems to have tried lots of things with the defence. What's that achieved, apart from incoherence? In midfield, who should come in - Lucas? Bull in a china shop Can? It's not a great squad. They are some good young prospects and some mediocre current prospects. But this is Real Madrid. The world is watching. The reputation of a great club is at stake. It's a game for risk-aversive decisions by a manager who keeps telling us what a clever fellow he is. Well he'd better damned prove it tonight, and not step back and shake his head at his team.

 

[gkmacca]

"the best team" thing is rubbish really. If we've playing best team, then we're fucked, because it can't defend or score goals.

Well, quite. But there's no logic in recoiling from an unpleasant truth by applauding scraping the bottom of the barrel.

 

[SummerOnions]

We have to play as a team tonight, this could be like where Gerrard didn't play against Spurs last year at WHL and we smashed them. Ronaldo is about the same as Soldado right?

 

[Delinquent]

I think many would argue that our best team doesn't contain Steven Gerrard at the moment. I'm not inclined to agree, personally, particularly in the Champions League. I think he's been one of our better players of late, although admittedly that's nothing to be proud of. But putting aside whether Stevie plays or not, the issue here is the way Rodgers is talking about this game as if it's a dead rubber. As fans, we're aloud to say that. Pundits and commentators alike can broadcast it across the airwaves. The ENTIRE footballing world can scream it from the fucking hills, but our manager most certainly should NOT be saying it. Particularly not on the eve of the fucking game. What kind of message does that send to the players? Let's be clear, if he fields a weakened team, it's not because he "trusts" everyone to perform. These would be the same players that he hasn't felt able to trust against Premier League minnows, never mind the best team in the world. He'd be sending them out like lambs to the slaughter, whilst simultaneously issuing them a thinly-veiled threat that if they don't perform against the cream of the crop then they can have no complaints if they're consigned to the scrapheap.

Rodgers has been looking every bit the Swansea manager of late.

 

[gkmacca]

Brendan's team talk to his brave young expendables:

 

[mark1975]

I think many would argue that our best team doesn't contain Steven Gerrard at the moment. I'm not inclined to agree, personally, particularly in the Champions League. I think he's been one of our better players of late, although admittedly that's nothing to be proud of. But putting aside whether Stevie plays or not, the issue here is the way Rodgers is talking about this game as if it's a dead rubber. As fans, we're aloud to say that. Pundits and commentators alike can broadcast it across the airwaves. The ENTIRE footballing world can scream it from the fucking hills, but our manager most certainly should NOT be saying it. Particularly not on the eve of the fucking game. What kind of message does that send to the players? Let's be clear, if he fields a weakened team, it's not because he "trusts" everyone to perform. These would be the same players that he hasn't felt able to trust against Premier League minnows, never mind the best team in the world. He'd be sending them out like lambs to the slaughter, whilst simultaneously issuing them a thinly-veiled threat that if they don't perform against the cream of the crop then they can have no complaints if they're consigned to the scrapheap.

Rodgers has been looking every bit the Swansea manager of late.

Where has he said if they don't perform, they are on the scrapheap? His comments I've seen this morning seemed aimed at who might miss out, he said managers can't afford for players to be given too much time, he said it's the biggest side in the world at the moment and if you can't show the right sort of character when playing against the best then there's no excuse. That's not really the same as underperforming regardless of the result, I'd imagine it's more of a dig at Mario's half arsed attitude and Lovren's continued poor form.

 

[gkmacca]

So the great nurturer, the great cultivator of unpolished talent, is now a throw 'em on and see what happens sort of manager? Can't do it in a league cup game? Oh, I know then, see how they fare against a much, much, much stronger team. That makes sense.

 

[Athens]

It says it all about what a screwed up concept the Champions League now is: so important that clubs must qualify for it, but, once you're in it, not important enough to try your hardest to stay in it, because your higher priority is to qualify for it again.

It's not the winning, but the taking part that counts.

That's what they tell all the losers, I mean kids, these days.

 

[SummerOnions]

Brodge accidentally bought too many envelops and he hates waste

 

[mark1975]

Like I said, no one has seen the team yet, Rodgers has had a bit of an outburst, we're playing shite and he's under pressure, fair enough criticise him for that, but not on a rumoured team.

 

[mom]

If that's the actual team for tonight, that's a joke. A high profile game against Real and we trot out the second string?
Sure, the league is a priority, but I don't see how being on the end of a very public humiliation can help our cause.

 

[Jack D Rips]

The fact that a booking for Gerrard tonight could put him out of the potentially more important game against Basel, may influence the decision.

 

[Delinquent]

Where has he said if they don't perform, they are on the scrapheap? His comments I've seen this morning seemed aimed at who might miss out, he said managers can't afford for players to be given too much time, he said it's the biggest side in the world at the moment and if you can't show the right sort of character when playing against the best then there's no excuse. That's not really the same as underperforming regardless of the result, I'd imagine it's more of a dig at Mario's half arsed attitude and Lovren's continued poor form.

“If at the end of this cycle of games, they haven’t performed, they can never say they haven’t been given a chance.”

This comment (taken in context with his other comments) implies that his (new) players can have no complaints if they're not given another chance after these games. It also suggests that he'll be fielding them as an experiment (because nothing else is working). Which in turn suggests he's got no idea what his best team is. How many managers experiment with team selection against the best teams? It's what minnows do when they feel they have nothing to lose.

 

[gkmacca]

The fact that a booking for Gerrard tonight could put him out of the potentially more important game against Basel, may influence the decision.

Resting/dropping Gerrard would hardly cause too many to complain. It's the air of fatalism around the whole game that riles me. One of the things that needs to be absorbed, fully, by any new manager of Liverpool Football Club is that it's a proud club with a proud tradition, and one of the things that just can't be condoned is a submissive or half-hearted attitude to big games. It's precisely the lesson that Hodgson failed even to try to appreciate when he came here. It's no good thrusting your arms up and out like Shankly if you're going to act like Shankly would have absolutely despised. Tradition isn't a pick and mix store. Either buy into it completely or ignore it. You're representing a huge football club here. Do it right or don't do it at all.

 

[gkmacca]

It depends which interview you look at. I like the idea though that we'll soon 'slip' back into the old dynamic. It sounds so organic.

 

[Squiggles]

Let's wait and see the first eleven before crucifying the man.

 

[gkmacca]

And let's wait forever before recasting criticism as crucifixion.

 

[Athens]

I don't know, a good crucifixion never hurt anyone.

 

[Jack D Rips]

Have you got the hammer and nails?

 

[Athens]

I put them down here somewhere.

 

[gkmacca]

I don't know, a good crucifixion never hurt anyone.

"I tell you the truth, so I will, one of you will betray me - and his name is in this envelope!"

 

[Brizzle]

Rumoured starting XI: Mignolet, Johnson, Skrtel, Toure, Moreno, Henderson, Lucas, Coutinho, Lallana, Markovic, Lambert.

Parts of this make sense.

Lovren has been sketchy - drop
Gerrard shite at DM - drop
Coutinho and Lallana playing better than Raheem in past couple of games
Lambert more suited to a lone striker

Doesn't look pretty but I would hate to see us line up with the same pathetic line up we had against Newcastle. Would prefer to seen Manquillo in there.