No, I am saying that at 26 you are not buying potential, you expect a player of that age to be close to the finished article. Like I said, I would have loved us to get VvD 16 months ago. I now have reservations about him, not because of his club performances (he was obviously sulking) but because he has been out with a serious injury. If he was so desperate to join you and you were willing to pay that price then, I think it would have been prudent to say put in a good second half to the season and show us you still have it.
It's entirely up to him to justify the outlay, but i fully expect him to improve our defensive frailties and be given the captain's armband at some point. But until he puts the shirt on and plays a few games we'll never know for sure.
Ferdinand peaked sooner because his drug-addled brain started to find it increasingly difficult to concentrate
The extra hair from the transplant heated Klopps brain to a point that £75m for the Dutch Lovren seemed a good idea.
The disparity in our defensive performances between home & away is interesting Home P W D L GF GA GD Pts 10 5 5 0 19 3 +16 20 Away P W D L GF GA GD Pts 10 5 3 2 27 20 +7 18 yet we are 6th in home form table and 4th in away plus only 2 points difference despite conceding nearly 3 times as many goals. One obvious conclusion is teams sit so deep at Anfield they stifle not just our attack but also their own so our defence doesn't come under enough pressure to cause the now familiar panic attack. Full Home Table https://footystats.org/england/premier-league/detailed-stats/home-league-table Full Away Table https://footystats.org/england/premier-league/detailed-stats/away-league-table
yes it is highly interesting. The thing thats missing is who exactly were played home and away Home wins: Palace - bottom of league Arsenal - were awful huddersfield - lower half side southampton - lover half side swansea - lower half side home draws Burnely - 7th in tbale at end Utd - top 4 rival, bus parkers Everton - top half team, bus parkers West brom - lower half team - bus parkers cheslea - top 4 rival got lucky. Away wins: leicester: lower half team then. west ham - relegation fodder stoke - relegation fodder brighton - lower mid table - doing well at home. bournemouth - relegation fodder Away draws watford - last min goal let in by wijanldum - mid table side newcastle - terrible goal conceded after taking lead poor show. - relegation fodder arsenal - top 4 rival threw result away. Away losses City - thumping after red Spurs - lovren disaster. Its clear to me we've absolutely tonked the lower half teams this year. We've only drawn once against a lower half team at home and once away. We have 4 draws at home against top half teams which is hurting us. Why I've posted this is to point out that in the second half of the season we will be going away to utd, everton, burnely and chelsea so that will be tough BUT conversely we have those teams we played away to absolutely smash at home. Leicester west ham stoke brighton bournemouth watford newcastle Those are the games IMO that will define our season. Only one of those sides actually looks capable of parking the bus right now and thats west ham. The result will struggle to defend as they have done everywhere. I think our home form is going to pick up nicely (fingers crossed) but away from home we are not going to have it as easy and that creaky defence (remember that of the 20 goals away 12 game in 3 games, city spurs and arsenal) needs to find its feet a bit.
Another way to look at this is we need to win 10 more games minimum this season to get 4th Home wins needed: leicester: west ham stoke brighton bournemouth watford newcastle away wins needed: Palace huddersfield southampton swansea west brom without ever playing a decent side and lets face it theres not many decent sides there.... we should be able to take 33 points if we are any good. This leaves City (h) Utd (A) Spurs (H) Cheslea (a) Everton (a) Burnely (a) all tough games so that just shows the power to getting on with those easier games against the guys you should be beating. If we don't get 70 points is will be because we've screwed it up.
since we need 32 points from 18 games i to get the 70 i confidently predict we will get it but the question is will it be enough.
i would expect more that range than 70 myself. Someone once reckoned on averaging 2 pts per game for top 4 but think he just made it up as he went along
