I think 352 does suit us better in a lot of games. Seems harsh on Lucas as he’s the one of the 3 who would drop out but it seemed to get Kane and Son into the game more, it can give a creative player a bit more license to work, and it suits more of the midfielders we have. Then again the 343 gives us another forward which can be useful when countering, though we were hardly stunted in chances from the source last night. The WBs cover a lot of ground and we do well at getting someone like Alli up with the counterattacks, that timing always was his forte after all.
to be fair if you watch the videos of the two, robertson gets the ball and follows through. By rules of todays game though as he went into his ankle afterwards that's a red. Kanes yesterday was far more blatant red as he goes in, both feet off the ground, misses the ball completely and with more force than robertsons challenge although i've only seen a slowmo of the robertson one. Liverpool get loads of decisions though so this swings and roundabouts
Most of the time I don't watch the pundits post match, I see some during half time and most are pretty boring and talk in clichés. Carragher often makes interesting observations, so I listen to him. Keane is close to a bigot and Souness occasionally makes an interesting comment but mostly he is like he was as a player, one eyed. Jemaine Defoe made some interesting and balanced comments on the Liverpool game and Jenas is decent until he gets too confident and overstretches himself, funnily enough, just as he did as a player. It's embarrassing to watch Hoddle usually, but he's better as a co-commentator than a pundit. I'll probably get stick for saying in terms of co-commentators I rate Lee Dixon and hate Andy Townsend. Ally McCoist is one of the better co-commentators. I won't talk about the commentators because I dislike nearly all of them, most are far to full opinions and fail to describe the game they are watching.
Read somewhere that Liverpool play more long balls than any other side in the top 10. Hey, if it works, I’m not knocking it, but Klopp’s outbursts are bizarre at times. Next he’ll be claiming the grass was too long, or something.
Funny you say that as we were saying in our board was the grass overly long (not in terms of an excuse). We played so many underhit passes (the one to Robbo for the Kane tackle being one example) that we couldn’t work out if it was just **** passing from our players (probably) or if the grass was bit long / pitch was bit soggy?
If it's a joke then it is just about ok. But jokes about physical appearance are always a bit dodgy imho.
I wasn’t in London last night but am today, seems pretty damp out and about. Not overly so and not beyond what a watered pitch would be though.
Conte can definitely extract 5-10% more out of just about all of his players, it's why he's one of the best in the world but realistically we need Conte getting that 5-10% more out of genuinely good players. 5-10% more out of Kane, Son, Skipp, Reguilon etc gets us Champions League spots and increased chances of trophies, 5-10% more out of Winks, Dele, Ndombele etc gets us Europa League and probably quarter/ semi finals. So ideally we need to add more of the former that Conte can squeeze from and that's where I hope we can begin doing so in January. I think a creative mid has to be top of the list and to pay for that, I'd imagine two midfielders will need to be sacrificed. Of our current options, I generally switch between who I want out first and foremost but right now the two big money signings of 2019 should be the first to go, we absolutely don't need Lo Celso whilst Ndombele's ability is overshadowed by his inability to play 90 mins and struggle to be a true team player. Contrary to my usual position on the guy, Winks has the best chance of staying at the club. He's CG, hard working, rarely injured and can play 90 minutes in quick succession. It's bare minimum requirements but it shows the position we're in that bare minimum is better than what others offer. I'd keep Dele over Ndombele and Lo Celso but I'd have zero qualms selling all three in January if offers arrived. Another striker is ideal, it has been for two of the last three seasons though so we all know how that's likely going to end. Running Kane into the ground seems like a rule at the club, it's been worsened this season due to his struggles, albeit a creative mid massively helps that. Defence for now at least, is almost perfectly fine. Davies has always been a good defender, just not a great modern day FB/ WB so now at LCB there's zero issues with him. Dier's having his best season in three years, can say he's lucky to have survived in the team 'til now but this season he's Skipp's closest early contender for our POTY and when Romero returns that's a back three that I think Conte will really enjoy. Emerson's been patchy at RWB but he'll improve, I think there's a real player in there and just needs time learning the league and language. An upgrade on Doherty is the only thing we could do with from a defensive standpoint but it's very low down on list of the priorities this January to the point where we can definitely wait 'til the summer. A midfielder or two and a striker would represent a fantastic window for us and Conte. It doesn't even feel like too much to ask for either... Over to you, Daniel and Fabio.
I don't think they will necessarily be great players but I think they are harder to improve upon than you think. Winks is club trained and Dele is association trained. We don't have 5 of the former or 9 of the latter so their possible replacements are from a very limited pool. I would rather we spent on RWB and a another top class forward.
It was right in front of me and you could see he was going to do it. Lost the ball and then started one of those runs that you know is going to end badly. please log in to view this image Look at where Robertson ends up. His momentum carries him around and past Tanganga. The VAR official that day was Craig Pawson, who Klopp has publicly slagged off in the past. It's almost like he does this whenever a result doesn't go Liverpool's way, isn't it?
CG and HG options are only beneficial if they're actually good players/ good options though. In Winks' five years you'd probably struggle to name two hands worth of memorable performances. It's quite similar to Dele over the last three years. Them being CG and HG have been of no real benefit to the club over many years. The reality also is that if Ndombele and Lo Celso were good signings, it's extremely likely we'd have sold Winks and Dele by now, regardless of whether we could've replaced them or not as their spots could've just been covered with youth team players. Luckily for them the other two are the biggest flops in our history, especially the Argentinian, complete waste of space.
No Liverpool fans wanting to engage on the Salah handball incident, that led to their second and should definitely have been disallowed...
Yeah I hope and think Conte will still want more midfield options in January, he’s not naive enough to think that suddenly Dele and Winks will become good players on a regular basis. There’s talk of Betis wanting Lo Celso back so hopefully that materialises as I would genuinely keep Winks and Dele over him even before yesterday’s game.
A tricky choice, but he probably just edged out Dier and Sessegnon. Probably not something anyone was expecting to read before the game.
He was very good yesterday, hope it’s not a one off and he can learn from Conte and become a decent player (finally)
That Betis link is unfortunately from Fichajes, which is basically the equivalent to The Sun in terms of reliability
The Robertson tackle is a shocker as is the kane one ... my point is that the reaction to both tackles by Klopp (as is expected) and the media is like chalk and cheese. EVERY fan of EVERY club can point to outrageous decisions . I expect fans to fight their own corner but reporters and pundits are being beyond ridiculous at points. VAR can not work cos refereeing standards are appalling and have been for years. The fact that someone like Clattenberg is and was considered a top referee says it all tbh.
