Only joking pal. Much like with Gerrard, its only one small part of his game that annoys me Love Skrtels commitment, reminds me of a young Gerrard
Dont Wigan want him on loan, that would be perfect for me. It would be stupidity to get rid of a player of his pedigree whout seeing him have a continuous run in a team.
What a liability this guy is. Mods can merge this if they want, but his display today deserves its own topic.
Loan him or sell him. We need someone with a physical presence in the back who can at least move a bit.
Despite looking sluggish, I thought he played well for the last half hour. Too little too late by then though. Not going to blame Jones. He's done alright in Reina's absence and we all know he's not good enough
He was pretty poor, that's to be expected when you're neither in the reserves nor playing for the first team. He's getting no team football whatsoever so mistakes were expected. I just think he lost the battle with Smith throughout the match, it clearly shook him.
Disappointed in Coates today but at the same time, he's going to look rusty with his limited game time. What concerned me was how easily he was beaten in the air. There are rumours about Skrtel and Coates off with Rodgers wanting a more physically dominating defender in the side. I can see why ...
What annoys me is the amount of people slagging him off after that one mistake. It's almost as if they had forgotten how reliable he has become after his recent performances.
Coates was always second to the ball at the back today, in the air or on the ground, not good enough. To be fair though quite a few of our lads were piss poor today, Sterling was an absolute shambles but I don't think we'd all be saying sell him on.
I was gobsmacked that Sterling stayed on the pitch when we made our first change, how he played ninety minutes is beyond me, especially when you look at how Suso been subbed during in the first half before And no, that is not me jumping on the lads back. He simply shouldn't be playing every game and if he is struggling in a match (like today) he should be taken off!
Me too, the amount of times he was second best down the wing was ridiculous (was at the game and the entire stand had had enough of him) and when he did end up with the ball it was just passed to nobody or a Latics player, just like most of our midfield play today. I think a major problem is the lack of physical presence some of our players have, and that is just emphasised playing in a cup tie like this were a side of big players like Latics have will be up for it and just knock a lightweight to the ground. Joe Allen for example, he's so tiny and skinny, yeah he has pace and skills but he could fill out a bit without compromising that. So much was wrong about today, the second Latics goal came after Sterling had been knocked over, was really a 50/50, but he just lay there looking for a foul with two other of our players looking on for the same whilst Latics romped the ball in. Most of our side just didn't turn up until after Gerrard and Downing came on. In the last 20 our tactics - i.e. pass it around, look for the angles, thread it through - started to work because Oldham were tiring and Stevie brought a bit of steel into the mid. Most of the first half we weren't even looking to close the ball down, just standing off standing off. At times we literally looked like we didn't know where to play the ball, Brad Jones dallying over getting the ball out after dead balls for example. It just looked, nervy, toothless. Sorry, that was all a bit orderless.
Sterling came off on 72 replaced by Shelvey who didn't do too badly, a very enthusiastic twenty minutes from him and at least he had a shot on goal.
