The lack of European football helps to mask a "thin" squad. Assuming Liverpool qualify for Europe next season it's something that won't apply and will need addressing. Games played so far this season (not including Cty and Everton's postponed league games from this week): City 39 Utd 39 Spurs 38 Chelsea 38 Arsenal 38 Pool 30 Everton 29 And all bar Pool and Everton are looking at, a minimum of 2 more European games.
We should have bought an experienced not-past-it CB in the summer or in January. Mistake by Rodgers not to have thought about it. Relying on an injury-prone, error-prone, and a pensioner there, not good.
Maybe but you also had Illori there, not one runout with the team. I get that he is meant to be the long term solution but would have thought he could have had a few games here and there.
CB and GK are the two positions you can't experiment with. The inexperienced Ilori couldn't have been expected to jump right in after coming to us from Portugals 2nd division.
Just saying, you can see why we didn't jump for that in Jan. Would have prefered the DM though. Still have the likes of RCB- Skrtel, Illori, Toure, possibly Kelly or Wisdom. LCB- Sakho, Agger and really any of those other CB's. Think we are OK with Migs. I don't think it helps when the four in front change so much. The one time we had a stable back four was in the beginning and we had loads of clean sheets, since then it has gone a bit chaotic, some of that on migs, but he has come up with big stops too.
I'm happy with Migs - I prefer him over a sulking Reina and also think Migs shotstopping ability is superior. However, since he lacks confidence in his forays out of his box, the need for an assured CB partnership becomes more important.
That is why Agger is still so important to this team, his distribuition is good. Sometimes loses his man waaayyyy too easily but he can still ping the ball about. That is I think where Papa could have been good but that knee injury looks worrying. What about a player like a Badstuber who has fallen out with Bayern ( I think with Injuries and with Pep's style?).
Strangely, I'm quite interested in football as well, not that anyone would know You need to lighten up a tad, though. Enjoy this whilst you can You can call me 'lad' as much as you want. It wasn't intended is a disparaging fashion. You're a Red and you care.
Cheers RHC. It's a wild rollercoaster ride this year for sure. It does justice to the overused cliche. One moment we fly highest we have in many a year, the next we're brought back down to 'reality?' Which is reality though, the high or the low? How do we reconcile the two? So, asking me to get a grip, when I have TWO grips on opposing rails of the LFC experience, that was cruel My point re Kolo is simple. He doesn't have the movement of a professional athlete anymore - we shouldn't have been put in the position of using him more than as a sub or the very occasional start.
Hopefully we don't have further injuries to Agger, Sakho or Skrtel til the end of the season. Sakho is back in March and I hope they've done great physio work on him, as on a couple of games, even before his hamstring, he looked a bit leggy. He does have the talent and the heart, no question. I'd have Agger partner any of Skrtel/Sakho atm. Although he sometimes dances to his own tune and commits a positional error, his calm possession and assurednesss are necessary assets for that back four. Maybe Sakho can supplant Agger in that role next season with his confidence growing.
I think we just need to take out toure cos he's dodgy on the left and looking awkward. skertl and agger for the run in? we'll see agger coudl look extremely rusty for all i know.
I do feel you are somewhat hard on jones. No he's not the best but then if he was he would be our no1 He rarely plays and when he does we expect him to be the worlds best. It can't be easy playing 3 or 4 games a season especially playing behind our defence. As for summer signings. I think 3 . LB and DM Definately. And another creative midfielder/forward. We have shown we can manage without Suarez or Sturridge at different times but you have to plan for the worst if the two of them were out together.
look the thing about jones is when hodgson bought him middlesbroro fans were laughing from way down at the bottom of the championship. the lad can stop a shot but his concentration is lacking, he's extremely shaking on the back pass BUT nobody cared until reina started getting injuries. the fact for me is mignolet is young but not injury prone so its down to whether he can improve his form and make the shirt his own or not. I think we need about 5 players personally assuming we get CL. Two full backs.... a midfielder (holding perhaps but certainly more alonso than parker or barry)... a striker of the type of costa or suarez who can play across the front 3.... and one winger to please rodger's fixation with one. I'd rather sell allen too but hey....
With Sakho, Enrique, Johnson & Lucas all hopefully coming back or near coming back by the end of the month plus Agger coming back into the squad yesterday, things are looking up for us defensively. I know we've been weak there away from home but having those 4 should strengthen our defense massively. And our squad will look quite strong defensively when we add all of them & Johnson into the squad.
