Exactly mate. And he has an owner that clearly wants it too. But maybe he doesn't believe the ethos of the club supports it? Which manager could go there and get that club to play a more fluid, attacking and expansive game? Not necessarily tiki-taki stuff but playing at pace. Even Chelsea at their best under Mourinho used to attack as an onslaught - a battering ram, not a pacey attack that got numbers behind the opposition defence at speed (the closest they came was with Robben and Duff but that lasted less than a season). I just don't think it suits the club's style and Mourinho knows it.
I see Chelsea are going to play a weakened team against the scousers, can anything else go right for them at the moment?
They where still serial bus Parker's when Robben and Duff where there together, they practically played with 5 defenders, with Makalele barely venturing out of his own half. The most attacking Chelsea team was under Ancelotti, they played some good stuff under him. I think Brendan Rodgers will probably go there eventually, after all that's where he started out, managing the youth team down there. I can definitely see RA approaching him, once he gets sick of Mourinho again
I think tikitaka is overrated. The ******ed scousers have benefitted from massive refereeing decisions directly but also (no fault of theirs admittedly) from their main challengers falling over themselves to lose points and ground. without those they probably would still have got CL but nowhere near that title. And he has been lucky too with players coming to him - e.g from the chavs and the racist staying when he wanted desperately to leave...
I doubt they would have done though, as Chelsea have a much better squad than the one Rodgers took over from Dalglish. Liverpool never sacked him, because they where used to finishing down there. Though I agree RA may not give him the time he would need to change all there players styles, as they've been playing anti football for so long
I'm not even sure they play tikitaka anymore, it's more pace abuse if you ask me. They don't mess around with it to much. I think he tried tikataka last season, but he changed a little when he realised it wasn't working. I agree with the rest of your post though, they've definitely had the rub of the green this season
We are not talking squads though. Even so there's no point basing the point on a hypothetical argument really. Rodgers may or may not have finished 7th, we'll never know, but I will say that his style would be such a culture shock at Chelsea that he may indeed have done badly the first season if he was there.
Well he went with the strength of his strikers I.e their speed. Rub of the green but also refs giving incomprehensible decisions to them. It is as if everyone collectively decided:" the ******ed scousers have waited too long for that title. Let's make sure they get it".
To be fair to Liverpool, they have worked out what SAF knew for years - the key to the league is always to get consistent results against the lower clubs. They've been a lot like us in 2011 in that regard - no wins away from home against any of the other top five clubs, and they've ridden their luck in places, but they've only dropped nine points against the clubs in the bottom 11, which is what you need to do in order to compete for the title. They haven't really improved against any of the top sides - they win at home and lose away (yes, I'm aware they've doubled us this season and we've not been a top side, yawn). Where they have improved is in their ability to use pace and direct play to flat track bully the teams down the bottom. Both City and Chelsea have thrown it away by losing to teams like Villa, Cardiff, Palace and Sunderland - all Liverpool have had to do is rely on fast, direct attacking, a big slice of luck and Skrtel's ability to turn invisible when pulling shirts in order to beat those teams and top the table.
I agree. We don't play TikiTaka. Rodgers did terribly his first 4 or 5 months when he tried it. His win ratios/results were not much better than Woy's. It was when he abandoned that philosophy that we started doing better. I think he deserves credit for that- he worked hard trying a system he believed in- when it didn't work, he was willing to throw it out and try something new. He has found a system that works for us now. It's one part TikiTaka, one part total football, one part route-one, and one part Rodger's own. He/we are pretty adaptable at this point... but no, we're not Tikitaka- we tried it, didn't work for us.
I would think Man Utd fans would not have such short memories as to when they were being accused of being favoured by the referees and getting all the decisions go their way. I think a good team builds their own "bias". You only win penalties (fair or not) by being in the other person's penalty area. A defensive team, or a team in turtle mode, will not win penalties. You win penalties by being dominant and flustering the other team. Suarez gets lots of hand ball calls against defenders by flustering them- destabilizing them so they reach out to balance, and then his balls rub against their arms... ...wait... that sounds bad. It's not luck- it's defenders that are unbalanced because of Suarez. It's not bias- it's us taking the game to a position where opposition are more likely to make mistakes that look like penalties (right or wrong). The same charges of "luck" and "bias" being levied against us are ones that United had against them when they were in the lead.
Agree. I watch a fair bit of Bundesliga, and the team you remind me of is Dortmund, they play very similar. You need to have players with stupid amounts of pace to play that way though. The closest to tikataka in England are Arsenal, and look how little success they've had. If Arsenal bought 3 attacking players with blistering pace they'd be frightening, as at the moment they only have Walcott , and he's always injured. It's all well and good keeping the ball, but half the reason they keep the ball, is because there are no gaps in there opponents defence, because they have no pace to stretch them. If they had pace, they would find it a lot easier to get the ball forward quickly. Rather than what they do now, which is push and probe all day, without creating enough opportunities
Finishes 2-1 to Benfica. What a great game. Who says the Europa League is **** Best semi-final game this week.
Heard that Ramirez has been suspended for 4 matches. Yet another help to the ******ed scousers #undeservedtitle
4 games is abit harsh for that. It was just an arm, I doubt it even left a mark. 4 games is excessive
He elbowed a Sunderland player off the ball, should the fa have let him off just to please your stupid logic?
