Rival Watch Thread Watch

Had a few bevies .... But he is playing fantastic for WHAM. We could do with the NEW Downing...

 

If we bought him he'd just go back to being ****e #stewiecurse, he is doing better at the pigs' place though

 

Tried to tell em that when they were all drooling over him, thinking Brendan knew what he was doing. City made the same mistake with Lescott when Jags made him look good

 

You came second last season and lost ONE player. With a s**t load to spend a decent manager would have bought the best replacement he could and 1/2 class players to strengthen the first team. Brendan bought 8 average-potentially good players and stuck 6 of them straight into your matchday squad, now he is talking about a team that came second being in transition, all because you lost ONE player.
Face it, Brendan is way out of his depth, he kicked tikkitaka into touch about 8 games into the job, he tore his 30 page dossier up about 4 months into the job then he hit lucky in January when it turned out Sturridge linked really well with Suarez. I have no idea what happened to winning the ball back in 7 seconds, but i guess you all knew that was bulls**t anyway, all teams try to win the ball back as fast as they can.

 

Not really, some teams are happy to let other teams have the ball as long as its in their own half...

As for Fonte being the leader and us only losing one player from last season, that's just laughable.

 

Maybe you need a lie down Diego because like UIR you're coming across as as bit of condescending bell tbh

 

Southamton have by far the best defence in the division at the moment and they had to replace a left back and centre back so did not start with a settled defence, do you think that would be true if you swapped Lovren for Fonte?
Which other regular first team player left your club in the summer other than Suarez?

 

Gerrard

 

Just pisses me off to see various people blaming individual players, the transfer committee, the owners penchant for youth and the tea lady for not making the tea strong enough. The fault lies with the manager, he selects the players he wants, he selects the team and he decides the tactics/system, at the moment he is getting them all wrong as many on here have pointed out. Many of you pick better teams for your matchdays than actually play, you know this and so does everybody else.

 

Liverpool done what they always do and buy the stand out players of mid table teams, now and again they find players like Torres and Suarez. With the money they spent they should have brought in two or three great players if possible at 30/40 million each as they had the pull of the Champions League but its looking very much now like they have ruined that great opportunity, for that you have to blame Rodgers

 

He is there in spirit (for now)

 

Sturridge & Flanagan have barely played...

 

That contradicts itself
Dont you think this is frustrating for us? It should please you that BR is making mistakes, dont know why 'it pisses you off'

 

All teams have injuries, you have to cope with them.

 

Because you had a team i actually enjoyed watching last season, you have lost one player and i now find i like watching West Ham more. Because last season you became a real rival again (in truth surpassed us by far under Moyes). Because i like football and it annoys me when incompetent people **** up a good team and mostly because you are all skirting around the real problem because you don`t want to believe you got it wrong last season (MITO and a couple of others exempted).

 

The clues were there for all to see. When Brendan unveiled him he (Brendan) said 'We needed a leader in our defence'. Something like that.

Then Lovren did his Liverpool interview and stated 'I am having to learn to be a leader now. Its something I'm not used to but have to learn. (or something like that.)

Lovren is a good defender but he is not that defensive leader that Brendan proclaimed he had bought him for.

 

Lfc are paying for 3 sins. First last summer was an unmitigated disaster with perhaps only ilori as a signing of potential not being a flop. Despite to sometimes sahko love in he's been injured constantly and not that good either for 17 mil. If lfc even got two decent first teamers in then we'd have them this year playing in our way

Second we have bastardised Chelsea's buying policy and rather than loan out good players to develop from young age we've packed our side with 20 year olds who are not up to the top 4 and in some cases the prem even... And many for vast sums

And finally third and finally biggest sin of all is believing our own hype and believing our game was about Rodgers style and not about SAS giving bad players an out ball to play. The state of sterling right now is sad, he doesn't know what to do and gives it away constantly. He's been thrown at no 10, false9, right wing, right wing back and at 19.... What does that tell you.

Where was Henderson playing yesterday???? Where was Gerrard??? Why was Johnson on the pitch at all? Not to defend I think.

However they are only symptoms of the tinkering Rodgers thinks will fix this when in fact he's not addressing the basics of the game.

 

Injuries have no effect of a team. Liverpool fans told me this when they were enjoying our injury crisis.

 

This is what he actually said "Brendan said to me he sees me as a leader. I said to him 'I'm still young, I'm only 25 but I will try my best'. I will lead the team.''

As to who was the leader between him and Fonte there are plenty of quotes from your fans like these -

tomw23 -

I understand the saints fans feeling let down by him but you're all re-writing history now. You'll be saying next Lallana was rubbish for you

 

Not re-writing history at all. We all thought Fonte was finished in the Championship season and were talking about needing 2 decent centre backs when we got promoted. Fonte had a decent season that first Prem season but we still thought he was at about the height of his level meaning Prem Strugglers.

Last season Lovren came in and we immediately assumed that it was all down to Lovren that was marshalling the defensive unit better.

I think most Saints fans have only now come to realise that Fonte has been the leader all through the rise. Most of us seemed to have always attributed it to the partners that were signed to play next to him.

Its only this season that Saints fans are realising that it was not Hooiveld in the Championship, not Lovren in the Premiership but Fonte who was the leader in our defence and giving him the captaincy this season has pushed him on even further getting his first call up to the Portugal squad at the age of 30.

So we're not re-writing history at all. Just finding out we were wrong, made wrong assumptions and are quite happy to admit that.

Many of the Saints fans before this season were suggesting that he shouldn't be captain because he would probably be replaced.

So thats the difference between Saints fans and other teams fans. We are prepared to say when we were wrong and not defend an opinion that we can see is not right.

Lovren is a good defender BUT last season he had Fonte pushing him along and helping him. Skrtl is not doing that and you now have the Lovren that Lyon wanted rid of.

In a similar way the Liverpool fans that defend Gerrard and Rodgers to the hilt even though the evidence is there. Rodgers is out of his depth. He hasn't made bad signings at all. He's bought some really good players. However he has the tactics completely wrong for the players he is playing.

Gerrard is no DM. Either play him in the only position he can play which is further forward or drop/retire him.

Lambert, Sturridge and Balotelli are not strikers that can play on their own up top. They are all strikers that like freedom and play better within a forward unit. So play one of those strikers with Coutinho, Lallana and Sterling behind. Let the 4 be fluid and not be a striker in front of 3 midfielders.

Drop Gerrard and put Allen and Henderson as DMs /box to box players.

I can't give you advice on defence because you haven't got many options. It says something that Kolo is probably your best option at CB yet is not playing though. I would think Kolo alongside Lovren would do better than the current Skrtl option.