I'd say anathema is a tad strong (I appreciate you have devils horns but still....). At no point have I (or anyone else) said we shouldn't aim to do better. Of course we should. However taking a step back and looking at the players we have available I'd say we are playing the only way we can right now. You expect perfection it seems, you expect us to play like we did against Arsenal, Tottenham, Everton every week whereas I don't. I hear the argument that we can't rely on the strikers to do that every week but we don't know that do we? In fact I'd argue that's the one thing we should be pinning our slim hopes on. What we do know is that we can't defend for **** at the mo so let's use what we've got....just as we did SUNDAY. Get a better balance if possible but don't focus on our defence at the cost of our attacking capabilities. Win and move onto the next game and in the meantime work on the problems. So far Rodgers has proved he's got enough about him to do that but one thing you should consider is that he probably won't do it overnight.
I've been ok with defeats if the midfield/defence performance was coherent - like at the Emirates. Not a perfectionist. What sticks in my craw is shooting ourselves on the foot and then claiming that 'we can't repeat the showings against Everton, Arsenal etc' because of statistical inevitability. Bollocks.
It's not to say we can't because the whole point is that we can (which is why I'm happy with where we're at). The thing you haven't grasped is that we aren't at the point where we can do it every week. Expecting us to is what I'd say is bollocks but again that's my opinion and if you feel we should that's really not my problem It's yours.
Did we even try to? No. A resounding no. We went in with a newfangled experimental setup I've never seen us play, the farthest thing removed from our gameplan vs Arsenal and Everton at home, despite Swansea offering similar (though inferior) type of opposition (technical, passing etc).
We scored four goals though (good goals too) and more importantly we won. It really wasn't that far from the gameplan we used in those games but even if it was a million miles away that shows we can still win even with a "new fangled setup". We are THAT good going forward we now know we can just go out and slot loads of goals. Happy ****ing days to me that Keep banging them in and see where it takes us.
...Not much further with that type of defending I'm afraid. But hey, we dodged a couple of bullets the last two matchdays - hopefully we learn from them and face so'ton with a more compact approach.
The truth is top teams win a lot of games at 70/80% intensity. If you played every game at the same intensity you play against Man City, Arsenal, Chelsea etc then the team would be tired and wouldn't be able to perform anyway. You can't steamroller teams by 3 or 4 goals every game. Unless you are the greatest team in history obviously.
Not having played midweek, don't buy the tiredness excuse for a second. Just like I don't buy the 'statistical inevitability we won't show up' excuse. Tactics and motivation, yes. We had the Arsenal and Everton games after the footy-heavy year-end period, yet we were fresh as daisies.
I meant we would be tired if we played at the intensity we did against Arsenal & Everton every week. Rio Ferdinand made the exact same point a couple of months back when he said top teams preserve energy in some games because they can still win them without having to use all their energy. I'm sure most teams would love to play at the level you expect us to every game but its not possible. Its never been done in history and it never will. And that's not an excuse, that's just an acceptance of the fact football players are human beings, not robots. They don't play at the same standard every week, they can't run the same distance or sprint at the same speed every week. Its what makes football interesting, because if you knew the result of the game before it started then it wouldn't be really fun or good to watch.
I certainly believe in variances Thing is against Swansea we didn't get remotely close to that showing. To the point that I am entirely convinced BR had the players on a different gameplan.
It's a great question however, Lucaas, how many 'full performances' 7-days apart can a healthy team put on without feeling tired. I think that with the right motivation it can go on for a very long time. There's been teams regularly in PL's history going on 6, 8 up to 13 game winning streaks, and that's usually from champion material. In fact, I think we had an awesome stretch of 'full performances' for a month and a half beggining with Norwich and up to Villa (not including the latter), 8 great performances albeit with proud losses to City and Chelsea. Now, that we have no cups to tangle with, we should poise ourselves for another such run fueled by the greatest binge of motivation....
I think the main problem with discussing that is that the lines are blurred between a good result and a good performance. And then you've got to ask what defines a good performance? Is it the scoring of goals or is it dominating the play and controlling the game for 90 minutes? Can a draw/loss be a good performance? If so does that mean scoring goals plays no part in the rating of a performance, even though it is one of the most important aspects of football.
Full performance, as in not slacking, capable of doing at least everything demanded of them physically by the gameplan...
Good performance... It should be independent of the end result IMO, as result is affected also by chance, refereeing, and especially the calibre of opponent which despite all could be outside the reach... Good performance is both 'full performance' and 'smart tactical performance'.
A good performance is how well you carry out your gameplan IMO. We controlled and dominated Spurs and won 5-0. We sat back and countered against Everton and Arsenal. We went toe to toe with Man City at the Etihad and lost. Different resuts, different styles - but good performances.
I suppose with the added caveat that the gameplan in question should be an effective one. If the gameplan is to put in 100 crosses, and the players duly do so, that might be classed as a 'good performance' by that certain manager, however not by objective viewers if the gameplan was daft to begin with.
