I'm not going to analyze the match or bang on about systems or tactics. What I will say is that the overall attitude of the players and management team last night was wrong and it needs to be corrected quickly. The pace and desire to win was there for all to see during every moment of the game against Man City, where was it last night? Dont worry it's just West Brom. For years now we have stubbled like this against so called lesser teams, is it an attitude that runs through our club? Doesn't seem to matter who the manager is. Look at some of the stats and you may think that we played well, this was not the case there was a malaise that ran throughout the team and this was not noticed by the manager or his team, they seemed caught up in it themselves sitting there shaking heads occasionally. If we are to progress it will have nothing to do with who we buy or what system we play it will be when we realise as a club that every game is important. Every single person involved in that display needs to realise that it was not good enough. Even players like Carra who was solid enough should have been aware of the overall play and at least been vocal about it. That was not acceptable and and it happens too often, unless the club acknowledge that fact then we will never move forward.
People forever knock us down and say we'll get smashed by the big clubs when we come to play them. I always fancy us to get something from those games, nomatter how ****e we're playing. Simply because we always turn up with the right attitude, which many teams underestimate us for. When we come up against anyone not in the top 4, we don't turn up. Our attitude stinks. There's no urgency until the last 5 minutes where we panic and we generally play crap, seemingly like the game's in the bag. I don't know where the attitude comes from, but it's been there for a long time and needs to go. Our team underperforms from what, on paper, is a generally good side.
We could point fingers all day, Shelvey was poor, the tactics or formation was wrong, we need this player or that one. None of it matters until the overall attitude at the club changes. We they all need to realise what the sign actually means This is Anfield is not just a sign you touch on the way out because thst's what everyone does. That shirt has to mean more than it does to our players.
Im so pissed off with the players I cant even bring myself to talk about it. The ****ing trouble I go to to watch that shower of **** lastnight just pisses me off to much Im ****ing sick to the back teeth of us playing **** like that against so called weaker teams. Effort, fight and heart is the majority of winning a match and we had **** all lastnight, **** all
I think it is a Tony Adams quote but it seems to fit: " Play for the name on the front of the shirt and they will remember the name on the back"
they didn't play that bad! reina kept his concentration all night, he saved that one right before the agger stupidity. Johnson and enrique ran all night and just had nobody to play it to. Carra marshalled long fairly well. Agger was poor for the last 20 Lucas was very good, a few bad passes mind Gerrard played well Henderson played well Suarez dived all night, ref gave him license and reward Downing had the slowest full back on earth and managed to deliver... to no-one Shevely did try but was a flop cos he couldn't stay onside. In the end the reality is rodgers set us up for failure then when he tried to change it clarke saw right through it, reacted and his tactical change totally expolited our stupidity. we could have won 1-0 had gerrard not second guessed foster and put it to the side he put the rest all year and just smashed it home.... had agger grabbed a shirt rather than simply let every team we play block him off while his man gets free headers... well they'd never have scored. simply put agger wants a slap. his fiar play attitude is losing us points and games where a more robust physical approach like skertl doesn't. all he needs to do is pull and drag at set pieces and we'd be about 8 points bette roff! Rodgers is a clown. i do not know what he saw from shelvey i ntraining but the guy basically said publically he was a victim then within a week he's back in!!! fiar play shevely tried but he was offisde constantly and poor generally. trying isn't enough and rodgers put him in in a tactical set up that west brom must have been delighted to see. Clarke said he's only looking to 40 points still... i think rodgers needs to relaise we are not even at that yet and shut up about 4th.... I said this was the week to man up or forget it... well we can forget it.
Thing is Spearo, the dichotomy is that we've only beaten teams from the lower half of the table so far this season
Which is probably the reason we're doing so ****e! Can't beat top teams, can't beat bottom teams...we can beat ourselves though. Despite the losses or draws against the top 10, we've outplayed most of them and let them back in. Our performances against them, if not the results, are very positive.
So in the last 2 home games against West Brom, #LFC have had a staggering 55 shots without scoring @AnfieldIndex #LFC had 25 shots against WBA. Most in a game without scoring since (surprise surprise) WBA at home last season when we had 30 @AnfieldIndex That is a pretty staggering stat!!
its not staggering to me when mos tof them are free kicks blazed into walls or over the bar or are half chance. the real stat was shots ON target. and frnkaly ben foster mad 2 or 3 really top saves not to mention the pen. we were set up badly with zero penetration and i nthe end it showed.
Thing is MITO you can't (well you can, but you know what I mean) have a go at Rodgers, no matter what formation or system he started with it then comes down to attitude and application, there was a lack of a spark a lack of desire to fight for every ball. We created and had shots but even then it was all so slow and plodding, where as against bigger teams the ball is zipped about the running is direct and with purpose, no stat is going to show that and no system or tactic gives that it comes down to the players. Rodgers is also at fault as he is the one who has to get that across to the players (not that he should have to) but he is failing to do that. This is a collective problem we have as a club and we've had the same problem for years.
I think you're missing the point mate tbh. Your side looks a good outfit when playing the top PL sides, you tend to knock the ball about well & create chances, as the style of play that Rodgers has adopted tends to suit sides who'll come at you, stretch the game & thus give you space to play. His style is also exposed when playing such opposition, as you invariably give away chances, due to a high back line & a stretched side at times, that leaves the back 4 open. When you come up against a side that sits back with 2 lines of 4 & invites you on to them, you seem to have little idea how to break them down, you're overly reliant on a Gerrard 'Hollywood' ball or a set piece. Brendans dossier doesn't appear to have a chapter devoted to this issue. Last night was a classic example
ok so i agree with you about seeing players under houllier, benetiez, hodgson and dalglish just plain play exactly as you say... listless, slow, cocksure as it were. I totally agree but i don't think that was particularly the case here. i genuinely don't. We did battle, we did create we did play ok. We have zero depth of penetration. shelvey just ran beyond into offisde positions, suarez was not interested in getting in the box at all and downing never ever goes to the back stick.... this is what rodgers sent out and o nthe match thread when i heard the rumour this would be the team i said rodgers would be a clown to pick it. The first half went precisely as i envisioned it. we dominated, controlled, passed, probed and even made a few chances alebit not great ones. they sat back and laughed at our set up but also relied on foster in large parts.... I could name serveral home games going back 5-10 years where we hardly made a chance like fulham or another west brom game that comes to mind For me rodgers set us up to fail and we did exactly that, he reverted to the failed system that led to the pursuit of sturridge. BUT you are right there was no spark from suarez... the thing is lucas, johnson, enrique, gerrard, henderson, reina, carragher all played fairly well. they did their jobs and worked hard..... hell even shelvey and downing worked hard... suarez has high standards to live up to and while short of it he wasn' bad was he? I do agree wholeheartedly that if i can see that this is a key must win game and rodgers can say the same the nthe players must start playing like its vital to get a goal.... but i have to grate my teeth and resist the urge to smash the guy's face in when he says they targetted it as a game to win when he goes 4-5-1 and then rolls two subs on to make it 4-2-4 only to then lose the point in his hand. sorry but there's no way rodgers can be defended and the blame laid at the players feet. We had enough chances to win it, foster did well but i nthe end clarke got the bes tof the tactical duel didn't he?
For the first time I really feel like booting Rodgers up the arse - very hard! It was perfectly clear after 15 minutes that as far as WBA were concerned the bus was well and truly parked. So what do we do? = Exactly the same thing as we have done with every other side who have come and parked the bus. IT DOESN'T WORK!!!!! We kept running 20 yards when the defender only had to move 3 to cover or tackle. Our 3/4 attackers were always outnumbered. We had no idea of how to dislocate their midfield from their back 4!!! It's not difficult to make that dislocation and it certainly ain't a new tactic - I've seen Liverpool do it in the 1960s at Nottingham Forrest. You've got to tempt the midfeild out another 10 yards. If you can do that then the back 4 stays thereby creating 10 yards for you to play in or the back 4 tries to keep in touch thereby creating 10 yards behind them. So what is going to tempt the midfield to move forward? The BALL!!!. If we stop attacking and kick the ball up and down the Halfway Line then they'll come looking for it. We have drawn them out and now have the space to play in. We have to make them the authors of their own downfall and not appear to batter them into stronger resistance. So I really blame Rodgers. He could see what was happening and made no attempt to change it. As for the players, I thought Shelvey and Enrique were both very poor - particularly in their passing and ball retention. It looked as if the last instruction to them was "Don't get injured" I am also begining to wonder about the team dynamics (who is getting on with whom).
thats a lot of good sense there fordeck... I watch city and could count up their entire midfield coming out towards our "passing" at the back but we lacked the abiltiy to get that one ball through to where the space was a lot of times. West brom just sat right back and were tactically disciplined. Yuo are right we never drew that midfield and created the space...... utd pulled our midfield about at old trafford and created ust that space. if you play 4-5-1 its going to be VERY hard. downing stayed wide and did ok IMO, just ok.. but then that meant there was nobody but shevley trying to get in the box. YOu are dead right we pass it between agger, carra and reina... far too far back to really tempt deep lying midfields forward. we seem to want to play a stright 20 yard ball to feet from agger rather than lucas, gerrard and henderson taking it as you say at the half way line and really drawing men out. This is the space suarez cries out for and rarely got so he was coming into the midfield area you talk baout and making those layoffs at times. Enriue i thought did ok... his problem is you have to accept the guy is unwilling to pass the ball and loves to hold it and hold it and he does the same playing well as when playing badly.. it just gets worse when the teamwork breaks down and he ended up dribbling in his own half dangeorusly... enrique is a guy who wants 20 touches then to lay it off... he does it all the time so i didn't see him as worse yesterday and many other days. what i think is funny is we talk a passing game but we really take 2/3 touches each then pass it. there are 2/3 players in our side really trying to paly one touch and thay are the ones creating the space and time for others. Anyway.... Rodgers set us up with what in my opinion is a failed tactic that put us in 8th in the first place... without sturridge he returned to type.... he then gambled second half and ended up with stelring and borini on and then west brom did step up and take the midfield despte lucas and gerrard trying hard... lukaku came on and killed us simply becuase plan b was as bad as plan a tactically and clarke could repsond.. why henderson? not sure why that was done... I thought coutinho came on and offered us nothing to help the team falling apart as he was new and couldn't get into a game pattern so had to do what others were doing i.e. run off o ntheir own individual dribbles. We needed leadership and that didn't come.
Am I the only one who thought Johnson and Enrique were outrageously poor last night? I mean, seriously bad. I'm inclined to agree with most other comments (apart from Rodgers being a 'clown'). We played okay but we lacked any real penetration, but I think that's because our only two on form attacking players on the field were Suarez and Downing. And for once it was Suarez who didn't really turn up, Downing on the other hand was excellent. You can moan and moan at Rodger's tactics all day long, the problem is that Sturridge was injured, Suarez had a poor game by his standards, Gerrard missed a penalty and nobody else took their chances. Brendan set the team up to create chances and pen them back and that is exactly what we did. He couldn't exactly run onto the pitch and get in the box himself (which is where Shelvey should have been). Bored of the sensationalist nonsense on this forum. No more changes in infrastructure. Stick with the owners, stick with the manager and have some faith. (P.S I do agree somewhat with the original theme of the thread. We've had seasons where we would play abysmally at home to Wigan but then the Mancs would still be ****ting it when we head to Old Trafford. I don't think it's a habit that will go away for a long time if I'm honest)
crumpt, honeslty no you are not. a lot of guys are saying it. I don't think they were that bad and i think they worked hard without a target to deliver to. perhaps that is excusing them I don't know. I thought enrique payed his normal hold onto it too long game but did well going up and down. I don't think rodgers set us up for a win myself. i don't see that in what i really thought was a 4-5-1 in the first half. I do agree had say hendersons back heel or the pen gone in we'd have won and west brom did get the breaks in the end cos their manager made the braver positive move to take some control of the game. thats my opinion anyway...
I've seen a lot of people saying they weren't at their best but for me I thought they were both appalling. Every time Johnson was near the ball he made a mistake, and Enrique's passing and judgement was dire. What do you mean Rodger's didn't 'set us up for a win'? Do you honestly think he was playing for a draw? And I think we're extremely limited in our options. We had 3 attacking players on our bench and funnily enough he brought all 3 on. And yet you claim that Clarke made a 'braver positive move'?. In fact, it was bringing on Sterling and Borini that lost us the game I would say. Both were terrible when they came on and we lost all fluidity in our play. Bad day at the office for everyone. But the buck shouldn't rest solely on Brendan, his players let him down yesterday.
