Off the ball, Lallana was brilliant against Everton but look closely and you will notice he dwells on the ball and his decision making is quite poor. Just like Henderson - because he runs around and works extremely hard, fans lose sight of his actual output.
It shows how much Suarez contributed to the team. He set the tempo, he created the space and he created the chances. He was the outlet to Gerrard's passes and his presence allowed the strikers to have the space to score. He was/is a massive loss. Whilst his going was sudden, it was inevitable and predicted. I cannot believe that there wasn't a world class attacking midfielder or striker available for less than £75m in summer. The example of Bale's massive contribution to Spurs and the after effects of his departure should have been a lesson for Rodgers.
i reckon there was, trouble is would we have matched the wages they would have wanted? doubtful, ours seems to be about you have to earn it, which is fair enough and has its own merits, but it makes us less appealing to players who know they can get the wages they want or demand elsewhere. game is about mercenaries mainly for me, and if we are not prepared to pay it, sadly someone else will.
Yes mate. Agreed. We're running into a swamp in the last third currently as we have nobody to cause problems in the box. Add to that the slowed down nature of our build up play and we're a mere shadow of what we were. Hopefully it'll sort itself out when we get key players bad and as others improve.
Who do you think they were targetting Jenners? I cant belive how much rodgers moaned about sterling playing too much for england an getting burned out/ resting him etc.. Than when he does play him he sticks arguably our best player wide right on the graveyard shift! Stick him in the middle, coutinho and lallana are probably more creative, but what you get with sterling is someone with brilliant centre of gravity and lightning pace. He can find space where there is none and creates so much more space out wide as the opposition collapses in on him. That why hes so effective there
no idea, i had only seen names thrown around like every one else. we always seem to go for the cheaper option ie balotelli instead of falcao, eto(that maybe fair enough age,wages etc) apart from our full backs, and maybe add Can i have not been impressed with who we have brought personally. we needed another keeper badly, Lovren i think will come good but his biggest problem for me is an indecisive keeper, marcovic non existent , and Lambert looks lost. Suso should be getting game time but isnt, Gerrard and Lucas are not 90 min game players any more, and injury seems to have gotten the better of lucas and gerrard its age. we look ****ed at the moment, not sure if we could have got a result at the weekend it may have made a dif (it might have just painted over the cracks), but something is wrong and we don't for me have any match winners in the team, last season we had luis and sturrdige, now we only have a currently injured sturridge. DM should have been brought in, did we make any attempts to get a masch type player in, dont think we did. is it a confidence thing, too many new players, loss of luis,****e keeper and defence, ****e midfield,****e attack, all of the above? i dont know, but i hope its resolved ruddy soon,
Agreed, and I do think that's exactly where Sterling will go when Sturridge is back and we can play the diamond again - it's been awkward with Sturridge out as I don't think we are able to play 4-3-3 without him. For me, BR is experimenting due to all the new faces but should have just stuck to what we were doing last season and gave Borini a run with Balo while Sturridge was out.
Yes i know but i don't understand how rodgers keeps trying to accomodate lallana/coutinho in the middle and sticking raheem outwide, hes looked far more effective than the other two in the middle. They should be stuck out wide if they want game time and made to earn that playmakers spot. Raheem was looking good there, change the formation as much as you need too to fit the personnel you have available, but with suarez gone this team needs to be built around the SAS and getting the most out of our best two players.
Lallana ran with the ball and tried to make things happen. I've been nothing but impressed by him so far.
Jimmy is right. Coutinho must be encouraged and played often, esp at home. That should come at the expense of Lallana. That will not only give heart to the young lad and drive him to improve his game further, but also boost our play's pace and directness. Balotelli is an athletic type who can still be made to do a lot of things physically despite his brain's lallananess. He's been retreating and winning balls back in defence a lot lately... Now, if only BR would instruct him to rather invest his powerful legs into a lot of lateral weaving running behind defenders, so our midfielders can pick his runs. He, Sturridge and Sterling can and should interchange. Sterling should always be used primarily in the flanks, and interchange with Sturridge on the other flank and with Coutinho in the middle, relieving pressure briefly for the latter.
Sorry... disagree with a lot of that. I think Coutinho has been consistently poor under two scenarios: 1) The other team plays physically rough football. 2) The other team has most of the possession. Otherwise he does well. Coutinho is best played against lower and midtable teams who play football (as opposed to physically bully). He shouldn't start as often as possible- he needs to be used selectively in games that suit his style. Teams that have more possession or play thug-ball we shouldn't start with Coutinho. I think Balotelli has a lot of footballing intelligence (even if he may appear to lack intelligence off the pitch at times... actually, I think he probably is smarter than he gets credit for- just impulsive and his impulsiveness overrides his intelligence at times)- he does make some clever and inspired passes at times. Sterling - definitely get more out of him playing centrally rather than on the wing.
Carragher on Mignolet: Jamie Carragher, who was also in the studio last night, said: “I think the best goalkeepers who win big trophies will make big saves at big moments. “That (Jagielka’s strike) is a big moment. “It’s not a massive mistake but can he do better?” He added: “Up until now he hasn’t made any big saves in his Liverpool career and if that continues then I can see Liverpool looking for another goalkeeper.”
He's made one big big save for us and that was on his debut against Stoke last season - a big downhill slope since and he looks s**t scared at the moment which is no good at all.
He made several early in his Liverpool career... in his first handful of games he pretty much won the games for us. He's just slowly degraded after starting on a high. Victor Valdez is still on the radar- apparently still planning to sign him on a free once he gets back to fitness- that should trouble Minny a little.