This time last season Arsenal were suffering an awful start to the season. They had just 4 points, and had suffered an 8-2 defeat to Manchester United. In there opening fixtures they played Newcastle, us, United, Swansea and Blackburn. Getting a draw from Newcastle and a victory from Swansea. In there opening 7 games they suffered one more defeat (against Spurs) before going on a great winning run. Van Persie, the leagues leading scorer at the end of the season, had only scored one goal. Come the end of the season they finished 3rd, safely in the top 4, 5 points clear of Newcastle in 5th. Every one can see we have plenty of positives in our performances so far, we just havnt seen the results. If Arsenal can turn that start into a positive season, we can to. Support the team, be patient and we will get rewards.
Well said mate Unfortunately we got given a very bad run of games to start with. Norwich, Stoke and Reading next, let's see if we can get some momentum going
Performances are fine, but Arsenal had RVP to convert their dominance into goals. We basically have to pray that Suarez will do the same for us, at least until january
I think our season starts now, looking at our next 5 or 6 games. Should we have beaten Man City, Utd and Sunderland? Probably, but we only took 2 points from those games, but with a bit of luck, and better defensive performances, we could have realistically taken at least 7. The key now is this run of games against the so called 'lesser' teams. I think our next real tough game is away at Chelsea in early November, which will become much less tough if we start to string a few results together. I am actually quite happy with the way we are playing. We just need to eradicate the silly errors and convert a few chances and the results will come. Don't panic!
Unfortunately at that point Arsenal had players out injured to come back in. This is our full strength team (Lucas apart), when we start to get injuries to our bigger players will it impact results further. This could be the toughest 8 months in a long long time for us. What I can say though is I came away from todays game with nothing but praise for the efforts of all our players (Shelvey apart). Spirit and effort as vital as they are will only get us so far unfortunately and this squad will struggle to get us anywhere near even last seasons tally if BR can't alter the way he sends out the team defensively. If we can stop conceding easy goals then we have something to build on. If he doesn't we will be mid table at best. I do wonder one day if we will get a few decisions go our way but I will not be holding my breath.
look we are conceeding off errors and the tactics are driving that cos we look over committed at all times yet strangley nobody is in the box... arsenal are arsenal and we are... well us.. last year arsenal had a very low points total for 3rd by the by, cheslea flopped and spurs fell apart... this seaosn is a new one so that comparision shouldn't be made. Question: are we capable of going on a run? will suarez fire a few goals? will we stop conceeding easy self inflicted stuff? we'll see.
Today it was truer than ever mate but then we know what to expect. Unfortunately our other poor results this year can't be blamed on anything other than terribly shoddy defending. West Brom, City, Arsenal were games we just gifted goals. We will struggle simply because we can't convert enough chances to make up for such awful tactics at the back. Are there positives to take from today? As with the City game then yes there are positives but like with our previous bad spell at the end of last season the negatives are far outweighing the positives. We have to remember how to win games and we have to do it damn quickly.
As others have said - Arsenal had players injured to come back in and had someone capable of scoring. We do not. Actually quite worried.
Agreed with that. Sick of seeing us being punished by poor referring, whether it be a sending off, not getting penalties or being on the wrong end of soft or non-existent penalties. Add to that all the other ****ty luck we seem to have had over the last few years. Dodgy back passing that cost points, hitting the woodwork or a wonder goal that goes against the run of play. I know ever club gets their fair share over the season (except Man U), but we seem to have been on the end of a lot of them more recently. It would be nice to have some of it go our way.
I agree. Some of it is incompetence on our part - but there is no doubt we're not getting any breaks at all.
I can see the where the optimism is coming from, but like already mentioned we don't have the goal scorers on top of injury concerns. One positive is that the easier fixtures are coming up. But we said that after the Arsenal game last season.
Arsenal had a squad already qualifying consistently for Champions League. Wenger is a more successful manager than Rodgers. RVP was 28 last season, a striker's prime year. Effort will be great if we can play a poor Utd at Anfield every week, Sadly we can't. And we didn't even draw with that today. Hodgson had us at 19th. Of course Roy's football stank the place up, no doubt about that, but he was still able to win a few, including against Chelsea. He even got us back up to 12th. So why compare us to Arsenal and not us under Hodgson? It feels the same, even if it looks different. We lost Lucas last season. Every team has to cope with injuries as well as bad decisions but every team will also miss such a vital player. That loss was huge last season. Even Adam had looked better with Lucas. But John Henry didn't take that into account so why should we take RVP into account? The season before last RVP hit the woodwork more than anybody else. Can we factor that in, too? Because even with a conservative break, not even a lucky one but just by the law of averages, if a third of those woodwork hits had gone in we'd have gotten at least another 15 points, conservatively. But we've lost that momentum and have had to start all over again with a manager who has the poorest career win and loss record of any Liverpool manager in modern times. Why am I not hopeful? I'm not just championing Kenny here, I'm saying there was little patience after last season, when there was far more reason for it. Note the media slagged off Rafa and Kenny, two of our most successful managers, yet champion Hodgson and Rodgers, both with the worst career stats, not just LFC stats, since Shanks arrived (I don't have figures for before Shanks). Why is that? It's a bit sus. I'm not saying young managers shouldn't get breaks but not when a club is where we were and not with a manager who's done so little, whose sole achievement was getting Swansea promoted, with a team already settled and built on a style, and keeping them in the PL with W12 D11 L15 F44 A51. When Kenny took over from Hodgson we were W8 L5 D10 F30 A31, which roughly extrapolates over a season to W13 D8 L17 F50 A51. Pretty similar. So putting all that faith in a young guy for no justifiable or logical reason? I don't get it. I've had a lot of patience in Lucas' early years, during Rafa's trials with H&G and under Kenny. That's because there was something there to justify belief. I'd love to know what gave JW Henry so much belief, other than "Being: Barca" will get good TV deals and sell a lot of shirts. On a separate note, I watched the game with my dad and he said what I've thought since the season started: Gerrard's heart hasn't looked in it. It was today and no surprise but I suspect he's already given up on winning anything else. FSG have made it clear they don't even expect top four this season. And there's no media pressure to win silverware anymore. I think Gerrard can see his career will be over before this "project" is anywhere near fruition, if it's capable of ever fruiting.
Another positive post. You're writing off our new manager after only a few months. How can you write him off after 5 or so games? As part of the so called 'older, wiser and more patient generation', thats pretty poor form really. You're fixated over Kenny leaving.
MFG - you make some valid points. I too share your love for Rafa and Kenny who both have impressive career stats. But to compare Rodgers's stats to Rafa's is premature. What was Rafa's stats like when he was 39? At the same age, Rafa had managed Real Madrid B, Valladolid, Osasuna and Extremadura - no big teams in that list. Rafa was sacked from Valladolid after winning 2 games in approx 20 matches, and then sacked from Osasuna. Rafa finally found the right club with Valencia when he was 41 and the rest is history. He had no notable achievements at 39, apart from winning promotion with Extremadura. Rodgers won promotion with Swansea and kept them up - they finished 11th which is extremely impressive for a newly promoted team and did it by playing an attractive style. The point I'm making is that Rodgers is still a very young manager and has the opportunity to make a name for himself by restoring this club. But comparing him to Rafa is unfair. Rodgers and Liverpool could be like Rafa and Valencia.
I'm sure others will have said already (as previously highlighted, I'm a lazy bastard that doesn't read most of the replies ), they had RVP! Who is going to bag thirty goals for us this season...? Suarez...? Borini...? Downing...? January will be too late for a CL push, we need to just get on with things and see how it goes. I predicted seventh for us at the start of the season and I'm not going to change my mind just yet, if at all
I agree with MFG. Sacking Kenny has put us back, we'd many performances like the one just gone under kenny and even more under Rafa. I also agree there was no logical reason to sack Kenny for not getting 4th and then hire Rodgers and not have 4th as a target, why not just keep Kenny. Well to be honest MFG. It was 100% the handling of the Suarez thing that has led to Kenny getting sacked.. make no mistake, his future was decided in the FSG boardroom back then and not at the end of the season. Rafa probably did not get offered the job because of his outspoken antics at inter, he's too outspoken for the americans and would definately be ambitious and want to spend a few quids which they do not want to do, they do not want the best men for the job its the yes men for the job
