We all know our current situation, so I am going to cut right to the chase. If you have no time to read fully, skim through paragraphs two and three and read the final comment paragraph. Our defensive record has generally been really good this season. Our attacking play has been generally below par, and our goal scoring record is terrible. When it comes to us scoring, our players clearly lack confidence, and they feel insecure about their scoring capabilities, despite having several players with decent scoring records from past seasons, whether with Liverpool or else where (Gerrard, Suarez, Carroll, Kuyt, Maxi, Adam, Bellamy all capable of double figures). We have again and again faced games full of hitting the post and great saves from goal keepers. When we have found it hard to score the players have got frustrated and confidence has sunk, making it even harder to score. combine this fact with our defensive record and you get a lot of goalless and low scoring draws. But we have also seen times where we have found the net, but still not got the result. Most notable today, and the carling cup final (of course we won from penalties then). I feel a big reason why games like this have happened is because of our good defensive record (bare with me here). You see, as many of you have complained about, the team often sits back and defends once we have the lead. To me it seems some times that the players are almost surprised that they have scored, or due to the lack of goals, they see getting one or two as a very big deal. I feel that the players dont believe in themselves to score any more once they have got one or two, so they think 'ok, well our defence is good, so we can get a result here by defending', and they sit back. This puts a lot of pressure on the defence, and means the slightest mistake or drop of magic from the opposition can cost us. (Of course I dont want a defensive record to decline, we just need to balance the seesaw at the other end). As for hitting the post and great goal keeper. If a goal keeper see's nervous or doubtful attackers, they will feel confidence, and confidence breeds success. The more saves they pull off the more confident they get. The more shots that get saved, the more the attackers confidence drops. Keeper wins. With hitting the post, the players have hit it so many times they must be believing by now its all they can do. This will eat at their brains and subliminally make them hit it more and more. I do not believe the post hitting record is all luck or coincidence. Suarez has hit the post, faced great saves and come so very close so many times. He is an inches adjustment from being up there with Van Persie this season. But as it stands is about 16 goals behind. I feel the above listed things apply to Suarez most, and he needs to find a way to break the mould. Suarez plays great, and he is so close to being a goal machine. I feel Downing also suffers from the same issues, though I think Carroll is different and I wont get into that. Alan Hansen said on MOTD tonight that we are playing well and loosing. He says we are playing well, but obviously some thing is broken and needs to be fixed. I'd rather play badly and win. A final comment: On reflection our goal scoring issues are not as new as they seem, they have just been exposed. When we finished second under Benitez Torres and Gerrad scored most of our goals. Pundits were pointing this out, and often suggesting thats why we didnt ultimately win the league. The rest of the team was not scoring, and if Gerrard and Torres didn't play we didn't win. But we did, like now, had a great defensive record, and often sat back in games. After that strong season Torres began to get injured, but played through pain because he new the team couldn't score with out him, which effected him majorly and he lost form, and of course eventually left. Gerrard has also had severe injury problems and missed a lot of games. The squad has changed a lot since that season, but I dont feel any transfer window has been used to address this issue, apart from signing Suarez. Carroll was brought in to replace Torres, but hasnt found the goals yet, so there is not one player who can be rallied on for goals any more, meaning no goals at all. A failure to address our lack of goals from midfield and the squad has hit a climax this season as it has been exposed by the lack of a super striker masking the issue. Thanks for reading. Thoughts?
That's a good and fair view... We lack the ruthless, winning mentality. Not only this, we lack the cutting edge in front of goal. As with most games this season, we should have been out of sight in the first half. It's the story of the season - playing well but not picking up the wins. I would be more upset had we been playing poorly and losing which would suggest a lot more work is needed. but Kenny has got the team playing good football and all we need is a striker and right winger. The winning mentality comes with success and obviously wins. I was hoping the Carling Cup win would boost that mentality and some would argue that it did with wins over Everton and Stoke and then 2-0 up at QPR. This was a big blow, and this result has probably hurt me the most. Going forward - I think Kenny is entitled to at least one more season. He deserves that at least. The reason being is that Kenny is a winner. And we need more winners at the club. Kenny knows exactly what is required to be a Liverpool player. The only other winners I can think of are Suarez (chases down everything, passionate), Gerrard, Lucas, Reina, Agger, Skrtel. Hower, B4F made a good point on another thread about how we let out-dated values and sentiments get in the way of what is a cut throat industry and I feel he may be right. Do we chuck money at this like Man City (obviously not at that scale) but the only thing we can offer top class players is money and Europa League. Also, if players want to leave, shall we just let them leave just like that i.e. Torres, Alonso, Mascherano etc? Or do we say 'you ain't going no where' i.e. Rooney at Utd, Modric at Spurs? Honestly, I don't know what we should do anymore. Do we keep Kenny for another season? Do we bring Rafa back or get some younger modern manager in? Do we throw money at this and become another Chelsea/Man City? Or do we stick to the Liverpool way? One thing's for sure - Kenny was never the man for the long term. He was brought in to steady the ship and bring the fans back together and the club back on track. In my eyes, he has suceeded so I thank him for building the foundations so to the speak. This team isn't that bad, yes have dropped far too many points but the performances are there for us to see. We just need to put the ball in the back of the net. Had we finished more of our chances, we would have been a lot higher in the league - that's for sure.
People say all we need is a striker and a winner, which is true to soe extent. But we cant rely on those two players once they sign. We dont want any new players to catch our current bug infront of goal because it can happen. Torres has the bug, Shevchenco had it at Chelsea (mixed with a failure to settle), I even remember Owen going through a heavy goal drought many years ago. But our tam has an epidemic of it. I think the club failing to modernise got us down here in the first place, putting us in catch up position. I think throwing some money at it could be good to get the ball rolling. As for players leaving. I genuinely believe the players are happy and we wont seen many players go. This is a good sign. We just have to add, build on and improve the squad. I'm starting to think some kind of physiologist could get our players scoring but helping them ease there stress in front of goal and deal with the pressure on them. The chances to score are there, and the players really should be putting them away.
Wouldn't hypnotherapy be useful in this instance? For example if Derren Brown can do those things on TV i'm sure can make our team lose their fears of the goal mouth.
Germany take a physiologist to international tournaments to help the players deal with things like penalty shoot outs. It hhelps.
I didn't see last night's fiasco so my comments are not so knee-jerk as some that have appeared on other threads. jkielq91. Thank you for your well considered post. It might be unpalatable but some thing is obviously wrong with the squad and the side as it presently exists. Having said that, I believe that since the new owners arrived and Kenny took over there has been significant improvement - even though that has not been reflected in results and hence points. It has been some years since I have really enjoyed Liverpool's style of football. Even the statistics still show that we are capable of creating goalscoring chances for fun. Until last night we also enjoyed one of the meanest defences in the Premiership. To that extent our progress has been remarkable. Where we have really fallen short is putting-away those chances and thereby earning more points. Many have said that we must invest in a true goalscorer - a fox in the box. Perhaps that is true. However, what I do not want to see is megga bucks being spent on an individual who may require that our whole playing style is changed to accommodate them. Since the start of the season our squad strategy has been in tatters due to continued injuries to both Johnson and Agger, the long term absence of Gerrard and the 9 game ban for Suarez. This has meant that players like Henderson and Adam have had to play even when their form has shown signs of deterioration - acutely in the terms of Adam. Downing has struggled to find his form until recently. Kuyt appears to have lost half a yard in pace and whilst the work ethic is still there, the goals have dried-up. Why Maxi has not featured so much I really don't know! You will note that I have left the Carroll situation to last as it is I have no answer to it. Yes, I do accept that additions do have to be made to the squad in the Summer. However, I would only replace players if we can find other players of greater quality who also fit our age criteria. However, i do not want to see another revolution, I want to see more transition.
This is what happened with Carroll which is why I don't want him at the club. He was not at fault for last night's defeat or in other defeats, nor are his recent performances that bad - however, our style is being compromised. How many times have we seen Enrique and Downing just cross the ball from deep in the hope of reaching a player - even when Carroll isn't playing. The other players don't have confidence in Carroll's feet so they are less likely to pass it to him. This reduces the number of options up front e.g. Suarez is attacking the goal, looks up for a pass and only see's Andy, he thinks 'AC is not gonna be able to control this or return it so I'll either go it alone or go back'. Fact is - AC is a good player (or will be a good player). We saw how good he was at Newcastle. But he is not the RIGHT man for Liverpool FC. I'm too young to talk about Toshack but I'm sure Toshack had more to his game then Carroll? Please correct me if I'm wrong. We need players like Demba Ba or Cisse (just using examples) - players with pace, good movement, eye for goal, works hard. Some will argue that Carroll adds another dimension to the attack which he does, but he should not be starting. We need to bring in a proper striker in the summer, without a doubt. Other issues - Johnson and Agger are key to our defence however they are injury prone. Can we continue to rely on them knowing that they will be injured at some point through the season? It's a tough question because both players are very good. Overall - last night's performance was no different to the other games this season. We dominated, created chances and should have won. I have maintained that the foundations are there (you might have to look hard but they are in place). Kenny has a decent squad to build on and some are forgetting that this isn't the finished article. A few more additions in the summer will hopefully rectify this.
It's interesting to make a comparison between Carroll and Toshack. Now I have to admit that I'm working on my (now rapidly failing) memory but in their 1st seasons there has been a lot of similarity between the two. When Toshack arrived, we knew him to be a good target man and lethal with his head. However his first season'e performance showed him to be slow and not as lethal as we first thought. The symbiotic relationship with Keegan was anything but!. Now I don't know how he did it, but by the strat of his 2nd season he appeared to have gained a yard and a half in pace - that made the difference and the rest is history. Now Carroll came to us injured and hasn't yet complted a full season with us. With his performances over the last few weeks, it is fair to assume that it is probably only now that he believes that he is injury free. In glimpses, he has shown that he can link play. He has shown that he can hit a ball. He has not shown the required aggressive heading in the box that we expected. However, there is a vital difference between the two partnerships. Keegan was our main striker and Toshack was there to feed him whilst still picking-up goals. OK so Keegan had more to his game and worked around the pitch but goalscorng was his prime responsibility. Suarez, I do not believe is an out and out striker. His skills are more directed towards making chaos in the box from which others can profit. Therefore to try and re-create the Toshack/Keegan partnership with Suarez/Carroll is doomed to failure I think.
Cheers Dave! The dynamics/chemistry just isn't there. I'm a firm believer that partnerships are natural rather than manufactured and I'm sure there are plenty of examples which prove me wrong. But Suarez looks more at ease when playing with Maxi and Kuyt rather with than Carroll.
I think that pretty much covers it The people that condemn Kenny and say he is just another Hodgson clearly don't watch football but merely observe the results.
I actually like having Carroll in the team, but think a front 3 would be better, with 2 players playing off Carroll. Suarez and some one else.
Problem is that Kuyt and Maxi are coming to the end of their careers and Bellamy can't play every game.
Kuyt, Maxi and Bellamy are nearer the end unfortunately. Downing needs to start performing like he can. Obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing but, given the choice again, what would people prefer... spending £20m on a 27 year old Downing or say £10m on a 30 year old Etherington? PS - I just chucked a older, cheaper and more consistent name in the hat. I'd have actually have gone for Matt Jarvis at around £12m-£15m.
I'd say thats where a new signing is needed. Muller, Robben, Di Maria, plenty of other possibilities. Expensive though. Robben could be realistic though.
Without Champions League football, we are not going to get players of that calibre! Even with champions League football it would be difficult!
A few years ago Bayern Munich had a blip and no European football. They build a decent squad. It is doable.
They also have shed loads of money that they can spend because of the income they generate. Plus more or less guarantee titles and Champions League football every year, something that was very much on the cards despite not being in the Champions League for a season! Edit: Even though some have had a wobble, that is not something that we can offer considering the emergence of Spurs and Man City to go with the already established Man Utd, Chelsea and Arsenal.
