Not all doom and gloom?

Ok, might sound odd considering we've just been beaten 3-0 against United but lets actually look at the game in comparison to other games in recent weeks.

We had 19 shots today... 9 of which were on target.
Compare this to Basel where we had 5 on target, Sunderland where we had 2 on target and even Leiceter where we only had 3!

There weren't just long range efforts either, they were good chances created mainly by our good forward play. Sterling's chance after Lallana's pass, Sterling's chance after his skill to bean Jones. Balotelli's effort after a cut back from Sterling and another Balotelli effort after a cut back from Sterling and a final one from Balotelli after a great through ball from Markovic.

Today we came up against arguably the form keeper in World football, let alone the Premiership.


The reason we lost today was obviously to do with no putting our chances away, but defensive errors are costing us yet again.

Allen's poor defending for the first along with Coutinho not tracking his runner (time for Gerrez to tell me that BR doesn't like midfielders tracking runners). An offside goal but again, poor defending for the initial cross. Skrtel & Lovren, neither of which are leaders and can hold a line drop far too deep and then the 3rd is a masterclass in how not to defend by Lovren's attempted clearance.

Overall though, yes it seems odd, but we played well going forward today. Looked somewhere near our best going forward and looked more ikely to score today than in any game in the last 2 months.

Markovic looked bright when coming on (despite playing LWB), Sterling looked good from a creative point of view even if his finishing is worse than my 2 year old niece and Lallana looked outstanding going forward in the first half and was shocked to see him come off (best be an injury and not a tactical change).

I know there are going to be lots of people having a moan today after the result but there is potential in this team to turn things around.

 

I think the squad is shot of confidence, is woeful at the back and cannot score for toffee.

There are many problems in that we signed largely dross - particularly the striking department, so we cant score goals.

Another problem is the manager cannot settle with a team or formation so there is no fluidity.

I don't see how this is light at the end of the tunnel at all.

I see it as a continued freefell that doesn't look like slowing down or stopping.

 

the reason we lost is because rodgers is a c**t

 

I agree. I think the negativity on the match thread is embarrassing. We were actually alright today. Created lots of chances, had a fair amount of the ball and did something with it. Jones looked good and wasn't at fault for any of the goals either. Sterling, despite the misses but he's not a natural finisher anyway, looked lively. Coutinho and Lallana played well and created chances too.

I really thought we looked much better and 3-0 hugely flatters United who got their goals from an offside call and 2 awful defensive errors. Aside from that, they didn't really threaten us.

 

Yeah but you haven't look at why Sterling is up front?!

There are a multitude of failures from Rodgers and whoever in getting us into this mess.

 

Those Sterling chances fall to Studge and its a different ballgame.

Lack of a natural finisher is killing us at the mo.

 

You seem to have missed the point of this thread bow

 

Yup, as I say, on another day, we finish 1 or 2 of those chances at 0-0 or 1-0 and it's a whole different game. That's football though, last year we had the players to finish them off, this time our main striker is out and Balotelli who I thought looked good today, was in some respect unfortunate with a couple of efforts.

 

I don't follow?

You see the positives - I don't!

 

Never denied that Rogers is making mistakes.
Just pointing out that we weren't half as bad today as being made out and there are positives from the performance.

 

Hum. Some positives.

Difficult when you lose 3-0.

Things won't change until January until if we sign a striker or Sturridge comes back.

If not I cannot see anything changing.

 

The thread is about looking at the positives etc.. and the very first comment is you saying you don't see a way out of a continued freefall

Each to their own opinions, but can you not see some positives in the way we played today compared to the last 5 or 6 games?

 

I can see some, but they are far outweighed by the negatives imo.

I think Rodgers could quite easily be fired for spending over £100 million pounds and ending up without a striker, without a keeper, without a formation and a best team.

Regardless of some positives - we should not be where we are now.

 

I saw loads of positives

 

Insightful

 

There's no way of dressing up a loss like that against Utd.

 

Not really. The other teams we have played are actually decent defensively. Man Utd are so **** in defence it gives us a false impression that we actually played well in attack.

I have been defending Rodgers from a lot of criticism recently but its turning into a joke now.

He cost us the game by not starting a striker, bringing Lallana off instead of Coutinho, starting the awful, horrendous, terrible Brad Jones & putting Markovic at left wing back instead of further forward.

We HAD the quality and the ability to win that game but Rodgers selections and subs prevented us from doing so.

 

I am happy that for the first time in a long time we pressed we shot at goal more. It's rather unfortunate that we conspired not to score at least two goals.

Positives
Markovic is looking like with a good run in the side he will be a good player second half of the season

Balotelli was running the channels better and on another day he will score

Chances are being created


Negatives
Gerrard will never screen that back 4. It is funny how analysts are focusing on coutinho losing his man but Gerrard was no where near the back 4

Can't score for toffee

 

I didn't get to see the game but I know that Rogers put out 11 pieces of 11 different jigsaw puzzles. When will he learn how to create a smooth team?!?! I imagine, in his infinite wisdom, he probably decided to test new formation for a game that doesn't matter at all, not in the slightest. Knobjockey

 

I'd love to hear what Jones did wrong today...
I can't put any of the goals down to him, nor can I remember a single mistake or hesitation either.