Stoke v Liverpool Comments!

General
I know Sgt wasn't trying to wind up the Liverpool fans with his comments. I feel exactly the same way about Tony Pulis. Many Stoke fans do mate! I NEVER mind losing but when we KNOW our best team,or even something close to our best team isn't out there. i.e. Etherington, Fuller, Jones ALL on the bench, sorry but it rankles with a lot of fans who, like me were Stoke fans long before T.P. arrived. That said, he HAS kept us up. But, before the game tonight, I honesty thought we would have a real go. Because for the last 3 or 4 games at least. Tony Pulis has NOT started both Etherington and Pennant. To me, that is stupidity because they both are having great season's so far. But, like Tuncay Pulis doen't seem to KNOW just how good they are. WELL done on the 3pts more than deserved and good luck this weekend, and for the rest of the season. AS for Stoke General, I only HOPE and PRAY that Pulis learns from his stubborn team selections. It's NEVER won us any friends, re his attitude is" We will stop the opposition from scoring style" " Hoof it long" etc, etc not that he would worry about that. But, he is slowly losing the fans, me included.

All the best General.

 

Gerrard certainly looked happier last night, seemed to coming back to collect the ball a little too much for me, rather than pushing forward.

 

Fuller looked like he was struggling to me when he came on, most of the guys around me said the same.

 

He suffers from a bone disease. It's called bone idleness.

 

I didn't interpret that he was. I thought we were just having a reasonable discussion.

 

Tell you what I liked. Kelly whipping in a cross and Johnson getting his head on it. I know they were wing backs last night, but the same thing happened in the last home game too. Both full backs allowed to attack at the same time. Great stuff.

 

We made this look pretty easy, even though Stoke are a horrible team to play against. It was fairly routine in the end, and this is a game we wouldn't have been able to win a few weeks ago, especially with the paucity of options up front.

With Carroll injured, Suarez badly lacking fitness and unable to start, and you know who no longer here, the striking burden was carried by good old Dirk Kuyt, Mr Dependable. The only other option was Ngog, but it doesn't seem like Kenny is a big fan of the young Frenchman. So it was left to Dirk to soldier on alone up there. And soldier on he did, God bless him.

He didn't have a great game, but he showed great heart. Often that isn't appreciated as much as it should be, but I watched Dirk give everything he had, and he did everything I've been criticising our former number nine for not doing most of this season. To play as a lone striker you either have to be very quick, or very good at holding the ball up. The likes of Drogba combines the two, but there are very few like that about and most lone frontmen are either quick or a good hold up player.

Dirk is neither, but he put himself about as much as possible and he battled for every ball played up to him. Yeah he's got some issues with his control and his use of the ball isn't always great as we know, and it's not a role I like seeing him in (I'll always believe his selection as a lone striker in Athens cost us a sixth European Cup), but we were in a jam and he did a job for us. When I look at the antics of some other, more gifted, players (mentioning no names), I can't help but appreciate Dirk a little bit more, warts and all.

Kenny's team selection didn't inspire confidence prior to kick off, there were more eyebrows raised inside Anfield than in a Carlo Ancelotti press conference. The team seemed to be full of centre halves and full backs. It was a flashback to the days when we'd go to Wimbeldon and bring in Alex Watson for his regular once a season outing. For Alex Watson, read Soto Kyrgiakos, who was drafted in to deal with the aerial assault.

A look at the eleven players selected threw up a few possibilities. Would it be Johnson and Aurelio on the wings in a 4411, with Kelly and Agger as full backs? Maybe Aurelio and Johnson wing backs with Agger in a holding midfield role? Or three at the back, Aurelio centre mid and Kelly and Johnson as wing backs. I thought it might be the first option, but it turned out to be the last.

To Kenny's credit, it actually worked very well (we didn't need three to deal with Carew, so that freed up Agger and skrtel to move forward which allowed the wing backs to push right on). We completely nullified Stoke, which wasn't difficult as they were about as ambitious as Matt Le Tissier. It surprised me actually. Stoke have got players to give anybody problems. I've said many times that Ricardo Fuller is the best **** player in the league. He's actually pretty good on his day, and Kenwyne Jones is a handful too. Pulis left both on the bench, and started with Carew up front on his own.

I don't know what they expected him to do, but this will have been one of the toughest nights of his career I expect. He was isolated up there as they launched high balls at him, and he had Kyrgiakos stuck to him like glue. On the rare occasions he managed to escape the Greek and get the ball down, he's be harangued by Skrtel or Agger plus whichever wing back was closest to him.

Stoke didn't do anything, they just put ten behind the ball and tried to nick a point. They probably felt they could hurt us from set pieces, but then they left Delap on the bench as well which reduces their goal threat by around 95%. Kenny's decision to inlclude as much height in his side as possible cut Tony Pulis's balls off, as without that aerial threat they have nothing. Except big Salif in the middle, but not even the Sheriff can carry this team on his own.

Kenny got it spot on. We controlled the game, and any worries I had about us not being able to do much going forward due to the amount of defensive players in the side proved to be unfounded. We could easily have had three or four in the first half, and the Stoke keeper made one particularly stunning save to deny Johnson. That came from a Kelly cross, and it was great to see one wing back get on the end of a delivery from the other.

That's been a feature of our play under Kenny. With each game you can see it more clearly. We are getting far more people forward than we have done in a long time. Probably since Roy Evans. When we attack, we get numerous people in the box now. Kelly crossing for Johnson was great to see, but it's easier to do that when you have three at the back. I'm pretty sure I saw the same thing happen against Fulham when we were playing a back four. In that game even Poulsen got into the box, and it's clear that's what Kenny wants to do.

It's a pity Johnson didn't get that goal, as he did well to get in there and I've been impressed with him of late. He's playing quite well, and showing a very good attitude. He hasn't moped about due to losing his right back spot to an untested kid, he's just knuckled down to playing in an unfavoured position and he's done a good job for the team. Credit to him.

Dirk had a shot saved too, and we had other opportunities that we couldn't take, usually due to not quite getting the break of the ball when we needed it. Gerrard and Meireles were breaking forward well off Kuyt, but it wasn't fluent stuff by any means. Stoke's ten man defence coupled with our lack of firepower was always going to make it difficult, but we were creating chances and we also knew we had the ace up our sleeve of Suarez to bring on.

The second half couldn't have started any better for us. A free-kick landed at the feet of Kyrgiakos, and although he couldn't get his feet set for a shot, Meireles swooped in and drilled a left footed shot into the Kop end net. His third goal in four games, and he's someone that seems to be thriving in the kind of football Kenny is encouraging the side to play.

It wasn't long before Suarez was introduced, to a deafening roar from the crowd. He'd have got a great reception anyway, but he's going to get even more support because everyone is desperate for him to be able to fill the goalscoring void left by the player we sold to Chelsea. We need Suarez to be good, so we can stick two fingers up to Mr 'now I'm at a top club'. He's off to a flying start, even though his goal was somewhat fortunate and should have been cleared by the defender. Great ball by Dirk though, and he looked much more effective when he had a partner to play off.

When that ball eventually found it's way into the net, Suarez was mobbed. You could see the players are just as anxious as we are for the Uruguayan to make an immediate impact. They were delighted for him, and it will be the same when Carroll bags his first goal too. The club pulled off an absolute masterstroke in getting Carroll. Doesn't matter that they paid over the odds, by bringing him in they got everybody buzzing.

Had we balked at the price and not signed anyone else other than Suarez, it would have been the equivalent of just going off into a corner and crying about Torres leaving. Our season would have been over, as we'd have had no striker for European games, and everyone would have been on a massive downer. There'd have been extra pressure on Suarez too.

Now? No-one is worried about who we've sold, we're all excited to see what our new front partnership will do and instead of writing the season off, we're looking at what we can salvage from it. The landscape has changed completely, and it's because they did whatever it took to get the player they wanted. Yes, we paid more than he's probably worth. But that's what you have to do to get your number one target. There were cheaper options out there, but Carroll is who we wanted.

We've spent far too long having to 'make do' because the players we really wanted were overpriced. It doesn't work. Most of those players who we brought in as alternatives to the ones we wanted but couldn't afford have bombed and needed to be replaced soon after. We won't be able to do this all the time, but in this particular situation it was the right thing to do. The fans are buzzing, but so are the players.

You can see that they are really playing for eachother now. They have responded to Kenny, and they'll no doubt be happy to see the back of a player who has been cheating them as much as us for the best part of the season. The players are all in it together now, everyone who's here wants to be here, and they are all playing for Kenny. Significantly, the fans are right behind it too now, all the fans are on the same page and it's been a while since it was like that.

We all love Kenny, we're all reveling in his return and we're all buzzing now after the events of deadline day. A season that was threatening to become the worst in living memory in terms of the football, could yet have a happy ending. We're still in Europe and although Suarez is ineligible, Andy Carroll will be able to play in the Europa League. We're climbing the table now, and are closing in on 6th. If we overhaul Sunderland, then we can look at who's in 5th and try and catch them too.

Instead of looking over our shoulders and wondering where our next win is coming from, we're now looking upwards, and we're winning games, scoring goals and keeping clean sheets. It's getting better, and Suarez and Carroll looks like a mouth watering pairing.

Of course, on Sunday we have a game that could undo a lot of the recent good work we've put in, and it could also dampen the feelgood factor we currently have. A defeat with a certain former hero on the scoresheet would be pretty tough to stomach. But on the other hand, imagine a victory with a goal for Suarez....

 

Sorted. Cheers Mick.

 

Capello came out recently slating the way Juve have been buying numbers and not quality. He talked about how Milan got Ibra and Robinho and talked about how he would rather have two great players than seven regular ones. Reminded me of our Rafa days where we should have just been splashing on our targets we wanted and slowly built the team instead of just plugging holes left right and center without actually fixing the problems.

 

has anyone ever thought mabye Rafa would be a good international manager? obviously he wouldn't be in charge of money - he'd be limited to a certain amount of money, no direction from the board...

Rafa's strength lies in Tactics, this would allow him to play formations he thinks would be best, whilst we should get an England legend in for Assistant manager to man manage and coach.

 

A typical ill-informed judgement on our style of play

Admittedly during our first season, we used it a lot. We achieved 9 goals from Delap throws out of the 38 league goals we scored, which is a percentage of 23.68%. During our second season, we achieved 5 goals from Delap throws out of the 34 league goals we scored, which is a percentage of 14.71%, while the percentage of goals that came from Etherington assisting or scoring was 15 out of 34 (9 assists and 6 goals) which is a percentage of 44.12%. This season we have so far 1 goal from Delap throws from the 28 league goals we have scored thus far, which is 3.57%, whilst Etherington has been involved in 12 goals this season (8 assists and 4 goals) out of 28, which is 42.86% which is significantly more than Delap.