Normally I would say it's a very good chance to get 3 points but I won't hold my breath! Liverpool have ruined my accumulators for the past few weeks!! But I agree - win away at Norwich and draw against Stoke. Disregarding the games prior to that (settling in period ) , 4 points from 6 is good and hopefully we can extend that. But - and this is a big but - BR needs to drop Gerrard if he wants this system to succeed. Gerrard has been the weak point in our midfield for over 2 years now with the odd performance here and there. This system DEMANDS patience and he simply does not have it - it shows that he does not have game intelligence. Constantly playing long balls into the box - Stoke thrive on that! Would prefer to see Suso in the middle with Assaidi on the wings.
But at some point we have to ask is this about the players within the system or the system itself? Yesterday was a team full of talent and skill and yet the system was ridiculously easy to stifle. Would Borini have won the game for us yesterday? Not if we'd played for 3 days solid. The simple fact is if you and I know exactly how we are going to play every week then so does every manager in the world.
In theory with the right players then the system will work and it wont matter that teams know how we play, are FSG going to give us the right players or are we going to have to wait until the likes of Suso and Sterling get better and are good enough and old enough to play every game. The system that Rodgers plays is very similar to Barca and Barca would have no problems in the PL (I think) so if we have enough quality players who know the system and work hard then it should all click into place. Problem is getting to this place may be very difficult and having the required patience is hard as we don't know for sure that it will all turn out well. An unbeaten run and a higher league position will mean that we are all on board but if this continues then some fans will jump ship and start getting on the teams back.
They weren't all long balls into the box mate far from it they were balls in behind the centre halfs (just because they are in the air doesn't make them "long balls"). I was more amazed that we had no one getting into the box to try and get on the end of them actually. Oh for a centre forward who could score with his head eh...oh wait...we had one of them not so long ago. Carroll would have had a field day yesterday btw maybe BR should think long and hard about creating a squad that has options rather than being so scarily one dimensional.
Sorry mate I disagree. Look at the sort of teams who give Barca a hard time and the style of football they play. I'm not saying Barca wouldn't rip Stoke a new arsehole week in week out obviously but ask yourself how they'd fair with Prem referees instead of La Liga refs who just give them everything. Ask yourself why Barca lost the league last year to a Maureen team playing tight, solid football. Ask yourself why they didn't beat Chelsea who defended with what seemed like 15 men behind the ball and yet cruised past united who tried to play football against them. BR has to adapt his style to Premiership football and not to the style of football he wishes the Premiership was full of (ie La Liga style) Add to this the fact that we aint anywhere near the level of Barcelona and won't be without spending a couple of hundred million quids.
Pace by itself is NOT the answer. Pace is only good when it can be used to produce an end result - goals! Look at Lennon and Walcott - both headless chickens until they were given a striker to play too! As for Gerrard the comment that he lacks guile is just silly - pace I can agree with you. We do have pace. Sterling has pace to burn but has not yet learnt how to use the space that his pace produces. That's not his fault as he's still learning. Apart from Downning the same can be said for all of our widemen.
guys, this is a bit silly... at the end of the day there have to be three factors that get considered. 1. did the team on the pitch actually perform to its potential in the way the manager wants. - answer v stoke no way, answer v udineses only i nthe first half 2. does the team have the staff needed.. the simple answer is no and we are looking squarely at owners, rodgers and ayre here. 3. all doom and gloom? no, but if you are a bit of a perfectionist like me you might get angry with such wages going on a players who don't play thier bes ton any given sundday as it were but that can't be a sky is falling in scenario cos frankly after 4 full years or that you'd be demented
No you couldn't because there aren't many other teams who only ever play one way. Even Stoke who could easily be described as pretty "one dimensional" will play differently away from home to the way they play at home. Here's an example for you from our not so distant past...could you always pick a Rafa team and formation before the game? No. The reason being that he knew how to adapt (not always perfectly granted but adapt he could). Not only could he do it week in week out but he could also change a system around during a game if he felt the need. In fact it was only once he became too reliant on Torres up front on his own that he really started to struggle, some would say that's because he wasn't given adequate funds to strengthen or others because he didn't spend what he did get wisely enough. Either way the end result was the same. He got sacked by the twats.
Fair enough, but they were ambitious balls into the box with no real target. Why would you play such balls into a box packed full of Stoke defenders? It's just not logical. And you're right - we don't have Carroll, which adds to the point - why play stupid balls into the box? I think we need to improve the Plan A before we start looking at options. We have a clear strategy - playing possession football. Why walk before we can crawl? ...
This is true, would Rodgers system and ideas be working better with the right players in place, we don't know because he hasn't been given the backing and is having to play kids week after week to cover the holes in the squad. I'm all for these kids coming through but they need to be rotated and given time to develop.
Its not a tragedy its football and no people aren't going "proper mental" just being realistic. Its no good living in some sort of dream world. We've won 1 league game out of 7. We might have played 50% of those games against top teams granted but in recent years "those" were the games we actually could win. So far we've beaten only Norwich who look like they are going to be the whipping boys all season (or at least as long as Hughtons there). Yes we are playing good football but how many passes does it take to score a goal? Pick a number between 1 and 650. This is a results business pure and simple and after the Reading game we are then back to playing some of the "big boys" again (Everton and Chelsea away to name two). Fail to get results in these games and it won't be a few complaints from fans on a fans forum I'll be worrying about its the knee jerking from across the pond.
Yeah agreed and its frustrating seeing balls going into the box with no one on the end of them. However how many of our "slide rule passes" got through yesterday? None. Want to know why? Because as is always the case it's almost impossible to pass through a back line of 11. Its almost impossible to use pace to get in behind them as well as they sit so deep. You could (if you removed your anti-Gerrard glasses for a moment) consider the possibility that its the lack of attackers getting into the box that's the problem as opposed to the actual balls in Obviously if I were to remove my pro-Gerrard glasses for a moment would say that after the third or fourth attempt to drop it in behind and realising that no one's getting on the end of them maybe he shouldn't have kept trying it The real problem here mate is that at the top level you don't get time to crawl. You might not be able to walk straight away but you have to at least be able to stumble along a bit whilst learning to walk or you'll get your legs chopped from under you before you ever get the chance to stroll bolt upright. Get results at any costs and implement the philosophy over time....not implement the philosophy at all costs and end up getting sacked before seeing it come to fruition (which surely nobody wants).
Lol fair point The only way to beat Stoke is to use pace and guile, and not by using the long balls and crosses as we are then playing into their hands. We did try the slide pass but it didn't work. It was one of those days. More importantly, we always seem to struggle against Stoke - even when Rafa was in charge. I'm still optimistic that we're going in the right direction - we've got Reading at home on the 20th. If we fail to get the result then, then I might be a little more concerned ...
I agree that Stevie can play well on the right of an attacking 3, but Suarez is better in that position IMO. Suarez is not a CF, unless we play Norwich. I'd try Borini as CF and put Suarez on the right.
The best way to beat Stoke is to play them at their own game. Twat them as much as they twat you, bully them, rag them around and show them who's boss. Its no good trying to pass them to death because they won't chase it they'll just stand there and watch until you get close enough for them to rake their studs down your face. Remember a few years ago when we just could not win an away game under Rafa despite having plenty of pace and no shortage of guile? How did we solve it for the season after? We brought in Crouchy and all of a sudden we were transformed away from home. The same sort of thing applies here except we already had the player who could have solved the sort of issues we had yesterday and we sent him out on loan
Mate I wish you were proving me wrong because you're more optimistic than me at the moment The thing is that for let's say 80% of our home games every season teams will come and defend deep. To a certain extent this negates "pace and guile". This means that we need a team that can fight and scrap in all areas of the pitch, we have to have players who know when to play short and when to go long (not hoof ball but certainly know how to stretch teams) and we have to have options. Yesterday after 60 minutes of huffing and puffing and failing to blow the house down I looked at our bench and as I have so many times over recent years I despaired of the options available on the bench, not because of the quality necessarilly but because of the lack of that "something different".
Walcott would have been our top scorer last season, all pace or not. It makes average players productive.
