Liverpool FC Forum

[Stu the Red]

We had one player who looked like he could have played in their team and that was Coutinho, the rest of them were woeful

[RedAnt]

Brendan needs a holiday or a kick up the backside or something. I genuinely fear he's lost the plot. All his talk and philosophy of the past has proved worthless so far this season. He can't be blamed alone, but his handling of Balotelli, his failure to recognise the need for a new GK in preseason, his insistence in playing players out of position, in roles that don't fit his philosophy is simply bewildering. People talk of how good Real are and that this result was to be expected. Why? LFC once stood shoulder to shoulder with teams like Real. Now we're the whipping boys. BR's decision making is crazy. His handling of the press and his players is bizarre. Why no big name signings (other than Mario)? True, it's not always about big names, but in this case, it is! The money made from Suarez' sale has been utterly squandered. If BR can't attract players to a club of our stature and history, something is very wrong. We have one GK, and a pretty poor one at that. Without Sturridge, we have no strike force. He plays 34 year old Gerrard in defensive midfield...meh, boring myself. Sort it out, Brendan, and if you don't want to, or can't, then step aside and let someone else have a go. Someone who knows that management is about much, much more than shiny philosophy.

[eds]

Brendan needs a holiday or a kick up the backside or something. I genuinely fear he's lost the plot. All his talk and philosophy of the past has proved worthless so far this season. He can't be blamed alone, but his handling of Balotelli, his failure to recognise the need for a new GK in preseason, his insistence in playing players out of position, in roles that don't fit his philosophy is simply bewildering. People talk of how good Real are and that this result was to be expected. Why? LFC once stood shoulder to shoulder with teams like Real. Now we're the whipping boys. BR's decision making is crazy. His handling of the press and his players is bizarre. Why no big name signings (other than Mario)? True, it's not always about big names, but in this case, it is! The money made from Suarez' sale has been utterly squandered. If BR can't attract players to a club of our stature and history, something is very wrong. We have one GK, and a pretty poor one at that. Without Sturridge, we have no strike force. He plays 34 year old Gerrard in defensive midfield...meh, boring myself. Sort it out, Brendan, and if you don't want to, or can't, then step aside and let someone else have a go. Someone who knows that management is about much, much more than shiny philosophy.

You raise a lot of valid points RedAnt.

Most of them I have raised myself over the last few months and I think the only other forum member on the same wave-length has been Stu the Red.

Only now are some of lemmings waking up to the cold hard reality that we were a completely better team with Suarez in our starting XI.

With all the money that has been spent we are nothing like the team we were last year and there are some incredibly worrying signs already surrounding new players like Lovren, Markovic and Balotelli.

Granted I am not going to pass any complete judgement until we have a fit and firing Sturridge in our side (a big "when" at this point in time) but Rodger's overall managing has been well below average so far.

The fact that we couldn't persuade any top class players to come over is because we have a relatively young and inexperienced manager and our club is awash with incompetent buffoons being led by Ian Ayre.

Rodgers has talked about this so called "philosophy", which in my eyes is complete and utter rubbish to cover up his deficiencies in not having the clout or pull to bring in better players.

So what has he done, he has gone the Wenger approach from last decade. This is doomed to fail as we saw with them not winning anything by having their better players pillaged by other clubs.

And it all started a few months ago when we let Suarez go. A lot on here will argue that there was no way we could keep him. Once again I don't subscribe to that nonsense. I think with the CL money and sales of a few spuds in our side (which by the way we have still kept) we had at the time Rodgers main priority should have been to convince him to stay. Instead he left, why? Because in the end he didn't believe in Rodgers and his approach. That's the reality that not many fans want to accept. They just choose to blame other things, like his physchological problems, his racism, his middle finger, his teeth, it's embarrassing really   

Had we had a genuine plan to bring in more quality to push us to win the title this season and compete in the CL, not the rubbish we witnessed this morning, then maybe Suarez would have stayed. But Rodgers gambled and went at it his own way, unfortunately I have predicted that all of this will end in tears. Just look at the astronomical money he has spent on the average players he brought in, it didn't improve us it just stablised us a good side, not a great one.

Too add to our problems, we have stubbornly kept Mignolet in goals when it is clear as day he is out of his league playing here and still have rubbish like Borini, Lucas and Johnson at the club!

Most of us have been waiting too long for us to finally win the title but at this stage last year's 2nd place result and performances looks like yet another false dawn. 

[Reg]

Eds, you're a genius, you should be writing for the Echo.

[Stu the Red]

totally out classed tonight.
we started very well and kept it up for 15 mins but then they just bossed us about. even though it looked like we improved in the second we could easily have shipped another 3.
baloteli knew he was off at H.T and thats why he was swapping jerseys  what does the lad be doing in training is anyone's guess. he will be made the scapegoat. puzzled he took coutinho off as he looked like he would eventually conjure up something and provided our biggest threat. not surprised at all hendo was brought off as he was starstruck.
still they are a top top side and considering the tripe served up at qpr we played alright.

Subs were to conserve energy for Saturday

So You're saying he gave up at half time?

[RED BEERGOGGLES]

We were beaten by a class team ,even the Kop acknowledged this and applauded Madrid when they were leaving the field ,we started brightly enough and took the game
to Madrid ,but then for some reason we sat back and stopped pressing and they just bypassed our midfield like it wasn't there ,they played thoughtfully whereas our play
was often hurried and devoid of intelligence. Madrid just simply weathered the storm for the first 15 minutes and then pushed forward with at times consummate ease.

A team packed to the brim with World class players who never once looked rattled ,or threatened enough to lose their composure ,it reminded me of when Benitez''s
Valencia visited Anfield and left us in no doubt of their quality .....In truth its the best Madrid team I've seen for many a year,and sometimes you just have to hold
your hands aloft and admire a team and a manager that will sweep all before them !

Last word on Modric Ive finally had the opportunity to see this wondrous  player at Anfield  and the fella's touch and intuition is phenomenal,he really is a superb little
player and he's the metronome for this Madrid team ,one of the best midfielder's I've ever seen ,and I've seen a few !

[Stu the Red]

In reply to eds,

Firstly thanks for the mention  : also just to add red till i die i also reading the right book when it comes to our overrated one.

Secondly, while I agree with nearly all of your post, I personally believe you're being ridiculously unfair to Wenger. His teams always compete at this level. Even if they're beaten by good sides, they still compete also that man has a list of honours as along as my arm and a track record of bringing in true world beaters, Pires, Vieira, Henry, Petit and Anelka for small money. He also can attract big names as a boss. Most of that maybe in the past, but the fact is he's done that. After two hundred million spent the best player Brendan signed is Coutinho, don't get me wrong I love the lad, I think he's quality but he's not even close to the standard of player mentioned above and never will be.

What people don't realise, is the majority of it is down to the players and their quality. You can spout on about tactics and philosophy all you like but if you want to win stuff and compete regularly you need top players. Granted last season we played well mostly but as I have rightly said before it was down to one man. Influence was massive, have us confidence and allowed the likes of Sterling and Coutinho to develop without pressure.
His overall game was that good it inspired those around him, they had confidence in everything he done and we knew every game pretty much he would score one and set one up.

Had the sufficient quality been signed to play with him I don't believe he would have been in such a hurry to leave either. Once it was decided he was leaving  we should have done two things, number one was go for Carlos Tevez, he's a very similar player with the appetite needed, he isn't quite as good as Luis, most likely a level down but he has the work rateI movement and goals to make the pain of losing someone so ridiculous a lot less. We also should have sorted the defence properly. I have been critical of Moreno so far and last night was the reason why, out of everyone last night I believe he was the worst player on the pitch. He was so far out of his depth it was frightening. Lovren while being a good centre back is struggling big time playing next to Skrtel, they contradict each other so much it's scary, Skrtel always wants to drop to his own six yard box and Lovren always wants to correctly push out. I have said in the past we don't have a defensive plan, what we need is someone like Phil Thompson, but we also massively need better personal.

The release of Agger and Reina now looks even more baffling. Especially for the money. My bet is had Jamie stayed on another year, Pepe been between the sticks and Danny had played more games we would have been champions last season.

The signings from day one have been shocking, we have covered this a million times but the fact is good players and players we have let move to other teams are still playing at "lesser clubs".

Personally had I lost Suarez I would have first changed our philosophy had I decided on not signing a direct replacement. Sturridge for a start will not hold the ball up as well or bring others in, he doesn't work as hard either. So you have to play to his strengths which are pace movement and finishing. So instead of a high press you need shape and to retreat slightly to create the space for him. You could still play a 433 but you would need Sterling out wide and Pip in behind, for that to work you need a wide player on the other side that will score goals and has at least as much quality as Sterling, someone like Pedro? Also you have to change the two in midfield. For me, excluding Chelsea, the two Southampton have are as good as anything in England and able to compete at any level.

Personally I think Rodgers signed the wrong players from day one.

[Stu the Red]

We were beaten by a class team ,even the Kop acknowledged this and applauded Madrid when they were leaving the field ,we started brightly enough and took the game
to Madrid ,but then for some reason we sat back and stopped pressing and they just bypassed our midfield like it wasn't there ,they played thoughtfully whereas our play
was often hurried and devoid of intelligence. Madrid just simply weathered the storm for the first 15 minutes and then pushed forward with at times consummate ease.

A team packed to the brim with World class players who never once looked rattled ,or threatened enough to lose their composure ,it reminded me of when Benitez''s
Valencia visited Anfield and left us in no doubt of their quality .....In truth its the best Madrid team I've seen for many a year,and sometimes you just have to hold
your hands aloft and admire a team and a manager that will sweep all before them !

Last word on Modric Ive finally had the opportunity to see this wondrous  player at Anfield  and the fella's touch and intuition is phenomenal,he really is a superb little
player and he's the metronome for this Madrid team ,one of the best midfielder's I've ever seen ,and I've seen a few !

Red while I appreciate your sentiments mate it shows how far back we actually are. That's the problem we have, we can't get to that level with these players, we needed better.

On Modric, he does ooze class. But the two manc ***** and Vieira were a level above him

[only me]

totally out classed tonight.
we started very well and kept it up for 15 mins but then they just bossed us about. even though it looked like we improved in the second we could easily have shipped another 3.
baloteli knew he was off at H.T and thats why he was swapping jerseys  what does the lad be doing in training is anyone's guess. he will be made the scapegoat. puzzled he took coutinho off as he looked like he would eventually conjure up something and provided our biggest threat. not surprised at all hendo was brought off as he was starstruck.
still they are a top top side and considering the tripe served up at qpr we played alright.

Subs were to conserve energy for Saturday

So You're saying he gave up at half time?

Other then Mario (which is a lost cause from the get go) the other were when the game looked lost...(60-70 minute).

[RedAnt]

Either I'm going crazy, or Stu is talking a lot more sense these days. Not that I agree with everything he says, but his point is a lot more coherent and a lot less antagonistic. Hats off to ya Stu.

Today is another day. I was furious at the ease with which Madrid ripped us up. And being one of Balotelli's defenders, I'm becoming a tad embarassed by him. I still hope for him to come good, but if we continue to play how we are, then he will get worse.

[Boocity]

The defence is getting a lot of stick but watching last night you could see that when we were attacking around their box, their midfield nwere pretty much always back getting between us and their defence, around the box was pretty crowded and our passing was not good enough and intercepted or shots were blocked. Whenever they seemed to be in a similar position our defence didnt have that screen in front of them, our midfield was like a sieve. Also their passing around our area was sharp and accurate. New goalie and bolster midfield,

[Stu the Red]

Boocity,

Surely the hundred and sixteen million spent should have been spent on improving these areas? Most of us could see major weaknesses last season in goal, defence and midfield.

It didn't take an expert, you only needed to look at the goals against column to see half the story

[algymoon]

Another “Comedy show” at its best!  It is clearly this present situation it does indicate that LFC is in crisis, the manager BR has totally lost the plot, he cannot rectify the defence problem over the past two seasons despite changing some of its players.. The problem it is still there regardless. This would indicate that BR coaching methods is at fault.
BR has looked yesterday is totally lost, cannot comprehend how to revert back to the good progress that he had achieved last season whereas the team had did very well and put LFC back on map,  and the present decline sliding badly backward without stopping!!
LFC team performances this season is the worst team in whole league with an exception to Burnley.
Our players now are stepping on pitch expecting to lose the game, rather than to win, the passing awful, cannot score!! Maybe once in every three games, they are the whipping boys of this season rather than Arsenal. 

I see some people say were beaten by a classy team, would they say that if we get the same result on Saturday against Hall!  Just let us face it we have an average manager and a squad of so many average players, however there are few good players in the squad but the manager’s poor team selection it not helping the situation. How do you start the second half at 0-3 down without a proper central forward, just so called creative players, we are not Spain!
E.Can should be in team from the start, and not put Markovic on, I am surprised at this player he was so excellent at Benfica last season, here at LFC he is shy of the ball, in scoring, and when he is in scoring position try to pass it on!! A different player (a Dud) due to BR tactics and training methods.

BR takes the full blame for the decline of LFC team performance which it does not indicate it is going to be bright this season a total disaster as long as BR remain in charge.
The possible outcome for this season is a lower position of league table, out of all competitions by February 2015.  This is reality.

[LFC1990]

Boocity,

Surely the hundred and sixteen million spent should have been spent on improving these areas? Most of us could see major weaknesses last season in goal, defence and midfield.

It didn't take an expert, you only needed to look at the goals against column to see half the story

Bought 3 defenders and 3 midfielders

[Stu the Red]

Yeah and only one of them is good enough absolute clown!