Liverpool FC Forum

[Emerald Red]

Roy just need to solve 3 problems and we be ok: Skertel, Ngog n Lucas.

Hope you were being sarcastic.

[Octsky]

Roy just need to solve 3 problems and we be ok: Skertel, Ngog n Lucas.

Hope you were being sarcastic.

nope, i m serious.

i am worried about the future as in 2-3 yrs back, a huge bulk of the team need replacing as Roy signed players in their late 20's.
players in their late 20's:
Gerrard, Carra, Cole, Poulsen, Maxi, Jano, Kyut, ...

but i understand his stand as we need to get back to champs league asap, hence we have to sign players at their peak (late 20's) but if we didnt get a huge investments in 2-3 yrs we r screwed.

[boodiddy1]

Some of the nonesense on here is unreal. That Dion Fanning is a mug. He reports all the time. Now, cos we lost one game at citeh, where the original plan was wrecked by the selfishness of the little argie, we need radicalsim?

Ciggy your posts are so doom and gloom its unreal. Your doing it on here and RAWK. Half empty glass!

You bettter than anyone know we have to sit tight. Blaming Roy for bringing in 28-29 year olds is OTT. We dont have the money for the very best younger players.

Yet, up the east lancs, a ginger minger who is 35  is having a great start to the season. Are they moaning cos he's past it? NO! Where we moaning when Gary Mac came at 35 and had two cracking seasons? NO!

It seems far too many LFC fans are dooming everything we do. Just cos Konchesky plays for Fulham, hes . Yet i remember people saying Kromkamp (remember him) was class! Fact is, most on here dont know anything about the players we are linked with, then read Wikipedia or watch youtube and then jump on the band wagon. 

Konchesky is far better than that slouch Insua. IMO Insua is slow, too small, no pace and really a typical rafa player. ( Hard working).

One big issue that concerns me on the pitch side just now is how much Carra is declining! His influence on positioning and barking orders is still there, but there is too much tendancy to sit deep so he doesnt get exposed over the top. I really think Roy must look at playing Agger in there with a.n.other. Maybe even young Wilson against the lower placed teams. I really think father time is catching up with Carra.

The  Gerrard dilemma? its obvious Stevie isnt the hard tackler box-to-box player of his early career. He's been playing away from that position for too long  and seems to have lost a bit of bite. So, where shall we play him. For me i think he needs to be central in a midfield three, where he can break forward. Lately, i feel he's been too far forward continuously with Torres. What about right side of midfield? Had one of his best seasons there in 2006-07.

Its going to take awhile for Roy to gel a team in his mould. Fluidity is probably the main problem with us just now. I'd like to see some pace out wide. Kuyt is good for some games, usually against the bigger sides but against opp that put 10 behind ball, he becomes ineffective. Why not try Babel down the right? He is right footed after all. Would not need to check inside. Sneak in round the back with his fair share also i think.

A long winded post i know, but ladies and gents, its going to take time, with our structure internally, its going to be hard also. As we stand financially, we have to get things right this time. By buying british, i believe gives you more chance than getting the cheap foreigner. Blooding some youngaters also would benefit the team and shows the fans that academy is working.  I really believe there is some great talent in there. acheco, Amoo, Shelvey, Ince, Wilson, Suso, Mavinga. Could easily blossom into fine footballers playingwith torres, gerrard, agger, maxi, poulsen and Miereles.

[PabloMedina28]

Roy just need to solve 3 problems and we be ok: Skertel, Ngog n Lucas.

Hope you were being sarcastic.

nope, i m serious.

i am worried about the future as in 2-3 yrs back, a huge bulk of the team need replacing as Roy signed players in their late 20's.
players in their late 20's:
Gerrard, Carra, Cole, Poulsen, Maxi, Jano, Kyut, ...

but i understand his stand as we need to get back to champs league asap, hence we have to sign players at their peak (late 20's) but if we didnt get a huge investments in 2-3 yrs we r screwed.

Dont worry about the future mate


GK - Bouzanis
D - Wilson, Ayala, Kelly, Coady, Wisdon, Robinson
M - Shelvey, Suso, Sterling, Ince, Bruna
F - Ngoo

Them Yank will eventually be out and well get taken over by billionaires

The Futures bright, we just gotta see out the present and then its blue skies ahead

[PabloMedina28]

Some of the nonesense on here is unreal. That Dion Fanning is a mug. He reports all the time. Now, cos we lost one game at citeh, where the original plan was wrecked by the selfishness of the little argie, we need radicalsim?

Ciggy your posts are so doom and gloom its unreal. Your doing it on here and RAWK. Half empty glass!

You bettter than anyone know we have to sit tight. Blaming Roy for bringing in 28-29 year olds is OTT. We dont have the money for the very best younger players.

Yet, up the east lancs, a ginger minger who is 35  is having a great start to the season. Are they moaning cos he's past it? NO! Where we moaning when Gary Mac came at 35 and had two cracking seasons? NO!

It seems far too many LFC fans are dooming everything we do. Just cos Konchesky plays for Fulham, hes . Yet i remember people saying Kromkamp (remember him) was class! Fact is, most on here dont know anything about the players we are linked with, then read Wikipedia or watch youtube and then jump on the band wagon. 

Konchesky is far better than that slouch Insua. IMO Insua is slow, too small, no pace and really a typical rafa player. ( Hard working).

One big issue that concerns me on the pitch side just now is how much Carra is declining! His influence on positioning and barking orders is still there, but there is too much tendancy to sit deep so he doesnt get exposed over the top. I really think Roy must look at playing Agger in there with a.n.other. Maybe even young Wilson against the lower placed teams. I really think father time is catching up with Carra.

The  Gerrard dilemma? its obvious Stevie isnt the hard tackler box-to-box player of his early career. He's been playing away from that position for too long  and seems to have lost a bit of bite. So, where shall we play him. For me i think he needs to be central in a midfield three, where he can break forward. Lately, i feel he's been too far forward continuously with Torres. What about right side of midfield? Had one of his best seasons there in 2006-07.

Its going to take awhile for Roy to gel a team in his mould. Fluidity is probably the main problem with us just now. I'd like to see some pace out wide. Kuyt is good for some games, usually against the bigger sides but against opp that put 10 behind ball, he becomes ineffective. Why not try Babel down the right? He is right footed after all. Would not need to check inside. Sneak in round the back with his fair share also i think.

A long winded post i know, but ladies and gents, its going to take time, with our structure internally, its going to be hard also. As we stand financially, we have to get things right this time. By buying british, i believe gives you more chance than getting the cheap foreigner. Blooding some youngaters also would benefit the team and shows the fans that academy is working.  I really believe there is some great talent in there. acheco, Amoo, Shelvey, Ince, Wilson, Suso, Mavinga. Could easily blossom into fine footballers playingwith torres, gerrard, agger, maxi, poulsen and Miereles.

Brilliant post (apart from the Konchesky bit) thing about Knochesky i know he will do better then Insua and he is a steady eddy but i just think its a waste of money when we need other areas strenghting. We have many players that can play LB alot  of them its not thier prefered position granted, but they can still do a decent job. What we need is a striker and  aleft winger

ooooh Mavinga i forgot about him

[LFC2007]

So far what Ciggy and some others said prior to Roy's appointment about his team's style of play has been spot on. We could hardly be more defensive than what we've been so far and though the upside is that - City aside - we've rarely been undone at the back, we pay a massive price in an attacking sense. We need to play a higher line, we need to press higher up and we need Lucas out of the team and Meireles in.

[Kharhaz]

So far what Ciggy and some others said prior to Roy's appointment about his team's style of play has been spot on. We could hardly be more defensive than what we've been so far and though the upside is that - City aside - we've rarely been undone at the back, we pay a massive price in an attacking sense. We need to play a higher line, we need to press higher up and we need Lucas out of the team and Meireles in.

In all fairness to roy though, the players at his disposal are set up to be defensive. He tried attacking against Man City, and look how that turned out. The personnel he had when he took over gave roy only one direction in which to take the run of play on the pitch. He is making the right moves though regarding what the team needs. He has signed Cole, a positive player in an attacking role. He is after a steady left back and has admitted we need another striker.

So far we are defensive, but that is how rafa set his team up.

[LFC2007]

Sitting deep and playing on the counter away to a side like Man City is just what you'd expect. The mistake there though was in not having five midfield players to cover for the extra man in the middle since that is why Johnson had so much space to attack Agger. Against West Brom, though, at home I don't expect our backline to be camped inside our own half for 70% of the time and to have so few chances as we did. I don't accept for a second that we didn't have the personnel to play a more attacking game than that.

[Kharhaz]

Sitting deep and playing on the counter away to a side like Man City is just what you'd expect. The mistake there though was in not having five midfield players to cover for the extra man in the middle since that is why Johnson had so much space to attack Agger. Against West Brom, though, at home I don't expect our backline to be camped inside our own half for 70% of the time and to have so few chances as we did. I don't accept for a second that we didn't have the personnel to play a more attacking game than that.

No, I dont either. We showed the season before last that when we attack, we do it very well. But of course back then, we had Alonso. I dont like us being defensive at home, we should be going for the win, playing attractive football, and this is where roy has my sympathy. He is understanding the players he has, while at the same time having to sign players that are needed with a limited budget. It doesnt change my stance with regards to what he has to work with. Rafa set up this team to play defensive football, "not to lose", and roy cannot be blamed for that.

[LFC2007]

No, Rafa was accused of playing "negative tactics", not "going for the jugular against p!sspoor relegation fodder" and here his critics often cited his tendency to play Torres as a lone striker and his reliance on the "axis" - of two DMs who contributed about 3 assists and 1 goal in 746 games. Roy did all of that against WBA but also sat the team a lot deeper than we typically used to, leaving West Brom to come onto us and for us to work, essentially, on the counter attack. This is why the distance from our furthest player forward and our last defender was so great. We could and should have pushed the backline up nearer the halfway line and kept it there instead of retreating so often as we did, then our midfield and attackers would've been tighter, consequently we'd have won the ball back faster and been closer to the goal and in closer support to each other.

[Kharhaz]

No, Rafa was accused of playing "negative tactics", not "going for the jugular against p!sspoor relegation fodder" and here his critics often cited his tendency to play Torres as a lone striker and his reliance on the "axis" - of two DMs who contributed about 3 assists and 1 goal in 746 games. Roy did all of that against WBA but also sat the team a lot deeper than we typically used to, leaving West Brom to come onto us and for us to work, essentially, on the counter attack. This is why the distance from our furthest player forward and our last defender was so great. We could and should have pushed the backline up nearer the halfway line and kept it there instead of retreating so often as we did, then our midfield and attackers would've been tighter, consequently we'd have won the ball back faster and been closer to the goal and in closer support to each other.

Yeah he did. But I put it down to experimenting. We got the win, while roy is experimenting. Determining what players are good in what positions. For now he has the benefit of the doubt. Already, for me at least, he is trying different things, seeing what works and what doesnt. In time, with our new signings settling in, we will see a different, more consistent positive approach. For the time being though, it is frustrating to watch, but all I can see are positives. It hasnt been great so far, but it will get better. We have had a tough start to the fixtures, the world cup, the UEFA cup and of course mascherano acting like a spoilt brat. Once it all starts to settle down, we should have a clearer picture of what roy has to offer. And it does look promising.

[LFC2007]

Mate, you're a nice fell but you don't half talk a load of b0llocks. The stuff on the pitch so far hasn't looked promising. Againt Arsenal, I'll accept we put in a good shift and it was a massive improvement in terms of effort and organisation from last season. But, a minor worry: our ball retention when we had 11 men on the pitch was shab!te, and because of it Arsenal were the better team in that half despite not being able to break through (they contained us as well). OK, though, it was Arsenal and such games aren't going to be as much a test of where we'll finish as will games against relegation fodder. Then, we get thumped by Man City, the less said the better (our European form, meanwhile, is hardly inspiring). So, to West Bromwich Albion at home and we are dominated. I haven't time to elaborate now but simply consider the chances we created; consider how often we threatened them in and around the box and how often they threatened us. We had three decent-good chances that all fell to Torres, one early on, the goal, and one late on. It's not every week that we'll be able to rely on such a scarcity of chances to win a game of Premier League football.

Before anyone thinks I'm jumping to conclusions on Roy's reign, I'm not, except to say that so far we've been disappointing and we may as well call it as it is. It doesn't preclude me from hoping or even expecting our performances to change for the better once Cole and Meireles come into the team and we're into the swing of things.

See ya. 

[ethanr]

When you look at our starting line-ups this season, We haven't played yet to the level we need to in order to get into the top four, with the exception of second half against Arsenal.  First half arsenal, we didn't play well enough and had new faces on the pitch- Cole and Jova, plus players who were not fully back from the world cup- Stevie, GJ, Carra, Kuyt, Masch, and Skrtel, plus Torres was obviously not fit.

My point isn't that we had a lot of world cup players to the extent it made us draw- both teams did.  We just weren't playing how we can.  It was a sloppy game and very stupid of the league to schedule it as the first game of the season.  Maybe not in a world cup year, but the fact is that it is a world cup year. 

Man city game was a disaster.  City did play well, but the reason we lost is because that was the worst performance I have seen from us in quite a while.

Europa league we are playing people like Lucas, Poulson, Ngog and others who aren't good enough for first team yet.

Basically what I'm getting at is that we haven't had the chance to see Roys Liverpool yet.  He's yet to have his full squad available and once our players are fit, transfer window is shut and a consistent starting lineup is made, we will finally start to see our actual squad for the year.

[Kharhaz]

Mate, you're a nice fell but you don't half talk a load of b0llocks.

Your not the first to say that, and you wont be the last ! 

No, what I meant by promising was the fact that although we were resigned to losing Mascherano, we had another player lined up. And the fact that Roy has admitted we need another striker. There is nothing to read between the lines there, roy knows we need another striker, and that in itself is promising. He knows our weak areas, and he is addressing them. Performance wise, its grim, but with regards to signings, there is a lot to be happy about. Compare this seasons to ones past. There is the first positive. No messing about, our problem areas are being addressed, and that gives me a good feeling.

[In and Out]

Mate, you're a nice fell but you don't half talk a load of b0llocks.   The stuff on the pitch so far hasn't looked promising. Againt Arsenal, I'll accept we put in a good shift and it was a massive improvement in terms of effort and organisation from last season. But, a minor worry: our ball retention when we had 11 men on the pitch was shab!te, and because of it Arsenal were the better team in that half despite not being able to break through (they contained us as well). OK, though, it was Arsenal and such games aren't going to be as much a test of where we'll finish as will games against relegation fodder. Then, we get thumped by Man City, the less said the better (our European form, meanwhile, is hardly inspiring). So, to West Bromwich Albion at home and we are dominated. I haven't time to elaborate now but simply consider the chances we created; consider how often we threatened them in and around the box and how often they threatened us. We had three decent-good chances that all fell to Torres, one early on, the goal, and one late on. It's not every week that we'll be able to rely on such a scarcity of chances to win a game of Premier League football.

Before anyone thinks I'm jumping to conclusions on Roy's reign, I'm not, except to say that so far we've been disappointing and we may as well call it as it is. It doesn't preclude me from hoping or even expecting our performances to change for the better once Cole and Meireles come into the team and we're into the swing of things.

See ya. 

LFC2007 - I agree with your concerns our performances haven't been anything to write home about.

But I've got to be honest here and say (bold#1) our ball retention wasn't that magnificent under Benitez IMHO (and I'm not saying this to wind anybody up). Largely Roy's got the same players with the same abilities he isn't going to come in and suddenly make these players retain possession better than they already do or be more creative than they are.

What I have noticed like everyone else is that we now seem more content in conceding possession and sitting back deeper. That is the significant difference I can see between our team this year and our team last year. Rafa (credit to him) played a pressing game and we hunted the ball in packs to get possession back, we're not doing that anymore and we're inevitably conceding momentum to our opponents when we sit off them.

re bold#2: Again this type of occurrence happened  under the Rafa era too. We did come away from matches only having one shot on target etc. This isn't something new to us (I don't know if you've forgotten).  When we drew away last season against Sunderland (I think that was the beach ball game) I think I'm right in saying our first shot on goal was the one Torres scored with. We went behind early on had 70 or 80 minutes to get a goal back and our first shot didn't come until midway through the second half.And lets not forget when we would come from behind and go one up we'd sit back, Rafa would make defensive substitution and 'shut up shop' which I don't think a side with aspirations should be doing against the likes of Sunderland.

You've got to remember creativity was lacking under Rafa IMO and I also think we've never been that great at retaining possession. And for me Rafa didn't address this for a number of reasons, and in the transfer market he really liked the grafters (and flair players to a lesser extent) to help him implement the 'pressuring' game on his opponents.

For me it come down to the individual abilities and collective ability as a team. We're not going to transpire into something we're not and while our football has been poor to watch at least Roy is making the right kind of signings to change that.