Liverpool FC Forum

by **Scottbot** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 11:39 pm

Pre-season is a funny time, everyone is chomping at the bit for the season to start proper, we scrutinise every movement of our new signings and in the main, most of us are guilty of over-reaction and over-analysis of results and performances. You've only got to look at how excited everyone has been getting about Aquilani's performances to see how pre-season can change (or rmap up) people's opinions of a player. Now personally i'm always a bit worried when we struggle in pre-season mainly because you NEVER EVER see the mancs have a poor pre-season, they might lose the odd one but they still manage to get the job done no matter who is playing or what experimentation is happening. Without checking the facts i'd also say say the same is true of all of our rivals in the top 4-5.

Anyways i'm not really much of stato but I am a teacher who's 4 week holiday starts tomorrow so i can afford to waste 30 minutes looking at our results over the last 6 pre-seasons just to see if there was any correlation between friendly results and the league season.

2005/6

Liverpool 4 - 3 Wrexham W
Liverpool 3 - 0 Bayer Leverkusen W
Liverpool 4 - 3 Olympiakos W

We had to qualify for the Champs league that year so only 3 friendly games.

3 Wins - 0 Defeats - 0 Draws

League Season - 3rd - 86pts

-----------------------------

2006/07

Liverpool 2 - 0 Wrexham W
Liverpool 1 - 0 Crewe W
Liverpool 2 - 3 Kaiserslauten L
Liverpool 0 - 2 FC Grasshopper L
Liverpool 0 - 5 FC Mainz L

2 Wins - 3 Defeats - 0 Draws

League season - 3rd - 68pts

---------------------------------

2007/8

Liverpool 2 - 0 Auexerre W
Liverpool 3 - 2 Werder Bremen W
Liverpool 3 - 0 Crewe W
Liverpool 3 - 2 Wrexham W

4 Wins - 0 Defeats - 0 Draws

League season - 4th - 76pts

------------------------------------

2008/9

Liverpool 1 - 0 Tranmere W
Liverpool 2 - 1 FC Lucerne W
Liverpool 1 - 1 Wisla Krakow D
Liverpool 0 - 0 Hertha Berlin D
Liverpool 0 - 0 Villareal D
Liverpool 4 - 0 Rangers W
Liverpool 4 - 1 Valerenga W
Liverpool 1 - 0 Lazio W

5 Wins - 0 Defeats - 3 Draws

League season - 2nd - 82pts

---------------------------------------

2009/10

Liverpool 0 - 0 St.Gallen D
Liverpool 0 - 1 Radip Wien L
Liverpool 1 - 1 Thailand D
Liverpool 5 - 0 Singapore W
Liverpool 0 - 3 Espanyol L
Liverpool 2 - 0 Lyn Oslo W
Liverpool 1 - 2 Atletico Madrid L

2 Wins - 3 Defeats - 2 Draws

League season - 7th - 63pts

-----------------------------------

2010/11

Liverpool 0 - 0 FC Grasshopper D
Liverpool 0 - 1 Kaiserslauten L
Liverpool 0 - 1 Borussia Monchengladbach L

League season - 6th - 58pts

Now you can use stats to back up all sorts of arguments but just a few observations from me would be:

- We had our best league season in 2008/09 - Was it a complete coindidence that we had a very good pre-season as well that year?

- Likewise in 2005/06 - A very strong pre-season plus the game swith TNS and other Champ League lightweights was followed by our next best points total over the 6 season stretch.

- In 2006/7 we all had very high hopes for the saide after such a strong finish the previous seaosn but the warning signs were there in pre-season with 3 consecutive losses including an embarrassing 5-0 thumping away to FC Mainz in Germany. We started our league season terribly that year and never recovered our league form despite an excellent run in the Champs League.

- The last two season have both been very poor. they were both preceded by defeats suffered in the pre-season.

by **Raoul** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 5:23 am

3 games, 9 goals against. I think we can gauge from those stats that unless we get a new CB and LB, all the activity and money spent this window has been all a waste.

by **ethanr** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 5:59 am

That's a little harsh Raoul, but not completely off.

I noticed what you just said during last season. We had a very poor preseason and started very poor. Other top teams had a good preseason and started very strong. When we've had good preseason we've had decent seasons as well.

I'm hoping that the likes of spurs, chealsea and arsenal will struggle at the start as they haven't been that great in preseason, tho the mancs have been doing very well.

I'm also hoping this year is a bit different for us because of the dramatic changes occurring at the club. A lot more pressure to succeed, people wondering who will be at the club, new players, different aims... I think they can all contribute to us having a "different" preseason.. I guess. And hope.

by **crazyhorse** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 10:31 am

We have a habit in modern times of getting off to poor starts, I can only think of a couple of exceptions..

by **crim cram** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 2:42 pm

You probably have to weigh the amount of transfers in and so forth. The 07-09 squad was fairly settled, the squad atm is in upheaval, and way too large. At least half the players we see out there this pre-season won't see significant time when crunch time happens.

There can be no argument however, for the defense. Two more defenders need to be brought in even if Johnson and Kelly are first choice full backs. Insua shouldn't be anywhere near the first team, needs to be shipped.

by **neil** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 6:55 pm

crazyhorse wrote:We have a habit in modern times of getting off to poor starts, I can only think of a couple of exceptions..

thought you off into an excellent post there and then a sudden stop

anyway I dont think theres too much to be read into this pre-season, theres going to be 5-6 players that have featured heavily that will not be here come kick-off IMO. The team that starts the first game will more or less be the 11 that played so well towards the end of the season and I reckon we'll start to blood Adam, Downing etc as subs initially.

by **parchpea** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 7:13 pm

If you lose in pre season the key word in defeat is preperation and fitness but winners talk of a good side coming together. Sure there are no points at stake but to me personally every game means something to a supporter and it should the club. I bet those who travelled to Hull where dissapointed with what they saw and from his comments so was Dalglish. A good pre season is no guarantee of success but it does give people hope and beleif and that in itself is a massive part of the battle.

by **Thommo's perm** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 8:17 pm

Having no Reina is a huge loss in goal so Im not really surprised we have 9 against
Is it all down to the defenders? I dont think so. We have been quite good going forward as in the first two games, but Hull brought us back down to earth with a bump
Saying that, if youd travelled from the other side of the world and then played against a tight unit, youd be struggling.
Are these games important? For fitness, yes. For results, possibly. For evidence of how we will play at the begining of the season, probably not.

by **Scottbot** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 8:30 pm

The irony is if you flick through the last 3 match threads there's plenty of posters in there making definitive judgements about certain aspects of our play e.g. Aquilani is a actually a world beater, defences is tat, Carroll can't be bothered etc and yet there is very little response to this thread which asks the question, do our pre-season performances and results actually mean anything?

by **Greavesie** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 8:34 pm

Scottbot wrote:The irony is if you flick through the last 3 match threads there's plenty of posters in there making definitive judgements about certain aspects of our play e.g. Aquilani is a actually a world beater, defences is tat, Carroll can't be bothered etc and yet there is very little response to this thread which asks the question, do our pre-season performances and results actually mean anything?

I wouldnt say they do in general. Though I admit I'd robably be more optimistic going into the Sunderland game having seen none of our preseason performances.

The main thing is we all want indicators of who is good enough and what our strongest line up is and this is pretty much all we have so peole try to draw conclusions based on the three games we've seen

Personally, once Pep comes in I reckon our defence will be a lot more steady. Stick Suarez and Gerrard in and our attack will have a lot more variety. With Carroll we're basically relying on width to get goals so it makes us a little predictable, just my opinion of course

by **Thommo's perm** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 8:50 pm

Scottbot wrote:The irony is if you flick through the last 3 match threads there's plenty of posters in there making definitive judgements about certain aspects of our play e.g. Aquilani is a actually a world beater, defences is tat, Carroll can't be bothered etc and yet there is very little response to this thread which asks the question, do our pre-season performances and results actually mean anything?

Aquilani is a class player and his performances have confirmed this. Whether he is a wold beater is debatable. The defence hasnt been that good but Reina would have saved many of those shots. Carroll has a lot to prove and will be under tremendous scrutiny as many are not convinced he is worth 35 mill.
The performances mean more than the results in my opinion

by **tubby** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 9:22 pm

Not really much to gauge yet until we see the 1st team proper playing together. Although we can see we have holes in our defence, not exactly a revelation but in a way im glad it's been shown up at the 1st proper chance in pre season. Gives Kenny and FSG something to think about, not that Kenny wasn't already aware.

by **The Good Yank** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 9:39 pm

To this point I'd say that the pre season performances don't mean a thing. The reason for this, we have not seen anything close to our first XI on the pitch together. Four of our best players haven't even started training with the team yet. Once our best back 4 (IMO Kelly,Carra, Agger, Johnson) plays together, behind our best midfield, with our best attack, we won't have a clue as to how things are looking.

For example for the next friendly. If we saw something like

Doni

Kelly Johnson

Carra Agger

Henderson Spearing Adam Downing

Kuyt
Carroll

As our team for say 60 minutes, I think things would look alot better.

The sides put out so far have been too much of a mix of our good players with youth or deadwood.

by **red till i die!!** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 12:17 am

the results arent important but beating teams is.it instills confidence in the lads and has them in the right mentality for when the season starts.
we have been pretty poor so far but with the players at his disposal its to be expected and if anything,proves that we are still a weak squad.
a couple of games to go so hopefully we can see more of a regular line up and get a few wins under our belts before the sunderland game.

by **Raoul** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 2:03 pm

I hope the somewhat positive vibes of this thread are right. Certainly we had a pretty decent defense over the latter part of last season, however I honestly believe that the three areas we HAD to strengthen this window were CB, LB and midfield width, in that order. Downing and Henderson (to a point) have been a response to the third of those, but what I believe is that if we fail to sign a new LB - someone good enough to walk into the 1st XI, and a top class CB, then we've failed this window. I think our results so far underline just how weak we are in those two areas.

As a general rule, I'm not overly concerned about preseason results - I recognise that key players are often missing, new players are being bedded in and players play with others they infrequently play with over the season. However friendlies can tell you something about depth, and can begin a winning or losing habit.

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