In the cold light of day, yes there were some strange decisions. Yes we maybe should have had a penalty. But in huge type, first line, in bold, we were shite. I see stormy waters ahead and it’s nothing to do with the refs it’s because we as a team are currently bolloxed to a MUCH greater extent than losing our 1st choice CBs can explain. Explain or excuse, I can’t decide.
Luckily for us WBA, Soton and Newcastle haven’t.
The reasons for this season’s fall off, and the 2021 slump particularly, are well discussed.
Personally, I’d add another issue into the mix. Not saying it’s a reason, just putting it out there for others to comment on.
Maybe all the adulation, all the films about Klopp, all the books, all the programmes about our title win, all the interviews, all the messing around stuff like that video of some players led by Hendo having a discussion about something I can’t remember, maybe it’s created a bit of a job done, not first step accomplished type attitude.
The individual chasing of records has bugged me for a while, the most notable being it looking at times like Salah’s desire for the golden boot is more important to him than the result. It’s like the club’s good use of stats analysis has gone too far.
Anyway, last night’s match for me is the last one that I’m prepared to accept the using of the reasons, and excuses, that have been documented.
We are missing key players, but we now have enough available players to be doing better than this.
The key issue is now the management team, and I include all Klopp’s assistants in this, not making best use of the available players.
The defence largely picks itself, we can’t really rest TAA and Robbo with the back ups we have, and the centre back issue. We have a top keeper, who saved us from a worse defeat last night.
But the management team can pick better options, and make better substitutions, for the midfield and forward six than they are doing.
A key issue is the continued selection of Bobby, the continued use of 433 with Bobby in it, and never seeming to have our best players on the pitch at the same time.
Of our eight midfielders, Oxlade is the worst. Fab and Hendo aren’t available to midfield, but Gini, Milner, Thiago, Keita and Jones are all better than Oxlade, yet we ended the match with him on the pitch.
Up top, Bobby is the worst of the four usable forwards. I don’t count Origi and Shaqiri as anything but bit part players.
Klopp either needs to use Jota with Salah and Mane in a 433, or go 442 diamond. He should also switch Mane to the right, to help out the weaker of our full backs defensively.
We might well get more injuries, but as we sit here today, we have enough players to be doing better than this, and the manager and his team need to sort it.
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Yes. But we’re allowed to talk about other things as well. The thread would be a bit boring if it was just post after post saying we’re shit.
And don’t you think a reluctance to actually stand up for each other on the pitch might translate to a reluctance to play for each other as well?
Look at the difference in the reaction of the Chelsea players and Liverpool players when Mane and Kovacic squared up. Do you think that has nothing to do with how each are playing? I think it has, you know.
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Yeah we should have made more of the hand ball, I think only two players bothered to raise their hand but there was nothing, only Fabinho and Mane moaned about that foul that led to Chelsea nearly scoring.
It’s kind of why I’d have Milner on now more often than not he would at least show some grit in that especially without Hendo and VVD.
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Yeah but it gives an indication of where we’re at right now. Not great.
Kovavcic should have been carded for that and wasn’t. (or I missed it) but what he did was fucking low.
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Did VAR check the handball? I was watching with the sound off so I wasn’t sure if it was checked or not.
Not that I saw.
The reason he wasn’t carded was because the Liverpool players made absolutely nothing of it. Neither did Klopp.
Michael Oliver was crystal clear on this. If we want decisions we have to ask for them.
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How can it not be looked at? It was a clear and obvious error by Atkinson. Or was it? Had he just decided there was no way he awarding us a penalty? Twat!
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12 months (with a COVID break) is not 18 months. We were also top of the league at Christmas this season. So no his point doesn’t stand at all. It’s a completely hysterical reaction
Watching the game last night was like groundhog day. The same sideways, and backwards passing between defenders, half hearted moves up the wings before passing back (when was the last time Robbo actually passed the ball forwards?). Ponderous and purposeless movement in midfield (I’m looking at you Gini) while the opposition funnel back into a massed defence, before a pass back or a hopeful, hopeless punt up-field where our forwards’ are always wanting to take just one more touch rather than shoot. Then we lose the ball, again, and have a mad panic to get back into defence and so on and so on ad nauseam.
The team looks tired and devoid of ideas. We have been playing a high pressure game for so long, with a small squad depleted by injuries lacking the depth in quality to effectively rotate, no wonder we have run out of steam and slumped.
And yet we are still trying to play the same game, the same tactics with a high defensive line and intense counter press, when we simply do not have the resources or energy to execute it.
It’s a system that has been well and truly worked out and effectively countered by the competition.
Playing the same way over and over again, and expecting a different result is not only madness, but it is a prescription for failure.
Like it or not, if we don’t adopt a more conservative style, better suited to the players we have available for the remainder of the season, we won’t have any chance of qualifying for the Champion’s League.
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Yes it was, but the dwarf Tierney let it slide. I was really surprise they gave us the off side.
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Like others have said , we’re just not getting in the ref’s face like we should be doing. That was a nailed on penalty ffs , if we’re not going protest that then what are we ?!
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You might have a point about the 12 months but in those 12 months, I might have seen 3 really good games altogether. The results and individual goals coming from nowhere have covered a lot up, but we played poorly in most matches. The league have figured us out and it is to Klopp to find a solution when everybody is fit again.
This is probably the best we can do until then.
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There is something seriously wrong happening behind closed doors with the squad.
There’s been whispers about Salah and Mane not getting on. Looking at them on the pitch I would say that there is some truth in that. Mane looks pissed off every time the camera is on him. Bobby looks a shadow of the player he was eighteen months ago. Jurgen looks jaded although it’s understandable after his mother passed away recently.
I know injuries have played a massive part in our form but to be fair the defence are not playing to badly. It’s not as if Allison is keeping the score down every game. He had little to do last night as the previous games. The oppositions keepers even less.
Klopp has a massive job on his hands to get some sort of unity back in the squad to get some respectability for our club as we have become the laughing stock of the Premiership at present.
Top four gone and at best mid table finish hopefully.
For fucks sake. Are we doing this again?
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I only want to know one thing: Have the coaches and players been notified of the changes to this rule since the start of the season? If they have (which is likely given we aren’t seeing the players appealing for them) then there’s nothing much to say other than it doesn’t sit right that the rule should be changed mid-season.
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