Last season it was generally acknowledged across football, their fans, in punditry and so forth, that City had struggled to mount a serious challenge to us because they lost Laporte.
They were generally sympathised with and excused over the loss of one fucking player.
We’ve lost all our centre backs. Every fucking one of them. And everyone of them better than Laporte in my view.
Not only that but we’ve also lost our new world class midfielder and forward for half the season, half a dozen other first team occasionals (basically all our depth) and our goalkeeper and right back for spells too.
But we’re bad champions and just making excuses. And plenty of our own bloody fans are all too happy pile on as well.
What’s that about?! This kind of behaviour has no place here, would you say stuff like that to someone’s face? Because @Mascot is a decent fella, you only got a yellow card this time. You can thank him for that and I mean it. Next time it’s the ban, and that of a permanent kind.
You can call them conspiracy theories all you want. Its your way of failing to understand the point, but fair enough. You dont have to agree with my views.
Not sure if you were on TIA but the thread on the forums dedicated to this discussion just became toxic. Mainly because both sides were entrenched and it was a circular argument.
I offered a few factors earlier, you feel free to disagree, I dont really care. To be honest I dont have the inclination to try and convince you.
It’s really funny because if we were like the rest of the fucking shit heads that support other clubs we’d be calling for a null and void season and ridiculous shit house comments like “put an Astrix after Man City on the trophy”
For all the things our fans have said I take a huge sense of pride in that our fans don’t resort to that, for me, which is the biggest display of shit housery (is that a word?!? It is now) that I’ve ever seen.
Onwards and upwards, just hope the lads can put some sort of a run together to finish 4th. A lot of hard work has gone Into Klopps reign to take what would be a HUGE step backwards like that.
Last season, we broke down 8-men defences on a regular basis with them in the side.
Especially Keita could help there, he was brought in for that purpose. Ox is another one who can make things happen. But both are obviously far off their top form.
Until this season we’ve been reasonably OK, bar the odd layoff for Hendo and Matip, but our current injury list is unbelievable. Without a doubt this has contributed to our mid season malaise. Are we just unlucky with injuries, or could they be related to the intensity of our game?
Not sure. Intensity of games most certainly. Were basically playing a season in 6 months and have had very little Summer off or pre season. I suspect that has something to do with it.
Training wise I’d be pretty confident in guessing that the players aren’t doing too much physical work. They basically have a recovery cycle and then its straight back into a new game scenario.
All this hype surrounding Klopp driving teams hard is more related to leagues with less game pressure and a super hard preseason in my opinion. After that he listening to the medical / science guys.
VVD’s injury for instance has nothing to do with too much intensity. He was victim of an attack. Thiago’s lengthy spell off the pitch was the result of an attack too. Gomez’ happened at the beginning of the season, so intensity wouldn’t be an issue I think? As for Jota, he was used in a rotation with the other forwards. Not sure that intensity played too much of a role. After all, we were playing more intensely last season than this one.
For me, that sustained avalanche of injuries is just plain bad luck. Maybe also the lack of a proper pre-season might have played a role for some of the sustained injuries.
When you think about it: besides our well-documented problems at center-back, and Fabinho’s and Hendo’ problems, we also lost Keita for almost the whole season until now, we lost Ox until just a few weeks ago, we lost Thiago for three months, Tsimikas for almost five months, we’ve lost Jota since three months and he still isn’t back… and on top of that, we’ve lost several players over lengthy spells: Shaq, Trent, Allisson and a few others. Even the ever-reliable Milly has had injuries this season.
As posted by someone in the Sheffield pre-match thread: only six players in our whole squad have come through this season without being out for three weeks or more. It’s unreal.
My position has not changed. It is peeps like you who seem incapable of moving from focus on injuries to analyzing the response.
We are not necessarily sitting deeper; our average starting position is roughly the same. The difference is we trigger a decision to drop back quicker and trigger the high press less frequently, relying increasingly on shape as a basis for the press (ie setting traps).
Our use of and dependence on fullbacks has not changed.
In summary we are tweaking around the edges, when what is needed is far more drastic.
We are running less and less behind the defence; our CMs hardly ever make the extra man runs…
Its not simple for anyone to sign players under the current climate. But teams are signing players.
Its just another excuse in your limitless box of excuses…
When you watch us play it still looks like the same old Liverpool. Good in possession and able to play the ball up the pitch comfortably. But our play in and around the final third has been ineffective. Sometimes this is because we over pass, or stop and play sideways or even backwards. I find myself screaming at the tv on occasion when a promising attack comes to a shuddering halt and you see the opposition charging back into position. We seem to have lost the wit and imagination to strike ruthlessly. At the same time, our defence looks vulnerable to the counter or just plain fragile. Even though you know the opposition are going to be limited to a few efforts on goal, they seem to be surprisingly adept at sticking the ball in our net. It has happened before, on occasion, but this season it’s been more and more the norm. Now, when we go behind you know it’s going to be a long slog to get back into the game. If we manage to get the lead you’re thinking, we defo need a second or even a third to put the game to bed.
As you say, we seem to be tweaking in the hope that we’ll discover whatever we’re missing. Maybe it’s one thing, or possibly a combination of many issues. At least it makes for an interesting, if rather dispiriting chapter in our glorious history.
To change the subject…catching up on MOTD here. Does everyone not agree that sending Minamino out on loan was a terrible idea? We were desperate for something different yesterday. The way he sat the 2 lads on their arses was a joy to behold
He’d have had 4 defenders on him long before he got into the box playing for us. Teams are playing with a back 5 almost on the 6 yard line when we have possession on the halfway! Granted we make it fucking easy for them but it is a reality.
True, but we do need to bring something different when the Bobby-Mo-Mane axis not working. Don’t think Shaq is the answer but he at least freshened things up a little bit when he came on
we are in a trough atm, but I have confidence in the manager and team, that we will be back, just hope it’s sooner than soon. We have been terribly unlucky with injuries even to the new additions in the squad, so it’s not been as what we expected from a team that practically won the league by/ just after Christmas. Believe and Klopp has to instill that in our players again and again. Don’t give up. YNWA