There is lots to admire about Milner, but he and Hendo, bring some real ‘gnarl’ to our game. Seen it countless times, said opposing team start to get ‘crunchy’ and Milner piles in with a leveler and the game resumes to a competition rather than a bout. Still think he has 2 more seasons with us, 37ish might see him decline in recovery. But who knows, he could go longer, the man is an anomaly. As well, a complete top grade professional.
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Yes, it is quite rare that athletes can manage to stay on a top level in their mid thirties. It is unusual, and only a select people have that physique. Most Olympians have not.
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Surprised none of the talking heads haven’t made more of that Matip hand ball…
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He trys so hard to not to be biased he often ends sounding stupid and bitter.
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Regarding Millie, I thought he was the best player on the pitch for much of the first half. And that’s taking nothing away from ANY of the other boys. They were stellar to a man.
I posted this awhile back on TIA. Dani Alves called Millie “the most annoying” player he’s ever played against. From 2016:
‘I have faced many, but the most annoying was James Milner, he follows you forward and follows you backwards. It’s very difficult because he attacks you and defends you, and then attacks you and defends you again.’
I couldn’t be more proud of the boys today. That was such a beautiful win, on every level imaginable. Starting with The Boss, down to every player in the side. I realize it was only matchday 9, but it was a definitive statement to the rest of the league, and our boys laid down a marker for all the people that have already written us off. Not so fast, we aren’t going away any time soon. Beautiful TEAM win. Dreams and songs to sing.
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And is there a better first touch anywhere in the Prem than Robbo’s? Absolutely sublime the way he settles a long ball and already has his footwork and next pass sorted. I can’t imagine having to defend him for 90mns. Whoever that was on his wing yesterday (Fuchs, maybe?) will be seeing him in nightmares.
EDIT: does anyone have a good link for distance covered statistics? Whoscored has good stuff but couldn’t find distance covered. I want to see Gini’s from yesterday. He did a magnificent job covering the backline.
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They say you can’t tell if someone is stupid unless they open their mouth to prove it… The number of times Carragher opens his mouth to do his job… both necessarily and UNnecessarily…well law of averages has to play a part eh!
As for being bitter… We can’t say for certain… Except he must look at this Liverpool side the way they play under Jurgen and wish every morning he was 15yrs younger… So for being bitter or maybe even envious… I guess we would all get a pang of that if we as close to the action he is…
For what it is worth… I personally would rather listen to any other pundit than Carragher…
In this modern era, football, style and tactics move on so quickly… Guess it must be difficult for some experts to comment on up to date innovative Managers and their overall long-term vision, when never being exposed to such tactics or foresight back in the day…
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Worth bearing in mind that even in his career, Carragher had dinosaur tendencies, reputedly pleased to see Hodgson’s arrival. Superb defender who applied himself to learning that craft, but his tactical insight was not exactly established by his playing career.
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Agree 100%. If his name was Andrés Robertinho the UK media would be swooning over him. A lot gets made of his energy, commitment and determination but not much is said about his technique. Top quality. The only thing I’d like to see him improve is his shooting ability.
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Spot on Arminus…
but is it how the term defender is interpreted… and from what era comparisons should be made…
Ron Yeats was a defender, so was Larry Llyod, Yet, as footballing defenders go, of driving forward and turning defence into attack, not long after them came Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson… Then we’ve had a mixed bag of the Skirtels, Ruddocks, Carraghers etc,
Basic defenders with a basic skill set, but in fairness, all have played a part in LFC history…
Today we have Virgil - Rolls Royce of a defender, honed for the modern game and modern tactics.
Carraghers tactical insight as you put it, immaterial of his playing skill limitations, has yet to be tested to the fullest… Due to the simple fact he has never managed a team to prove his tactical nous to the full (think Neville and his exploits in Spain). Dropping snippets of supposedly expertise here and there, do not make him a tactical genius, nor even tactically aware… It could simply mean he has a talent for verbally glossing over deep root analysis…
The guy has an opinion on absolutely everything… not even sure how that is even possible…!
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The ammount of ex football players who should know better but fall back on the lazy explanations of passion, commitment, hard work etc. Very few, if any actually take time to explain tactics. Eg. about triggers for pressing, what, when. Or how or why certain passes are made.
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True but not just for JC, lots of pundits all to easy criticise a player. Eg, Gini- He’s too safe, passes sideways without knowing the role the manager is asking him to play. It wouldn’t be too hard to get an idea, all the managers get interviewed. Nobody asks insightful questions.
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Read an article today where a guy was giving deep insight to some of the tactics applied by the team last night… On explaining the Jota goal that came after a move that involved pinging the ball about, was a tactic purposely carried out until the Leicester defence was swung from one side of the pitch to the other… (Think criticism of Gini, Henderson etc for doing so). This opening they were patiently waiting for, appeared at the 30 pass point, it is when their defensive ranks broke.
This could have come at a 10 pass juncture, could have even come at a 60 pass juncture…
Jurgen and his backroom staff have this team playing out tactics, that we, as normal run of the mill fans, do not grasp straight away… That is where these ‘crap’ pundits let us down… they never delve deeper than scratching the surface of what is happening out on the pitch… and like it was mentioned earlier… Some of the pundits are unaware of what is happening out on the pitch also.
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Excellent match recap.
Jota is the first Liverpool player ever to debut with goals in 4 consecutive premier league games with the club. Considering that LFC has been around for about a century, that’s pretty impressive. He is looking to be another great signing by our transfer team!
Leicester was hyped up to be a tough opponent. But for the most part they were contained and playing off the back foot. LFC really showed their class today.
I still feel like we need to go in for a center back reinforcements in January but the club looked solid on defence today. A great all around win for us.
To make our win even sweeter, Manchester City was stunned by Spurs and the Citizens looks to be on life support as Pep doesn’t seem to have any answers in a year where they were favored to win the league by the majority of “media pundits” before the season began!
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My tuppence on Carra is that he was a good defender who worked hard to maximize his talent such that he could even be classed as a very good defender. You don’t play the quantity of games he played for Liverpool without having something.
Mind you, never one of the greats, or an elite defender, who could be talked of in the same breath as some we’ve had… Yeats, Hughes, Thompson, Hansen, Lawrenson… right up to Vans Dijk now, who might just be the best one of the lot, but obviously the tenure isn’t there yet.
As a pundit Carra has an opinion, which is the nature of the beast. Sometimes he seems to try too hard to be unbiased, such that it comes across as a little unfair to Liverpool fans, but that’s a minor quibble.
As for having real insight, presumably someone like Klopp knows the difference between what he does with his coaches, and what Carra talks about on tv. Klopp knows what he looks for and what he wants, and presumably all punditry on tv sounds very basic indeed to him. Perhaps he watches games with the sound off?
As for whether more depth should be expected of Carra, it’s a maybe and a maybe not. Is the appetite there among the public? Arguably no it isn’t, since we are in a bit of a basic sound bite sort of age. Then again, arguably it very much needed, and with a tip of the hat to the late Michael Robinson, maybe it’s high time that someone took a bit of a risk and raised the bar, like he did, in Spain no less and in his second language, in terms of punditry on the game?
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That City didn’t see the value in him and we did is a good illustration of the differences between the clubs.
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As a player I loved Carra, of course, but as a person I think he’s a complete knob to be honest.
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I know Jurgen’s talked about wind before, but yesterday must have been extremely windy. Maddisson was constantly getting tumbled over by what seemed to be gusts of wind. Seemed like he was auditioning for a job as the inflatable man at car washes.
Fair play to our lads for still being able to play beautiful football in such horrid conditions.
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Some people seriously need to take a break from football. Christ that’s scary to even read. Wtf is he on about lol
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Carragher comfortably has the best understanding of the game out of any regular pundits on British TV.
You can criticise him for certain things but his knowledge of football isn’t one of them, he generally offers up good opinions.
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