Liverpool FC Forum

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Fri Sep 01, 2017 11:54 am wrote:IMO mate I reckon Jurgen thinks most of our defensive woes are down to problems with the system, yes he wanted Van Dijk but I don't think he saw him as a panacea who would solve all our defensive issue's on his own.
Van Dijk is good in the air but he can't be everywhere at once, our team has got to learn how to defend crosses as a unit.
I think our back 4 are probably carrying the can for something that is a team problem. We don't defend corners with 4 men, everyone is back.
Gary Neville made a good point the other day, he pointed out how many headers Emre Can won in our area and how good he was at picking up his man at corners/free kicks, if we went onto the pitch with 6 Emre Can's to help our back 4 the number of goals we'd concede from corners would decrease significantly.
Our problems run deeper than 1 centre half mate, it's a team thing.

Agreed it definitely is an issue with the system. However still think one bad injury to either Matip and Lovren and we look even more vulnerable. To put it into context, Klopp was starting Lucas ahead of Klavan at certain points last season .  With the chasing of VVD, we obviously felt we needed to strengthen in defence but obviously thought there was no one else out there who could do a job once we realised VVD was unattainable which I find a bit unusual.

Doeboy » Fri Sep 01, 2017 12:31 pm wrote:

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Fri Sep 01, 2017 11:54 am wrote:IMO mate I reckon Jurgen thinks most of our defensive woes are down to problems with the system, yes he wanted Van Dijk but I don't think he saw him as a panacea who would solve all our defensive issue's on his own.
Van Dijk is good in the air but he can't be everywhere at once, our team has got to learn how to defend crosses as a unit.
I think our back 4 are probably carrying the can for something that is a team problem. We don't defend corners with 4 men, everyone is back.
Gary Neville made a good point the other day, he pointed out how many headers Emre Can won in our area and how good he was at picking up his man at corners/free kicks, if we went onto the pitch with 6 Emre Can's to help our back 4 the number of goals we'd concede from corners would decrease significantly.
Our problems run deeper than 1 centre half mate, it's a team thing.

Agreed it definitely is an issue with the system. However still think one bad injury to either Matip and Lovren and we look even more vulnerable. To put it into context, Klopp was starting Lucas ahead of Klavan at certain points last season .  With the chasing of VVD, we obviously felt we needed to strengthen in defence but obviously thought there was no one else out there who could do a job once we realised VVD was unattainable which I find a bit unusual.

If we do get injuries maybe we will go back in for him in January or maybe even go for someone else. As it stands though mate I think our back 4 is probably not quite as bad as we often make out. As Carragher says go and look at our record against the top 6 clubs, in our last 19 games against the best sides in this country we have lost 1, in our last 19 games against the Aguero's, Kane's, Ali's, Lukaku's, Zlatan's, Hazard's, Alexi Sanchez's etc etc of this world we have lost 1 single game, if our defence was genuinely s[hit] there's no way we'd have a record like that.
Our players need to show the same focus against the so called lesser sides as they do against the best ones.

Come on guys who are we kidding? our back 4 is avarage to say the least..We have no leader at the back..our CB are fragile and our defensive backs are either very young or untested...the keeper isn't a great Box keeper...Its the same defensive unit we had last year so how can one say it's not an issue? It doesn't make sense

Barca have really rubbed me wrong this window. They thought they'd throw their big head around and we'd just bow down. It wasn't their usual manipulation of the media, player and agents (how they've not been called on tapping up a player, I'll never know), but I just love the sequence of events:

-Liverpool after Naby Keita
-Barca after Coutinho
-Liverpool turn down first bid and say Coutinho not for sale
-Barca after Naby Keita
-Liverpool resigned to not getting Naby Keita, Liverpool looking at Seri
-Barca after Coutinho, Liverpool turn down another bid.
-Barca after Seri
-Liverpool turn down 3rd bid
-Liverpool after Lemar
-Barca after Lemar.

They literally went after each of the players we were going after to either scare us into selling them Coutinho, or drive the prices up so we'd have to pay more and be forced to sell Coutinho. Or maybe just to be dicks and prove how amazing they are. I usually prefer them over madrid, but I really hope barca f*cking tank this year, win nothing and they start to lose more players while those who stay continue to age and decline.

This window was interesting. Overall, assuming we keep Coutinho we're better off this year than we were last year. I know it was a bit disappointing not improving our backline much, but some positives..
-I think Robertson could actually be a very good signing. Salah has shown that he doesn't have to play that well to score, and as many have said- if anybody can get the best out of Ox, it's Klopp.
-The way we played against Arsenal is showing me we may be similar to last year- extremely competitive against the top sides. This could bode really well for us in the CL, and may allow us to make a surprising run into quarters or semis-nobody will want to play us if we continue to play this way against City. (How great would it be if we knocked Barca out?).
-We're a poor ref decision against Watford from a perfect start, and that's without Coutinho, Clyne, Lallana, almost no Sturridge, and now Ox added.
-If many reports are to believed (and they were from top sources), players turned down opportunities to play for Arsenal and Chelsea, because they wanted to play for us. (Ox turned down Chelsea, VVD turned down city, chelsea, and others, Lemar turned down Arsenal, etc.). It's one thing for fans or the club to feel something special is going on here, but for other top class players to feel the same way should really say something.

In order to judge how well or how bad we did in this transfer window, we have to think about what were our priorities. IMO we had three main targets that we needed to achieve Those are:

1. Strengthen the defence
2. Strengthen the midfield
3. Add depth in the squad with quality back-up players

With the addition of just Andrew Robertson, we can hardly say that we've strengthen the defense. In fact, with bringing back Moreno in the starting 11 we might even say that we've gone backwards.

We did sing Keita and Oxlade in midfield but one is for next season and the other is a squad player at best so we can't really say that we've strengthen the midfield for this season either.

But credit where it's due, many times last season we were saying "if only we had more quality back-up players...". Well now we do, with the addition of Salah, Oxlade, Solanke and Robertson, we can now say that we have depth in our squad, something we haven't had in a long time.

So that's just one out three targets that was achieved. In my book that's not a very good transfer window unfortunately. We haven't improved the quality in our team at all and we're basically at the same level we were last season. We probably won't drop out of the top 4 but I wouldn't be expecting any titles either.

I think we are being a bit too pessimistic, when we had our best team out last season we looked potential title winners and it was only a combination of injuries to key players like Coutinho and Mane and the ACN which scuppered us. We not only topped the table at one point we also led the scoring charts for most of the season as well.
I think apart from CB we now have decent depth in every position.
Another factor that no one is mentioning is that a lot of our younger players are now starting to enter their prime, players like Coutinho, Mane, Can, Moreno, Salah etc are all around the 25 mark now and I expect them to significantly up their games this season.
We weren't a million miles away last season, squad depth fv.cked us and I think we have largely addressed that now. I think we will challenge this year.

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Fri Sep 01, 2017 8:45 pm wrote:I think we are being a bit too pessimistic, when we had our best team out last season we looked potential title winners and it was only a combination of injuries to key players like Coutinho and Mane and the ACN which scuppered us. We not only topped the table at one point we also led the scoring charts for most of the season as well.
I think apart from CB we now have decent depth in every position.
Another factor that no one is mentioning is that a lot of our younger players are now starting to enter their prime, players like Coutinho, Mane, Can, Moreno, Salah etc are all around the 25 mark now and I expect them to significantly up their games this season.
We weren't a million miles away last season, squad depth fv.cked us and I think we have largely addressed that now. I think we will challenge this year.

With regards to last season, the problem is it was both Guardiola and Maureens first season at their clubs. Now they have had a year at the helm to get their philosophies in place and also considerably strengthen their squads this window we are  going to be up against 2 much more formidable units compared to last year when talking about any possible title challenge. Last year it was much more open imo due to the fact Guardiola, Maureen and Conte having just arrived at their respective clubs. I'm not too sure whether that will be the case this year but who knows

Secondly, for all our great attacking play last year, spurs, chelsea and city all still managed to out score us while at the same time also letting in less goals than us.....and this when we had the advantage over them (apart from chelsea)  of no midweek european games to deal with.

I've never really put too much value on looking like title winners during periods of a season. I remember people quoting stats during the half way point last season and saying 'we are top for this and top for that' etc but it doesn't mean a thing at that point to be honest.

Hard cold facts at the end of the season, we were outscored by 3 teams, with 4 teams letting in less than us and we finished 17 points behind the eventual champions and scraped CL footy by a point over an Arsenal side on the decline/in a mess whose own fans admit their league form last year was *****. Yep we did miss Mane and Coutinho but during a season teams will miss their best players. Spurs for example had Kane missing for 2-3 long periods last season but somehow dealt with it. Similarly, City had their best defender in Kompany out for long periods.

I wouldn't say I'm being negative but more just calling it what I see. Maybe I'm just being cautious because I remember how everyone including the media were purring over us last season where we getting called potential title winners etc approaching the half way point and then crumbled pretty miserably in the second half of the season. As it stands I think top 4 is a realistic aim and one we should really achieve considering Arsenal are in a mess and spurs are handicapped by having to play at wembley. Might reassess targets if we show a bit of metal and fix our weaknesses but those blips we have against the lesser teams haven't shown any signs of abating under Klopp's tenure to date. If that does change, then maybe we can push on.

Salah aside, I'm not at all won over by our business this window however would absolutely love to be proved wrong and see the likes of Ox, Solanke and Robertson prove to be fantastic buys and do a great job for us

Ben Woodburn with a great run and cross to set up Hal Robson-Kanu and pull Wales out the shyte again!
Got a big future that lad.

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Tue Sep 05, 2017 8:30 pm wrote:Ben Woodburn with a great run and cross to set up Hal Robson-Kanu and pull Wales out the shyte again!
Got a big future that lad.

Shhhhh, hopefully no one noticed!

kazza » Wed Sep 06, 2017 2:51 pm wrote:

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Tue Sep 05, 2017 8:30 pm wrote:Ben Woodburn with a great run and cross to set up Hal Robson-Kanu and pull Wales out the shyte again!
Got a big future that lad.

Shhhhh, hopefully no one noticed!

Right foot goal + left foot assist = Good luck with keeping that quiet 

SKY want to move the Arsenal (away game) from Sat Dec 23rd to xmas eve, 4pm Dec 24th !! 

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... istmas-eve

I don't know how reliable tribal football are but apparently they have quotes from Virgil Van Dijk that he might join us in January.

I hope that is true mate.

Apparently he told the BBC: "Halfway through the season, maybe we can see what's possible,"

Owners are smart and got us back on the hook with talk of big incomings in January, its what they do before every window and especially during bad patches.

I fear its more propaganda and nothing will happen, rinse and repeat.