Liverpool FC Forum

[jacdaniel]

For me, the very first game against Sunderland set the tone for the season.  We were brilliant in that first half.  They should have a player sent off, we missed a peno, hit the bar, had a good goal disallowed and then they equalized.  We must have had 5 or 6 very similar games this season.
Not only that but Im sure Downing would have gained so much confidence had that shot have went in and same for Carroll if his goal had of been given.    Anyways, it wasn't to be.

Positive's:

Carling Cup Champions
FA Cup Runners up
Qualified for Europe
Very good defence
Carroll has improved

Negatives:

League form was awful!
We have NO style of play and change system etc every week
Not strong enough in CM
Downing, Adam + Spearing at least are not looking good enough.
Still cack at set play despite signing Carroll and Adam

Possible solutions:

Adopt a playing philosophy... containing a plan A and plan B.   
The back 6 is sorted once no one leaves so focus on options for the front 5.
Sign players to suit that philosophy.

Players needed in my opinion:

CM that can pass a ball and dictate a game.   
Striker that can finish and preferably take a pen.
Wingers  (maybe even offload Downing to help fund)
LB  (Enrique burned out this year)

[stmichael]

Thank God it's over.

It summed up the season for me yesterday when out of choice I was more interested in watching the City game than ours. I knew it would be dire and we'd inevitably get beat and so it proved. The League has been a joke and the team have almost been going through the motions ever since we lost at home to Arsenal in a game we should have won at a canter. It's our lowest league points total since the 40's. Our chance conversion rate is probably the lowest in any League in Europe. The frequency with which we hit the woodwork was almost freakish.

It's been a collective failing though, from the very top downwards. The manager has made multiple mistakes. As you say we don't have a vision or a definitive style of play. We don't have a scouting network in place now with Comolli gone. The owners are across the other side of the world. This summer is absolutely massive with so much to sort out both on and off the pitch.

[jacdaniel]

Thank God it's over.

It summed up the season for me yesterday when out of choice I was more interested in watching the City game than ours. I knew it would be dire and we'd inevitably get beat and so it proved. The League has been a joke and the team have almost been going through the motions ever since we lost at home to Arsenal in a game we should have won at a canter. It's our lowest league points total since the 40's. Our chance conversion rate is probably the lowest in any League in Europe. The frequency with which we hit the woodwork was almost freakish.

It's been a collective failing though, from the very top downwards. The manager has made multiple mistakes. As you say we don't have a vision or a definitive style of play. We don't have a scouting network in place now with Comolli gone. The owners are across the other side of the world. This summer is absolutely massive with so much to sort out both on and off the pitch.

I think we definitely need to adopt a vision / style of play.  Its criminal that we haven't had one for the last 2 seasons now.
It looked like something was in place when Kenny first took over but he scrapped it  with our summer signings.

Its a much bigger issue than people even realize.  The players don't really seem to know whats expected of them at times and Im sure a handful of players have played in 3 or more positions this season. 

Its really down to Kenny, Clarke and Keen to sort this.

Not sure what to expect this summer since we don't have a DOF and Fenway seem to be in favour of the DOF role.  (from what I hear)

[Kenny Kan]

Well, I can't lie, it's been a bad season and one I'm glad is over.

While many seem to have down-played the importance of the bread & butter, due to our first cup in six years, I can't get over the fact results in the league have been so poor.

Kenny IMO, dropped a bollock, or two, with his signings, Downing being the worst of the bunch. I do believe these signings for different reasons (Henderson, Adam) saw Kenny behind the 8-ball from the season's off. Our midfield needed much more (and still does), than British 'talent'.

During the first third of the season, we were genuinely unlucky, no two ways about it. People bemoan the fact others have used the 'unlucky' tag as an excuse - but we were playing some of the best football, attacking football, entertaining football, expansive football, I have see us play, well, since the end of last season - then, long, long long before that, Evans era perhaps. And we did a lot of this, with the players I've just said were 'dropped bollo,cks' (Adam & Downing). Henderson, does have potential and there is a good midfielder in there waiting to get out, whether he has the mentality to believe in himself over the coming seasons is the 'real' question because he could be pivotal in years to come. But for this season, he wasn't pivotal and IMHO was, due to the injuries of Gerrard and Lucas used/played too much and I believe, a bit like Downing the occasion (playing for LFC) got to him. Speaking of Downing, he flew out of the traps and actually started his career here quite brightly, looking to take players on, whipping in crosses but his game mirrored the team's performance over the coming season.

I remember saying to myself during the 'unlucky' third of the season that 'sooner or later' we were going to absolutely demolish an opponent with a heavy defeat and go on from there because that's what looked on the cards, at the time. Unfortunately, it never eventuated (and this was the tipping point IMO), and the longer we struggled trying to put our opponents to the sword without any success. You could see the confidence draining away from the lads and instead of hitting a really good run of form - we went the other way and struggled and we never recovered or got out of the slump which surprised me somewhat. And from then on we became 'hit n miss' with our performances and results, but unfortunately were more of a 'miss' on most occasions much to my despair.

Carroll and Henderson look good buys out of the British quartet, but Kenny will need impact signings in the summer, not so much 'potential' signings, to come in and give the midfield especially, and attack extra quality to ensure we don't end up eighth again in our bread & butter campaign.

[maguskwt]

I'd give our season a C- ...

[dawson99]

League form = E
Cup form = B+

Why can't we play the big games every week? It's a motivation thing... that and our style of play isn't conducive to smaller teams who defend more

[stmichael]

Thank God it's over.

It summed up the season for me yesterday when out of choice I was more interested in watching the City game than ours. I knew it would be dire and we'd inevitably get beat and so it proved. The League has been a joke and the team have almost been going through the motions ever since we lost at home to Arsenal in a game we should have won at a canter. It's our lowest league points total since the 40's. Our chance conversion rate is probably the lowest in any League in Europe. The frequency with which we hit the woodwork was almost freakish.

It's been a collective failing though, from the very top downwards. The manager has made multiple mistakes. As you say we don't have a vision or a definitive style of play. We don't have a scouting network in place now with Comolli gone. The owners are across the other side of the world. This summer is absolutely massive with so much to sort out both on and off the pitch.

I think we definitely need to adopt a vision / style of play.  Its criminal that we haven't had one for the last 2 seasons now.
It looked like something was in place when Kenny first took over but he scrapped it  with our summer signings.

Its a much bigger issue than people even realize.  The players don't really seem to know whats expected of them at times and Im sure a handful of players have played in 3 or more positions this season. 

Its really down to Kenny, Clarke and Keen to sort this.

Not sure what to expect this summer since we don't have a DOF and Fenway seem to be in favour of the DOF role.  (from what I hear)

i just don't get why we moved away from what was so successful in the second half of last season when we had a definitive style of pass and move. we played some brilliant stuff. the signings in the summer were as far removed from this style as you could ever wish to see. the likes of maxi who were key to our success were marginalised. same with kuyt.

this season we played carroll up top and it didn't work with a more direct approach. we tried playing suarez up top and that didn't work either as we don't get enough midfield players to support him. the two of them together understandably are a work in progress despite some signs of improvement recently. the balance has been all wrong in midfield as we should have gone out and signed a replacement for lucas when he got injured. as we didn't we ended up with gerrard picking the ball up off the center backs most of the time which is a complete waste.

[Thommo's perm]

Good and bad
Thrilling and boring
Fantastic and sh'ite
Agony and ecstacy
Weve had it all from the sublime to the ridiculous and I am sooooooooooooooooooo Fu*king glad its over
We will NEVER have to endure a season like that again I am sure
If KK learns from his mistakes we will be alright next season

[SouthCoastShankly]

My thoughts -

Positives
Carling Cup win
FA Cup final
Solid defensively (Skrtel, Agger and Reina supreme once again)
Creation of chances
Development of Shelvey

Negatives
New signings not making enough impact (Adam very poor)
We look very weak without Gerrard and Lucas
Carraghers deterioration
Lacking a clinical striker, missed chances after so much opportunity


Actually the last point is my biggest bug bear. 7_Kewell was spouting nonsense the other day about badly we have played all season, whereas in reality we have created numerous chances to win games. Our style of play has been great at times, what we have missed is the cutting edge up front and the killer instinct to kill off games. Losing Lucas and Gerrard for large portions of the seasons hasn't helped either. I defy anyone to maintain our season would of petered out the way it did if we had Lucas and Gerrard fit all season, not to mention the Suarez debacle.

Onwards and upwards.

[RichardLFC1]

Positives

Carling cup glory
Fa cup runners up
Back in europe
Martin Skrtel

Negatives

8th place
Still no champions league football
The signing of Downing

[D___C]

Shocking.

110million spent and we are worse.

The least talented squad in my lifetime, and the worst league season in over 50 years.

This is Liverpool not Fulham. Its been dreadful.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

that was the worst league campaign i`ve had the misfortune to watch and i started going in the mid 70`s, even during that annus horribilis when souness was in charge, people forget that souness had to deal with a horrendous injury crisis, the scale of it was unprecedented (the injury list was that long conspiracy theorists at the time were saying some of the players were feigning injury to pile the pressure on souness) he was forced to bring in loads of youngsters and yes we were getting beat a lot but fans were looking at the likes of fowler, mcmanaman, redknapp, jones, marsh, harkness, hutchinson even david james and saw hope for the future. the feeling back then was that it was understandable that we were struggling when we had 7 or 8 young players in the side. thats why i`d class this one as the worst.
plus souness`s side of reserves and youth team players also finished 8th but they actually accumilated 9 more points than this team!
if this season would have started at christmas we`d be now looking forward to games next season against the likes of bristol city, barnsley and peterborough, thats how bad the second half of our league campaign was.
on the other side of the coin we did play well at times (everton, arsenal, norwich etc) and more than held our own against the other big teams in the division, we beat chelsea 3 times and everton 3 times, we beat city at the etihad and arsenal at the emirates, we beat united at anfield and newcastle at anfield. i dont honestly think we are a bad side just a really inconsistent one. as poor as we have been we were only really played off the park in about 5 games out of the 38. i dont think this team needs any dramatic changes to personel to become a very good side, the foundations are there, one or two signings could transform us imo.
to reach 2 cup finals in a season is a fantastic achievement, we had to beat the likes of chelsea, man utd, man city, everton and stoke along the way so it was some going to get to wembley 3 times and of course we won our first piece of silverware in 6 seasons.
all in all it`s a season i`ll be trying my best to forget though.

[kartiek]

For me, the most damning fact is that we were outplayed by most teams in the second half of the season! What does that tell about us? We either let confidence drain completely or the other teams had a chance to analyse how we play and then change their tactics accordingly.

We often played some great football with no positive outcome. That has to be frustrating for the players. But the fact of the matters is that we were stifled massively by defensive teams and we allowed it because we just didn't have a player who could come up with that moment of magic we needed- these players are average really! After losing Lucas, we not only lost a good midfield general but more importantly we lost someone whose defensive contribution is immense and the lost possession percentages cost is even more.

We don't have a game plan besides pass and move. There's no cutting edge and that's both because of a weak midfield and a manager who IMO can't improvise and mould himself according to his players' capibilities

[woof woof !]

The most disappointing season I can remember. Don't know if the "expectations" got to the players and management team but all underperformed

We're at a massive crossroad right now. I fear that if we start the next season the way we've finished this one we could find ourselves in a dogfight for survival.

That may sound alarmist  but we wouldn't be the first big club to lose their way and spiral out of the top flight. Man Utd were relegated in my lifetime (oh joy), also, one of the major challengers to our dominance back in the day, Nottingham Forest under Cloughie , English Champions and two time European Cup winners in the late 70's early 80's lost the plot, look at them now.

Ok, I'm looking at a worst case scenario, I guess that's how concerned, downhearted and depressed I am about this last season   

Can only pray that somehow the management and players can turn things around next season and return us to the premierships top shelf but sadly I'm not convinced they will.

[parchpea]

We papered over the cracks with the cup and semi final win to create
and illusion we had something to work with.

Trouble was we saw expensive recruits failing to deliver every week
and a team that couldnt score to save its life. Home form was nothing
short of shambolic.

Off the park we threw ourselves into a shyte storm by miss handling the
Suarez affair and failed again to move any closer to solving the stadium
issue. Our owners also wielded the axe on several high profile members
of staff.

We end the campaign with doubts over our management structure and a
skelton staff rattling around in the Anfield corridors.

Its been poor, very poor. Talk is cheap, promises of better days mean
nothing. Trust is earned on the field and at Liverpool you have to
deliver there every week without excuses. We have been unable to do that
at its been a big let down overall.