Liverpool FC Forum

[Boxscarf]

Is 4th unthinkable?  No.  But we shouldn't start expecting it now and get disappointed if it doesn't happen.  I still have doubts the Yanks will back Rodgers with big money in January.

I don't think FSG will back Rodgers at all, he'll have to work with the same restrictions that David Moyes has to work with.

[friendlyguy33]

It's premature to be getting too ahead of ourselves even after the result today though it was a good fightback and a decent result.

Consolidate on this by winning the next two home games and get more points on the board over Christmas/New Year then that will set us up for a chance of challenging through to the end of the season.

The same issues remain though at the moment in terms of finishing off chances, defending better and demonstrating more consistency. Things are on the up but we should take it a match at a time.

[laza]

No idea but im very happy to see people at least talking about the possibility.
Certainly beats the if we are in relegation zone by Christmas what are we going to do posts from only a  few weeks back

[devaney]

Is 4th unthinkable?  No.  But we shouldn't start expecting it now and get disappointed if it doesn't happen.  I still have doubts the Yanks will back Rodgers with big money in January.

I don't think FSG will back Rodgers at all, he'll have to work with the same restrictions that David Moyes has to work with.

That is an idiotic statement. Just remind me when has Moyes ever been allowed to spend £110m on players over a six month period. I could not give a flying fk where the money came from the point is FSG gave Comolli and Dalglish massive support and they p.issed it down the Mersey. When Everton sold Rooney most of the money was used to keep the bank happy. Please don't compare us with a bunch of underachievers who have won fk all for over a decade !!

[The Raven]

If BR gets us to 4th, he should get a knighood.

The next games are winable. However its still all on what happens in Jan. Anywhere above 8th and its improvment and thats all i want.

[LFC1990]

Do not see why we cant get top 4. United and City are nailed on for 1st and second and Chelsea with their spending power will probably get 3rd but if you look at the sides above us and who we are competing with.

Tottenham have to come to Anfield
Everton have to come to Anfield
Swansea have to come to Anfield
WBA have to come to Anfield

the on two that are above us (except the manchester clubs) that were away to in the second half of the season are Arsenal, Who we beat at The Emriates last year, and Stoke.

With Lucas returning its given us a breath of fresh air and our current position and how weve closed the gap should give the lads a kick up the *****. Aslong as we strengthen in January we will compete with the others teams.

Starting with Villa, Who are probably the worst side i have watched all season .

Come on you red men!!

[Homebooby]

To quote a certain legend,

'one game at a time, then we'll count the points up at the end of the season and see where we are'












I still prefer it when G&H were here with all that instability, the threat of bankruptcy, our one man team Gerrard leaving for Chelsea....bring those days back cos these days suck 

[jacdaniel]

Dont want to get too excited as I've been there too many times over the last 3 seasons only to be disappointed.
Lets just try to get a few wins before New years day and see where that takes us.  Then hopefully we can buy one or two quality players in January. 

Quietly optimistic though and I think we have the right man in Brendan Rodgers

[Thommo's perm]

Two poxy goals - one from a penalty which wasnt and the other an uncharacteristic mistake for an oggy.
Peoples obsession with where we are in the table rather then how many points we are off CL places have clouded their judgement. We are playing well and like Rodgers said on the offal: "Wait until we really hit form". Add on to this the fact that we are virtually getting fu'ck all from the officials (see Shelveys blatant penalty) then the best is yet to come. To show the desire and the determination and have the balls to come back like that shows us that we are finally turning into a team which wont give up. Gerrards header aside (which proves conclusively that he should be in the box for corners and not taking them) we didnt do much wrong and I was impressed with the performance and happy with the result.
All this minus the man who we cant win without

[red till i die!!]

at the moment its a grueling race for 4th where several teams are proving to be as inconsistent as us.
we have just managed to string together 2 wins back to back for the 1st time in a year and its vital for our ambitions that we keep this run going up till christmas and secure the players we need to push on and really threaten the top 4.
this is the time of year when having a squad really matters and the likes of wba,swansea,stoke and hopefully neverton will start to suffer and drop points. we need to overhaul these clubs as i doubt they will be spending in january and will fall off the pace.
arsenal and chelsea will get their act together and spurs wont be that far off it either so like in previous years they will be our main competition.
with the squad we currently have we dont stand a chance of top 4 and it all rests on what business we do in january and the level of quality thats brought in.
its a similar situation to last year and fenways reluctance to spend in january cost us and hopefully they have learned a hard lesson and fearful of repeating the same mistake again.
are fenway not broke though?.

[redno7]

well we have vastly improved under BR so far. the overall playing style of the team has improved. A little investment in Jan and who knows where we could end up. I'd bet my life on us finishing above 8th place though! Happy with 5th place this season, 4th would be a dream.

then summer see's us invest a bit more, make some tweaks here and there and we go onto win the league next season and so starts the red dominance again. 20 years of Liverpool FC winning everything. 10 years time we'll be looking at bagging no.25 with utd still back on 19.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

well we have vastly improved under BR so far. the overall playing style of the team has improved. A little investment in Jan and who knows where we could end up. I'd bet my life on us finishing above 8th place though! Happy with 5th place this season, 4th would be a dream.

then summer see's us invest a bit more, make some tweaks here and there and we go onto win the league next season and so starts the red dominance again. 20 years of Liverpool FC winning everything. 10 years time we'll be looking at bagging no.25 with utd still back on 19.

i dont think we have vastly improved.
when rodgers first arrived i thought some of our performances were excellent (even if the results werent), the games against city and united in particular were tremendous performances.
since then i dont think our playing style has been anything to write home about. people forget that we played good stuff under kenny, for instance look at how well we played when we lost at home to arsenal last season, some of our passing that day was superb.
when rodgers first arrived we heard a lot about this much vaunted high intensity pressing game where we had 6 seconds to get the ball back and all that type of palava but i`ve seen nothing like that from us in months, we started out trying to use it but teams kept on passing through our `press` and getting at our back 4.
we seem to have abandoned that passing it out from the back at all times mantra as well, our keepers hit it long under rodgers just as much as they hit it long under dalglish.
dont forget under kenny we`d only lost 3 games (out of 27) by christmas, and in 2 of those 3 defeats we had players sent off. we had beaten the likes of arsenal, everton and chelsea (twice) away from home and were about 5 minutes away from beating united until hernandez got a late equiliser and only joe harts heroics saved city at anfield.
then lucas got injured and the suarez/evra thing blew up.
kenny was a bit unlucky that suarez couldnt hit a barn door last season too, if kenny had a top of the scoring charts striker he`d probably still be in a job now, conversely if rodgers had the version of suarez kenny had (up to this point last season suarez had scored 4 league goals) he`d probably be sacked now, without suarez`s goals this season we would really be in the $h1te.

[Kenny Kan]

well we have vastly improved under BR so far. the overall playing style of the team has improved. A little investment in Jan and who knows where we could end up. I'd bet my life on us finishing above 8th place though! Happy with 5th place this season, 4th would be a dream.

then summer see's us invest a bit more, make some tweaks here and there and we go onto win the league next season and so starts the red dominance again. 20 years of Liverpool FC winning everything. 10 years time we'll be looking at bagging no.25 with utd still back on 19.

i dont think we have vastly improved.
when rodgers first arrived i thought some of our performances were excellent (even if the results werent), the games against city and united in particular were tremendous performances.
since then i dont think our playing style has been anything to write home about. people forget that we played good stuff under kenny, for instance look at how well we played when we lost at home to arsenal last season, some of our passing that day was superb.
when rodgers first arrived we heard a lot about this much vaunted high intensity pressing game where we had 6 seconds to get the ball back and all that type of palava but i`ve seen nothing like that from us in months, we started out trying to use it but teams kept on passing through our `press` and getting at our back 4.
we seem to have abandoned that passing it out from the back at all times mantra as well, our keepers hit it long under rodgers just as much as they hit it long under dalglish.
dont forget under kenny we`d only lost 3 games (out of 27) by christmas, and in 2 of those 3 defeats we had players sent off. we had beaten the likes of arsenal, everton and chelsea (twice) away from home and were about 5 minutes away from beating united until hernandez got a late equiliser and only joe harts heroics saved city at anfield.
then lucas got injured and the suarez/evra thing blew up.
kenny was a bit unlucky that suarez couldnt hit a barn door last season too, if kenny had a top of the scoring charts striker he`d probably still be in a job now, conversely if rodgers had the version of suarez kenny had (up to this point last season suarez had scored 4 league goals) he`d probably be sacked now, without suarez`s goals this season we would really be in the $h1te.

Don't forget:

Rodgers has only just seen Lucas return to action too.
He has had to play 3 teenage kids almost as regulars this season (Wisdom, Suso, Sterling)
He also had to trim the wage bill down and let go of players.
He and his team have been on the end of some shocking officiating.
But he's topped a Europa league group, by and large with kids in his first season in Europe
And he's got the team 4 points off of 4th.

I do agree with you that we're perhaps not playing as well as we did earlier this season and yes we played some magnificent stuff under Kenny last season without always getting our just rewards but by and large Brendan has done a very good job. Sure there are things that need to be improved upon - transfers, final ball, finishing etc etc but he wasn't dealt the hand Kenny had either, he wasn't given 110 million pound to spunk, he's had one hand tied behind his back and considering, well, he hasn't done too badly.I think the team are crying out for more strength and depth. There are times this season we've looked fecking ordinary if not mid-table but Rodgers hasn't had the chance really to rectify that.

Note (back on topic): I don't think we'll get fourth this season. I don't think we'll be able to go the distance of the season even if we do get maximum points over the next four games, we just don't have the squad. Throw in the cup games and I reckon come mid feb next year we'll be looking a little worse for ware.

[ycsatbjywtbiastkamb]

Kenny Kan

Don't forget:

Rodgers has only just seen Lucas return to action too.
He has had to play 3 teenage kids almost as regulars this season (Wisdom, Suso, Sterling)
He also had to trim the wage bill down and let go of players.
He and his team have been on the end of some shocking officiating.
But he's topped a Europa league group, by and large with kids in his first season in Europe
And he's got the team 4 points off of 4th.

I do agree with you that we're perhaps not playing as well as we did earlier this season and yes we played some magnificent stuff under Kenny last season without always getting our just rewards but by and large Brendan has done a very good job. Sure there are things that need to be improved upon - transfers, final ball, finishing etc etc but he wasn't dealt the hand Kenny had either, he wasn't given 110 million pound to spunk, he's had one hand tied behind his back and considering, well, he hasn't done too badly.I think the team are crying out for more strength and depth. There are times this season we've looked fecking ordinary if not mid-table but Rodgers hasn't had the chance really to rectify that.

Note (back on topic): I don't think we'll get fourth this season. I don't think we'll be able to go the distance of the season even if we do get maximum points over the next four games, we just don't have the squad. Throw in the cup games and I reckon come mid feb next year we'll be looking a little worse for ware.

good post.
i agree rodgers hasnt had the money kenny had but he`s had over £30m to spend and he didnt have a director of football hovering over him like the proverbial sword of damocles waffling on about moneyball.
most of this money kenny supposedly spent went on suarez and carroll and they arrived when kenny was interim manager and had only been in the post 2 or 3 weeks. i`m not having it that a club would give a temporary manager the best part of £60m quid and say to him go nuts, especially when there was a `soccernomics` mad DoF in place who was recruited by the owners to specifically oversee transfers.
i accept that rodgers has had to see the squad size reduced dramatically and the wage bill too but that restructuring happened during kenny`s tenure too, comolli moved on something like 20 players when kenny was in charge plus kenny played a lot of young players himself (kelly, flanagan, robinson, sterling etc).
i just dont see this brave new dawn in terms of playing style that we were all promised, we are not a pressing team (our front 3 arent all over the opposition like a rash when they they play it out from the back which is what we were told would happen) and our passing is decent but not spectacular by any stretch of the imagination, if anything i think our passing has regressed since the start of the season.
when rodgers first arrived we were knocking it around in little barcelona-esque triangles in midfield but as the season has progressed our passing has got longer and longer not shorter, gerrard in particular hits a lot of long balls as does the likes of shelvey and even allen has started doing it now too.
ever since the derby game our keepers hoof it up the field as much as they`ve ever done as well.
we were told that we were going to keep the ball and not give it away cheaply but we are very sloppy in possession, often giving it away when under no pressure at all and the last time we saw any of this one touch football that we were all promised was away at west brom in the league cup and that was from a second string side.
rodgers seems to be getting caught between two stools and instead of the team changing to suit his philosophy he himself seems to be the one changing philosophy, we seem to be a lot more pragmatic in terms of playing style than we were at the start of the season.
thats not neccessarily a bad thing (infact i hoped it would happen) it just that that lean to a more pragmatic style wasnt written on the side of the tin when the club opted for rodgers as manager.
i`m not sure which direction we are heading tbh.

[Rimetto_]

Kenny Kan

Don't forget:

Rodgers has only just seen Lucas return to action too.
He has had to play 3 teenage kids almost as regulars this season (Wisdom, Suso, Sterling)
He also had to trim the wage bill down and let go of players.
He and his team have been on the end of some shocking officiating.
But he's topped a Europa league group, by and large with kids in his first season in Europe
And he's got the team 4 points off of 4th.

I do agree with you that we're perhaps not playing as well as we did earlier this season and yes we played some magnificent stuff under Kenny last season without always getting our just rewards but by and large Brendan has done a very good job. Sure there are things that need to be improved upon - transfers, final ball, finishing etc etc but he wasn't dealt the hand Kenny had either, he wasn't given 110 million pound to spunk, he's had one hand tied behind his back and considering, well, he hasn't done too badly.I think the team are crying out for more strength and depth. There are times this season we've looked fecking ordinary if not mid-table but Rodgers hasn't had the chance really to rectify that.

Note (back on topic): I don't think we'll get fourth this season. I don't think we'll be able to go the distance of the season even if we do get maximum points over the next four games, we just don't have the squad. Throw in the cup games and I reckon come mid feb next year we'll be looking a little worse for ware.

good post.
i agree rodgers hasnt had the money kenny had but he`s had over £30m to spend and he didnt have a director of football hovering over him like the proverbial sword of damocles waffling on about moneyball.
most of this money kenny supposedly spent went on suarez and carroll and they arrived when kenny was interim manager and had only been in the post 2 or 3 weeks. i`m not having it that a club would give a temporary manager the best part of £60m quid and say to him go nuts, especially when there was a `soccernomics` mad DoF in place who was recruited by the owners to specifically oversee transfers.
i accept that rodgers has had to see the squad size reduced dramatically and the wage bill too but that restructuring happened during kenny`s tenure too, comolli moved on something like 20 players when kenny was in charge plus kenny played a lot of young players himself (kelly, flanagan, robinson, sterling etc).
i just dont see this brave new dawn in terms of playing style that we were all promised, we are not a pressing team (our front 3 arent all over the opposition like a rash when they they play it out from the back which is what we were told would happen) and our passing is decent but not spectacular by any stretch of the imagination, if anything i think our passing has regressed since the start of the season.
when rodgers first arrived we were knocking it around in little barcelona-esque triangles in midfield but as the season has progressed our passing has got longer and longer not shorter, gerrard in particular hits a lot of long balls as does the likes of shelvey and even allen has started doing it now too.
ever since the derby game our keepers hoof it up the field as much as they`ve ever done as well.
we were told that we were going to keep the ball and not give it away cheaply but we are very sloppy in possession, often giving it away when under no pressure at all and the last time we saw any of this one touch football that we were all promised was away at west brom in the league cup and that was from a second string side.
rodgers seems to be getting caught between two stools and instead of the team changing to suit his philosophy he himself seems to be the one changing philosophy, we seem to be a lot more pragmatic in terms of playing style than we were at the start of the season.
thats not neccessarily a bad thing (infact i hoped it would happen) it just that that lean to a more pragmatic style wasnt written on the side of the tin when the club opted for rodgers as manager.
i`m not sure which direction we are heading tbh.

I agree with your assessment of the way we’ve played this season but think that show more about BR than you give credit. I think it shows that he’s assessed the group and realised that with the current senior players there is no use insisting on the passing game he wants because some of them are just not capable of it so he’s found a style of play that almost blends the 2 until he can put together a squad that can deliver the high tempo pressing and ball retention game he wants to play. 

For me that shows real courage and also quality from BR because he’s constantly reminded about his philosophy and to move away slightly to ensure results takes a lot. Although we do still dominated most of the games in possession so he’s not a million miles away from the balance we need