Liverpool FC Forum

Yup memories of the Liverpool pre-klopp.. i still hope somehow we manage to get back but hopes are slim.

So we suffer on with the Ox for the rest of the game with 3 subs now on.

Not sure the urgency to take the Greek off.

We simply have no options, a midfield of Ox, Naby and Thiago.

Well done Ox.

This is more like it. Come on!!!

Mo has contributed nothing.

Game is petering out, we need someone to do something and quick.

Dire.......

Game over

Hmmm...Konate should not be one to get bullied. Keita the less said the better. Enough football for the day 

We are such a bunch of effing whingers!! WTF was Konate at there the muppet!!

We're a team of very average players, we're not pressing, we're not physical and half of them are finished at this level.

I'm done watching this gutless performance. We got lucky vs Villa and Leicester and got humbled tonight against a average Brentford team. If that isn't the game that cries out for midfield reinforcements then I give up.

What a letdown that was and that performance raises far more questions than answers.

We were awful all over the pitch from top to bottom. No desire or drive to steer off the sideways stuff. No leadership on the pitch today either. We were poor in the cup against City then again V villa, got unbelievable lucky against Leicester and then this!! Had it coming with performances like that imo.

I've seen enough of Nunez as well to know that he isn't going to hit that net on a weekly basis. Not this season and in that set up anyway but am hoping Gakpo changes this.
Don't get the fascination either with Elliot as imo he is a long way off and shouldn't be starting games.
Disappointed with Konate as well for their 3rd.WTF was he at going over looking for a free kick in his own box. Hadn't a hope of getting anything from the game after that.

The first half of the season was poor and we needed that break to come in order to rest players and work on some of the glaring weaknesses we had that teams were exploiting. All we did was have a rest because we are still there for the taking in the same places.

We are missing our best player (Diaz) and Diogo too who is another handy player to have around when you need a goal but that aside I think what we are seeing now is the upshot of us not properly investing in the team and building from a position of strength back when we were top dogs and everyone wanted to join us.
We chose to sit on our hands, do eff all and try and squeeze every last drop out of the squad we had at the time.
Now we are where we are, struggling to hang onto the coattails of the teams in the CL places and staring up at the likes of Arsenal and Newcastle who were absolutely miles behind us.

Daily Telegraph:

Farewell to Liverpool's era of being 'mentality monsters'
Jurgen Klopp's side were bullied and tactically outmaneuvered during their 3-1 defeat to Brentford in the Premier League

As soon as the Liverpool goal came, the ending felt inevitable. Two-nil down at half-time, triple substitution deployed, then Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain nodded in from a superb Trent Alexander-Arnold cross.

This is what the best teams do, they break your heart. Not so in the end, and Liverpool’s eventual 3-1 defeat by Brentford raised several questions. Most pointedly: whatever happened to the mentality monsters?

That was Jurgen Klopp’s term when his team beat Chelsea in last season’s FA Cup final, a riff on the “f***ing mentality giants” he praised for the 4-3 aggregate win from 3-0 down to Barcelona in the 2019 Champions League semi-final.

Six of the team from that match featured here last night, and no one was more missed than concussed Jordan Henderson. One of the reasons he is prized by every manager he plays for is his ability to manage from the field. There are few more accomplished shouters in British football.

Liverpool yearned for his anger, and there were plenty of reasons for it in the first half. Brentford’s ability from set-pieces has been obvious for years, yet they had the ball in the net four times from corners in the first 45 minutes. Once is careless, two is concerning, four is unforgivable, even if Var rescues you from half.

At this time of year, a hairdryer is a welcome treat, so Klopp instead sent his team out early for the second half. The combination of his presumably frosty words and the trio of subs worked, tightening a shaken defence and seizing control of midfield. But the Liverpool cavalry never truly arrived.

Klopp’s team had possession and territory, but could not turn either into numerical advantages in dangerous areas. Darwin Nunez led the line keenly but erratically, and while the half-chances kept coming, the prospect of an equaliser faded. Nothing monstrous or gigantic about the passage of play which led to the decisive goal.

Naby Keita was beaten to a ball in midfield, then Ibrahima Konate was nudged gently by Bryan Mbeumo as both gave chase. Mbeumo had a one-on-one with Alisson and, unlike Liverpool, was clinical.

Where was the response? Andy Robertson, surely Liverpool’s spiritual leader in Henderson’s absence, gathered a loose huddle for a final push. He could not hold his team-mates’ attention. Instead, Liverpool’s players gazed anywhere but into each other’s eyes.

They looked like a rabble of tired schoolchildren who had long since stopped paying attention. Klopp pointed towards his team’s chances, but also highlighted defensive shortcomings and lapses in concentration. There was an allusion to Brentford “stretching the rules” at set-pieces and an inevitable mention of the intensity of his team’s schedule. His most telling line was on Liverpool’s mood after the third goal went in.

“It didn’t look like the belief was there any more.” It is January and it already might be time to concentrate on the cups. Playing like this, Liverpool cannot count on them as an escape route.

Ultimately, they were beaten comfortably by a team whose last victory against them came in 1938.

Even apparent crisis club Spurs came back from 2-0 here to salvage a draw. By contrast, only an angry palm off the floor from Alisson prevented a fourth Brentford goal. Hey Jude at full time seemed a pointed choice, even if Brentford play it after every win.

Klopp prowled into the centre circle, shook the hands of several Brentford players, then gave a sustained earful to referee Stuart Attwell. There was a wave to the thinning remains of his travelling support.

An apology, maybe. Or was it a farewell? Goodbye to an era when his team could be relied upon to prevail from predicaments like these.