Liverpool FC Forum

by **bigmick** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:03 pm

GYBS wrote:Wanted Pavluychenko after the euros last summer - very good striker and would take him of spuds

Darren Bent is much better IMHO.

by **stmichael** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:32 pm

crazyhorse wrote:We were clearly not anywhere near sharp enough and were second best in almost every department. You cant blame the defeat on the absence of Alonso either...

Now is not the time to panic. Johnson did have a good game and that was at least a positive, but the tactics do need to be looked at and a lot needs to be done over the coming week.

It will come good!

I think that's a sensible post.

To be honest, if you look at the game yesterday, it was pretty similar to last season's opening day against Sunderland. The only problem was that we were up against a much better team yesterday, and Torres didn't bail us out this time. We were absolutely awful in our opening home game of last season as well, against 'Boro, so let's hope that's not the case on Wednesday!

by **Dundalk** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:41 pm

Thats true, United had a terrible start last season and we all know how that finished up. Winning our next 2 games is a must now

by **Scottbot** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:43 pm

bigmick wrote:
Scottbot wrote:- We need another quality forward. Spurs bought on Pavlychenko as their 4TH CHOICE forward yesterday, 4TH CHOICE!!! He is a better player (for me) up-front than Voronin, Ngog, Babel and Kuyt .

Is that put together or on an individual basis Scott

On an individual basis mate! And i'm not saying i particularly want Pavlychenko at the club, simply highlighting how short we are up front, although it's not like anyone needs me to point it out. I know you like Darren Bent and again, he would be an upgrade on our current reserves, same goes for the likes of Carlton Cole, Andy Johnson, Tuncay, Obefemi Martins, Heskey and a host of others players we could have moved for to try an upgrade the position. And obviously, as you've stated numerous times, Michael Owen.

by **Scottbot** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:47 pm

stmichael wrote:
crazyhorse wrote:We were clearly not anywhere near sharp enough and were second best in almost every department. You cant blame the defeat on the absence of Alonso either...

Now is not the time to panic. Johnson did have a good game and that was at least a positive, but the tactics do need to be looked at and a lot needs to be done over the coming week.

It will come good!

I think that's a sensible post.

To be honest, if you look at the game yesterday, it was pretty similar to last season's opening day against Sunderland. The only problem was that we were up against a much better team yesterday, and Torres didn't bail us out this time. We were absolutely awful in our opening home game of last season as well, against 'Boro, so let's hope that's not the case on Wednesday!

Good posts lads, you're right about last season's opener. I can recall Torres having a pretty shoddy game right up until he scored a very goiod goal.

We didn't look so great from a fitness perspective either yesterday. Kuyt looked tired to me and Gerrard looked 10 percent short due to his groin injury.

by **Scottbot** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 12:47 pm

Double Post

by **stmichael** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 2:52 pm

Just on the central midfield issue again, you could argue the fact that Carra decided we didn't need a midfield yesterday make complaints about Lucas or Masch pointless. They spent most of the time chasing down his hoofs to no-one.

by **GYBS** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 2:54 pm

bigmick wrote:
GYBS wrote:Wanted Pavluychenko after the euros last summer - very good striker and would take him of spuds

Darren Bent is much better IMHO.

for us thou mick i think pavluychenko would fit in with our team more - bent while getting his fair share of goals wouldnt work in a partnership with torres if we required so would mainly be pure back up whereas pav can drop a little deeper and link as well as playing up top on his own

by **aCe'** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:06 pm

GYBS wrote:
bigmick wrote:
GYBS wrote:Wanted Pavluychenko after the euros last summer - very good striker and would take him of spuds

Darren Bent is much better IMHO.

for us thou mick i think pavluychenko would fit in with our team more - bent while getting his fair share of goals wouldnt work in a partnership with torres if we required so would mainly be pure back up whereas pav can drop a little deeper and link as well as playing up top on his own

agree with you there GYBS... Pavly would suit our style of play better... hes better at bringing other players into play and would connect better with Gerrard in particular imo... the better all-round player imo...

by **Tim LFC** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:14 pm

I'll just remain optimstic. Watching the game again i think the team need time to get together and sort it out. I think we can play football without Alonso we just need to tinker our a game a bit. Eventually it should all slot into place. Even if we don't have any more signings i think we can win the title but would benefit massively by signing a player like Van Der Vaart or Tuncay for back up. Still onwards and upwards!

by **Ola Mr Benitez** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:17 pm

Read all the dross and can't really believe the reaction... I didn't think we would get anything today as we have looked awful in pre season and a bench that looked far to light weigght. Its only yhe first game of the season, its not all doom and gloom... although I would agree with most on here Babel is a donkey

by **Toffeehater** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:54 pm

GYBS wrote:
Effes wrote:
stmichael wrote:Are some of you who are advocating dropping Lucas and moving Gerrard back into midfield not overlooking the possibility that yesterday it wasn't Lucas who was the problem in midfield, but Mascherano? The issue yesterday was not with winning the ball back, but keeping it when we had it. Personally I thought that Lucas had a fairly tidy game. I'm not so sure that the same could be said of Mascherano. Some of the posts on this thread and on others seems to be latching on to the idea that because of who he is, Mascherano is exempt from blame for what happened yesterday. At one stage it was like Old Trafford two seasons a go all over again. I thought he was going to get himself sent off.

St - Aldo gave Masch 2nd place man of the match. (I think Benny got 1st)

I didnt watch the full 90 mins so I cant comment

Aldo needs to open his eyes mate - Pepe was our MOTM followed by Yossi but masher was shocking - made a number of rash tackles , gave the ball away on numerous occasions and one mistake lead to carra and skrtel getting injured when he spooned the ball - also his mouth nearly got him into trouble . masher was very much well below par

Rash tackles , what about the amount of trackin back he did , he didn't commit against lennon perhaps its you who needs your eyes checking cos masch was good.

by **Toffeehater** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 3:56 pm

GYBS wrote:Wanted Pavluychenko after the euros last summer - very good striker and would take him of spuds

Baros had a brilliant euro's as well , didn't perform anywhere near that for us .

by **JoeTerp** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:26 pm

s@int wrote:
bigmick wrote:To be honest I thought there was a bit of over reaction to the game (although I haven't seen it so possibly I'd change my mind if I did). I wasn't massively surprised, not because Rafa is a clown or because Torres is sh!t, but because Spurs are a pretty decent team. When Redknapp took over from the baby food bloke they had 2 points from eight matches, and he took them up into seventh or something. Now it'd take someone a bit more stat minded than me to work it out, but their form must have been at least top six standard and probably slightly better for that to happen. Then they sign some good players in the Summer, we lose Alonso with about a week to spare, its the first game of the season, away, they've got the sun on their backs, Gerrard probably wasn't 100% fit, they've got blokes with a point to prove to us and all that.

It was hardly the biggest surprise in the World, neither was the realisation that if you take Alonso out and put Lucas in you're a bit weaker. So long as we get ourselves going at Home on Wednesday, there shouldn't be too much bother. We really could do with winning that one mind.

I am not sure how many games you watched in pre-season Mick, but if you saw any of them you will get the idea of how poorly we played first half. I think it was Joe that said we didn't press them in the first half, he was spot on. We never worked as a unit, we were very disjointed and our defence played as if all their last names were Riise with the number of aimless boots up field.

Yes I think some people over reacted, but given our first half performance one can hardly blame them. Not that we played great in the second half , but at least we began to look as if the players had been introduced to each other at half time.

It certainly wasn't that spurs played exceptionally well, we just played badly, and if Keane had been more clinical we could have been 3 or 4 down by half time.

It perhaps a good job we didn't get the second penalty and a draw, or we may have been arrested for highway robbery.

Its not the end of the world losing at Spurs, but if we don't improve on that performance we will be out of the running before Aquilani even gets a game.

Things can only get better.......hopefully.

I didn't get too worried about pre-season until the Atletico game, and even then we were playing an average age of 19 or something at the back to end the game.

The weird thing about the pre-season is it seemed like there was a long period of "its still early in the pre-season, its barely started," "its only about match fitness at this stage" and then BAM! it was the last pre-season game, and we still looked out of sync.

If SKrtel and Agger had an injury record closer to Carra's or Kuyt's, then I think Ayala or Kelly would have been enough, but one is always hurt, and now they have decided to get hurt at the same time, which is a big problem.

And to be fair to Spurs, I thought King played well. Corluka too, but maybe that was more to do will Babel.

by **redbeergoggles** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:33 pm

I think what I found most distressing about yesterdays game were the amount of shots Spurs were allowed to actually get on target ,and the most disconcerting aspect for me personally, was the space in front of our back two that regularly opened up for them ,Carragher could not have been more docile if he had ingested copious quantities of horse tranquillizer, his collision with Skrtel took an eternity .

I think Mascherano was a disgrace to the shirt any more performances of this ilk and his elevated status amongst fans will seriously diminish ,then he might just find the Kop a completely different animal and one less forgiving ,Torres game revolves around receiving the ball and surging towards goal however the sooner he learns that there are different options, ie to lay the ball off and play a one two ,you know the Liverpool way

he might have more success .

I do realize Torres has earned the right to have the odd game were nothing goes right ,but yesterday it was bordering on the ridiculous ,Liverpool have literally been brought up on the basic precept that football is a simple game ,if you know your having a bad game start with the simple things like controlling and passing the ball .

Reina was superb and prevented Spurs chalking up a huge scoreline ,Johnson was ok but I expect a more solid right side and on certain occasions he was caught to far up field ,Insua was my man of the match along with Benayoun ,as for Lucas he held the midfield together in the absence of Mascherano

who was shameful, equally deserving of that mantle was Babel completely inept not a miniscule of football nouse .

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