Liverpool FC Forum

Arbeloa manages these and although they havent made the best of starts in terms of points on the board, of the games they've lost there's only been one goal in it and they've had the lions share of possession too.
Saying that this is a game we should be winning given its at Anfield.

I was looking at our fixtures at lunchtime and we play Spurs midweek in the League Cup at Anfield then Bournemouth next week on the 20th at their place then we dont play again until the 10th of October when we face City at our gaff. There are 30 days in September so that means we dont play for 20 days which is 1 day short of 3 weeks - thats a long break.
When we come back though we've got a hell of a run, off the top of my head its -
City
Brentford [A]
Brighton
Arsenal
Palace
United
Everton

There's CL games in amongst that lot too, i'm pretty sure thats the order the games come in, iirc we face City, Arsenal and United all at home.

Very important game for us to consolidate the recent improvements and players now showing greater commitment (Isak, MacAllister etc..) whilst the new players  continue to make their claims for regular places. It's all positive at the moment to be fair so the 21 day break Yakka mentions is more training time for the manager to improve what he's started. Beat Fulham and a worrying pre-season has become a promising start.

Team Lineup

Alisson

Tsmikas
Van Dijk
Jacquet
Araujo

Gravenberch
Szoboszlai
Wirtz

Munoz
Isak
Barcola


Macca given a rest after his brilliant performance midweek.. a chance for Gravenberch to fight for his spot back. Nice to see Kerkez on the bench after his poor performance aswell..

Allowing them too many chances yet again and not good enough in the final third, very similar to last season's problems. Back 5 are decent but everyone else is not doing enough pressing nor creating. Barcolla in particular has been invisible tbh, and Grav showing why he was benched in the first place.

Yeah Barcola has been really lazy in the press and looks very nonchalant. Wirtz is under so much pressure and its showing in his play.. hes chosen the wrong option so many times in that first half. Ali nearly cost us a goal with that poor ball to Gravenberch, good defending by Jacquet.

Szoboszlai and Gravenberch need to move the ball quicker, they need to see the tempo. Both are taking way too many touches.

Only listening to it but it sounds bad, sounds like we are lethargic and sloppy in possession

Another poor performance after the midweek European game

Terrible performance. No energy, so slow in possession, no rhythm to our play. We've got top individuals who all under performed today. Wirtz, Szoboszlai and Isak were all unbelievably bad today.

3 losses from Fulham, and they came to Anfield to pick up their first point. Terrible performance, very little creativity. Fulham should have won

There were a lot of nearly misses by us to be fair but overall it wasn't good enough. There is no chemistry between the players and there is no fight in them either. It may seem like a manager problem but we've IMO simply bought wrong, we've signed too many players that do no complement eachother and without a lot of fighting spirit. Too early to say but Barcolla for me is another step in the same direction. The manager can help but ultimately he is limited to the personnel that he has that he didn't pick himself.

damjan193 » Sat Sep 12, 2026 5:14 pm wrote:There were a lot of nearly misses by us to be fair but overall it wasn't good enough. There is no chemistry between the players and there is no fight in them either. It may seem like a manager problem but we've IMO simply bought wrong, we've signed too many players that do no complement eachother and without a lot of fighting spirit. Too early to say but Barcolla for me is another step in the same direction. The manager can help but ultimately he is limited to the personnel that he has that he didn't pick himself.

We need some passion and some fight and thats whats lacking most. Players like Isak, Wirtz, Barcola, Gakpo, Gravenberch haven't got that aggression needed to take games by the scruff of the neck.. they are "moments" players. We need consistency and quickly if we want to compete for trophies this season.

I love Wirtz, but I'd offer him+£100m to get Olise at this stage.

Stale game, looked like as if the players were knackered. Games like this you need leaders on the pitch, or game changers to create something. Seemed like we were comfortable with a draw.

You could have all sorts of individual talent but if they can't play cohesively as Damjan said then you'll get performances as such.

Trying to take some positives from that result, and there are a few. But. We really need to be taking three points against them given their performances thus season so far. We didn't lose, yes, but can you see Arsenal or City not beating them? That's his wee need to measure the result given the players we have.

iraola got a tune out of a Bournemouth squad that was nowhere near ours in terms of quality so i'm confident he will get it right at some point but it could take a while. I know Jurgen inherited a much weaker squad but it even took someone like him 2 years to turn things around, i think we've just got to be patient which is easier said than done i know especially when our rivals are challenging for titles and CL's but it is what it is. Fitness may have even been an issue today, its early in the season and we had a tough game Wednesday. Lets face it we've had performances like todays before and we'll have them again.

Btw i wouldn't play a weakened team against tottenham in the cup, not only is there an extended international break coming up winning a domestic cup might be our level right now. Winning the league isnt going to happen, even top 4 looks iffy atm, we may have an outside chance of winning the CL though, i think we'll get through the group stages given our cushy draw and the knockout phases dont start until next feb which is 5-6 months away, he may have us playing well at that point, probably not but i wouldn't completely rule it out given we've got a very good squad on paper.