Liverpool FC Forum

by **LFC2007** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 12:11 am

The only real concern it stressed (again) for me was the lack of depth we have. Degen is the right-back equivalent of Dossena, he's a woeful defender, he may get forward OK at times, but it's nothing to write home about. We absolutely need another CB, not just because you need 4 proper ones, but also because Carra's getting on and isn't the sharpest these days. Then we have the striker problem emphasised when Gerrard/Torres went off, perhaps also a winger short on one side or the other in light of what we saw and know of Kuyt and Benayoun. It may sound as if I'm basing these concerns on this game alone, I'm not, I just thought they showed again. In the main we simply lacked mental sharpness which will come with time, but with only a couple of games before the start of the season we need to address the lack of depth/Alonso issues.

by **Igor Zidane** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 12:16 am

LFC2007 wrote:The only real concern it stressed (again) for me was the lack of depth we have. Degen is the right-back equivalent of Dossena, he's a woeful defender, he may get forward OK at times, but it's nothing to write home about. We absolutely need another CB, not just because you need 4 proper ones, but also because Carra's getting on and isn't the sharpest these days. Then we have the striker problem emphasised when Gerrard/Torres went off, perhaps also a winger short on one side or the other in light of what we saw and know of Kuyt and Benayoun. It may sound as if I'm basing these concerns on this game alone, I'm not, I just thought they showed again. In the main we simply lacked mental sharpness which will come with time, but with only a couple of games before the start of the season we need to address the lack of depth/Alonso issues.

Degen make the doss look like Jarhzinho mate . Feck me he is trully trully awful . Anyway twas a pre season game so i wasn't @rsed about the result ,i was just looking for some promise from someone /anyone . THere wasn't ,so there you go . History that game .

by **Lando_Griffin** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 12:17 am

This game highlighted the following for me:

1. San Jose is not ready.

2. Carragher is running out of time.

3. Degan needs to start thinking before he passes.

4. Dossena is idle.

5. If Alonso goes, we are f*cked.

by **GOAT** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 12:26 am

We're dooomed :laugh:

by **100-1247207744** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 2:10 am

look on the bright side, at least we never drew

by **Toffeehater** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 5:42 am

Sack rafa , bring in big Sam

. We were poor but the result was deserved , espanyol played better , were more hungy. Perhaps this is a kick up the :censored:

and i'm sure rafa would have let the players know what he felt after the game , still 2 games to go hopefully we start strutting our stuff soon.

by **Greavesie** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 6:40 am

well I was gonna say I was gutted to have to go to work and miss this game but by the sounds of things I haven't missed anything. Sounds likte we were shockingly bad. I never read too much into friendlies but losing 3:0 and putting in a shocking performance kinda takes the biscuit. I can see us struggling to get going at the start of the season

by **bigmick** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 7:03 am

redbeergoggles wrote:I hope against all hope Rafa is not of the notion of playing Degan in any game of any importance ever

Don't rate him then mate

by **woof woof !** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 7:11 am

We still haven't fielded our first eleven as a unit so it's nigh on impossible to tell where we really at but last nights peformance suggests that another league title is as far away as it ever was.

Defensively Degen looks a complete liability, San Jose produced possibly the sorriest performance I've ever witnessed from a Liverpool Center Back but to single out just those two players would be unfair. Overall the squad looked as though they were all waiting to be introduced to each other, generally our passing was sloppy at times it verged on the ridiculous.

Hard to believe that we are so well advanced into our preseason preparations.

Hopefully Rafa starts our best (available) 11 for the next game and they all turn up.

by **The_Rock** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 7:13 am

Gosh, Degen is bad........... There is no way he can play RB for us. He could do a job as a RW (and thats being king to him).....but if he plays RB, its like giving a "one-goal start" for the opposition.

BTW....a little history lesson. Isn't Degen the player whom benitez wanted to sign on a free in 2007 and then the owners didn't respond to him on time.....and then benitez declared "wrath of khan" on the owners ?

Wait...here me out.....Can't really remember the details...but benitez moaned to the press that he had a player scouted.....he is on a free and we should move fast to sign him but the owners are too slow (or didn't respond to him on time..etc).....This then started the media war between the owners and Benitez..... Then that following summer we signed degen on a free.

If Degen is indeed the player, benitez was willing to compromise his career for........u gotta question his judgement....

I hope this will not be used as an excuse for degen to play loads of matches for us.... :lookaround

by **bigmick** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 7:15 am

In all seriousness though, I didn't see it but I wouldn't read too much into it. Gerrard didn't know two weeks ago whether he'd be playing central mid for us or Strangeways FC, Mash's missus was probably texting him before the game asking him if he wouldn't like to play in this nice warm weather all the time, Carra if he's got any sense at all will have left plenty of meat on the bones for his long season ahead, two thirds of the rest of them will have been trying to avoid getting injured, while the other third will have quickly thought "feck that" once Espanyol started passing it about and there was a football needing chasing.

It stands to reason when you play these kickaball teams in the middle of the Summer when you can't be ersed to close them down that they are goign to take the p!ss out of you. It may even spill over into the start of the actual season as well, anybody who can remember some of our performances in the Champions League qualifiers (Macabi Haifa anyone) will know it takes us a bit of time to get going.

It's another reason too why I'd like the Alonso situation sorting out. It's a bit like when you've got a lad at work who is working out his notice. He doesn't give a feck anymore, and it kind of rubs off on everybody else. Best we get this deal done, as everybody is in a kind of limbo with our midfield lynchpin fecking around.

I know it's easy to say when I didn't have to sit through it, but not too much to worry about. As for the fringe players, LFC is absolutely right but it's something we have been painfully aware of for a while. Yet more reason to get the Alonso deal done (even if it is for a couple of mill less than our ideal scenario) so we can recruit a couple of likely lads.

by **TheLad** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 8:45 am

After yesterday's game our main problem is not the players' fitness but their self confidence.

by **Sabre** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 8:46 am

It stands to reason when you play these kickaball teams in the middle of the Summer when you can't be ersed to close them down that they are goign to take the p!ss out of you

Not exactly because we can't be ársed (although it's partly true) but because that closing down is something that actually needs work and training, but the truth is that the main reason that a team plays comfortable posession football is that they're allowed to.

In that sense, there's nothing to worry about. Anyhow, I'd love to see more "kickaball" style in some teams like Sunderland when they have to hold a 1-0 against Manchester United, as it was frustrating to see how some of these teams played the style "giveawayaball". Espanyol are a decent side, and we simply didn't bother to play a competitive team against them.

by **bunglemark2** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 10:15 am

Having watched the 90 mins last night, I have to echo many posts here that it was like a team of strangers playing together for the first time last night. Degen was awful; Lucas iffy (to say the least); Carra had a bit of a mare as well.....all over the pitch, way too little effort...
And you can't point to the fact that there were wholesale changes made by RB. The starting 11 wasn't half bad, but the fact is they were totally off the pace of the match...
Nobody introduced either who even looked like making a difference.
Granted it's a "friendly", but winning is a habit. Losing game after game in preseason is a bloody bad way to prepare for a serious assault on the Premiership

by **Scottbot** » Mon Aug 03, 2009 10:20 am

Emerald Red wrote:
john craig wrote:
Emerald Red wrote:
john craig wrote:
Emerald Red wrote:I love the way people will try to analyse and read into everything like we just lost 3 points or on the verge of bing knocked out of a CL semi-final with a poor performance in the first leg.

I love the way some people go into such denial when we play sh.ite

Denial what?

Listen, we aren't a sh*t side. FACT - pre season is not any guage to tell us how good or bad we are. You have to remember the circumstances. A lot of these players don't want injured. They can't risk it so they set themselves a tempo to play at. What's the point of busting a gut in a pointless friendly when you've been doing that in training all day beforehand then getting on ANOTHER plane the same night, then getting up again and doing another training season. It's all about fitness and sharpness. That's it. When's the last time we had a good pre-season anyway, and who actually gave a f*ck to remember it? Come the first game at Spurs, the team will know what's required.

No one said we were a shi.te side, but we did our best to convince people we were tonight.

The results don't matter, but the fact is that the performance, defensively especially, was completely unacceptable. How is it a pointelss friendly? If it was pointless we wouldn't fu.cking play it then would we?? Of course there's a point to it, and this close to the season it is not all about just getting a run out and avoiding injury, it's about organisation and pattern of play so that you don't go into the season looking like you'd never played together before.

As for suggesting that there's no point busting a gut because you'll be getting on a plane the same night, don't really see the argument - I'm sure they'll all manage to hop onto the bus and then make it up the stairs to the plane no matter how much running they do on the pitch - they are professional athletes after all, but whatever you think. As for that, it did look like they put the effort in, fitness wasn't the problem, it was everything else.

Like you say it might not matter a fu.ck against Spurs in a few weeks, but it does raise a few concerns. For me the defence is a worry. Johnson and Insua will likely start the season in the first XI and clearly both need to sharpen up, as does Carragher. Agger I'd hope will come in, but god help us if San Jose is the best 4th choice CB we can muster, the lad struggled all the way through and I dread to think what he'd be like in a faster paced Premiership game. But go on, stick your head back in the sand mate.

Honestly, catch yourself on. It's a meaningless pre-season game. There's no alarm bells to be rang. Next week we'll probably go out and thump whoever we play in the next friendly. But you know what? Aye, that will be meaningless too. Spurs on the first day is what matters, and even then it's too early.

The is a bit of a worry for me, the big clubs don't lose pre-season games by big-margins, in fact they usually win or draw ALL of their pre-season games as the mancs, Chelsea and Arsenal have done so far this pre-season and we did last time around.

I do remember the last time we had a shoddy pre-season a couple of years agp when we got a 5-0 thunping by FC Mainz (who the fook are they?) and lost another game (maybe even 2) by a few goals. We started the season terribly and had a shocker in the league.

New stadium or not, that was Espanyol's FIRST pre-season game.

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