Liverpool FC Forum

mramo » Fri Nov 28, 2014 10:16 am wrote:

SouthCoastShankly » Thu Nov 27, 2014 4:49 pm wrote:

devaney » Thu Nov 27, 2014 10:48 am wrote:This completion is a bit of a money making joke. If we win against Basel we get through to the last 16. Buy a couple of players in January and go on and win it 

Consider the parallels to the CL winning season of 2005. The similarities are actually quite stark.

Squad comparison
The 2004-05 players are ordered by appearance

Defence

2004-05 - Dudek, Riise, Carragher, Hyypia, Traore, Warnock, Josemi, Pelligrino
2014-15 - Mignolet, Johnson, Skrtel, Toure, Lovren, Moreno, Manquillo, Enrique

Midfield

2004-05 - Garcia, Gerrard, Hamann, Biscan, Alonso, Kewell, Nunez, Smicer, Diao, Le Tallec
2014-15 - Gerrard, Coutinho, Henderson, Lallana, Lucas, Can, Allen, Suso, Sterling, Markovic

Forwards

2004-05 - Baros, Sinama Pongolle, Cisse, Mellor, Morientes
2014-15 - Lambert, Sturridge, Borini, Balotelli

In my opinion theres not much in it. 2004-05 defence wins, Midfield is a tie if considered across starting XI and bench. Forwards, for me this year even without Suarez.

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Another good comparison is League and CL performances.

By this time (game 12) in 2004, we had the following league and CL record.

League - W6 D2 L4 20pts 6th
CL - W2 D1 L2 7pts 3rd

Now

League - W4 D2 L6 14pts 12th
CL - W1 D1 L3 4pts 3rd

Obviously this season is a shocker but the 2004-05 was by no means happy days, even by this seasons standards 2004 was a poor start.

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I guess what I take from those comparisons, is how a season can be salvaged despite having a relatively poor or under performing squad and a bad start to the season.

Our next five games are

Stoke (H) - League
Leicester (A) - League
Sunderland (H) - League
Basel (H) - CL
Man Utd (A) - League

It is this period that I truly think will decide the fate of this season. Failure to capitalise on the next three leagues fixtures will lead to CL exit IMO. Inversely winning these and doing enough to qualify for the knock out stages may be the bump start we've been searching for.

I agree with the similarities compared to 2004/2005. However that season we were plagued with injuries to Djbril Cisse (leg break), Smicer, Xabi Alonso (Lampard tackle), Steven Gerrard (broken metatarsal), and Harry Kewell but still statistically did better than our current team only missing 2 players (Daniel Surridge, and Flanno). It was Rafa's season debut which was an exception compared to Brendan's 3rd season in charge.

Agreed, not exactly the same but some clear similarities.

Especially when you consider the transformation of the team in 2007 when we signed Torres. I believe a quality striker signing could also transform morale and team performance. Rodger's strategy is a clear attacking one, I believe that "fixing" the Suarez issue goes a big way to fixing the performances in general. However, his downfall is not having a back up strategy for the time we are without the team members to enable this strategy to happen.

SCS - Interesting comparison mate. You have been very busy !!

Cant agree with the your suggestion that the midfield players are about the same in terms of quality. The Gerrard of 2005 was a very different version of what we have today and understandably given the lad was 9 years younger. Garcia saved his best for European competitions and Alonso and Hamann were far superior to anything we currently have. Any defence with Sami in it for me is always going to have the edge. The forwards I agree were both lacking and I seem to remember that none of our so-called strikers scored in Istanbul 

We will need more than a massive miracle to pull off the stunt of 2005 !!

Sadly, despite all the money, we've not been able to replace Hamann or Hypia. Both of those lads were solid first teamers, who would break up the opposition's attacks and bring organisation in our lads.

Rodgers pre Stoke match

It was an excellent performance and we were competitive  found it hard to take him serious after that 
Whether its an act with him or not but he comes across as being magnificently unfazed about how bad we actually are.

A bit of fun to lighten the mood 

  The Daniel Sturridge Foundation 

,Sadly it's all true

I suppose that right now Rodgers has to lift morale and so is using the 2-2 draw vs Ludogorets as a spring board. Personally I don't think bigging up a draw against unknown opposition will achieve it, but who knows? The mind is a curious thing. BR's definatley is anyway.

RED BEERGOGGLES » Sat Nov 29, 2014 2:59 am wrote:A bit of fun to lighten the mood 

I like the face he makes after every answer...... 

£1M to whiten his teeth???...is it true then? whatever must be money well spent then compared to Balotelli

just watched chisora fight and reminded me of rodgers no plan b same result.

ballotelliman » Sun Nov 30, 2014 1:24 am wrote:just watched chisora fight and reminded me of rodgers no plan b same result.

I think it's a bit unfair to say Brendan has no plan B or accuse him of not changing tactics, if anything he changes too much.
When he first arrived even though results initially weren't too clever most fans thought his style of footy was a breath of fresh air. We kept the ball for long periods, played with a high line and pressed the opposition in their own half. The system wasn't perfect because when our midfielders ran out of steam teams began to find holes in our press but we did roughly resemble Barcelona in terms of playing style.
Then what happened was Brendan changed his formation, he realised Gerrard was struggling with the high intensity pressing game so he created the Quaterback role for him, because that meant that 1 of our 3 CM's was now going to sit deep he understood that the other 2 CM's were going have to do a hell of a lot of work so he brought the uber athletic Hendo back in from the cold (we had offered him to Fulham at one point).
Because Gerrard was now sitting deeper something else happened, our passes became longer, when Brendan first arrived our midfield consisted of players like Allen (who started his career here like a house on fire) and Sahin who liked to knock it short, now we had Gerrard hitting it over the top for the likes of Sturridge, Suarez and Sterling to run onto.
The changes didn't end there, after Chelsea frustrated us at the end of last season Brendan brought Lambert in as a plan B so there was another move away from his 'British Barcelona' vision.
As I say I think if anything Brendan has changed too much, he should have stuck to his original philosophy and developed the team around that, if certain players weren't up to it then they should have been left out of the side, now he's tinkered with his formation and tactics so much he doesn't know where he is, he's miles away from where he started.

Anyone in football tells you players over style. You pick your best players then a system that suits, when you do you get last season, when you don't…you get this one.

You keep banging on about system and philosophy, it should nearly always revolve around playing your players strengths instead of weaknesses, which is what Brendan has done

Stu the Red » Sun Nov 30, 2014 10:38 am wrote:Anyone in football tells you players over style. You pick your best players then a system that suits, when you do you get last season, when you don't…you get this one.

You keep banging on about system and philosophy, it should nearly always revolve around playing your players strengths instead of weaknesses, which is what Brendan has done

Yeah but when he first arrived his mantra was all about getting rid of the players that didn't fit into his blueprint.
Whatever you think of Andy Carroll he was one of the few players during Kenny's bad run that showed a bit of heart, Infact just before Rodgers got rid of him he was probably one of our most effective players, he'd scored a last minute winner in the FA cup semi final (which was the biggest derby game in a quarter of a century), also nearly turned the final around single handedly and a few days later was MoM when we battered Chelsea 4-1 at Anfield. He even did well for England in the euro's scoring a wonder header against Sweden.
In terms of performances he certainly wasn't the worst player we had on our books at that time but he was shown the door without kicking a ball in anger for Rodgers because he didn't suit our new philosophy.
Adam couldn't run for 90 minutes so he went too.
Rodgers was single minded and ruthless when he first arrived but he lost some of his purpose the longer he was here.