jacdaniel » Mon Sep 29, 2014 6:56 am wrote:Well I haven't posted much over the last few weeks and I see that the general gist on the forums is that we are now rubbish, our manager is not as good as we thought, our new signings suck, we were only good because of Suarez and the season is a right off. :D
Amazing what can change in 8 football matches.
In my opinion though, we've just been dealt a really bad set of circumstances.
Suarez leaving was obviously going to hurt. He is one of the best players in the world right now. But he wanted to leave so we had to let him go.
We have signed plenty of players that I personally think will improve the squad. Lallana, Manquillo and Moreno already have. Lovren looks decent. Balotelli will shine when he has a partner. Markovic is my only real concern.
The absolute worst thing that could've happened this season was injuries to key players early on. And of course.., thats exactly what has happened. Sturridge, Allen, Flanno, Skrtel, Coutinho, Lallana have all been injured.
This has forced us to start too many new signings and we are struggling to adapt to so many changes.
We are also suffering from the ridiculous expectations of the fans. People seem to think we won every game 4 - 0 last season when the reality is that we didn't start playing too well until December. Our fixture list was a lot better last season than this season and that helped us gain points early on.
This season we have already played City, Spurs and Everton as well as Southampton and Villa were we also dropped points at Anfield last season. Despite all of the above, we are only 3 points off 4th I believe and we have 4 winnable PL fixtures to follow.
If we are still midtable after those 4 games, I will join the panic. But for now, I remain optimistic that Sturrdiges return and the better performance in the Derby will kick start our season.
Some of you fans have the confidence of an insecure 15 year old girl. :D
Good post but I think you are missing some of the core points which most fans have been grumbling about for a while. So not really "knee jerk" reactions, by any stretch of the imagination.
1. None of us really know what happened with Suarez, whether he had completely made up his mind to go to Farcelona months before his biting incident at the World Cup or whether this happened a few weeks after the WC had come to an end. Or as some conspiracy theorists in here alluded to, he may well have plotted with Farcelona to drive his value down to 75m or whatever we ended up getting for him.
Either way Brendan and the rest of the inner circle at the club would have know well in advance that he was off. So our number 1 priority over the summer would have been filling the massive void he left. I'm sorry but getting the likes of Lallana, Markovic, Balotelli and Lambert to produce the assists and goals that Suarez brought doesn't cut with me. As I have mentioned in my previous posts the signings were poor based on the money we were spending and the types of players we were bringing in. And the whole question on why we sold him still lingers? If Brendan had sat him down, if we had poured money into resolving his mental issues on the field, I think we would be in a much better position having kept him than actually selling him.
2. This "bad set of circumstances" is our own doing. Nothing more nothing else. Yes we have signed players that will improve the squad but as has been talked about to death
WE HAVE NOT IMPROVED OUR STARTING ELEVEN. To win trophies our starting eleven needed to be improved, it wasn't. So the results now coming our way and which we all fear has been own doing. It is clear as day that we needed to sell off Lucas and Borini when we had the chance, yet you had a horde of mindless lemmings on here arguing that they should stay. Mind-blowing really.
The problem was that throughout the summer we started to see a line of world class players turn us down. From Sanchez at Arsenal to Falcao at Manure, our "suits" just didn't have the clout or personalities to bring in these players that WOULD have dramatically improved our starting XI. Rodgers knows this but persists with bringing in more realistic targets, to a club that should be aiming for higher. The laughable argument that I have heard is that we HAVE NEVER brought in world class players, so what's the difference now? Well the problem is we have won f**k all of note (outside our CL in 2005) in the last two decades and this strategy of "producing" our own talent is hampered with flaws when you look at the Arsenal model over the last 10 years and what happens when the vultures begin circling in on our better players. Lets see whether we can hold on to Sterling and Sturridge over the next few seasons......
3. Injuries.... a poor excuse mate. Realistically having had any of the players you mentioned (outside of Sturridge, possibly Lallana) would not had, had much of bearing in our results. Why, because Lovren was brought in to provide cover at the back, so Skrtel playing or not playing shouldn't have any bearing at all. We have better full backs than Flanno now. Allen should always be a squad player, rather then starting XI player and Coutinho is woefully out of form at the moment.
4. We have dropped points against sides (Villa, West Ham and Neverton) we should have beaten or at least played better than what we showed. You can't blame the fixture on our poor showing. Since the Villa game we have been poor and that is down to Rodger's tactics and the players he has played. Once again, he had time to prepare for these games and he had all summer to fix the problems we had.
And lastly if Rodgers had brought in at least 1 or 2 world class, marquee, call-them-what-you-want players that improved out starting XI and sent a message to the rest of the prem league, then none of us would have the "insecurities" of a 15 year old girl.......