Liverpool Banter

25 Apr 2024 11:07:34
Trend seemed like he did not want to defend.
He should be moved to MF and we should give up this fullback moving to midfield tactic. It leaves us exposed at the back specially with Konate on that side.

Salah seems to have his mind setup for an exit in summer.
Nunez will miss a host of chances and we need to live with that unless he can apply himself in training at skill of hiting the target.

We may need to replace salah in summer.
Move Diaz to right, gapko on left and unez/ Jota as CF.

25 Apr 2024 11:30:03
I agree about TAA, bhav.
Build a team around him. He could have won us the game last night had we taken those chances and he set us on our way on Sunday. But get him further forward and tighten the back up. He's the best passer in the team and that's why he is being told to do what he is doing but at what cost?
I'd try to get Trent and Mac into a midfield with a quality defensive midfielder. And we've already got a good young right back waiting to come in.

25 Apr 2024 11:42:59
Definitely, forget positions for a minute, what are trents strengths? Passing, creativity, shooting. Weaknesses? Defending physicality ok let's play him right back. He needs to be given a free role in the middle of the park with a defensive midfielder with a bit of strength.

Decisions like this are on klopp.

25 Apr 2024 11:45:33
Simple now for the rest of this season, play the players not afraid to run at people and make things happen. Gakpo left, Diaz right. Then have Gravenberch and Elliott in midfield as they will run at people too. Danns or Jota up top as they're not wasteful in front of goal.

In defence I honestly don't think it matters as long as Quansah plays because aside from him the rest of them are all shirking responsibility.

25 Apr 2024 11:56:03
Thing is bhav, Trent was shirking challenges left right and centre yesterday, how does a move into midfield help us? Genuine question.

25 Apr 2024 12:16:49
Trent still needs to develop for me.
He can play beautiful passes but sometimes they’re not the most effective passes. Sometimes you need quick simple passes to transition the play quickly.

He needs to learn that, he’s trying to be too beautiful all the time.

25 Apr 2024 12:17:23
Trent plays as he's told to play. The whole system adapts to accommodate him being free to do maximum damage. It is tactical.

25 Apr 2024 12:43:17
Whats Trent’s ambitions?

It’s a rhetorical question as no one actually knows.

But is it to captain his boyhood club or is it to compete for major honours every season.

If it’s the latter and Real come knocking and tell him it’s now or never. What does he do?

Does Gerrard regret not going to Chelsea all those years ago.

He stayed and gets very little respect from the fan base now. Let’s be honest I bet he does regret it.

25 Apr 2024 10:24:00
So what are we playing at? We've suddenly turned into a shambles, Klopp, coaches, players, everybody has buggered up. We can't just pin the blame on Klopp it's not just him, way I see it is the players have just given up.

It was always going to be one of them games and fair play to Everton but come on we should be beating them, the fact we didn't says a great deal, we are in a right state and it won't be an easy fix I don't think. go back a couple of months and we're hammering that Everton team, now we are this sloppy? It makes no sense to me and is doing my head in. I just want the season to end now, roll on next season.

25 Apr 2024 10:44:01
Partly tactics but mainly Nunez, if we had firmino last night we score two or three. Cannot even bear to watch the bloke anymore. The stick heskey used to get and he's not a patch on him.

25 Apr 2024 10:50:09
The recruitment has been bad for a number of years. Not sure who to blame for that.

Midfielders should have been brought in after 2021/ 22, Salah should have been sold last season – late in both instances – and then there's a handful of players, such as Keita, who were simply a waste of money, and others, such as Díaz, who have been decent but not good enough.

25 Apr 2024 10:59:10
It's a combination of everything you say, Salah. Not just Klopp, for sure, and definitely not just Pep Ljinders, which I'm getting sick of hearing about. Not one player escapes criticism, but some are deserving of it more than others. The suddenness of our decline is what I find most surprising. A month ago we were on for 4 trophies, and now it's all gone down the pan.

It's a shame that our greatest manager in the last 30 years is going out this way, but we can only look forward to next season and the start of, hopefully, a promising new era.

25 Apr 2024 11:00:15
I was asking myself the same, Salah. Aside from concluding that we have simply had a classic run-in meltdown and collapsed in the way that we've seen teams do so many times down the years (which I wouldn't have expected from this team), I found myself wondering if actually somehow our results and position up to March was actually misleading and not a true representation.

Sounds daft perhaps, and typically I am happy with the principle that the table doesn't lie, but look at the stats on first goal conceded and the number of times we have had to come from behind. Normally a team with such damning stats in that department wouldn't have sustained a title challenge.

And then less qualitatively and more subjective, but the level of performances. There aren't many times this season where I watched us and came away thinking we were on fire. Chelsea at Anfield was one (but we still managed to conceded two goals and we lost the next match at Arsenal) . I know it's ultimately a results business but I always feel that, even if you're grinding out the results, if your performance level is poor, it will catch up with you eventually. We can't honestly say that we've consistently been at the same level as City and Arsenal through the season can we?

25 Apr 2024 11:03:38
Yet we're still second in the table and above the best team in the world 😂.
I don't think we are a shambles but the past few weeks have been difficult watching us. I don't think we've been great for a while but results and being at the top masked that, possibly. And don't forget, we won our two previous games prior to the Derby both away from home.
There's no denying that performances and results have gone downhill and a big worry is they have come at a time when energy levels are on the wain. Can we just roll out sleeves for the last few games?
Saying that, we could have enough points already to hobble into the top four.

25 Apr 2024 11:05:08
Recruitment has been so poor the last few years. Go back to when Klopp first took over. Wijnaldum, Matip, Mane in his first summer. (Milner Firmino Gomez just before Klopp came in) Robertson Salah van Dijk the following season. Fabinho Alisson the next. We’ve signed decent players the last few years but it’s been nowhere near as good as it used to be.

25 Apr 2024 11:22:17
Great post, RR.
I think the same way as you do.
When we signed Endo, Mac, Szob and Grav in the summer, I wasn't expecting them to be Rice, de Bruyne, Silva or Odegaard.
Don't get me wrong, results did lead me to start thinking 'what if' but we've had a reality check and in a cruel way. Not only do we feel embarrassed for getting carried away but it also leaves us wide open to stick from other fans 😂.
It's now all about salvaging some pride in the last few games.

25 Apr 2024 11:23:50
I’ve been critical of Nunez recently but I’ve been critical of most of the players (it’s just Nunez criticism seems to trigger our best fans)

Point being we cannot hold him solely accountable for this last month just in the same way we can’t lay all the blame at our assistant managers door.

The saying is you win as a team and lose as a team and looking at the last month we’ve been poor as a team regardless of who is starting.

Sometimes you can get away with a few playing poorly and your superstars carrying you but all the players are seemingly as bad as each other and the management and coaching group seem just as clueless.

Can anyone talk me through those subs last night and the thinking. Were we trying to defend Everton’s 2-0 lead for them.

25 Apr 2024 11:45:45
Fair point jk and we are awful all around but Nunez was played through at least 5 times last night in a game where an experienced player knows there won't be loads of chances and Nunez fluffs every single touch up even the lay off for Salah was because of the miscontrol.

25 Apr 2024 11:30:22
Salah, for me it is a loss of focus mate. Klopp and all his staff should never have decided they were leaving mid-season. Have you ever seen anybody working their notice period who doesn't take their foot off the gas or their eye off the ball? I haven't quite simply because it is human nature to look ahead.

I personally believe there is uncertainty through the whole team. We've got several players who don't know if they have a future at the club, players with contracts running down who don't know if they'll be offered renewals etc. Even the captain (Virgil) came out mid season and admitted he doesn't know if he'll stay after Klopp leaves. Salah's agent has clearly been in talks with Saudi for a long time now. You've got Lijnders writing books and hawking himself around for other jobs in Europe, you've got documentary crews all over the training ground, Klopp talking about what he'll do with his wife after he retires, Trent talking about Arsenal and Man City in interviews insteado f ocusing on himself etc.

When your key players and coaching staff aren't 100% focused there is bound to be a knock on effect on the pitch. Lot's of small ripples culminate to become a huge waves, especially at this level of the game where the margins are so fine. We looked better when the kids were playing because they don't think about all this stuff, they're just enthralled to be on the pitch playing for Liverpool and you get that boost from that youthful innocence. It's infectious so you only even need 1 or 2 kids on the pitch at a time running through brick walls, for it to rub off on everyone else. Last night a prime example was Elliott and Quansah coming on. Within minutes you saw Elliott driving at them with the ball trying to make things happen and Quansah snapping them in half in the tackle. Both of them clearly should've started going on form of the last few months.

Klopp's tactical set ups, team selections and substitutions have been nothing short of dreadful lately. It hit a new low last night when he put on Tsimikas and Gomez at a point we needed 3 goals in 15 minutes. Neither player has ever scored for us across 13 years at the club combined and yet we had Danns, Clark and Gravenberch sat on the bench who have 7 goals between them this season alone. Make it make sense.

Klopp's lost his energy by his own admission, Virgil/ Salah seem to have lost their focus going on interviews and body language, and everyone else looks rudderless due to a lack of leadership. In hindsight, maybe stripping the dressing room (Milner, Hendo, Fabinho and Firmino) of several influential characters in a mass culling was a mistake? Milner maybe should have been offered a 1 year deal to help keep a very young squad focused but hindsight's a wonderful thing and even he might have been powerless to stop this even with all his experience and character.

If anybody can watch us lose to the worst Everton team maybe in their history simply because they wanted it more, and come to any other conclusion than we bottled it, then they're lying to themselves to put it bluntly. It's totally unacceptable. In the last 9 games we've won just 4 of them. They were against Sheffield, Fulham and Brighton teams with nothing really left to play for (without looking convincing in any of those games either by the way) and then an Atlanta side who didn't have any interest in winning because all they had to do was protect a 3 goal lead. We've lost to United in the cup having led twice, drawn to them in the league thanks to a late penalty, lost to Palace at Anfield without laying a glove on them, been spanked by Atalanta at Anfield and now been bullied at Goodison in the worst derby performance of my living 30 years. It's a capitulation of epic proportions and I'm sure the usual super fans on here will be outraged at me for calling it as I see it, but Klopp and the lads have let us and themselves down in the last 5-6 weeks. It's been a total lack of passion, application, perspiration and inspiration.

I don't know If I will bother trying to analyse the performances for the rest of this season now because it's clear Klopp and the players aren't bothered so I'm not wasting my energy on it. So consider my rant to be over! I'd rather look to the future and what we can hopefully become under Arne Slot (? ) with a new ethos and a fresh injection of life. Thank you for your time Jurgen Klopp; best manager of my lifetime by a mile and you're leaving the club in a position of strength and in a better place than you found it (which is incredibly rare nowadays) . Time is quite rightly up, but it has been one hell of a ride.

{Ed025's Note - great honest post that MK, kudos mate..

25 Apr 2024 11:34:24
Investment is paramount. No cheap Charlie.

25 Apr 2024 11:53:40
Some good points, JK.
This might be too deep for here but I can't help thinking about this quote:

'If you get your ego in your way, you will only look to other people and circumstances to blame'.
Maybe we're not that good and our egos are dented because we thought we were.

25 Apr 2024 11:58:03
I’ll bite and actually share my view on the situation for once.

Firstly, I find it crazy that the consensus amongst the majority in this side believed that the entire squad was world class not more than around a month ago. Now they are all dross. I am as frustrated as the next guy, but the logic is doing my head in.

To me it just screams of mental fatigue and a playing style that doesn’t fit the players. To shoehorn 10 players in to accommodate one player (Trent) is what has been the issue the entire season. Not the only issue of course but the constant among many variables. The only period where we have played somewhat free flowing during this season was when Trent and salah was out IMO.

The “high” after klopps announcement was bound to be fragile and, to me, it was clear that many of the players were over performing for some time and we rode our luck for an extended period of time. The luck ran out and the players started to be depended on the manager to boost them in terms of energy and mentality. But the manager is gone. You can see it on his face. In hindsight he should probably just have quit when he announced it, but oh well.

We’re all disappointed with the same two things. Not getting the end result that was looking very possible not that long ago and to have a great last farewell with the best manager we’ve had in 30 years. Now it’s just about getting this season over with tbh.
The new manager will be the one assessing the squad and I feel confident that the new changes will make it clear which players actually want to play for Liverpool and which players are actually as good as we’ve claimed them to be.

Lastly I want to point out that I too believe that players like Robbo and Salah should be moved on in the summer. The performance level they have showed in the run in has been way below expectations and the reason why I am singling them out is because they are supposed to be the leaders in this squad. They are supposed to Lead by example and kinda carry the team when times get tough. At least that is how I view it.

25 Apr 2024 11:58:35
5 times on goal? I only counted one, bro.

As for the team, we were simply NOT up for it and it showed from the off. Not sure anyone was physically or mentally prepared to play that game and it showed.

We can point to players all we want cos that's what people like to do BUT from top to bottom, nobody wanted anything to do with that game from our side and that's the pathetic side of things. Nobody is spared from this train-wreck. Literally nobody.

25 Apr 2024 12:20:26
The players are just knackered and they don’t have Klopp cracking his whip with quite the same determination and authority any more.

Salah, Nunez, Robbo are probably more knackered than the rest due to their high energy style and Robbo and Salah having been that way for all of Klopp’s time.

They need a break. They’re ready for it.

25 Apr 2024 12:45:58
This excuse about tiredness. I'm sure Arsenal have tired players as well, but they are managing fine.

As for being ahead of City, it's where you finish after 38 matches that counts, and we will not be ahead of City at that point.

{Ed025's Note - fair points Adam..

25 Apr 2024 12:46:15
You most have been watching a different game oli he had two passes from Trent and two from McAlister all played at oac into feet and he fluffed them. He was also slower to react than Godfrey for the Salah pass and then went missing second half, didn't see him win one aerial. duel.

25 Apr 2024 08:12:24
That was a dog ugly performance and it seemed like all they wanted to do was pass between each other at the back again. I seriously could not watch much more of that type of football and I agree that the nutty professor Lijnders has something to do with this awful style of football. Next season will be a breath of fresh air without him.

Klopp is great, but has let someone else sour his thoughts and it shows. That was the opposite of heavy metal football that seems to be a distant memory. But a good memory at least. I look forward to a improved style of football next year with excitement. I am sure we might get a forward who could Slot the ball in the back of the net also 😂😉.

25 Apr 2024 08:22:00
Ljinders should have been sacked after releasing his book - nothing about that was in anybody’s interest except his own. The less said about his tactical ideas the better.

25 Apr 2024 08:25:54
You are missing a very important point about midfielders. Our midfeidlers cannot run forward with the ball nor they can dribble to take a man. Everton played a low block and there was hardly any gaps. In such cases you either need your wide players to hit the byline or your central midfielders to run with the ball. Gravenberch for all his issues could do it.
Usually in klopp's whatever system the LCM is tasked to do this (keita / wijnaldum / thiago) Jones simply cannot. and Szobo is asked to play a DM rather than an ACM today.

25 Apr 2024 08:31:27
More scout spout.

25 Apr 2024 08:44:23
Exactly, Flash. How can the players do all these things the "Chief Scout" is going on about without even being ready to fight, scrap and earn the right to compete in a Merseyside derby. No matter how much ability you have, if you are not up for it the way Everton was, whatever qualities you have or don't have, won't matter. That is is the fundamentals of sport. No guts. No glory, all your ability be damned.

25 Apr 2024 08:51:34
I don't think we won anything playing heavy metal (cringe) football. We scored and conceded a lot of goals and it was thought to be unsustainable.
We became more pragmatic and won the League and CL. The midfield were disciplined but could win the ball and hold onto it. The front three could win the ball high up the field and create goals or break from our half and score goals.
We also had two very creative fullbacks one of whom had a terrific engine.
That team inevitably broke but let's not kid ourselves that it was the heavy metal side that Klopp had earlier in his Liverpool career.

25 Apr 2024 09:26:46
We reached the CL final twice and won the league playing heavy metal football, and had one bad season in between, what have we done since shifting to this possession based, inverted fullback nonsense? A league cup. I know which I’d rather win, I know which system would suit our players, and I know which system I’d rather watch.

25 Apr 2024 10:07:13
There’s 2 things I’ve noticed since the Man Utd game in particular.

Firstly we are scared to give the ball away so always play safe to the point where the forward players have stopped making runs because they know they won’t get the ball.

Secondly we are not winning the ball back quickly enough when we lose it.

We have been playing with fear and that has made us very twitchy on the ball and very passive off it. The defence drop too early which makes us way too open to press effectively and even when we do we are so passive that we lose pretty much every tackle.

Added to that we are so tense and fearful that we miss pretty much every chance we do create. People will point to Nunez and Salah and rightly so but it’s everyone. Robbo actually missed the ball completely when presented with a chance, Szob used to have a rocket on his right boot but scuffs every shot now, VVD has had numerous free headers and either misses the target or heads it to the keeper, Diaz, Jones, MacAllister they have all forgotten how to hit a clean strike. Trent tried to reach the kop end goal from Goodison with a couple of his efforts last night.

The criticism they are all getting is warranted, the performances have not been good enough but writing these players off as not good enough is extremely knee jerk and shows a total lack of understanding of human and sports psychology.

It’s not that they are not good enough, they have just realised the enormity of what they could achieve and they’ve frozen with the fear of failure. It happens every day in every sport and these players will be stronger for having these type of experiences.

I’m disappointed just like everyone else but I appreciate what Klopp and the players have put in this season to give us a trophy and a title challenge. It’s all gone a bit wrong but we dust ourselves down and we go again.

25 Apr 2024 10:09:07
We didn't win the League and CL final playing heavy metal football, Seano.
The season we won the League we would selectively press but could also be quite conservative. Henderson, Milner and Wijnaldum would just sit in front of the back four knowing the front three could always get a goal with our fullbacks often supplying them.
Think back to the CL win. It was a boring game. We got an early goal and sat in with the intention of not conceding.
It was not heavy metal football.

25 Apr 2024 11:41:42
Beekeeper is right in my opinion. Too many of our midfielders and forwards look scared to carry the ball so we're not committing any of the opposition players. If you don't run at teams and make them step out to meet you, all you end up doing is passing it around in front of a banked up defence and midfield. Macca and Endo don't have the pace, but Szoboszlai and Jones are just scared to take a hit in my opinion after their injuries. Diaz drops in and does it but he lacks end product. Elliott, Gakpo and Gravenberch made a huge difference against Fulham without even playing that well purely because they were willing to take the ball under pressure, then turn and run at people. Elliott running at Wan-Bissaka saved us in the United draw.

Unless you are extremely well drilled in passing patterns like City and Arsenal are, you can't pass your way through the midfield. You have to use the width, which we can't do with Trent tucked infield and Robertson not only unable to beat the first man with a cross, but twice last night dropping total air shots and missing the ball entirely.

No width and a badly implemented slow build up tactic is costing us. Eliott, Gakpo, Diaz and Gravenberch running at people is pretty much all we have right now which is extremely worrying. They should all be starting every game between now and the end of the season. And personally I'd be putting Danns up top with those 4 supplying him because Salah and Nunez have blown enough games for us this month.

25 Apr 2024 12:03:31
Beckers, that's what hitting a wall get you. U lack the confidence to try things hence cos you bare so scared to screw up, you eithe rplay it safe or play the extra pass in attack which can look like you passing the buck and then, nothing happens. The lack of confidence in the team leads to lack of certainty and belief hence, a distinct lack of fight vs Everton.

25 Apr 2024 12:06:35
Seano, I'm with Rigsby here. We won the PL and CL playing pragmatic football meaning, we did not press high like demons from the off. We would gradually grow into the game and slowly pin the oppo. back and once we did that esp. vs low block teams, we started to choke the life out of them cos they could NEVER get out of their final third. In fact, we beat Spurs playing that way in the CL final.

IMO, Heavy metal footie, is what killed us in the 17/ 18 season when our legs were finished going into the CL final esp. cos we did not have anywhere near as deep as a squad like we did in 21/ 22 when we went and nearly won everything.