10 Jan 2019 20:35:56
I was watching a Gary Neville interview today from early this season where he grudgingly admitted Liverpool had a realistic chance of winning the League this season, but he made a point of saying the amount of games we played would massively effect our challenge.
Got me thinking about the FA Cup. I know if Lovren has stayed on it might’ve been different but does anybody think that was a game Klopp played to lose? Like why bring the kid on for Lovren if you wanted the win - wasn’t TAA on the bench? Cynical I know, and a massive gamble, but might he have looked at the big picture and just thought sack it off? I’m not saying either way but wondered what you lot thought.
{Ed025's Note - i think your right pompey, even when you equalized he never cracked a smile, which is unusual for him as hes usually like a raving lunatic on acid..
10 Jan 2019 20:58:20
Do you really think that TAA would have performed better than Hoever at CB? TAA is no central defender, and has already been called out for suspect positioning when defending. Ki-Jana seems to be able to play right back and cover CB. TAA is playing right back but can play centre midfield.
What were the other options? There's no way he could have moved Camacho into central defence and obviously couldn't have moved Moreno there either. I think Ki-Jana was the only real obvious solution.
Gini wasn't even on the bench, who has played there once or twice when we've really needed him to.
I don't think any other substitution would have made sense apart from bringing Hoever on.
10 Jan 2019 21:06:18
He announced to the whole world that Mignolet AND Moreno would start. Clearly winning the match was not very important to him. He figured he could allow 20mins to salvage it and hopefully play a lesser opponent next round, but the match was not important to Klopp. I myself would very much love to win the FA cup soon but never mind.
10 Jan 2019 22:22:51
Why would Klopp have brought on Salah and Firmino if he wanted to lose the game? He wanted to win the game but he also wanted to rest certain players who have played almost every game recently.
10 Jan 2019 22:53:53
The Premier League should be our number one priority then Champions League. FA Cup and League Cup are bonus if we win it nice if not don't care.
11 Jan 2019 02:40:28
I disagree, he wouldn't have played Salah and Firmino if he wanted to lose. It's dangerous to draw the match and face a replay next week, so why put those two in as substitute?
11 Jan 2019 02:58:02
I found it surprising didn’t at least have VVD, Hendo or Gini on the bench - we were clearly short senior players in midfield/ defence in our starting lineup so if he’d really cared about the result that much, he would have had at least one or two of those as backup there.
I don’t think he deliberately wanted to lose, but he clearly wasn’t fussed enough about the result to risk depleting and already thin defence with another injury. I also don’t believe all three of those were nursing niggles, he just wanted to make sure they were available against Brighton.
{Ed001's Note - van Dijk was ill and couldn't play. Gini and Hendo both needed a rest badly.}
11 Jan 2019 07:27:09
Depends if you think playing a kid CB at CB is more of a giveaway than play a kid RB/ CM at CB!?
11 Jan 2019 07:37:02
You can’t win anything with kids.
11 Jan 2019 08:40:38
Interesting Ed - I don’t agree with throwing cups games, but if the case is the team needed the rest or risk jeopardizing their PL performances then I completely agree with what he did.
{Ed001's Note - with those two it was more a case of risking injury if they had played.}
11 Jan 2019 09:01:24
I don’t think he ‘threw’ the game but I also don’t think he was too concerned about winning it. Yes he brought Salah and Bobby on but only for 20 minutes when it was clear either one or both should have come on at half time. Watching the pair of them I also thought they played within themselves, perhaps being told to take it easy.
He said himself before the game winning the FA Cup will not stop people moaning it has to be the league or CL.
Perhaps Lovren’s injury had an effect on his attitude towards the game and in the end he just just sacrificed it rather than risking further injuries to first team players.
11 Jan 2019 15:31:05
If we had no chance of winning the league I'd have been bothered about going out of the cup. I actually can't even remember who won it last year. The league is the clear priority with CL second.
11 Jan 2019 16:53:06
Even with the kids and the total disruption to the defence, if it hadn't been for our own mistakes, I don't think Wolves would have scored at all. Mignolet had absolutely nothing to do throughout the whole game.
I think Klopp put a team out and hoped we might get through, but probably didn't expect to. As stated earlier, there was zero reaction from him when we equalized.
I just hope we can pick up the points tomorrow in what will be a very tricky fixture.
11 Jan 2019 18:32:48
Agree KBL. Wolves didn’t look great. Certainly not enough to bother our 1st 11. got to say apart from Milly and Fab the other established squad players were poor - Origi, Sturridge and Shaq particularly. I’ve still got high hopes for Keita though. With a bit of confidence he’ll be fine. Think he’s got to be central though or maybe further up. Doesn’t look like the hard graft of chasing back comes naturally to him. Probably not a good idea to play him in the same team as Shaq let alone Sturridge aswell.
12 Jan 2019 11:05:06
Klopp took the game as an "inconvenience" and that is the way we played it. Even when Origi scored, it seemed Klopp's head was elsewhere. Do I want to win the FA Cup? Of course. I want to win every game we play BUT there is what I want and what the reality of football actually is. Players needed a rest and those that needed it, got the rest and that to Klopp, was the most important thing regardless of what I think.
13 Jan 2019 13:47:53
The only thing that matters right now is racking up enough points over the next 12 weeks to win the title.
It's been almost 30 years and I would like to see it happen again before I leave this earth.
I don't believe in "throwing games", and no LFC team should ever do that.
But we may not have a chance like this again for several years, and it would be extremely short-sighted to do anything that jeopardizes the collecting of the 40 or so EPL points we need from our remaining 16 games.
That includes the Bayern Munich game, four days before we play United.
{Ed002's Note - There is nothing new.}