Liverpool FC Team Talk, Gossip, Rumours 2020/2021

Fitz* wrote: »

I don't know if this long break until the next league is a good thing or bad thing.

A break might might be a good mental break and reset and get things back on course again. This is a very bad run. 2 points from 3 games where 7 or 9 were expected.

There's the thinking that you play yourself into form so I'd nearly try and use the cup game to play themselves into form. Friday night game. And then a break until Sunday. Which is a bit too long, I think Klopp prefers a 4 day break between games, that will be 9 days between Villa & Utd games.

Normally a long break doesnt suit us but when we next play in the league we could be 3 points behind Utd with them looking to stretch the gap to 6. City will likely be just a point behind us as well. We will be in a real dogfight to make sure our title challenge doesnt flounder, this United match will be huge and therell be no excuses for starting it slowly.

Carragher is so wary of coming across as biased towards Liverpool he goes too far in the other direction at times. Proper weird.

I really don't see how you can argue against that being a penalty, KWP lunges into Mane, hits him, and doesn't get anywhere near the ball. they don't come much clearer.

Glad Klopp is highlighting the horrendous refereeing we've been on the wrong end of recently. It really is a joke, and very curious how VAR lately doesn't deem it necessary to examine crucial decisions against us.

Ardent wrote: »

Glad Klopp is highlighting the horrendous refereeing we've been on the wrong end of recently. It really is a joke, and very curious how VAR lately doesn't deem it necessary to examine crucial decisions against us.

Swings and round abouts...Never a Peno looks like mane us buying it all day long

sReq | uTeK wrote: »

Swings and round abouts...Never a Peno looks like mane us buying it all day long

Ah I see you're here for your monthly "never a foul"

Rant incoming...

Girly Gal wrote: »

We are highly unlikely to win the title this season, we might be top now, but, on recent evidence we'll be out of the running after we play City. Last summer was the time to get a CB in and not to have one signed by Jan 1st was pure negligence as it has completely unbalanced the team, I fear the damage has already been done at this stage and we have now turned the United, Spurs and City games into must win games.

Firstly the result sucks. I hate losing and it hurts everytime we do. But Southampton is a good side. They are on the same points as a lot of teams we consider title contenders right now and in with a shout for a European place or even top 4 the way this season is going. This was going to be a difficult game for us even with two fit CB's.

Now looking back to our transfers, yes you could make the argument that we should have bought another defender. But did anyone one of us think we would have all of our centre backs injured at the same time? If you did I would call you a liar. Maybe you thought we could lose VVD to a long term injury and you say that it would be a risk to only have 2 other senior CB's that have had poor injury records, but there is no way you predict we have both VVD and Gomez out with long term injuries at the same time. Add in Matip struggling to regain his fitness as he is being rushed back because there are no other senior defenders and he cannot get fit right now.

So if we are saying that we should have seen we would have lost VVD to a career ending tackle by an mindless fool and then have Gomez out with another long term injury a few weeks later, then I want the lotto numbers from you because you are able to see the future. Think about the bad luck in losing all three senior defendersat the same time, the option was always there to plug in Fabinho in case of emergency for a game or two, but he is now our only fit senior CB. If we had one of the others available you could play one of the youngsters alongside him to guide him through the match, but that option isn't there any longer as Fabinho cannot guide the other player like VVD or Gomez or Matip would be able to.

And that leads to what we should do now. Should we try to sign a CB, any CB or are we looking for a type of player that would allow us not to play Fabinho at CB and have one of the youngsters play alongside the new signing? Because as much as we miss our CB's, we miss Fabinho in midfield just as much. So how much is a experienced CB going to cost that will fit right into our high line system and that can adapt to the Premier League within a week? Is that players out there firstly and secondly, is he available?

Then onto this season. It sucks not be 10 points clear right now of Leicester and 14 of Man City not having lost a match, but this is not last year. We are still within a title race, but let's be honest we will have to scrap for this title this year. We are the defending champions so anyone being surprised that teams put in extra effort against us should wake up. It is up to the champions to overcome this extra effort so it doesn't affect the result. So no more moaning about teams putting extra effort to beat us, this is expected because we are the champions and it has always been like this.

Add in that our competitors has still spent a lot of money this year, even in a pandemic year. This has been the transfer money spent, according to Transfermarkt this year of our traditional competitors and Leicester,

Man Utd - 83m euro
Leicester - 62m euro
Tottenham - 110m euro
Man City - 171m euro
Chelsea - 247m euro
Arsenal - 86m euro

We spent around 80m euro ourselves and I think most agree we did well to do deals during this time. We are still to see the impact the pandemic had on our finances but if you had a choice to buy a new CB or Jota, what would your choice be? Now the answer is easy but before Jota got injured, would you have honestly swapped him for Ake? Both of them cost around the same.

We cannot also ignore that we have not had a lot of luck so far with the referees. I don't know why this is. We are not a team that looks for fouls or surrounds the referee like a lot of other teams, but maybe we should be. If the evidence points to teams getting favourable decisions if they try to deceive the referee or surround him to get a decision, then pundits can shut up about respecting referees and not "cheating" during match, because having respect and not cheating is a hinderance, if anything. The decisions last night have been commented on, but how Mane's penalty shout and Pogba's live beside each other in the same league is amazing to me. One kicks himself but because there may have been contact it is not overturned because the referee gave the penalty. The other is not given because there was only slight contact and not enough to overturn it. What stupid system is that? Instead of getting it right you are still at the mercy of the referee who has their own biases and what he decides. Our corner doesn't go out and is flagged for going out. Sure, it wasn't a corner to begin with but you don't make a right by two wrongs. Tyler was joking about the Man United ball going out against West Ham and how it leads to a goal. The standard of officiating in the Premier League has always been poor, its just the pundits and media that has been trying to gaslight fans into believing it that they were the best.

So, can we win the league this year? Yes we can, but it will be a struggle. We will need to fight for form in the next few matches and build up a run of wins to be there at the end. We are capable of it, but sometimes it just isn't enough no matter how hard the players try. We are dealing with injuries and players being off form and it is hurting us. TAA has been poor, but he is still a very god player who is showing glimpses of promise in a match, but overall his performances so far has not been good this year.

But you have to hope just like Firmino he will find form at some point. Add in that hopefully culminating in some fitness and form from the midfield at the same time it will hopefully mean we can start firing again. We had 2 midfielders starting their first matches after long injuries last night. That is not ideal. So we have to hope for some luck from the officials, and injuries and we are still well placed to win the title. With the season we have had so far I would have taken being close to the top in January. It is up to us now not to let our position slide.

Rant over.

Ikozma wrote: »

It's always everyone else's fault with klopp though, we've been piss poor all season bar one or 2 games, that's down to management and coaching, fix it on the training ground, stop making excuses

This is a very easy answer to a complex situation. Just be better and you will win. That red card that was missed and we dropped 2 points? Be better on the training pitch.

Agreed. I don't believe there's a conspiracy across the PL to "give Liverpool nothing", because that would be Blueloon-level nonsense, but do I believe it's possible there may be inherent subconscious bias amongst certain referee's? Sure, it's possible - they're human. Do I believe a lot of referee's believe Salah and Mane, especially, are divers? Yes, I do.

fyfe79 wrote: »

Yes, we've been poor the last while but it's ALSO fair for Klopp to call out when he feels that the laws of the game are not being fairly applied across the board. Are you only allowed question the officiating when you're winning?

Other teams are close to us in the table when they've also being playing poorly - the difference being they're getting the rub of the green and the benefit of 50/50 calls, shall we say, and are drawing/winning games they could easily have lost/drawn.

Im not so sure.

I mean every manager in the game can come out and say after every game, well he missed that decision and he missed that other decision.

Thats football!

I dont agree with Klopp bringing up the whole Manu penalty thing last night after we have lost.

Whether hes right or wrong is irrelevant, bringing it up like he did when he did makes it look like Manu are getting into our heads. In his interview he dismissed the Manu game as just another game after we play Villa which we will think about then.

I smiled because thats exactly the line to take, dont even let them know theyre in your thoughts but he flips it 180 in the PC.

Hindsight is great but could have done with keeping Lovren another season

rob316 wrote: »

I'd near throw Philips and Williams in at CB and get Fabinho back into midfield. Midfield was awful last night without Hendo, he brings so much energy and pressing.

Should definitely test it against Villa in the cup.

Also last night our full backs were just too predictable. Swinging crosses in to a packed box was failing yet we did it for the whole game.

I think Trent took the only shot from outside the box just before he came off.

There was no variety to our play last night.