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I wonder what has actually happened to Fabinho, he looks a ghost of his former self in the last year or so.
Salah is still being almost completely played out of games, perhaps he's being expected to do too much. It's rare enough you see him receiving a pass in a scoring position, he's always out wide and being expected to start and finish our attacks.
We only seem to have 3 ideas for how to score goals at the moment:
I'm blaming our Pep today. I think he's trying to implement something that is clearly not working.
Why do you think we can catch Newcastle and that Spurs will get top 4? On the evidence so far, Newcastle look much more likely to get top 4 than Spurs. I think Newcastle were third over the calendar year of 2022, behind city and Liverpool. They are not a flash in the pan, unfortunately they are here to stay, will likely strengthen again this month, while we dilly dally about maybe signing a midfielder next summer!
The club needs to act now in midfield or else resign themselves to finishing outside the top 4. Winning the CL is probably our best chance of qualifying for next season's CL, and I don't really fancy our chances against RM
FSG have spent the guts of £200 million on attackers this past year and none of them were available last night. I think they need to get the book out now and get a midfielder. Otherwise, we won’t make top 4. Then we go to UEFA Cup on Thursday/Sunday and that’s difficult for us. The spiral sets in. We cannot afford to miss out on CL league football. The I think we will catch Newcastle, but City, Ars, Utd and Spurs will probably fill the top 4.
I think pretty much all the concerns about midfield were fully voiced before the season started...but I don't believe anybody could have foreseen such a steep drop off for Fabinho this year. Even if everything else stayed the same, we'd be in a far stronger position if he just maintained his form.
Even when he's timing his tackles and winning the ball back like he has been slightly more recently he still looks a shambles on the ball, Thiago had to take a yellow card yesterday because he turned the ball over when he received it under no pressure.
In this system, Gini is arguably a bigger miss than Mané. And he's never been replaced, and his exit coincided with Fab and Hendo's decline.
Basically our legs disappeared, and we've never quite recovered. Last season was spectacular, but it felt like we got away with plenty of games where we didn't really have the energy and control we should have. This season, the wound is gaping.
100% agree with the first part, Can you remember us blowing teams away in the champions league with our pure pressure & energy in midfield , Even Milner & ox back then had les for days , I recall De Rossi off Roma saying our midfield was like a pack of wild dogs,
Lets also not forget we used to have Bobby dropping deep as a 9 & being an extra body at the base of the opposition midfield that is gone now to ,
The midfield used to make the platform for the full backs & front 3 to perform its become far to slow & nice in there ,
We need legs, Henderson and Gini were never the most technically gifted, but they covered the spaces and worked their socks off. Klopp is still trying to play the same way with inferior or past it players, that is the long and short. It's left our defence exposed which has left our world class goal keeper exposed.
Salah I expect so much better from, Nunez been ridden for missing chances but Salah is guilty of it too.
Fabinho has just fallen off a cliff, he's only 29 he should be only approaching his peak now.
It's an aging squad you can't escape that and as we didn't recruit from a position of strength we are looking at a transitionary period before been ready to challenge again.
Maybe.
But physically we look a shadow of the team we were. It's shameful and neglectful.
We were destroyed by Dewsbury Hall on Friday, and bullied in transition by Brentford last night.
Hendo is hugely missed at RCM ,
Henderson for all his faults constantly makes that inside to out run down the right wing that means he has to be tracked & it opens up space for Mo or Trent to step up in to , He does it time and time again Elliot does not have the pace or stamina to do it like Jordan & it means the whole side is rarely ever opened up ,
I was watching England V USA in the world cup & England really struggled, Hendo came on & made that run twice in the space of about 3 minutes & both times England got chances from Tripper entering into the space with time on the ball.,
I'd love to hear from the player on what they think has gone wrong or what has changed
Nunez just has to score the chances ,it would have effected the crowd ,given us confidence & knocked Brentford,
You just HAVE to score them
The worst thing about the miss is it 'll fester in Nunez himself & he'll be thinking he is cursed,
Has to be a confidence issue ,I think he needs to get 2 goals in a game , then just 1 in the next he'll be flying ,
Its clear as day we need legs in midfield,
I know all the talk is saving money for Bellingham but we need a "Gini" we need someone with legs & discipline who knows how to block passing lines & tackle,
Even on the attakcing side everyone on here knows i don't rate Elliot at all ,
The more i think about it the crazier it sounds that he is our go to "attacking midfielder" Look at the other teams around us & who they use to attack form midfield , not only are they all better attacking than Elliot there all better off the ball ,
City have KDB or Gudgang /Foden at times
Chelsea Mount or Gallagher ,
United Bruno /Eriksen
Arsenal Odegaard , he get's injured there in trouble
Spurs not actually sure cause the set up without one really, Bentacur /Kulusevski
This is all very negative, but unfortunately i agree with almost everything you said.
I think it's too early to call Nunez a dud. I'm willing to give him another while yet. But if he's still the same by the end of the season, I'll start to get worried.
Even Klopp said in his interview after the game that Nunez should have scored his early chance. Honestly I think if it were any other player there'd be no excuses made for it.
Calling him a dud is very harsh, he is clearly an excellent player but the elephant in the room is that his finishing is absolutely brutal. He dragged a shot so far wide in the second half that it almost went out for a throw-in, which is something he's done numerous times, the sort of shot that any other striker would at least put on target. It's like the more time he has to think the worse he is on the ball.
I don't know what more the team can do. They are giving him absolute sitters and he's fluffing them. They aren't all difficult chances.
In the modern game with all the minutes they play perhaps not.
We were terrible against Leicester also ... We are as likely as Spurs to not get top4 now imo.
This team is done I'm affraid and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded.
We are still being subjected to ox,Jones,Keita,even hendo and milner are past their best,Elliott isn't good enough to play midfield for Liverpool,thiago is a silky player at times but I don't think he's the right player for us or a klopp team,fab played his first half decent game tonight for the first time in 6mths,we have huge problems in midfield when the majority of those players aren't good enough or past their best,klopp needs to grow a pair of balls and get rid of these players and demand money to spend or threaten to leave himself.
I dunno what to say about nunez tbh,how much longer are fans willing to wait for him to look like something other then a schoolboy playing in the yard,I've no problem in saying I think the lad is a dud and I've had enough of him now at this stage,hopefully gakpo comes in and takes his place as I can't stomach watching him for much longer.
Bleak times indeed,but all our own fault,we haven't bought a midfielder in over 4 yrs and never built on the squad when on top,sad to see really
The ruled out offside goal summed us up. A player being able to chest the ball down from a corner before shooting is genuinely farcical stuff. That should never happen.
I know it's a bit of cliche but you honestly wouldn't see that in amateur football. For someone to have so much time and space indicates a serious break in the system.
When Edwards left it always felt he could might have seen what was coming . An incredible team coming to end of its cycle with the funds lacking to compete and rebuild all over again. The fact Julian ward is resigning so soon and FSG looking to sell the club just doubles down those internally can see the problems for the foreseeable and huge investment involved to rebuild this team trying to compete when FFP has gone out the window.
We have some great attacking options and Allison in goal but the whole midfield and a lot of that defence needs upgrading or a revamp in tactics. Defensively I just can’t believe how bad we are , that corner Wissa has time to take down and shoot but the goal was ruled out in the box was shocking. VVD is particular is so bad at the moment it looks like he’s been targeted even more than Trent
Nunes played for Sporting Lisbon this season, and Wolves. So he won't be joining in the January window. You can't play for 3 clubs in the same season. I think that article above says that it is for a summer transfer though anyways, maybe just looking for an agreement now.
How many defeats do they need to spur them on, the losses to both Leeds and Forest should have been enough, they've also had the best part of 2 months to work on their problems and should have known since the season started that reinforcements are required in midfield. None of our issues seem to have been resolved during the break, so, hard to see how they'll resolve it now with games coming thick and fast.
Until we return to something like our old form, I think we need to be prepared to be tactically more flexible and be willing to adapt to how the opposition is set-up. We seem to have only one way of playing regardless of whose available or the strengths or weaknesses of the opposition.
Sadly I think not. United after that match had a much greater capacity to change than we currently do. They were only two or three games into the tenure of a new manager and a very different brand of football. We’re stuck in a bit of a rut with one of the best managers the league has ever seen but he’s set in his ways, to a fault at times.
It’s necessary to accept that we aren’t going to radically change our style of play while Klopp is in charge. When it works, nobody can beat us, but along with the lack of energy in the current team and the injury problems that seem to plague us every year at this point, you just get the impression that quite a few teams have us well sussed out. That doesn’t guarantee them a victory over us in any given match, but it means the players usually have to play to the absolute peak of their abilities unless our system changes.
Even a flawed system can work with perfection in its execution, but we’re such a long way from perfection at the minute that we’re understandably hoping for a system that’s more effective and relies less on individual quality.
For a couple of years, we had both the most effective system and execution. Now, we appear to have neither. That’s the crux of the issue IMO.
PLayers in their early 30's should be hitting their prime, not getting worse. 29-33 is prime
Hopefully they can follow Uniteds 4-0 hammering by Brentford and use it to spur on change
Would they forget about Bellingham and just spend the 100m earmarked for him now.
Robbo trying to rally the team together made me feel really sad for a number of reasons.
The old team wouldn't have let a situation like that happen, and if they were up against it, they wouldn't need to be motivated by a speech, they would drag themselves back into it, think of all the late winners against the likes of Newcastle, Everton, the barca game etc.
You look at the lads in that picture, the likes of Jones, Keita and Nunez would never have made the team in the days when Gini, Bobby, Hendo and Mane were at their best.
Age and recruitment are part of the problem but it's not the whole thing - I saw VVD and Hendo going flat out for their countries a few weeks ago - back in a red shirt now and they look like different players. Teams target VVD now, we saw that tonight. He talks a great game, sure, but doesn't back it up on the pitch.
Exactly. I wish they’d just pay the extra £10m or whatever it was we short for on Caicedo.
It might be a fifth more than we’d pay for him in the summer, but it’s either that or miss out on him altogether when we fail to finish in the top 4. Again, I love FSG and what they’ve done for the club, but I just wish they’d realise the long term benefits of a short term cost for once.
FA Cup is a distraction now
You just know they'll end up doing nothing and getting someone in on deadline day, when they are crying out for a mid now and they could spend the whole of january getting settled
Oh it's Nunes not Neves from earlier. Clearly I can't read 😁
