Liverpool FC Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2014 - Mod Warning in OP, 10/12

Harry Palmr wrote: »

That was noted on MOTD, he did that against Stoke?

Augeo wrote: »

I'm dreading the African cup thing, hoping sakho rises to the opportunity

Agent Coulson wrote: »

I think he means lossing Toure, Hopefully Sakho will take over his leadership role.

Stop Searching My Posts wrote: »

Has Toure not retired from internationals recently? Or is it for after the African cup?

Mr Alan wrote: »

Good post Whatawaster, I think you're being way too "glass half full", but that's your perogative!

whatawaster wrote: »

I still believe Rodgers can turn this around. Ultimately, he will live or die by the success or lack of success of the signings he made last summer. The jury is still very much out on most of them.

Moreno has only shown glimpses of his quality, and has shown even more naivety and poor positioning.
Markovic started badly but has been really good in the last 3 games. He was written off far too quickly.
Lallana has been pretty good, probably the most consistent of the signings. I don't think he is top-4-starter quality, but he's a good player to have around. Manquillo has been ok. I wouldn't mind us making his loan deal permanent, because he has definite ability.
Can looks a good player. No idea why he is not seeing any action.
Lovren has been terrible, but I don't think he is a terrible player. It's all so murky with our defenders. They clearly aren't being brilliantly organised. So that is a big part of the problem. Then what is going on in front of them is questionable at best (Lucas has helped things), what is going on behind them is a shambles (it's a disgrace that Brad Jones has remained our number 2 keeper for so many seasons) and I'm not sure the full-backs are helping matters. The goalkeeping situation is critical, and is surely going to be addressed in January because Jones cannot continue in goal.
I still have hope for Ballotelli.

To make a comparison with Benitez's final season at Liverpool - one of the main reasons I lost faith in Benitez was because things were so obviously going stale and sour with the squad, and the squad was getting old and needed serious rebuilding. A new direction was needed imo.
I don't think it's obvious that this is currently the case with Rodgers' Liverpool squad. If Moreno, Can, Markovic, Lallana, Lovren, Ballotelli and Manquillo all fail (or most of them fail) at Liverpool, then it will be a disaster and Rodgers will lose his job.

I'm not ready to write a single one of those players off at this stage, and nor should anyone really. They have all at least shown hints of promise, some more often than others.

In the last few games we have seen a more fluent Liverpool, a more creative Liverpool. Coutinho, Henderson and Sterling, three key players from last season have all gone through a difficult stretch. All have looked better recently. They will be key to us rediscovering our best form.

This season has been a perfect storm.
- Suarez left
- Sturridge injured
- Early losses leading to fragile confidence.
- Summer signings not hitting the ground running
- The manager making several mistakes and compounding them with more poor decisions.

Rodgers has made lots of mistakes this season.
- persisting with Glen Johnson is beyond a joke
- Gerrard has been awful. Rodgers either needs to do what he did last season, which was find a way to accommodate Gerrard in a way that helps the team, or he needs to bench the captain.
- Can has been underused
- the defense
- Mignolet should have been "rested" for one game only. Not indefinitely. A kick in the ass was worth a try, but this is getting ridiculous.

I don't know what the solution to the defensive issues are. I really thought time would improve our defense, but it hasn't. I wonder if a better goalkeeper would make a difference. I wonder if no Skrtel might help things, i wonder if a better holding midfielder might help things. I just don't know.

6 months ago, Rodgers led us to our best ever premier league campaign. At no other stage since we last won the league have we ever had the league in our hands that late in the campaign. Winning as we did against City in the highest pressure league match I can ever remember . . .
The notion that it was all Suarez is preposterous. Of course we couldn't have done it without Suarez, he was our best player. Just like we couldn't have finished 2nd under Rafa without Gerrard. But it's totally unfair to now diminish the efforts of not just the manager, but players like Sterling, Henderson, Coutinho, Sturridge, Gerrard, Flanagan etc. Don't forget that Suarez somewhat went off the boil on our run-in. Sterling and Coutinho, both of whom have impressed immensely under Rodgers, were our best players in that spell.

I think we can get back to playing the kind of football we did last season. We will never be as good, because we will almost certainly not have a player as good as Suarez (unless Sterling becomes that good with us), but we can be effective enough.

So to answer your question - it's certainly not clear right now that we are going in the right direction and our progress has very much stalled. It's unclear. Needs more time and more information. In the coming months we will learn a lot about the players we have bought and about the manager.

Tony Barrett said on Wednesday that Rodgers retains the support of the board, the support of the dressing room and, mostly, the support of the fans. The latter is probably the most fragile of the three, it's certainly wavering. But I'm still behind him because I believe he can turn it around, unhappy though I am with how the season has gone, and bemused though I am at some of his decisions.

Ardent wrote: »

On Emre Can, the rumour goes that his attitude is poor and he's lazy in training. Hence the lack of first team action.