Newcastle vs Liverpool 12:45 KO

I can't see him lasting the season..

I don't care what people say about last season he has spend millions and millions on our defence and it is just as bad as it was the day he started..

His attacking pressing play seems to have fallen apart without SUAREZ and the excuse is Sturridge is injured..

He spent 20 million on Markovic who yes night become good but really we needed a player who could come into our first team and hit the ground running if we wanted to continue any kind of progression. Lallana cost 25 million and he doesn't know how to fit him into a system with Coutinho and Sterling. And he signed Ballotelli who can't fit our system specially as a lone striker and we are toothless up front..

Let's not dress this down anything other than what it is a complete disgrace we have not been this poor since the Roy Hodgson days...!!!

Dark days ahead I fear..

Cheers KLS!

My pleasure lads!

He will still be here next year.

He spoke a few weeks ago about needing to go through the processes that lead to our attacking style at the back end of last season, he said it was necessary with such an influx of players to re-learn the methods that would be lost with such an upheaval of the squad.

Thats what i think he is doing here, those players need time to bed in, Some players hit the ground running, such as cout and studge, but that was two players being bought in to an established style, not 6 players being bought in to a team that has just lost its best player.

Other players take time to settle, suarez dident set the world alight in his first year, neither did henderson, yet last season they were both immense, lucas took more than two years to settle, and before a spate of knee injuries was the best DM in the league two years running (statistically)

As for balotelli fitting the system, he will fit the diamond, today we saw his propensity to drift wide and play off the wing, exactly what suarez did (and studge does on the right) to stretch defenses last season, this pulls the CBs wide, and leaves space for sterling (tip of the diamond ) to exploit along with the other attacker.

and so we come back to the first comment, the fact that brendan said in an interview, we need to re-learn the principles that bought us to this effective style of play.

It seems to me he has every intention of shifting us back, and then he will be able to rotate through the squad effectively, sadly it looks like we will need sturridge for it to work, why this is, who knows, perhaps borini isnt showing the necessary nous in training to play it, dont forget he is essentially a new signing too, he spent the whole of last year playing sunderlands style of football. as for playing lambert and balo up front together, they are the same style of player, and to have two up front you sacrifice the width. width you need with two ponderous slow players up front.

The one thing people should be questioning, is why no cover for sturridge was bought, and the answer seems clear: Borini refused to leave.

We dont know what sort of wage budget brendan has to play with.

We're doomed, doomed I tell ya!

Al good abive but how xome he still has nit solved the defemce situation?

comment by Goofy One (U16087)
posted less than a minute ago
Al good abive but how xome he still has nit solved the defemce situation?
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Giu ht vrrvxs. Jut bu BFF

comment by Goofy One (U16087)
posted 5 minutes ago
Al good abive but how xome he still has nit solved the defemce situation?
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Thats a bigger question.

When Carra, a RCB retired, he bought in Toure and Sakho.

This season he sold Agger and bought in Lovren, again bringing in a new LCB

We also know that we tried to sell Toure this season, and he too, refused to leave. Presumably had toure left, we would have bought a new RCB too. or would have deployed wisdom there (its where he ultimately will end up)

To me the problem is clear, our first choice RCB, is skrtel, who, lest we forget: got displaced by carragher for the six months leading up to jamies retirement, due to how dire he had been playing.

for me, Rodgers bought Toure in to address the RCB spot for a year, we were out of europe and despite looking to buy one, we had no luck, we managed however to bring in Sakho, bags of potential and out of favour at a sugar daddy club.

Skrtel was dropped at the start of last season, in favour of toure, untill injury forced us to turn to him vs united, he actually had a good game or two with three at the back, and scored a few goals, which i think sadly glossed over his own goals and individual errors leading to goals. toure had chances back in the team and looked awful, so skrtel was our best option

Skrtels high goal return may have led brendan to believe that getting a commanding LCB to partner him could sort out some of the defensive issues while retaining his goal threat on corners. So agger was shipped out and lovren bought in.

However lovren hasnt fixed the issue, and there are still the individual errors.

I think his goals last year earned martin a second crack at the whip. i certainly think if toure had left, and we had replaced him, the understudy may be getting a chance soon, however at this point we are stuck with a RCB option of Bad or Worse.

we have now tried three LCB's with skrtel, and none of the pairings have worked, i personally wouldnt have minded trying Lovren - Agger as a partnership, Agger used to try and command the defence, and i think with another like minded CB could probably have maintained a solid defence, even if one was out of position.

At some point (and after trying three partners with him, i think its time to try a different tack) we need to look at martin as being the problem, the fact is, any CB who is commanding in the air will get chances from gerrards set peice delivery. however the priority is actually not conceeding.

For all that being said, once again, being in a back three today we looked defensively solid, bar two mistakes from Moreno. but we cant put someone either side of Skrtel to accomodate his set peice threat.

I don't know why we are still talking about defenders being a problem. When we've tightened up the past two games our defence have been fine, apart from a Moreno moment when he should have cleared with his weaker right foot. This confirms what many of us thought. We had an all out attack style which put the defenders and goalkeeper under pressure too often. Last season we were able to out score teams and keep them on the back foot, this season we haven't been, thus the tightening up of the system.

Our problems are in scoring goals.

In short we have a new balance to find and we need to find it quick and hope Sturridge comes back firing.

what happened to illori?