comment by Robbing_Hoody - Part of FSG's black flag operation (U6374)
posted 18 minutes ago
Just to add though if we do win today then we'll be in good shape. Every season under BR we have gone on a long run of results. I believe this can happen again, why wouldn't I, so if we can get ourselves into a decent position and then produce 10-15 results on the bounce as we have before then we can get what the board, and fans, want.
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We have some tough fixtures in October so I doubt we will go on a run like we have done, but I agree that a win today followed by a win against Villa will mean that the pressure will be eased on the manager and I genuinely hope this happens. I'm hoping that he plays Sturridge, Benteke and Coutinho and they click. The dirth of genuine chances being created this season is a real concern.

I believe he's a good coach, what I'm unsure about is recruitment. With the the committee nonsense there is a lack of transparency, but the fact is that the manager will carry the can regardless.

This is the biggest game Rodgers has had since the title run in. Lose it and I think his position will become untenable. The next few weeks will be a question of when he goes not if.

i'm a long time hater of the phrase "must win match" as 99/100 its nonsense and just another match or said to create some unrealistic expectation (like v united away) to justify a meltdown after the likely outcome happens.

this, IMO, is actually a must win. support of the manager is balanced on a knife edge and this is a match we should be winning. easily.

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comment by The Kaiser's Trainers (U5676)
posted 2 minutes ago
i'm a long time hater of the phrase "must win match" as 99/100 its nonsense and just another match or said to create some unrealistic expectation (like v united away) to justify a meltdown after the likely outcome happens.

this, IMO, is actually a must win. support of the manager is balanced on a knife edge and this is a match we should be winning. easily.
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Wow Kaiser I was about to write basicly the same while reading everyone's comments. I hate the phrase must win. However I also see today's result has to be positive. Watching teams play yesterday (Watford, [my poor NUFC friend was pulling his hair out livid] and West Ham) they took risks and played positive football. There are times when you have to closed ranks and get a bit of luck however you buy that luck by pro-active not re-active football.

Only goals will sort us out of this mess we all know even if we put everyone back we still have a habbit of conceding. Give Benteke some support up top and give the fans something to cheer about. If no win today then I think I would give the manager a target of 3 wins needed (from the next 3 home games, Carlisle, Villa and Sion) as a minimum. If not my support for BR will be seriously in doubt.

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I'm guilty of selective phrasing / facts as much as anyone, but..

you could choose to say 6th best team in a poor league or you could say the side that just drew with a full strength PSG.

You could just say that's our side and reflects the state of the club or you could say half the side were young enough to be Kolo's kids (literally) and we gave other fringe players a go in an experimental side in a match we didn't care much about.

It's all down to the phrasing and what 'facts' you choose to include.

And I would also add that it has no relevance on the outcome today other than the tactical play from us was actually pretty decent for once this season.

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"Some seem to forget that the managers first and foremost responsibility is to send out a team to win the match."

I'm not sure that's entirely true in the cups. Rotation, getting prospects and fringe players match time, trying out tactics and working on problem areas seen in league matches (which are the priority), etc. may be viewed as more important than 3 points in a group match of a cup. Especially as it wasn't a knockout round and it was the toughest opponent away from home.

I don't think the result is all important today. What's vital is that Brendan gets back to his way of playing when he arrived here. That's what he was brought in for and that's what at one stage almost won us the league.

He won't survive much longer if he keeps wheeling out the pap that's on offer at the moment. Survival mode won't get him out of this fine mess.

"He won't survive much longer if he keeps wheeling out the pap that's on offer at the moment. Survival mode won't get him out of this fine mess."

agreed

i would be upset if we lost today, as long as we are returning to a style that will win us games.

the style we have been playing the last few games is not good enough to win us games, this season we have conceeded significantly more than we have scored.

There are alot of poor excuses being trotted out here,

such as "we have 4 winnable games coming up" Before the bordeaux game those same posters were talking about 5 winnable games, and are now saying a draw was a great result.

OR

"We will have sturridge back" Brendan has had 4 years to build a competitive SQUAD, it should not be reliant on one player to play any particular style, nor to get results, He bought in 3 and 1/2 strikers this summer, we shouldnt need to wait for sturridge to play an attacking style.

Tactically we have been very poor, on every match thread so far people have been able to post better formations for the players on the pitch, let alone better formations including players left out.

Brendan has lost his nerve, the performance is more important than the results now. If he is going to continue to sit hoping not to conceed then he needs to go.

that football will leave us midtable.

Without being negative, its all very well saying that wen studge is back he will form a great partnership with benteke(which I too believe wen fit), however out problems are tactical mostly.
We wud score more and create more, even without Sturridge, if Rodgers was playing 2 up front at any point this season. We had other strikers with similar attributes to studge(pace) who could have played up until studge returned. But he didn't use a system with 2. His plan was 4231 so hendo and Milner could do this double axis crap. As soon as Jordan was injured he returned to his "go to" system, the much maligned, 433. Even though none of our players really fit this system. It was the opposite of what we needed. He isolated benteke, put our creative player and a striker out wide and played half the team in unsuited positions!!!
If he was preparing for studge, it would have made sense to play a system that wud suit the two strikers and have Coutinho behind for a few games after his ideal 4231 went out the window.
I believe he is pinning all his hopes on sturridges pace and trickery to stretch teams and give us space to play and create and relieve pressure on the back four.

If he starts today with a team that includes players that did well in Europe , and a system that gives more support up front and allows Coutinho freedom, as well as players in their ideal places, then I'll believe that he has a plan that might get us playing the "BR WAY" and start winning games
Until then I remain skeptical that he hasn't just started panicking and lost faith in his own philosophy

the biggest factor in no obvious signs of improvement is our best players leaving like clockwork and acceptable replacements not wanting to join.

we're stuck in a holding pattern

If (when) Coutinho gets tempted to leave by offers from proper title challengers It's going to get worse yet again.

We can't build a side when it's being dismantled as fast as it's built. And it gets harder and harder to build when everyone views you as a stepping stone or a selling club.

Vicious reality.

comment by Insert random username (U10647)
posted 16 minutes ago
i would be upset if we lost today, as long as we are returning to a style that will win us games.

the style we have been playing the last few games is not good enough to win us games, this season we have conceeded significantly more than we have scored.

There are alot of poor excuses being trotted out here,

such as "we have 4 winnable games coming up" Before the bordeaux game those same posters were talking about 5 winnable games, and are now saying a draw was a great result.

OR

"We will have sturridge back" Brendan has had 4 years to build a competitive SQUAD, it should not be reliant on one player to play any particular style, nor to get results, He bought in 3 and 1/2 strikers this summer, we shouldnt need to wait for sturridge to play an attacking style.

Tactically we have been very poor, on every match thread so far people have been able to post better formations for the players on the pitch, let alone better formations including players left out.

Brendan has lost his nerve, the performance is more important than the results now. If he is going to continue to sit hoping not to conceed then he needs to go.

that football will leave us midtable.
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I actually said we'd draw 1-1 against Bordeaux in the prediction league, so I wasn't saying 5 winnable games. But I am saying we have four, and anyone who doesn't think we'll win each of these games on paper needs their head looking at, IMO.

I agree with what you say with regards to BR shouldn't be relying on Sturridge's return. But I'm being a realist, and the fact is, he is relying on it, and he's not the first manager in history to be in this position. He has lost his nerve, but we have to hope that Sturridge's return is the catalyst for him to regain it.

See, it is possible to be critical of the manager, yet at the same time look for the positives. The easiest thing in the world is to come on here and constantly drip. I can't stand that attitude, it's a form of stupidity.

i dont constantly drip, i retained my faith in rodgers and staunchly defended him pretty much up to the united game, im generally a pretty positive person.

however, the dross he is serving up is not the liverpool way, its like he knows he has lost it and is trying to draw his tenure out.

He has served up rubbish football game after game since he made a jibe at mourinho about it being easy to coach a defensive team.

even last year when we had winning streaks it was because we werent conceeding rather than winning because we were good in attack.

I buy the line our strikers last year were awful, he has addressed that this summer with firmino, benteke, ings and origi.

and still he doesn't play them and is sticking to the dross usually seen served up at stamford bridge. he WILL lose support from liverpool fans if he keeps trying to grind out 1-0 wins, the fans turned against houllier, rafa and hodgson when they all panicked and turned to it.

Liverpool fans on the whole pride themselves on appreciation of exciting attacking football, brendan acknowledged as much when he joined, now he seems to be trying to turn the clubs mentality to prove a point he failed to make long ago.

I want brendan to succeed even more than the next guy, and i have several times pointed out that fergie was games from the sack at united, and we need to be really careful with this situation, but each game brendan grinds down my optimism a little more with the way he approaches the games.

It's all well and good saying is it really that bad but throw the results and points out of the window and look at the football we've played and the performances we put in and we have been truly woeful. We've scored 3 goals in 5 games, one was offside and the other 2 were worldies and we need to improve before we find ourselves out of the race for top 4.

The dripping comment wasn't necessarily directed at yourself, I know you don't do it

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comment by Kolo's Long Schłong! KLS , it's them Scooters again. ⚽️ (U1695)
posted 47 seconds ago
It's all well and good saying is it really that bad but throw the results and points out of the window and look at the football we've played and the performances we put in and we have been truly woeful. We've scored 3 goals in 5 games, one was offside and the other 2 were worldies and we need to improve before we find ourselves out of the race for top 4.


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If you read it properly I actually said our football has been turgid. I'm looking at the bigger picture and trying to take the positives. It doesn't mean I'm happy with how things are. But I choose not to wallow in self pity and negativity.

I agree with what you say with regards to BR shouldn't be relying on Sturridge's return. But I'm being a realist, and the fact is, he is relying on it, and he's not the first manager in history to be in this position. He has lost his nerve, but we have to hope that Sturridge's return is the catalyst for him to regain it.
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It would not surprise me if Rodgers intended to start this season the same way he did in 13/14. If you think back to those first 5 games that year we started solid but didn't really play well and got 10 points from 15 (albeit against weaker sides) and it wasn't until Suarez came back that we started to play better football.

It would not surprise me if he had the same train of thought this season. Start solid and wait until out best goalscorer is back.

Where's the self pity?

I don't really agree with much of that at all RAP, sorry

agree to disagree then.

I find the whole situation very frustrating.

I honestly think that Brendan has a bit about him. It's also great to have a young forward thinking British coach in charge.

We all know he can set out a team to play good attacking football and to play positively. So why does he just not go out and stick to his principals? Some say he's lost his nerve, if that's the case it's very sad to see.
In some ways it's encouraging to see he's doing something about the defensive frailties we have and it will be a devil of a job to get it right.

As it is right now he need the fans support and the best way to do that is put on a great attacking performance this afternoon and tonk Norwich.

I for one hope he survives and proves his doubters wrong myself included. I just have this awful feeling that he just doesn't have the wherewithal to carry out his original plan.

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