#TAWMAG6 Russell Brand features on one of the covers
Neil, Peter Hooton, Kristian Walsh and Andy Heaton chew over all the Stoke City vs Liverpool fat. There was loads to chew. Masterclasses and defensive shambles and Chad…
PODCAST – SASSY
// TAW SHOP
// TAW APP
// PARTNERS
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I think Charlie Adam’s goal celebration was “peeling off notes”, like his mates had put money on him scoring against Liverpool and were now collecting their winnings.
love the shows guys. But cant listen to Andy and his husky voice. Its very irritating and he talks to much. Sorry Andy. Get Gareth Roberts back please!!
Very good podcast. A lot of interesting points to discuss and discussed thoroughly and brilliantly. I didn’t get chance to listen to the City Talk podcast until today. Being a bit of a troll I chuckled to myself when the host asked the guests for their predictions for Stoke. It struck me how rare it is for the predictions to be correct. I’m certainly wrong but Kristian Walsh’s 2-2 shout against Swansea is the last I remember.
Anyway, yesterday I was trying to kill time before the game and looked at our defensive personnel this season. As it was touched on the podcast I thought I’d share the results. What I was interested in was the number of different combinations we’ve had. Yesterday was our 24th competitive match this season and our 17th unique defensive combination. Cardiff, Spurs and West Ham was the only 3 game unchanged run but there has been three 2 game unchanged runs. Sakho seems to be the most solid of the centre halves. I’ve said it time and time again but much as Skrtel looks brilliant at times, what he gives the opposition a few times in a match makes me think Toure is the best partner for Sakho this season. He also has lapses but they’re not as serious and I have more confidence in him. Interestingly, we still haven’t seen a centre half partnership of Toure and Sakho as such. They’ve started 6 games together but Skrtel has played in all 6 in either a 5 man defense or with Toure at right back.
Regarding Mignolet, the N comes after the G and the G is silent. (why do the Scouse Liverpool fans have to have a different pronunciation of every players name?) I’d be very surprised if he was bought as any kind of stop gap. I definitely think the primary motive of signing him was FSG’s age over wage over resell value formula but Peter made a very valid point on the podcast about the team spirit. Under Rodgers that is a key requirement and fits alongside his mental positivity, his new age philosophies and his yoga. Maybe TAW can get him to recommend a psychic for the predictions. The point was going to be that I think Rodgers would have been keen to replace Pepe as he said ‘he’d gone a bit stale of late and maybe lost some of his drive’. Getting a young keeper in to grow into the role would certainly have appealed more all round. It’s all about the team spirit. No excuse for the 3rd goal yesterday though. He’s got to stop them. P.s I’m quite aware Reina was a big personality in the dressing room but I feel it was more about the enthusiasm Mignolet would have to do well.
One thing I wondered was, has Rodgers taken one for the club. What was he fined for his ref outburst? Around 8k? He can afford it and if we’re gonna get pens like that one yesterday then lets hope he complains a bit more. Don’t think I’ve ever seen us awarded such a soft pen. Just a quick word on Sterling, I think people, including myself, were so quick to write him off because there was a spell when he looked like he was getting shoved off the ball like he was a child. Absolute respect to him for the strength he’s shown lately.
Finally, on Suarez. He’s completely changed the way I watch football. I’m one of those horrible fuckers who never thinks we’re gonna win, never thinks we’re gonna hold on if we’re ahead or get back in it if we’re not, so it’s a very tense and unpleasant experience watching football (when i watch my kids team I have that white pasted saliva plastered all over my lips by full time from the adrenaline of the intensity – I look more like I’ve just bounced out of a club than watched a match). Recently though, I’ve been sitting back relaxed and just laughing at the skill he shows. I’ve been watching Liverpool nearly 35 years and never seen anything like it. It’s ridiculous.
Pepe Reine didn’t want to play for Liverpool any more. What do you not understand about that.
Reina asked to leave in the H&G mess, he was denied because he was a prized asset on the books. His form then took a downward spiral. He wanted to move to Barca, but they have never came in for him. He can’t moan about being replaced, his 2010+ form is nothing like his prior excellence. He was mostly going through the motions, and certainly not worth his £120k/week CL level wages.
Despite Mignolet’s shaky moments, he has clearly made saves Reina wouldn’t have made since the change in ownership, and earned us points where Reina would have been digging the ball out of the net with the game lost.
Personally, I don’t think that’s a fair reflection of Reina, mate. He was a loyal servant to Liverpool. Whatever the papers said is one thing but he said he wanted to see out his contract, therefore probably his career, at Liverpool. He was there in the darkest days of the club and in the end it took the club to push him out the door for him leave. Even if he had been tempted by a move to Barca – can you blame him? Being the top keeper he was he sacrificed his career (in respect of silverware and recently champions League football) to stay. I think most would agree something was effecting his play in the last few seasons whether it his change of coach or personal reasons isn’t clear. I was ok with going. Sometimes a change can add new impetus as was certainly the case at Napoli for him but maybe for us too. If we make the CL though the team I wanna play most is Reina’s team so we can show our appreciation for him in a way that circumstance denied in the summer.
No one blames him for wanting out, especially when it’s a chance to go to Barca. The Hodge time must have been particularly unpleasant for him. Whether his agent was talking to Barca, or they were sowing the seeds of dissent, we’ll never know. No one came in for him, though, did they? Which is a little telling. I guess clubs were probably put off by his massive wages. Few players are going to kick up a stink to leave when there are millions in bonuses and whatnot going to players that don’t ask to leave. They’d have to be bang on their prime and looking to jump up a level or get a whopping pay rise.
I think we’ll be seeing him in the stands cheering the side on once his future is settled. He could teach Mingolet a few things about how to use feet!
imagine sitting next to robin crimes
hahaha. I’m alright when Suarez is playing.
I love in suarez’s first goal how he manages to get inside both centre backs heads one after the other and move to exactly where they play the ball, truly incredible.
Re their first, I thought actually suarez was most at fault there because although he had done a great job of tracking back to help out Johnson (which he actually probably didn’t need to), when it was time to close down the cross he just let him waltz back around to put it on crouches head. Not really faulting him though as not many centre forwards would have been there in the first place but I don’t think toure could have done much about it. On the ease with which we are allowing opposition teams to get their crosses in, I am starting to wonder whether it is some kind of moneyball thinking that you are statistically more likely to concede a goal by running out and being beaten by your man than by a ball crossed in directly. In any case I think it is one of the main reasons why our backs are struggling to clear the crosses is not only because the quality of the crosses are usually much better, but also because the defender gets no warning as to when they get put in and therefore can’t tighten up to their man in the half second before. This was most obvious to me when wisdom allowed evra to cross it for van persie in the league cup. At the time agger wasn’t that far from van persie but he just wasn’t able to time his challenge before van persie could sweep it in. So I realize this is drawing a bit of a long bow, but if in fact this is what we are doing, then perhaps the fullback should at least try to coax the opposition player to put the ball in at predicable moment rather than just standing stock still 2-3 metres from the ball and allow them to pick their time and place.
Also on the subject of statistics, I think the correct odds on Adam smashing that ball through skrtels legs into the side netting would be at least 1 in 1000. 1 in 20 is more like the odds for Adam not smashing it into the roof of the stadium, multiply that with the odds of picking the perfect spot between skrtel’s legs and with that coinciding with the side netting and the luck required only comes to players playing against their former team who dropped them. At least it didn’t prove costly like the shelvey goals though :)
Enjoyed the Niall Quinn chat
The thing that I liked the most in this game was the mental strength and resilience shown by the team. Not only were we going to a ground where we had a very poor record, we did it having watched City, Chelsea, Spurs, Everton, United and to a lesser extent Southampton all take three points from their respective games. Immense pressure even before a ball had been kicked. Then to go in to half time 2-2 after just conceding 2, a mentally weak team would have just rolled over. We didn’t, we went on to score another 3 goals without playing particularly well. This team is starting to believe it is never out of a game, and that’s a great quality to have going forward
what is it about our midfield that when Gerrard is in there, even as the deepest DM, teams get to drive a coach and horses through it.
SG giving away possession with his over ambitious passes didn’t help of course (fine infront of the half way line, but not up TO the half way line) but boy was our midfield shocking.
I disagree with everyone about skrtel, and he’s my least favourite defender but he’s been the standout defender this season.
I’m glad he’s giving as good as he gets when defending, the refs haven’t called it so it’s right that he keeps doing it – and the coaches have clearly told him to go hassle attackers given that he’s the ultimate “empty it” defender – ie he never used to do this.
People need to know they won’t get their own way in our box.
Looks like Stoke’s defence are struggling to emerge from their neanderthal existence to move to an actual ball playing team type existing under the perma – bitter Hughes. Nice for us to get 5.
Here’s hoping we can demolish Villa in the 1st half, though they will put up a fight. We’ll play better than Arsenal but will remain prone to the counter attack.
Question for the next podcast:
Will the tories push another housing bubble for the election which of course will ultimately lead to an increase in prices for everything else – including matchday tickets and merchandise?