NEIL ATKINSON was joined by Gareth Roberts, Martin Fitzgerald and Keith Costigan in the aftermath of Liverpool’s 2-2 draw with Arsenal
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NEIL ATKINSON was joined by Gareth Roberts, Martin Fitzgerald and Keith Costigan in the aftermath of Liverpool’s 2-2 draw with Arsenal
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Great show. Agree with Neil about dropping Gerrard into the three, I was advocating this last season Could be disastrous, could prolong his career. Carrick is the model but then again, Carrick’a a lot smarter than Stevie….
Bit of conjecture here given Keith’s point about Rodgers and Sakho: Could it be that he blames him for the skipper’s slip against Chelsea last season? Even subconsciously? Pure speculation, of course, but you do wonder quite what drives Brendan’s animus towards a player who is clearly better than Lovren.
I’ve had this argument with mates about Sakho’s role in the slip. I watched the Vine over 100 times and I completely fail to see how Sakho is even mentioned in it. Typical agenda driven bullshit. I think Rodgers likes players with weak personalities and Sakho’s character is too big for him. Just a thought.
Totally agree with you Robin. Anyone who blames Sakho for that goal is a sycophantic bellend.
Stop sayind “Janes” it is JONES ffs. Sorry it is just beyond irritating
What?!
Jesus, took nearly 4 hours to listen to that. What weirdo feels the need to actually do work on the 22nd December and disturb me in the process?
Great point made by Martin about Balotelli. I was there that night too and I remember how buzzing everyone was. I too immediately went on Wiki and read about him and thought he’d do well for us. I don’t think Martin was being sarcastic when he said about no one actually scouting him. I think that’s exactly how it was.
There’s also a point that we could have had Bony for £19m. At the time I wasn’t keen on him being Suarez’s replacement but then I’m not paid to know whether he’s any good or not. I wouldn’t be surprised if we bought him for upwards of £25m which would be typical of us. I think he’d do well for us too.
Funny point made by Gareth too Re: Forest Gump. One of the oddest things I’ve seen. I thought Borini was gonna stop when he got off the pitch. I really felt for him, as I did Markovic in the Basel game. I’d love it if Borini was brilliant. I like most things about him except how good he isn’t. Shame.
I feel embarrassed to give constructive criticism because of how good everything about the site is but here goes. If the only opening question you can get is that poor just move on.
I’d go with scrapping the opening question altogether unless it’s y’know, about footy.
Re Borini, his running straight down the tunnel made perfect sense to me. If he’d stopped he might have gone nuts and done something he’d regret even more than the sending off.
It’s just something we’ve always done and is part of the show, lads.
Fair enough, it’s your show, though following that logic through, do you think Stevie will still be turning out for us in 2025? And if so, in what position? Might be worth giving him a go between the sticks, he could still take free kicks and pens.
Apologies for that. I shouldn’t have put that because it reflects badly on TAW when that wasn’t the intention. I like the opening question. I like knowing a little bit more about people than just their footy views. It was actually a little underhand and childish. In a nutshell, I despise Kopology over an incident on Twitter. I think it was his question. He makes my blood boil and my initial thought was what a pathetic question but then I would have whatever it was, haha, so apologies, wasn’t aimed at TAW.
I like the opening question even this weeks Xmas dinner; can’t believe no one said Goose or lobster instead of turkey
If we go for Bony, I don’t think he is going to solve our problems. I’m sure he can do a job for us and will probably be more lethal in front of goal that Balotelli or Lambert, but he is a still completely different type of striker to Sturridge or Suarez.
I watched a video of all his goals from last season. Only one goal was a fast break. Lot’s of goals from crosses, pens, re-bounds, but nothing to suggest he would enable us to play our natural game any more than Balotelli does.
Yeah, truth is, I don’t really know that much about him. I’ve just read a lot of journalists saying his movement is very good. Struck a chord with me. I didn’t want him in the summer but like I say, I’m not paid to find the right striker for us and he might be good for us.
Really enjoyed that – thanks lads. Martin Fitzgerald was especially interesting and funny.
I think people are generally too hard on Sakho. Admittedly, he looks ungainly/awkward and the first goal was partly his fault ‘cos he challenged Kolo for the first header. But otherwise, I thought he was very good. I think his passing is underrated. Just like Lucas, he has a nice habit of making vertical passes, which can be potent in the transition.
Agree that whatever BR’s doing with Jones/Mignolet has to stop right now. Do we have a 3rd choice ‘keeper? Someone in the stiffs? Is Andy Heaton up for a game?!
As with the lads, I’m a bit confused by the whole man-crush that BR seems to have on Stevie G. He hasn’t been playing well. His set-pieces have been pretty poor and he continually shows that he can’t manage the game on the pitch, either by talking to the ref, geeing up his team or settling people down then needed. Why we’re not seeing Can at least come on for Gerrard more often, I don’t know.
Finally, it was good to hear some timely praise for Coutinho. He’s been our best player this season and against Madrid, I thought Coutinho was our only player who looked like he belonged in that company. I’m frustrated with BR’s treatment of him. Invariably he’s the first to be substituted and I’d hate for him to get fed up and leave. We need to build a team around him. But first, we might need to make sure we get him a pair of shooting boots.
Well done all, really enjoyed this podcast. Would like to hear Keith again, thought he made a very interesting contribution.
Is it so hard to say Lucas played well, Gerrard didn’t? And that it’s a pattern?
As for the captaincy, if he’s so good off the field let’s make him club captain, because he’s not a leader on the field. The Borussia Dortmund model’s the way to go: Sebastian Kehl.
Lucas will be gone, the club touts him out all of the time, but his massive wages put potential clubs off.
Great, I really enjoyed it. Keep off the ale before the show lads it makes listening so much easier!
Lucas is a far superior option to Gerrard currently, yet Gerrard’s contribution however limited is praised to a degree, whilst Lucas’, however effective and central to what we do always has caveats attached.
Loved the comments on Balotelli, WTF indeed.
Totally agree with all your points. There was a fantastic moment during the game when Graeme le Saux praised Gerrard for playing a one-two with Lucas in a tight situation. He then blootered it out of touch. The silence was deafening.
Great to hear Martin make the Gerrard/Robson analogy. I’ve been talking about this for years. United only became a big club again once they moved on from Captain Fantastic. Ferguson’s phasing out of Robson was masterful. Brendan could learn a thing or two from the purple twat. United were never going to win the league when they based their game around one player, sure they could beat us once or even twice a season, but they weren’t good enough. Putting all your eggs in one basket is what small clubs do.
Great show. It was nice to hear from Keith Costigan. I remember seeing him in Los Angeles after an LA Galaxy game. Gave me a thumbs up for an old Reds shirt I had on. Was one of the few good commentators on one of the American footy shows I watched whilst there.
BTW I quite like the opening question. Perhaps, at times, it edges toward the nonsensical but it makes for a good laugh! Keep up the good work.
With regards to Mignolet, he’s never really had a spell at Anfield where he could honestly be described as improving. He was as good in his first few months as he’s ever been and now he is clearly a lesser player.
Now we can see why. He can’t have felt under any pressure for his place at all, with Jones as his rival. No wonder he hasn’t got any better.
A couple of seasons ago, Mignolet and Courtois were regarded as being on about the same level – perhaps even more recently than that.
The difference is that Courtois has Peter Czec to keep out of the team. Not just the best Premier League goalie of the last decade, but a guy who had his head caved-in when on duty. That’s what you call a club legend and Czec is obviously still good enough to play at the highest level.
You need 2 quality keepers. The situation at Chelsea is perfect for them and they would be daft to let Czec go, especially to a club like us.
I think we need to look at Acterberg too, the goal keeping coach. He came and Reinas form took a massive dip and now after only a year Mignolet has dipped considerably too.
Good point. He got the job after playing for Tranmere for about ten years and then spending a short time with the academy. He is woefully under-qualified. Our club is just so badly run.
You would think that someone like Hyypia (coaching both the defence and the keepers) would do a far better job, even though he was never a keeper himself. He’s been a top player in a team that was defensively very strong. I doubt that even Jones thinks Acterberg is good enough to be giving him advice.
Reina’s form went after H&G told him he could not leave the sinking ship, because he was a large asset on the books. He’s a massive bloater these days, sadly his best was 5+ years ago.
Come off it mate. First rule of being a fan – don’t let facts, reality and common sense get in the way of us having a good moan or having a stick to beat the club with.
Acterberg joined in June 09 after that great season we had. Reina had just had a great season himself. Acterberg was still in his 30s when he joined us as a coach and had only stopped playing 2 yrs previous. Not exactly a lot of experience to coach a club with top notch aspirations is it?! Reinas form soon dropped and now Mignolets form has dropped considerably too. No ones doubting that Reinas best yrs are behind him now but I find it mighty strange that both keepers game has became worse under the same inexperienced coach. If you wanna believe it’s got to do with H&G then that your prerogative.
Yeah, don’t get me wrong, I completely agree about Acterberg. My point was only about everyone remembering Reina (and Agger) from their best days.
Great pod lads, love it when ya have Martin on. Happy Christmas
How can a proper LFC supporter, whose opinion and commentary I take seriously, be “surprised” at the mid-range vertical passing Lucas has been doing since he’s been reintroduced to the matchday squad and starting XI? And then claim that he didn’t remember him doing much of that previously? I can’t help it if I now forever take whatever he says about anything/anyone with a grain of salt. Also, letting Keith finish his thought without interrupting with the 134255th repetition of the same, somewhat inane, point would be neat.
Borini cannot just be praised for his industry and passion. His header was oytstandin :-) and so were his shots on target.
I was a bit surprised at how inept Arsenal were (pretty damning that we conceded 2 goals to them in a so called more cohesive display, dear lord what a season!).
We were pretty vulnerable on the wings and Wenger put 3 attackers up for the break away but Wenger was just too incompetent to attack our wings properly. Arsenal were terrible and have been on the road all season, yet we couldn’t beat them. Pretty damning.
We’ll get a much harder time in this formation against other teams.
It was interesting they played 4231 (sort of) and looked terrible as they failed to hold the midfield being outnumbered just like we used to a few games back (and England did before the Swiss game incidentally). Together with inept passing from them they just couldn’t set their attackers on their way giving us a much easier afternoon than many other teams will. Yet they still got 2 goals. No point in going on about Brad Jones when our defending was so dire.
The skrtel goal was ok but it was really just the law of averages, we will get those goals once in a while eg stoke, here but not often enough. He moves away from Debuchy but sideways rather than forwards for their first goal which keeps him onside and means he can’t challenge for the header.
He’s done that before, doesn’t like defending against people near the post, always wants to move central.
We’re a bit lost aren’t we? Don’t see anyone ready to admit it.
We have lots of full backs now but can’t play them in this formation. We play them and move Gerrard and Lovren out but can’t create enough or score.
The big change this year has been BR moving us to a single forward and we really haven’t made it work at all.
Each season Brendan tries to get us playing in a certain way he has in his head. It fails, and each season he’s had to abandon it and last season we went all out for a direct counter attacking style of play.
That’s fine but it did mean we couldn’t play a different more patient style, as this season showed us (although exacerbated by Gerrard and Lovren).
So BR is trying to change it again to something that works, that we can do and it’s tough. Really not sure how much legs this formation has but I guess we’ll play it until we get spanked doing it – probably by West Ham. They’ll love attacking the wing backs.
So I suggest we’re basically lost. we don’t have the forwards to stretch play , BR doesn’t believe in a defensive midfield structure to protect the defence – it was with great reluctance that he brought Lucas back into the line up ( to save his job). Gerrard has to play every game so we lose mobility and any defensive thinking where ever he happens to be.
so we keep trying various formations which will last 3 or 4 games until it gets picked apart.
Isn’t it obvious that we simply don’t have a coach who can implement a way of playing that makes us dangerous and defensively resilient? The 180 page dossier, yeah whatever. If we’re not defensively resilient 2 and 1/3 seasons into BR’s reign, it aint gonna happen anytime soon. And if that’s the case then how is BR the right man for the job?
The stick Brad jones is getting is a bit OTT. If you over analyse , as you do , then look again at the 1st goal against Utd . You should note that in front , to his left ,is a defender. So the instinctive thing to do is dive right as left seems to be covered . But Roony curls it around Skittle (sic) into the far corner. No keeper was ever going to get it . Ditto the other goals by Arsenal : header from 4 yards out . Low Shot from 4.5 yards . (That I used to work with his mum in Oz has nowt to do with my defending him .)
We would probably do better with his mam between the sticks.
Every goal he has let in could have been saved, for me. I’m not suggesting he could have realistically been expected to keep them all out, but he just isn’t getting close to anything. He doesn’t even look athletic enough to kick the ball very far and gives the impression of a nerdy kid doing PE at school.
He wouldn’t get in any other Premier League side. He would struggle to get in a Championship team. The worst keeper I’ve ever seen play for us and it’s hard to think of a worse player in any position.