NEIL ATKINSON is joined by Sean Rogers and John Gibbons to talk though Liverpool’s 4-1 defeat at Arsenal on this week’s Tuesday Review.
Sean makes a defence of Moreno while discussing the lack of outlets. Liverpool’s form across the year is examined.
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It’s true that we probably need to scale back expectations now, for the next few years. We will probably qualify occasionally for the Champions League. A strike rate of 1 in 3 seems plausible – we can reasonably expect one of the 4 teams that will usually qualify to have a season that falls apart every few years. We need to make sure that we always have enough points in the bag to pounce when this happens.
I don’t mind us being a selling club and a place for young talent to get game time, before moving on to better things.
We should be rational about it though and stop acting as though the likes of Madrid, Barcelona and Bayern were still our peers. We need young players who are likely to come in and make a definitive contribution from an early stage. There seems little point in nurturing sublime-yet-fragile latin players, if they are going to leave us in their early to mid-20s (that’s if they turn out to be top-quality).
An arrangement with a club like Bayern could make sense for both clubs. We can give game time to their top young players who are still a long way off from breaking into their first XI. German players (or players that have at least spent time playing in Germany) should take less time to adapt to the Premier League. They are also more likely to feel settled in the city, if they speak English well and can deal with it being freezing for 6 months of the year.
That doesn’t mean that we turn our back on young players from outside of Northern Europe, but the current squad is crying out for players that have excellent technical ability, a robust physicality and who won’t be pushed around by older players from crap Premier League teams visiting Anfield.
Last season was really just a blip and down to two men – Suarez and Moyes (although it would have only taken one of them being in their jobs for us to have ended up qualifying). United will never have a manager as under-qualified as him again and most of us probably won’t see another player of Suarez’ quality, playing at the height of his ability for Liverpool.
We can feel blessed that we got to see Suarez playing for Liverpool in his pomp, but it is hopeless looking for a replacement that bears any kind of likeness. Sanchez is still nowhere near that level and he didn’t even want to join us when we finished 2nd and qualified. If we don’t get real, we will just chase our own tail again this summer and be humiliated again.
We need a conveyor-belt of players that can hit the ground running and regularly get us 68-75 points. I know that our fans all want to win the league, but there is no logical reason for that to happen for many years.
These are tough times, but things can change and the landscape of the game may be different several years from now. Right now, we need to swallow a big lump of pride and batten down the hatches.
We have 4 empires above us in England, but empires always fall in the end (as ours did). We need to have the mentality of a ruthless flock of vultures, always circling and ready to devour the weak member of the herd when it starts to fall behind.
@lady in the van..last time I looked LFC had 90 pieces of winners trophies to show for 123 years of existence..forget the trophies missed out on being runners up.. you really dont think we should be looking at our historical right to be winners..and become a feeder club for the big boys…. how about this easy solution…why dont we bring in a proven winner to coach the team..and forget the experiment with apprentices !! EASY RIGHT
The last time we won the league, it was called Division 1. Other teams that were in it included Millwall, Charlton, Sheffield Wednesday, Luton Town, Coventry City and Wimbledon.
The two-time European Cup-winning Notts Forest finished 9th, while another side to have won that trophy (Aston Villa) were runners-up. Man United finished 13th with 48 points..
One member of our squad from that season is now 64 years of age.
I remember little else from the campaign. I spent most of that year dancing in fields, cheerfully tossing LSD tabs down my neck and feeling very proud of my red Fila high-top trainers and fetching leather Africa medallion.
‘F*** football’, I thought. ‘I’ll get back into that next season’.
What a defeatist person you are ‘lady ‘.
We should and need to be eating at the top table. NO DEBATE. If the manager / administration can’t deliver then they go.
Great podcast! Love the I out from Sean Rogers regarding tactics. Absolutely spot on. Would love a link to the stats you were taking about re: records against teams in the bottom half etc please?
My view is we clearly need goals and we should absolutely use our best assets to ache ibe this for the rest of the season. To me – it means going 4-3-3:
Mignolet
Johnson Skrtel Sako Moreno
Can
Hendo Coutinho
Balotelli
Sterling Sturridge
Potentially swap Balo and Raheem. I’m easy about Johnson or Manquillo so not really that bothered about which.