NEIL ATKINSON, Rob Gutmann and Paul Senior cram in the back of Rob’s Dodge to deliver their immediate verdict on another disappointing result for Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool in ‘The Pink’.
THE PINK – WEST BROMWICH ALBION
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Thinking Balotelli played well in that game is where I turn this one off. At the very least, you can acknowledge the fact that he doesn’t fit in with our players, the system, anything, even if he has a good individual game. And he didn’t have one today. Not even close. He went out for a walk in the Hawthorns, hope he enjoyed the fresh air. And seriously, how long does a goalless run of a striker has to last before you officialy give up the “and I thought (said striker) played well actually” narrative. Call a spade a spade for once.
Agree about 4-3-3 there’s a good reason Bob Paisley switched to 4-4-2 all those years ago. 3-5-2 or 4-4-2 please. Two up top gives you goals.
Spot on about our identity too. What are we? I preferred last year’s more direct style.
I feel sorry for Rob, he can’t bring himself to criticize the regime that he backs – but having watched one of the worst Pulis sides I’ve seen, not get put away by a Liverpool side , we have to be more critical of this now.
Is Gutmann angling for James Pearce’s job at the Echo – Rodgers’ official apologist?
Nowhere near enough criticism (shock, horror) of the managers substitutions.
Yet again he failed miserably to change things positively from the touchline. Totally impotent. The reason? He feared making the right subs, taking a chance, to win the game incase we lost. Protecting himself yet again instead of doing what would be best for club. Thinking of the stick another defeat vs a shite team would bring instead of realising we need max points to have any chance of top 4.
Thats what he was thinking with his team selection right? Because the only excuse for the team selection is thinking there is still something tonplay for and 3 points was all that mattered. If it was me Id know top 4 was gone & play players that were in my plans for next season and also give one or two under 21s a go. At least put them on the fucking bench. But nope. Johnson played. Gerrard played. Pulis insulted him by allowing Gerrard to have all the time in the world on it knowing he couldn’t hurt them. Them. West Brom. “Not a bad side, a Pulis side” Rob says. No Rob, they are a bad side. We know the bottom 8-10 sides in this league are filth. Neil described them all as “muck” 2 weeks ago. He was right.
At this point Rob needs to take a step back and seriously analyse Rodgers. Either that or decide to stop looking away, putting fingers in his ears and screaming “la la la” when Rodgers makes a balls of things. The blind faith, persistant excuses & general non criticism regardless of anything is wearing very thin.
Haha, fair play Chris, if only we could have you as manager.
“Thinking of the stick another defeat vs a shite team would bring instead of realising we need max points to have any chance of top 4… If it was me Id know top 4 was gone & play players that were in my plans for next season and also give one or two under 21s a go.”
Do us a favour Chris, make your mind up and then stick to it. Better yet, just come out and say you wouldn’t be on here praising the manager for a job well done even if we’d have had a successful season. It’s fine. No one’s going to judge. Whinging can just feel easier a lot of the time.
The problem with Rob is he’s a bit smarter than most of the people who comment on here. We’ve got 4 strikers at the club who between them have averaged exactly 2 goals this season. How can people not see this is a/our problem? One got injured (which is no fault of Rodgers). One wouldn’t leave ((which is no fault of Rodgers) One he didn’t want (which is no fault of Rodgers) and one he got as a 4th choice because for the number of goals he scored in the previous season over his fee it made him ‘value’ and suited his budget (which is no fault of Rodgers).
Also, if the policy is to buy young when they’re cheaper and develop them into world class players then you have to wait for them to develop. The success come further down the line. To beat those odds now you’ve got to have good fortune, such as finding a Suarez. We’ve done the exact opposite. Right or wrong, that’s the policy and it’s out of our hands. It’s out of Rodgers hands too.
And the problem with Robin is he feels the same way about TAW panelists as they do about Rodgers (the ones dilly-dallying over BR’s share of the blame for recent results).
“The problem with Rob is he’s a bit smarter than most of the people who comment on here.”
Any empirical evidence to back this up or is this just inane bullshit Robin?
You can’t possibly tell the level of intellect of anyone of these threads from their opinions on football. At most you can gain an insight into their knowledge on modern football concerning liverpool fc. And given that some of us have been proven so correct it hurts on topics like the manager failing from very early this season, when others like you and Rob still backed him to be a success, I’d say what limited evidence there is available shows an opposite argument to your irrelevant speculation that added nothing to the conversation – even if Rob had an IQ 50 points above everyone on here he’d still be wrong to not make even the smallest of criticisms on a manager who has performed dysmally since August and failed not one, not two but all three of his set targets from the outset of this campaign, despite a record gross spend last summer.
And the ironic thing about your statement is “most of the people who comment on here” have been, until recently, very pro-Rodgers. I can’t explain why it took them so long to come to my position, one I’ve held for over half a year now. Maybe Im more intelligent than them? Not sure. Not enough evidence, so I won’t say something so ridiculous.
Which eventually brings me to this – until recently, your opinion on Rodgers has been shared by “most of the people who comment on here” – so if you want to claim that Rob’s capacity for learning is greater than your own, thats fine. Leave the rest of us out of it though.
As for the rest of your comment, three things:
1. Our problem is scoring goals, yes, but its not solely the striking situation that is to blame. In fact I’d say what is more primarily to blame is our non existant chance creation. We could have Ruud Vsn Nistelroy & the Brazilian Ronaldo up front but it wouldnt matter if we couldnt create the odd chance for them. Rodgers solution in putting an extra body at the back to combat his sheer inability to coach a group to actually defend, or when he plays Gerrard in any formation, meant we have always been one attacker light.
2. Its as if you forget or don’t know 3 of the 4 strikers have been signed by Rodgers & he gave his blessing to the 4th.
You say its not his fault Borini wouldnt leave – well Rodgers actively went after him to sign him and put him on a nice contract, meaning it would be difficult to get him to go. But of course thats #notrodgersfault
Sturridge is injury prone. Always has been. Rodgers knew it when he signed him so knew to have a set plan that would be a success if he wasnt available. He hasnt achieved that, but this is #notrodgersfault
Lambert is a lump of a man who has hardly played any top flight football, at an age when his footballing and physical peak was ending. Rodgers knew this when he instigated the transfer. So the fact he has turned out to be shit cannot be a surprise. But its #notrodgersfault
Balotelli. A committee signing, granted, but one Rodgers said ok to. Big lad with great touch and good link up play. Very good link up play in fact. Scores goals. Not elite levels of goals, but 2nd tier. Eminently capable of 15-20 a season. Yet for all Mario’s strengths, Rodgers, this supposed great coach and man manager, has got next to no goals from him and nowhere near his best, snd had never once threatened to put him in a formation which would see him to best effect. But this is #notrodgersfault
3. On the transfer policy – the young lads we’ve gone after to sign incase they develop into world class stars. Well, they’ll be doing no developing if shunted around, are played constantly in the wrong position and/or are being subbed at half time in every game they play because their boss hasn’t got the balls to sub bigger names playing far worse. #notrodgersfault
Look Chris, if I was insinuating some of the people who comment on here are clueless (which I was, and stand by) then I wouldn’t include you in that.
My problem with you is you can’t look at things objectively. It’s why I’ll never respect the content of your comments. Your obsession with Rodgers is unhealthy. It’s clouding your judgement and one could argue, making you delusional. I’ve been proven so correct it hurts, lol. To quote you ‘Any empirical evidence to back this up or is this just inane bullshit’. In fact, please don’t answer that. I know exactly what you’re gonna say and I interpret it different so spare us both.
I was just about to counter those points you made but you know what, I can’t be arsed because nothing I could say would make you see things differently. You’ve formed your opinion and nothing will sway you, which is why you’re not as smart as you like to think. .
Did get a snigger out of ‘lump of a man’ so fair play, Chris. I almost quite like how Lambert gets bullied by most of our fans at this point, in a sick way. All the ingredients are there for him to have been the biggest hero in the city other than the vital one of being actually good. Poor bastard; I want to give him a big hug. His Villa Park goal is still one of the moments of the season which is probably a damning indictment on this year if anything.
“The problem with Rob is he’s a bit smarter than most of the people who comment on here.”
Errr Wow what a sweeping statement considering we are just pseudonyms on an internet site.
Can I make a generalised statement that you Robin are obviously Rob Guttman in disguise!!? If I say it, does it make it true!!??
Haha, that’s quite funny. Well done!
I don’t think anyone in their right mind would deny Rodgers needs to take a share of the blame for the last few matches. They’re mistakes borne out of not having the correct tools though.
If Rodgers was sacked tomorrow who would you replace him with?
Well, first to get this out of the way – If Klopp’s willing, I wouldn’t mind sacking Rodgers one bit.
But I’m not actually calling for BR’s head. It just really pisses me off that he has decided to play a disconnected Balotelli in our (due to circumstance) ultimate game of the season vs Villa at 1-1 and ruin our season completely. This is only my inferior opinion, but he keeps at it with Sterling up front, Coutinho as is and worst case, there’s a goal in us and we take it to extra time and win a cup tie in what has really been the Liverpool way the past decade – mad games, penalties, against side we should be beating etc.
Then after pretty much 95% percent of the fanbase agreed it was season over, he gives us that side today, that first half… That game today in general. And in spite of what you get from the Pink, it wasn’t a dominant performance. We created what? Two chances, well into the second half. We played into West Brom’s hand. Lovren doesn’t clear it, and Pulis calls his a dominating performance. Balotelli played well? You’re having a laugh, he was strolling the entire first half and put the tiniest of efforts in the second, creating nothing substantial. On another day we win this? On another day West Brom wins a Pulis 1-0 without their keeper having to make more than two saves.
On top of all that, he does the post match interview the way he did it today. And yes, we all know of his love of the word outstanding, and what those press clips are all about. But, after losing three big games in a row by being tactically outdone in all (maybe not Arsenal, that one might’ve been just quality showing a team through), we deserve a bit of honesty, knowing that he knows what his team has been putting us fans through over the season. Instead, he starts making a fool of himself talking in superlatives after a dull game at the Hawthornes, about lacking goals after the money he spent in the summer and didn’t spend in winter. It makes all of us look foolish, WTRWWAW and all that.
You say the strikers issue is not his fault. He’s the fucking manager. Players’ performance is his area. He has four of them in the first team, youngsters too (I hear he likes to give those a chance). Hughes gets 9 out of Mame Biram Diouf, he can’t get more than 2 out of Balotelli or Borini.
My point is, I think he’s done enough, or little enough, for questions to be asked. And your clever little stab at the intelligence of people having opinions against him after the season we’ve had under him is to me in line with the Joe Allen comments of the past three years or all the Brenda ones, just a different side to the same coin. As for TAW, in my view, they’ve been incredibly PC about Rodgers the entire season, and I cannot believe that out of what 15, 20 regular contributors to the podcast, not once has there been a person reflecting the opinion of the, what do I call them, the RodgersOut brigade or whatever, in the smallest of capacities. I don’t know, but I would think there’s surely more to a proper unbiased fan opinion that what we’ve got to listen to after Arsenal, after Villa, after today.
Fuck me, this one’s gone long. Not sure how comprehensible it all is, but somewhere in there are my view on the current state of the team and manager.
The thing with yesterday is it’s not even a personnel issue, some of these players were a big part of the fast flowing direct daring football we played last season
But this season it seems like everyone just pissfarts around with little passes in the final third trying to manufacture a perfect chance that ain’t gonna come. The amount of time someone was in a good position to shoot and decides not to was just getting on my nerves
This kind of possession football is fine if you have the very top bracket players like Barca has with Messi or Suarez who can do a bit of magic to break down defenses, but we need to move it quicker and try to take more risks in the final third even if it means conceding possession and make the match end to end like a tennis match