NEIL ATKINSON, Mike Nevin, Kieran Morris and Paul Johnson are back for this seasons first podcast ‘proper’.
BUT NOT AS BACK AS THE REDS.
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Tottenham 3 Liverpool 6: The Anfield Wrap
The Anfield Wrap’s free podcast looking back at Liverpool’s emphatic win over Tottenham Hotspur on the road to cement the Reds position as Christmas number one.
Neil Atkinson hosts Ian Ryan, Mo Stewart and Ian Salmon.
LFC are offering Festive Freebie Christmas gift ( worth up to £10) for every paying child on the LFC Stadium Tour if they visit from 21st December through to 3rd January. Just quote code XMASGIFT24 at checkout to receive this offer whilst stocks last. For more go to LFC.TV/TOURS
Subscribe to The Anfield Wrap for more reaction to Liverpool’s season, as well as reaction to all the news and events that matter to you…
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23 December 2024
19 December 2024
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Great show :=), Neil you are a great host!
I think my heads going to explode the Henderson / Milner as a two completely didn’t work , what game were you watching when Can came on and made a three it totally worked, would have worked as well if not better if Lucas played, If your going to play long to Benteke you need runners beyond or play 2 upfront ,As for credit Rodgers for getting it wrong in first place we need to go strong three from start . the one point I agree is Milner out wide or side of diamond The fact Rodgers doesn’t seem to believe in a real holder never mind 2 is the most worrying thing lets hope hes learnt from sat ,As for my best midfield be a diamond . Lucas or Can at base Milner / Henderson Coutihno tip Firminho up front pulling left Benteke focal point , but what do I know
Spot on mate. I made the same point in The Guardian the initial tactics were clueless. Benteke may be good in the air but its not fucking good if no-one’s running on to the flicks.
Good result though, and good substitutions.
Can played well and Bobby Firmino looked really promising. We defended a lot better too.
We can’t rely on Coutinho worldies to get us out gaol week in week out. We tried that last season, it didn’t work out too well. Here’s hoping Bobby F makes the difference.
Well as per this morning’s news, say bye bye to Lucas. 5th choice midfielder ffs. A very sad way to blow out one of our longest serving and proper clubmen. Never made a fuss, even though he could have. Bombed out like a YTS numpty. Very sad. Lets hope BR has no cause to regret this immensely stupid decision
The analysys of Ibe near the end of the show I couldn’t disagree with any more. Don’t see him as an attacker? Might develop into a right back?
What was that?
I thought that, all in all, he might have actually been our most dangerous player. Bear in mind, we created nothing in the game, so Ibe didn’t have a good game, just like every other front six player (Coutinho gets a pass, obviously). Stoke even shuffled the left side of their defence at the beginning of second half (there might have been an injury to Pieters, I don’t know). But the singling out of Lallana and Ibe, feels like you’re just doing it for the sake of just singling someone out, after you’ve inexplicably given a pass to Benteke and the tactics we’ve employed to accomodate him, which in turn made everyone from Henderson to Coutinho to Lallana have bad games.
I don’t know how many would agree with my reasoning, it’s fine if anyone thinks I’m wrong in what I’ve mentioned, but seriously, if there’s anyone who actually agrees with “I don’t see Ibe as an attacking player”, then I’m at a loss for words when it comes to what I think of those people (well, really I could think of a few, but they wouldn’t be very nice).
Ibe was our most threatening player. Could have been more effective with an overlapping full back.
18.20
“The narrative and criticisms around Brendan Rodgers – some well worn cliches – is that he can’t organize his defence. People say he doesn’t know how to set a team up – they’re lazy criticisms.”
What? Its not lazy to state the obvious. And its obvious this “narrative” is the most true thing about him.
He conceded 72 goals in one season at Watford, 33 goals in 21 games at Reading, 42 and 51 goals in two seasons at Swansea and 43, 50 and 48 goals in three seasons at Liverpool.
In what world do some people live in that it is not justified criticism of a manager to say that he is poor defensively? Rodgers has had 4 different clubs and 7 seasons to get something sorted and his beat record is conceding 42 goals. You might as well say you don’t want to hear any criticism of him regardless of evidence.
And of course the most pathetic thing is there are three other men in the room but as is often the case, they were shit scared of disagreeing with their mate. The world would end if we actually got a debate (not that this would have been much of a debate) on TAW.
Even more unsurprising is that no one else pointed this out in this thread. As I said….sycophants to a man. Apart from Velimir.
I’m not about to claim Rodgers is the best defensive coach in the world, but your constant reference to his time at Watford and Reading to support your anti Rodgers arguments does your case no favours.
His newly promoted Swansea team conceded 51 in the Prem in 2012/12. What would have been a reasonable target for goals against for a newly promoted side, given that Arsenal conceded 49 that season and Chelsea 46?
In his first year with Liverpool, we conceded 43. What would have been a reasonable target given ManU (Champions) conceded 43?
Why would his time at Watford and Reading not count? That is ludicrous. So when judging a manager you want to look at only when he has done ok? That is arbitrary nonsense. Ok then, I decided that from now on when we judge Rodgers we only look at his record between November 08 to December 09. And when discussing Mourinho we can only talk about his time as boss of Benfica.
You say it does my anti Rodgers argument no favours. Why? Its the truth! I haven’t made a single thing up. Its all fact. I’d have more respect if you just said you didn’t want to hear any truth that shows Rodgers in a poor light.
He conceded 72 goals at Watford. In a single season. I’d say that was too many. He conceded 33 goals in 21 games at Reading. I’d say that was too many, saying as he got the sack.
Then you bring up targets and other teams to defend his record at Swansea and Liverpool. Not only is that irrelevant because the Arsenal’s and Chelsea’s scored a lot more, but I can do that for the opposite argument. In the year he conceded 51 at Swansea, Aston Villa conceded 53 and narrowly avoided relegation. In the year he conceded 50 for Liverpool, Hull City conceded 53 and narrowly avoided relegation. Not a whole lot of difference between those defences, except Rodgers had millions and millions to spend to sort it out and didn’t, whereas Hull and Villa hardly had £50 to spend in comparison.
Even if I wanted to be exceedingly generous and say his defensive record in 5 seasons at Swansea and Liverpool was average, he had two shockers at Watford and Reading, bringing his overall record to poor.
The point I was making is that the criticism of Rodgers regarding his defensive record is highly justified and to suggest otherwise is farcical. One said it was lazy. Three others sat there and listened to that and not one thought to ask why. The end.
Oh – and if we must consider Rodgers’ pre-Swansea record, perhaps we should try and get the facts correct.
Watford didn’t concede 72 under Rodgers. He took the team over in at the end of November that year, when they were sitting 21st in the Championship. He pulled them back to 13th at the end of the season.
Oh, so its ok to talk about Watford now? Because he “only” conceded 52 goals between December and April?
I can’t know because you only want to talk about the things that don’t make him look substandard, instead of judging his entire record, which would be, ya know, fair.
Make up your mind please.
“So when judging a manager you want to look at only when he has done ok? That is arbitrary nonsense”
You are the very epitome of the type that only does the opposite: judgment based on where Rodgers has struggled with no interest in where he has done well or the wider context. You’ll happily scream about 51 goals at Swansea and when it is pointed out that this was but 2 goals more than Arsenal – for what was a newly-promoted team – you dismiss this as “irrelevant”. Of course, what you mean is: “doesn’t fit my model”.
Show one sign you are interested in a honest debate that looks all facts and contexts instead of presenting the results of a selective data trawl to support a predetermined conclusion and you’ll find plenty of willing interlocutors. Keep banging the same tedious drum whilst exhibiting an imperviousness to counter-argument and you won’t. This is the way it works in most fora.
You can talk about whatever you want to.
I make 37 goals conceded in the league during his time in charge of Watford.
Thanks for listening, Padraig.
No worries, helps me when Im working out.
Perhaps instead of silly snide comments you can explain why it is lazy to say Rodgers is poor defensively and how, given that there are vastly more people who would disagree than agree with that statement, not one of the other three thought to talk (the whole point) about how that isnt the case.
Its like last season didn’t happen. Still protecting the manager no matter what. I didn’t think Rodgers would learn to much from his mistakes, but I thought you lads might learn from yours. Seemingly not. The lack of balance is the only thing that stops me becoming a TAW Player subscriber.
“The lack of balance is the only thing that stops me becoming a TAW Player subscriber.”
I volunteer to lead the campaign to find other reasons.
“No worries, helps me when Im working out.”
Unsee! Unsee!
We’re all Liverpool fans. We all want Liverpool to win. So I’m not quite sure what the point of ‘protecting the manager’ would be. And again, this criticism doesn’t reflect what has actually been on the site or on the podcasts. We’ve ran pieces advocating Klopp over Rodgers. We’ve ran pieces saying he had to go at the end of last season. Pretty balanced among all this so-called ‘protection’. Your line among your many posts is that there is some kind of group think or collective editorial line. There isn’t. Everyone involved can say – or write – what they want. And they do. Equally, if someone submits something that is well written and well argued, we’ll use it, regardless of what any of us think. That’s the way it’s always worked and always will. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you and that’s fine – plenty do enjoy what we do. All the best.
The Watford numbers are way off.
On the other hand, his teams do concede about 1.2 goals a game (1.25 to be exact, and 1.18 at Liverpool). That suggests that his teams, in order to win, need to score 2 goals per game.
In my opinion, our defense at present is one that conceivably lets in a goal every game, and though that can change gradually and over time, I really don’t see the number of goals conceded this season being any lower than 40. But as an even better argument for the point I’m trying to make is that if you look at last season’s numbers, the top 4 teams have conceded a goal a game or marginally less than one. So, the point is, we need to be a team that scores two goals a game. And that’s where the real problem is, or may end up being – it’s only the first game of the season. The debate on BR shouldn’t be about his defensive capabilities, but the opposite, we should all be focusing on attack, where BR has been failing miserably for a little over a year, surprisingly after being brilliant for two seasons. And while I admit to the very real possibility of this being an exaggeration, the game against Stoke did nothing to show that we are a two goals a game team. Also, with the transfers made in the past three windows, the center forward position (if you are to exclude Sturridge for the time being, reasonable assumption, and we’re getting carried away thinking he’s hitting any sort of heights before January) is looking startlingly different from what it was during the two seasons during which Brendan’s team was scoring two goals a game. That we haven’t replaced Suarez, or Sturridge with players of the same tactical fit is what my criticism of BR (and the club officials) is. And the style of play that the Stoke game seemed to be suggesting we’ll play with Benteke in the XI worries me very very much.
But I do hope it was all about getting this one game out of the way, getting a result, and that it will evolve into something more dynamic and enjoyable over the next few weeks.
Top show lads.
For all the moaners it’s worth mentioning again that we got completely dicked there last season in one of the most woeful performances ever, so I’m happy with a defensively solid first game of the season at Stoke with a clean sheet kind of vibe, even though it was somewhat at the expense of attacking intent and a wee bit bland. We won by the way, 3 points apparently…happy days!
I live and work in Stoke and most of their fans I know were either expecting to win or at least hopeful of a decent result against us.
Now they’re all fucking fuming and it’s great that they’re complaining about Lovren’s use of the elbow (POT, KETTLE?!!) and how the mighty ‘Stokealona’ couldn’t get their normal fluid continental silky tiki-taka game going…grrr, those pesky Scousers! Seriously, they’ve bought a couple of Barca’s cast offs and all of a sudden they’re automatically a European super power, FFS!
I don’t think we should underestimate the power of the message that result signals to other teams thinking of roughing us up this season as we’re more than capable of going toe to toe. No opposing team or fans should have that perception of us and I think this was a baby step in the right direction of laying a marker down, although sterner tasks will surely lie ahead.
The two attacking lads getting stick (Lallana and Ibe) may have been under instructions to sit deep as part of a 4213 formation and let Milner go and press with Phil, hence the impression that he went wandering off from Henderson’s side. I’m no Tactics Tim Sherwood but I’m trying my best to understand what is happening rather than shoot from the hip with we’re shit, Lallana is shit, Ibe was shit, Rogers is shit mentality. It’s a long season and as the lads said, that top 4 is by no means preordained, we’ve got a decent squad and bucket loads of talent…
As ever, I’m hopeful.
YNWA
it was a 4-5-1 formation wasn’t it?
My point exactly ste, I’ve always been too arsed about just enjoying the game than get too bogged down in micro-analysing tactics and formations…but I’m trying to get to grips with it as we seem to be a very modern thinking team and it helps if I actually have a clue instead of just moaning like fucking all the time like some do.
There’s a good article over on This Is Anfield about tactics and formations with a couple of good videos embedded that help explain the theory behind it. Nothing that hasn’t already been covered on TAW over seasons past but just a general overview that helped me get interested
Great podcast, as always lads. I thought we looked a lot better once Can and Firmino got in the side. Lallana for me is nothing but a disappointment, bench for him as often as possible. Coutinho is marvelous, and we need Sturridge fit.