WHEN the Reds win we…
Yeah.
Listen, what do you do when you pick a strong-ish side in order to provide confidence and then that happens? Because these lads now have that against them along with 120 minutes in their legs before Saturday and the match at Anfield against Aston Villa.
This isn’t the worst Liverpool side I have ever seen. Really, truly, it isn’t. It is actually a long way from that. If you want a positive to accentuate it is that one. Even ruling out Souness and Hodgson, it isn’t that low. This though is part of the problem. It is a team manifestly worse than the sum of its parts.
If you’ve got Paul Konchesky or Julian Dicks at left back then you are in trouble. You are in trouble before a ball is kicked. This Liverpool side isn’t in trouble before a ball is kicked. This Liverpool side isn’t even really in trouble before a goal is scored at times. Instead this Liverpool side manages to seek out trouble, like a silent movie star desperate to find its most slapstick moment. Liverpool are Buster Keaton, a house always about to fall down around them.
It’s a terrifying thing because how on earth does it stop? Getting in the lead doesn’t stop it. Liverpool were alright until they scored. They were dealing reasonably well with a resolute side and then the best possible thing that can ever happen happens and things get immediately noticeably worse.
Sean Rogers always says that goals are scored because two players do something very good, one player does something amazing or there is a mistake. The opener, not that they mean anything any more, stems from two players doing something very good. Lallana and Ings combining irresistibly against Carlisle’s defence.
But from that point Liverpool were a side that featured one player doing something pretty good only to run up against other players’ shortcomings or conclude they had to double down on pretty good and find amazing.
This led to some spectacularly brainless football from Liverpool. Tons of play between their six-yard box and penalty area in wide areas and no end product worth a carrot. Yet Liverpool had 386,451 shots across the course of the 120 minutes. One in particular is worth highlighting.
Were I Liverpool manager, in that lovely cant filled way you can say things like this where you don’t have to work with players as people, Martin Skrtel would never play for me again. Not for his defending but for his long-range effort before the hour mark.
He’s the most senior footballer on the pitch for Liverpool and he thinks him having a shot from 40 yards is the best option in that scenario? Seriously? Bomb him out. Get rid now.
It won’t happen. Instead the Reds will toil further. Yardage in their legs, a manager unable to get through to them. He can’t want centre backs shooting from 40 yards. You know that, I know that. Yet it is happening. Dejan Lovren was at it, too.
And so what happens when you play some boys for their confidence and their confidence gets more shot? What happens when you look to stretch their legs and they end up running for 120 minutes? What happens when you limp through one challenge only to be presented by another you’ve failed to overcome in your last four outings?
We are going to find that out.
But Liverpool, for whom Danny Ings, Emre Can and Albie Moreno all impressed, find themselves in the last 16 of a competition despite a collective malaise that doesn’t just demand more of our money but is suddenly taking more of our time.
Rodgers’ Liverpool limp on, limp into penalty areas, limp into striking from distance. Just limp Liverpool. Just limp.
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Pic: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda Photo
So, taunting Carlisle fans now. It’s got THAT bad.
Its 3.15 am in Qatar as I type this.. this team is starting to keep me awake at nights along with the over consumption of Red wine to get me through games these days and nights. When will it be fun again? Lets be honest… its fucking miserable watching the dicky Reds now. Seem to be in continuous miserable mode which is hard wired in.
It’s6:12am in Dubai and i still cant sleep. i thought i would fall asleep quite happily after the ‘easy’ win with many goals. instead, the match trn out to be quite a shockingly mediocre performanace with players seem to be trying whatever individual thinks best without a leader or direction, instead of a real well oiled TEAM.
Good to know there is somebody else suffering in Doha with LFC and that it isn’t just me!!!
I don’t get the Moreno praise, he was decent on Sunday but defensively he is shocking, combine him with Lovren & Skrtel & you get Carlisle’s goal, back off, ponder, turns back. Moreno is lighting quick going forward, & like a 70 year old jogger when getting back. Well done to Bogdan & Ings. Did anyone else notice Brendan hardly stood in the technical area at the game when normally here 90% of the time?
Yes, Brendan was absent for much of the second half and injury time. Seemed to send the signal that he had given up, run out of ideas. The players generally did okay against a solid Carlisle defence. Let’s give some credit to Carlisle for their gutsy performance. The crowd also tried hard – at times – to get behind the team, possibly through boredom as the night went on and on and on …….
Not his fault anymore. Look to Gordon and Ayre. They may as well be working for our top 4 rivals because they are sabotaging our chances of reaching the Champions League by not acting decisively with a manager who is finished at Anfield.
Ayre won’t let any experienced manager near the club. He’s protecting his own position.
Hopefully a missed pen in the League Cup won’t affect Coutinho’s/Lallana’s form the way it affected Sterling’s last year after his miss against Middlesbrough. While on the flip side, after his chip hopefully Can’s confidence is growing.
I’m nearly at the point where I don’t want to watch the match and instead just check the results at the end of the day.
Can’s Panenka gives me hope. But as we all know, it’s never the despair that kills you, but the hope.
Is that you, Bane?
Cheer up everyone. It’ll either get good again or it won’t. It probably will, for a short while at least. Meanwhile, in the present moment, you can chill if you like. You know, instead of being miserable.
Rather than a manager who “can’t get through” to his players I think it’s more a case of a manager with nothing to get through. Reading and Watford know this.
For those who missed the match live (like moi), here’s a link to the full game (plus extra time and penalty-kick shootout).
http://www.fullmatchesandshows.com/2015/09/23/liverpool-vs-carlisle-united-highlights-full-match/
Some idiot sat by me in the ground last night said when they equalised ‘I fxxxin hope we get beat now’
why even bother coming out of the house with that attitude.
I hated Hodgson but not once did I go the match thinking I hope we lose.
Best Supporters In The World, I don’t think so
Thought Anfield should have been bulldozed this morning after the “who are ya?!” chants during the shoot out. Just… No. Booing’s usually unhelpful as well as a general rule.
You’re spot on on Lovren and particularly Skrtel’s shot. Wasn’t as though it’s last minute and you can blame blind panic. Surreal stupidity. Pretty sure someone needs to go and check whether Coutinho’s shooting just past the post still.
Time for some fairness here for me. The team were sent out to do a job last night and that was to win. We did that. Yes it was laboured, yes it went to pennos yes our centre backs were taking pot shots from 40 yards….but….but; there was only ever one winner last night and it wasn’t the team in blue. We did everything but rack up a cricket score last night. Yea that’s frustrating to endure but the signs of improvement are there (they were there Sunday too). What is required now is patience and balance. The problem is (and I’m in no way accusing TAW of this) every draw, every extra time and pennos again lower league opposition means those wanting to rid themselves of the fella they had a banner for not two seasons previous have amo to fling more garbage. If I’m not mistaken the glorious campaign of 2013/2014 had a fucking nightmare of a league cup game against Northampton town. There was extra time and pennos there too, if I’m not mistaken.
The wounds that have infected this club since Rafa’s ousting have surfaced again and the fans are in open conflict. But let’s not turn every draw into a loss and every win (even if on pennos) into a draw (even if the history books will record it so).
What is more important here; being right about Brendan Rodgers or Liverpool Football Club.
You’re only a supporter, not a manager, not a player, not an ex player, not a pundit.
Support the team, there are green roots. All that is needed is time and patience.
Excusing mediocrity helps no one.
You are mistaken. You couldn’t be anymore mistaken. Hodgson oversaw the Northampton game. He definitely did not oversee the best league campaign for a generation.
I’m all for time and patience if there’s decent signs against say, Norwich. But y’know, mid table in league 2 and that.
We went out of the League Cup in 2013-14 against Moyesie’s United, which is arguably a worse nightmare than losing on penalties to Northampton
Very true. Sure Suarez returned from his ban for that game as well. Don’t know what were we playing at.
Yes I was wrong it was Notts County and we struggled to beat them in 120 mins. It doesn’t matter the opposition the point is the same.
Thing is…. the support is tied … tied of the wait.. 25 years and counting, tied of the money we have spunked away over the years, tied of Brendan trying to find a team that plays and understands the basics of the game, tied of being told to be better supporters and to wait…wait … wait… wait for what? Tell me what we are waiting for with Brendan?
“It is a team manifestly worse than the sum of its parts.”
That’s exactly it – even Aspas scored twice against Barca last night. Great managers make average players look like world beaters – Dennis Irwin is a point in fact. Rodgers would make Dennis Irwin look like Julian Dicks, but worse. He just doesn’t have it. And I hate saying that.
That’s first sentence sums up the situation perfectly.
It’s up to the manager to get the players performing as a team and extract the maximum level of performance out of them. Rodgers is failing miserably at this.
I believe this group of players are good enough to finish top 4, unfortunately I don’t think the manager is good enough to guide them there.
Agree, the main, if not the only job of a manager is to make the team play better than the sum of its parts. We are not just a bit worse, it is significantly worse. It gets exasperated when we score, it gets even more exasperated when the opposition score.
I feel sorry for Brendan because he’s lost his nerve and the club should put him out of his misery here. Don’t refuse to take the obvious action because they don’t want to admit they acted incorrectly in the summer. He needs to go away and rediscover what he’s about, because he’s lost it here now.
Neil,
This may otbe the worst Liverpool team I have ever seen, but, this is the most hollow victory I have ever witnessed.
Or players approach the penalty area with the ball like a guy who is taking his new ugly girlfriend along to the office Christmas party.
Before last nights game Rodgers was in a no win situation. If Liverpool win it would have been, “you’re meant to win, its Carlise.” If Liverpool lose it was “how did you lose, its Carlise.” Somehow he managed to achieve both, a win that felt like a defeat. Nothing that he could have done last night would have prevented the calls for his head. The most worrying thing for Brendan was the “4 winnable games” between United and Everton have now turned into the (possible depending on Villa) “4 games we didn’t get beat.” It’s not even the next game but the Bluenoses are chomping at the bit thinking they will be the ones who got him the sack! Away trips to the wood yard and Spurs are the last things he needs.
No matter what you think (or don’t) of Rodgers he really isn’t being helped out by his players in recent weeks. The constant stray passing, the fifa 16 type shooting from the half way line (and that includes Coutinho as well as Skrtel & Lovren), the corners……….oh god the corners!!! Its all well and good Gary Mac showing them the hand signals but maybe someone should show them how to take them. If I was owner (everyone else wants to be the manager so will take a different job) i would fine any player who takes shocking corners and doesn’t beat the first man…..net spend argument, over i made a small fortune!! Never have i seen a corner go back to the keeper (although it did eventually result in the move up that scored so i will be quiet.) Rodgers can be blamed for so much but the players have to start taking some responsibility for some of their actions on the pitch because until they do no matter who is charge, Rodgers, Klopp, Ancelotti, there wont be the change we all hope for.
I know what you’re getting at with the ‘no-win situation’, but if we’d not conceded and added a second early second half and then kept the ball for an easy 2-0 win, we could all accept that.
As I said above, its up to the manager to get the players playing as a team and extract the best performance out of them. He’s failing at every level.
This was Liverpool Football Club…..at Anfield…….against a side in league 2……..AND we put out a pretty strong team, not like the kids v Bordeaux last week.
Agreed and please don’t think i was attempting to shift all the focus away from Rodgers, at the start of extra time yesterday he had a look of a man that couldn’t remember the question let alone find the answer.
My point was that certain aspects of recent performances have to be put down to the players. You can’t blame the manager when the keeper flaps at a cross, when your defenders thinks he can score from 40 yards out, when it seems impossible for anyone to find another red shirt. Unless the players take some responsibility and stop these mistakes then no matter how good a manager or a motivator we have in charge we will still be struggling. It can’t be a case of the players were great against Arsenal but Rodgers was shit against West Ham.
If the players are no longer listening to or respecting the manager instructions then we have a serious problem.
If the players really need a manager/coach/kit man/other half (Mrs Mignolet) to tell them to do the basics, don’t make stupid mistakes and use a bit of common sense on the pitch then yes we have a serious problem.
If the players are making these errors on purpose because they no longer trust, listen or respect the manager/coach etc then yes we have a serious problem.
If either of these are true then we will have serious problems within our a squad no matter who is in charge. It can’t all be the fault of the manager/coach/kit man or Mrs Mignolet.
The cup is in the bag
We are the new Villa. Mid table manager. If you think we’re fucked now wait ’till the Champions league goes down to 3 places! Get rid of him now.
Go all in as Neil said on the podcast. Can and Sakho, backed up by Gomez and MS until we can get Ilori back. Play a diamond, Rossiter/Lucas at the base depending on opposition, let the others rotate a bit in game until we find the right combo. If we need more going forward late on, move Milner to RB. Or do something else. Just do ****ing something.