THIS morning Melissa Reddy tweeted that Liverpool’s current goal return of 22 scored in 20 games is our worst ever. I frowned at this and asked her if she meant in the modern era, but she confirmed via the excellent LFCHistory.net that that figure is the lowest in our entire history. Yes, since 1892, or, as she put it, for “forever and ever”.
With that sort of stat it’s a wonder we’re not lower in the league. We’ve scored the same amount as Sunderland, who are 19th, and only Stoke City have a worse figure in the top 10 yet, somehow, Liverpool sit eighth in the League.
Not good enough, of course, but not disastrous. We’ve lost six and have a goal difference of minus two?. Only minus two? With just 22 goals scored I can’t help but feel we’ve got away with that. The worst in our history — and let’s not forget that this includes relegation seasons — would suggest a far worse picture.
It’s arguable that we’ve done OK just to be here. The table doesn’t lie but, given the worst possible sequence of away games to kick off the season, we can at least offer part mitigation for a less-than-impressive start. Thirty points isn’t great and it’s never good enough for Liverpool at the halfway stage but you’d think — in theory at least — the second half of the season would see us face less tricky fixtures.
Twenty two goals. Sobering enough, but once you consider that a third of those goals came in two games…
What is concerning is the manner of those six defeats, and the sides that have emerged victorious against the Reds. Even the best Liverpool sides lost to Manchester United but West Ham home and away? Watford? Crystal Palace? Newcastle?
Strictly speaking, a club of our resources should be mildly pissed off with draws against those sides but on some occasions we’ve not just lost, we’ve been taken to the cleaners.
Not one of those defeats was an unlucky one-nil reverse, either.
Having been to the Etihad, Stamford Bridge, Old Trafford and White Hart Lane you’d be forgiven for thinking that the majority of those Liverpool defeats would be against those sides residing at those traditionally tough-to-win at venues. But no. We did alright there. Better than alright. Newcastle, who are bloody awful, beat us at a canter and Palace beat us at home for the second season running.
Ours is an archetypal Jekyll and Hyde side.
And yet, despite that, there are times when we’re brilliant. Regal even. The Manchester City and Chelsea games saw us at our best against last season’s Premier League champions and runners up. They couldn’t live with us at City and our tactics at Chelsea against “the best manager in the world ™” were spot on. Then came Southampton away. Even Adam Lallana got a song.
We’re capable of being a fantastic side. Sadly though, we’re also capable of being absolutely dire.
Changing the manager has clearly been a factor and in some ways the club has had its hands tied before a ball was kicked. This season was effectively written off back in May. Brendan Rodgers — with the writing on the wall following the mess at Wembley — should have gone after the Stoke 6-1. I think that would have been best for all parties and maybe even welcomed by Rodgers himself given how he looked at the end of that game. The man looked destroyed and shattered and should have gone with good grace and sorrow that he came so close to fall so far.
The problem the club had (and I can only guess here) was the lack of a quality replacement being available. If you want Jürgen Klopp but need to wait for him then that’s what you have to do. If a top manager is keen but he’s not ready to climb out of the pool just yet, you wait around with the towel rather than throwing it to Garry Monk or whoever.
Given those opening fixtures, Brendan was on a hiding to nothing and even the opening three 1-0s were not enough once West Ham rolled up at Anfield and reminded us of our own mediocrity. But what else can you do if your target isn’t ready? You wait, watch us fall and give the German the season to bed in.
Whether Klopp can arrest this slide so early is another matter. The sheer force of his personality and those two huge wins brought back the feel-good factor to Liverpool, but now we’re reverting to type of recent times and the same old problems are back. Twenty two goals in the first 20 games, injuries, a lack of pace and occasional lack of heart (how Firmino got away with giving up a ball he could have won at West Brom when we were 2-1 down is beyond me). Liverpool are back to where we were. These players did not find a new level when Klopp came in, or at least not a consistent one. They, as a squad, are simply not good or strong enough.
And yet every now and then they can surprise you. I said in a recent Anfield Wrap article that it must have been galling for Brendan to see his shot-shy side go to the Etihad and Stamford Bridge and come back with seven goals when he had to make do with midfielders taking pot shots from all over the park. I bet he’s seeing the same problems he faced now and is wondering what Klopp can do with them.
Both men have/had similar causes for optimism and concern. Daniel Sturridge is one of the best strikers in the country, Philippe Coutinho one of the more gifted midfielders or number 10s and we have the beginnings of a fine collection of young players in Jordon Ibe, Connor Randall, Jon Flanagan, Brad Smith and Joao Teixeira.
There are many managers who would be very happy with that. However, as we all know, Sturridge can’t go three games without breaking, Coutinho is maddeningly frustrating with his “anywhere will do” shooting policy and it’s difficult to risk the young players when this club is baying for success. So what do you do with another man’s problems?
Twenty two goals, though.
The paucity of fit first-team players is clearly an issue. Saturday’s bench contained only two players in Joe Allen and Lallana who had Premier League starts and no striking options at all.
All managers struggle with injuries but the loss of Ings, Sturridge and Origi have made us particularly weak. They offer different options, of course, but now we’re stuck with the static Benteke and the whatever it is Firmino is supposed to bring.
Both players will improve but they’re not exactly taking this opportunity to cement their first-team place as yet.
What is a greater concern is the three number 10s. I’ll include Lallana for Ibe here as he’s fourth choice most of the time. Between them Lallana, Coutinho and Firmino have amassed just six goals and one third of them came in the same half of football. If you’re going to play one striker and he doesn’t move, what good does it do if the three lads behind him can’t score either? Where are the goals going to come from? Just where?
Injuries are a factor but once again we’re prone to the most ridiculous mistakes from players who have been here for years. Yes, Alberto Moreno was unfortunate not to be given the foul at West Ham but that never excuses Lucas not closing his man for their first goal. Yes, Sturridge may be made of milk but it doesn’t give Benteke carte blanche to hoof the ball over the bar from two yards every now and then. These are not kids scared of a crowd. These are experienced internationals.
Jürgen can and will turn it around but it will take time and more than a few transfer windows. For all his hugging and cajoling, I’m certain that he’s concerned about the quality of his squad and is planning substantial upgrades throughout.
Hopefully Marko Grujic is one such and there’ll be more to follow. It will also be interesting to see who he offloads. We all have our favourite players but sitting eighth in the table may mean it’s time we murdered our darlings. Some of them just aren’t good enough regardless of what they’ve done in the past.
It’s easier said than done — players are on contracts for a reason — but it’s frustrating for the new manager to be given the mess of the last few transfer windows and being told to make a top four side out of a pig’s ear. In essence, he’s been asked to re-write the club rather than steward it through the next phase of our glorious future and that’s going to take time and — yes — a lot more money. John.
There’s talk of us not doing much business this month and that it’s a bad time to buy. Erm, Suarez, Coutinho and Sturridge…. Quite.
It’s hard to know what a successful season looks like now. Top four is possible despite our propensity to shoot ourselves in the foot (with Coutinho shooting his own foot from as far away as possible) but this season was never going to be a landmark campaign given how hamstrung we were at the beginning of the campaign.
We’re back in transition again and whereas we’ve been here before, this time it’s with a much weaker squad. This is going to take time and patience as there’s no silver bullet. Here’s hoping we provide the manager with both. With this being a record-breaking Liverpool side, at least it can’t get any worse.
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Pics: Propaganda-Photo–David Rawcliffe
Well put together but very painful reading,Karl.
The pathetic squad assembled for over 300 million is a direct result of Brendan Rodgers legacy. Should have been given the boot as soon as the final whistle went after the Stoke debacle. Instead, he was allowed to squander a fortune on mediocrity [Benteke,Firmino et al] that makes Klopp’s job a complete rebuild instead of fine tuning. Whether FSG will release more funds short term is questionable. Long term it is a necessity.
And to think that apologists on here [here’s looking at you, Walter] reckon the blarney merchant was doing just fine. Instead of looking myopically at the Suarez inspired 13-14, the real scrutiny should be on his legacy post Suarez.
And that has been an unmitigated disaster.
if we had let BR go on May, we won’t have JK in as replacement, unfortunately.
Here is a weired logic. Among our summer signings, the only ‘non-Klopp’ signing maybe Benteke. And that’s 32mil Plan B (since Klopp uses him as impact sub from the bench).. so we can’t really use the whole 32mil as wasted.
for discussion sake, let’s use 16mil (half) as a wasted funds…so for 16mil of ‘cost’ we had the best signing in JK.
worth every DM (old German currency :)
And of course you weren’t one of those raving about Firmino in the summer
Never seen Firmino play before he joined us.
Mates in Germany did say that we’d paid ‘over the odds’.
Am sure there has to be a player in there somewhere. Brendan said so.
Would love him to come good and score a few at Stoke tomorrow.
That would require a little more application than he has shown till now.
City apart, all I’ve seen so far is the Brazilian Stan Laurel whose haircut does his playing for him.
Spot on Karl, good stuff.
I do wonder though, how bad are we? The defence is obviously ok because we’ve scored 22 goals and had we won Saturday would have been joint 5th. I don’t fully believe that but they can’t be disastrous.
The midfield definitely has some good players. We’ve seen it all before though. The players we have can’t play with Benteke or Mario or Lambert blah blah blah. I remember the comments on here this time last year. People were getting on Coutinho’s back but he needs a number 9. If Lallana flicks the ball inside their last line and there’s no one there and the keeper comes and gathers then he’s an absolute cunt. If Sturridge springs onto it and slots it he’s a genius. You need to score to win and if you don’t score or it becomes apparent you can’t score then the game changes.
An example is West Ham. Let’s just say, Lucas doesn’t ignore Klopp’s clear instruction of rather than defending the cross, don’t allow it in the first place, and it’s 0-0 on 25 mins. Who would your money be on to score next. Mine would have been on us all day. I thought we were on top but had that feeling we weren’t capable of scoring. I started thinking, one cross to Carroll and this is over. Hardly prophetic but I could feel it. Now, let’s say we’ve got Sturridge up front then I always feel we can score. We may well have gone 1-0 up without the Lucas error (I’ve no sympathy for Moreno – he didn’t get the free kick, what good was rolling around on the floor while they’re up the other end scoring? Although I blame Can for that goal as much as the other 2. He showed him down the wing. He said, Moreno’s missing, why don’t you run down the wing – there’s the gap) then the game changes completely (if we score first).
Appreciate that’s a lot of ifs and buts but close the man down, Sturridge takes one of his chances during our long spell of dominant possession then West Ham change their game. We win 3-0 lol. Same with Leicester and Sunderland. An extra goal which wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility and it’s all different. For me, it’s the same old same old. We don’t have a striker when the players we have suggest we need 2. With Sturridge and Ings fit all season we’re saying it would be nice to have a new keeper. Maybe it’s time for a new holding midfielder and an attacking goalscoring midfielder would be nice. Oh and a left back. As it is we want rid of about 15. It’s not as bad as all that.
Backing up this idea of a goal or two changing the whole game in our favour was the Southampton game. Once we got those 2 goals they dropped their game.
West Ham were ripe for the taking if we would have had a decent striker up front. There were a number of chances or potential for runs in behind. And then the whole game might well have turned on it’s head.
This doesn’t excuse some of the other players for playing badly – and a need for some changes and new buys longer term – but sometimes the striker should just kick the ball into the net.
United have 24 including 4OGs. Goons City and Chelsea all way down on goals scored last season.
It’s just a wierd season.
a good one, Karl. It made me think (still not quite sober yet from Christmas and NY drinks)
if our squad is fully fit:
☆Mignolet
☆Clyne~Lovren~Sakho~Moreen
☆Hendo~Milner
☆Lallana~Firmino~Courtinho
☆Sturridge
(Bench Options:
□Ward
□Origi, Ings, Benteke, Ibe
□Can, Allen, Lucas, Texiera, Markovic
□Skertel, Flenno
□a few kids from U21
This team could possibly beat anyone in the league. And JK would have lots of options to switch around on the bench.
Lets hope and pray that injury crisis would end soon. And with the fully fit team, JK may just need two or three solid signings, instead of whole sale changes (as he has been saying that he would have too many players of he starts signing new short-term signings)
Hey Josh
It’s a game of opinions so I’ll respect yours… But…
Mignolet – I think has burnt his own head out. Will always be fragile psychologically. Seems past mistakes prey on his mind.
Full backs – they are good – no better. Both are athletes, Clyne can defend but can’t deliver, Moreno can do the last ditch, but again can’t defend properly and also for all his huff and puff doesn’t actuall produce anything up top. My biggest worry is both are sub 6ft (Albi’s only 5’7)
Lovren and Sakho – not enough speed, Lovren can’t pass and although settled down well looks like he’s still justifying his transfer. Sakho is better than good – if he just concentrated on being good.
Hendo & Milner – not creative enough for me
Three No. 10’s – lack goals, pace and creativity unless they have more than Studge running for them. Lallana simply isn’t good enough – looks silky but is at best Coutinhio understudy.
The system won’t fit the players.
a good point, but we can’t possibly sign 11 new first team players.
so, Sturridge, Phil, Hendo, and Clyne would be good enough to walk into any top 4 teams. Klopp possibly would replace the others (or at least 4) over 3 Windows for sure.
Rodgers and the Committee bar one or two players were disastrous for the Club. Huge player turn over, some top players replaced with inferior models, a completely unbalanced squad which is dangerously thin in some positions. Oh and massive transfer over payments too boot. Klopp has got his work cut out, I wonder how much support FSG will offer?
I’m really quite disappointed in the way the midfield plays. I mean it’s all well and good to say “Benteke makes the whole team shit” but at the end of the day it’s not quite true is it? I mean sure he affects how Liverpool play, but lets be honest, a lot of the players in midfield tend to have more average days than good no matter who is up front.
Coutinho, is the one that confuses me the most. Whats his actual job on the pitch? There was a time when people had the audacity to compare him to Özil but so far as I can see, Özil’s job is to get into positions to receive the ball, pick a pass and deliver the ball on time with the right, a job he is doing quite well. Further more, Özil does his job no matter who is playing beside him/upfront, no matter how many times his teammates have let him down, no matter how much “he doesn’t trust them” ni matter what type of ball needs to be delivered. I can’t really see Coutinho becoming that type of player. Granted there aren’t many of that caliber. I don’t hold it against him, although he does seem to be sulking sometimes which irritates me.
My point is, the team needs a bit more creative diversity in midfield. A bit more quality. And maybe a bit more in the way of a goal scoring threat from midfield. I think we have a lot of the ingredients too, just haven’t found a way to mix them. The only thing i can say without doubt we dont have, is a crosser of the ball who can put in contestable crosses on time more often than not. Not only for Benteke, but for the strike force as a whole. They can all benefit from having more quality and diversity behind them. If they can stay fit long enough.
Coutinho has no one to pass the ball to since no movement ahead of him. no one running into space behind the defenders… The front 4 seems to be expecting the ball to pass to their feet.
Coutinho’s best games were when lots of movement ahead of him by Suarez, Stirling and Sturridge.
Play him behind Sturridge, Ings, Origi, or Ibe and we would get our usual Little Magician back.
Not sticking it up our previous manager, but wish his reputation of being able to build an attacking unit is actually true, otherwise this wouldn’t happen
Nice article.. Except your assetion that we could still make Top 4 is utterly ridiculous. We will be lucky to make 6th with this lot. Liverpool are a soft touch; there are plenty of gnarled pros in this league who enjoy the prospect of chewing us up and spitting us out. The fact that most of these sides sit between 6th and 18th place means we are toast.
Ha, half heartedly, I wondered how much truth there was in 6th to 18th. I think it needs revising to 4th to 14th, Only posting this because I found it interesting but we’ve beaten 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 19th & 20th. We’ve also beaten 2nd and 3rd. Not sure why we won against Stoke who are 10th, on the opening day (there’s always tomorrow) or even, why we lost to Newcastle from 18th. They seem to buck the trend. I’ve never considered we’re only finding it difficult against mid table sides. Interesting that.
don’t forget we also drew away at 1st and 4th this season.
I’m still bemused how a club with this transfer committee in place sanctioned the signing of Benteke for similar money 3 years after binning Carroll (which was the right thing to do in hindsight, but don’t repeat the same mistake at further cost again). It’s baffling.
Unless he’s starting games this season I couldn’t be less arsed about this Serbian kid. I’ve honestly never cared less about a Liverpool signing. We signed a young center half for £7m (?) the same summer Kolo and Sakho came in, then spent another £20m on Lovren the year after. He hasn’t had a kick and he was never going to get one. Just, why? What’s the point?
Then we turn around and don’t want to give the top players who win you leagues and champions league games the wages? How much money was Glen Johnson on to have about two good games in the last two years of his contract? Enrique’s played only a handful of games in the last two years (one of them I remember being the ‘must win Basel at home to be in the CL knockouts for the first time in 5 and a half years’ game. Lambert started and Coutinho didn’t, as well… C’mon Brendan). We’re an absolute joke.
Whoever muted Balotelli to the manager should have been out the door long before Rodgers was. Even from the owner’s perspective, Comolli as director of football or whatever his title was made them money with the Suarez signing. This committee have done nothing but waste it.
The new kid seems to be ok, based on U20 world cup matches that I saw over the summer. ( I know I know it’s different level compared to Watford and Wimbledon.)
He is Klopp’s twin brother recommendstion so I trust this new management (as compared to the laptop guy:).
my observation is as follows:
(Easiest comparison would be against Can in the current team)
Power/strength:
Can~9 big Mac vs (new kid ~ 8 big Mac)
Speed/Acceleration: 6 vs (8)
Heading: 6 vs (7)
Football brain: 6 vs (8)
Determination: 8 vs (7)
Techincal: 6 vs (8)
Biggest difference: this new kid does not do slow motion step overs like Can and lose the ball.
but the good point is, both Can and the new kids will grow and get better within the next 2 years.
This fiasco’s been going on for time. I was thinking today about Assaidi. Rodgers said how good he was going to be then later we found out he hadn’t even seen him and some guy who was getting paid to sit on Twitter all day had told him to sign him. It beggars belief. Imagine that. Some random says he’s really good, get him and they do. Rodgers was probably worried in case he got shit put through his letterbox if he didn’t.
As a side issue, what got me thinking about Assaidi was thinking about the transfer committee. I remember when we signed Mario, Lambert, Lovren et al. I remember being really pleased. Lallana too, and Firmino when I saw his record. In fact, I’ve been fairly pleased for the past 2 summers. I’m a huge critic of the transfer committee and I wondered have we been harsh on them bearing in mind I wasn’t alone in thinking we’d done well in our business.
Then I remembered. We’re fans. We do 3 things. We go on You Tube and watch the clips and as we all know even Tim Howard could look good in 5 mins of clips. It tells us nothing as was the case with Assaidi. We read the reports which actually highlight only his strengths and worst of all and most importantly, we have faith in the club. If they tell us they’ve signed someone we immediately think he must be ok then when backed up with the video’s and the stats it always sounds promising.
My conclusion was, us being happy with our business means fuck all. These people get decent money and we’ve got no reason to know any different. Benteke is the biggest mystery of all. Were the other ‘less mobile’ forwards we had not brought up when discussing buying him? How was that resolved? I’d love to have been a fly on the wall. It’s shambolic and makes me think their approach isn’t that different to ours. The Assaidi deal gives credence to that. He’s a Rodgers signing, he’s a committee signing, he’s the guy upstairs on the internet’s signing.
You can forget about top 4, not gonna happen.
I’m extremely concerned about not finishing top 6 which then puts you into mid table mediocrity.
Try convincing a top player to join next summer when for the 6th time in 7 yrs you’ve failed to make CL.
The money we’ve wasted is a complete disgrace.
The squad with the exception of Mignolet is fine, what it lacks is 3 world class forwards to score goals, it was the same last year although with Sterling we had more pace. As soon as Sturridge is on the field you see the difference a world class forward makes. Southampton away defines this team and squad, a shit goal conceeded in 30 seconds, they recover a bit and then Sturridge fines some space, controls it badly and still scores. The whole team go, oh, so thats how its done. They then pass again to the world class one and he scores. Confidence in the team is high and the rest is history until Sturridge is out and replaced by ….
It does not have to be Sturridge any world class forwards will do but you have to pay for them with wages and this is where the transfer commitee sort of by definition shoots itself in the foot. The transfer commitee is set up to find ‘value’ and this is how it justifies itself, its a bit easy to go out and spend 50 mil on a forward and give him 220k a week, anyone could do that. Except when in the box seat with Sanches FSG did not do this, and more to the point did not make much of an effort, because they thought they could find ‘value’ somewhere else. Origi, Markovich and Ings, are all ‘value’ buys with potential and there is nothing wrong with buying them except they are not world class players today, in 3 or 4 years they might be, but to become world class players they need to play and develop. If you have 3 world class forwards how do your young players develop? This is the fundamental problem with a director of football or commitee style model. The commitee wants to find the next Messi and the manager needs one, two or three 30 goal a seasons forwards today.
This all goes back to Rafa of course, as everything in the modern LFC tends to do, because in the 2010 world cup final LFC had more players in the final than any other club. FSG were told that everything Rafa did was wrong, and some of it was, but he new the type of player he wanted and after 6 years he had built a good squad on ‘high’ wages. Rafa did not look for ‘value’ he wanted players to come in and do a job and if in two or three years they were burnt out then you replace them after all they are only players.
Hopefully Klopp will say he needs 3 or 4 quality players and with his personality he will persuade them to come and FSG will open a cheque book, and if this does not happen we will be in the same position this time next year and everyone will say he needs more time.
Agree with a lot of that but it was defo Sanchez pulling the plug on a move to us rather than FSG not pushing the boat out financially that Summer,
We had the funds and the bargaining chip but if a player just has eyes for another club there ain’t much anyone can do,
Genuine question : what Strikers would you go for at the mo?
I rarely watch football outside the Prem so I’d be happy with maybe Berahino.