STOP it, Liverpool. Just stop it. I have had enough of the nonsense around Liverpool lacking ruthlessness at both ends of the pitch; had enough of the nonsense inviting ruthlessness from opponents who deserve credit for hanging in but too often little else.
Stop it. Stop making it easy, stop showing the way. Stop knocking off on the edge of your own area, letting crosses come in. Stop stepping over the ball attempting to kick it on the edge of your own six-yard box. Stop not digging each other out. Stop missing clear-cut opportunities, e.g. penalties. Stop it. Stop being so very hard to play against until you are so very easy. Stop having two gears — great and shite. Just pack it in.
In the post-match show I have a chat with Ben Johnson about this side, this football team who can be irresistible, who you can love so easily and hate so fast. We talk about how this Liverpool side is on the verge of greatness but never has the other side of the verge felt quite so far away. It’s as likely, more likely perhaps the side eternally falls short. It feels that way this evening, perhaps unfairly. And yet. What should have been a win to build a season on against Arsenal hasn’t acted as a springboard. The season is oh so young but as this column has made clear before, this isn’t our first rodeo. I’ve seen this film. It’s half decent, don’t get me wrong. And yet.
And yet. Liverpool have undressed another side from a major European league who finished in a similar position to them in their league for the second time this season. They are almost certainly better than Sevilla and tonight was a game the suspicion remains they would win seven times out of 10.
You could have said that after the Europa League final. As ever, LOL at me.
The truth of the matter is we sit waiting for this football team of ours to find its way to the performances and results they should be capable of, the irresistibility they could deliver. We sit waiting and until then we dissect.
We dissect a centre midfield where Emre Can was poor for long stretches before being occasionally good in moments, a centre midfield where Gini Wijnaldum has an excellent 45 before an utterly anonymous 45 and a centre midfield where, opening goal aside, Jordan Henderson is that notch below his own average at best. Mediocre in reality. Each offering a five out of 10 in different, equally disappointing ways. Lovely variation Reds. Each better than this. Collectively less than the sum of their slightly flat parts.
The first half belonged to Albie Moreno. Sets up the first, does brilliantly for the penalty. He’s all action and no composure and makes things happen because Liverpool. Albie here, Albie there. Albie the wrong side. Albie making it happen.
The second goal Liverpool concede sees no one sit in when Henderson gets dragged out (too easily) and no Liverpool player even thinks to drop in. Liverpool are played through the middle of.
Bobby Firmino marvellous, missing penalties. Mo Salah marvellous, missing chances. Sadio Mane marvellous, missing a little bit of something tonight. You can do this everywhere.
This season has so many possibilities right now. So many. That is both a positive and a negative.
This thing of ours. Spent too much time on a knife edge, on a tight rope. We’ve chosen this one. Stop it, Reds. Stop messing about. Walk it. You are more than capable of that.
READ: Liverpool 2 Sevilla 2: The Final Whistle
READ: Liverpool 2 Sevilla 2: Match Ratings
READ: Liverpool 2 Sevilla 2: Jürgen Klopp Should Kop For The Reds’ Soft Underbelly
LISTEN: Liverpool 2 Sevilla 2: The Post-Match Show (SUBSCRIBERS)
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Eight times out of ten. Maybe 8.5.
Great post Neil! I agree with you that this is both positive and negative.
Although I still believe we can make it YNWA!!
Thanks Neil. I would be happy to see this team trade some magic (which is feeling a bit fairydust like) for some solidity and some pragmatism. WTF? Not getting any sense of game management? Not at City. Not here I dont think. Also, where is the captaincy? Is Jordan Henderson really good enough, consistent enough to be our captain? I don’t think so but the fact that there isnt anyone else speaks volumes. Some great players here but no captain. No midfield or defensive general who is always there, fully reliable and in command. Shit I am just realising how pissed off about this I am! Love you LFC but what the fuck!
Lets face it, this team will not win anything.
Every player is average 90% of the time.
We need several leaders
Is that a haiku?
Haha
If we really want to win the title then being brutally honest, mignolet not good enough, Karius not good enough, Moreno not good enough, Robertson dunno, lovren not good enough, Matip dunno, klaven not good enough, Arnold too young to be starting, Gomez dunno.
These players may do better in a mourinho/Benitez/conte side but in a klopp side no chance
“The project” is actually “The project”….the players don’t seem to be bothered about representing the city. If they can’t do it at home on a Wednesday night then when can they do it?? Still, as the money is rolling in. That was shite. Burnley will have figured this out already.
Oh Liverpool. It was so predictable wasn’t it?
We are the most bipolar of sides. Such attacking prowess. Cutting through opponents at will. Pace, power and interchangeability all tempered by an astonishing weakness at the back.
Jittery, nervous defenders. Neither centre-back takes command. It’s not going to change. I’ve accepted that. We’re top heavy. The only way to defend for this team is to attack and attack constantly. 1-0 is not enough. 2-1 is certainly not enough. Even 2-0 is not enough. This team needs to ram home the advantage. Like against Arsenal & Hoffenheim. Score early, then score again. And again.
We have no ability to absorb pressure. None whatsoever. There is no side in the league less equipped to do so. Equally, there is no team that can attack like us.
Get Lallana back available and Coutinho re-integrated. We’ll be incredible. Just play whoever at the back. It doesn’t matter.
When the reds are on fire they are truly irresistible and a beautiful thing to watch, but when the tide turns we collectively shit our pants and look nailed on to concede a goal…
Why? I’m sure Klopp and ‘The Brain’ are working on this but how does it keep happening and why does it always look so inevitable? If we can’t coach the lads we’ve got to be better then we should have bought better replacements in the summer. Or is it a coaching issue? Or is it just a consequence of playing balls deep football with no foreplay or fag break?
I know signing VVD wouldn’t have cured all our defensive woes but it would have been a fucking start. My own view is that Klopp not only wanted to sign VVD but also make him the Vice or even Captain (just a gut feeling I have had since we were linked to him). A giant beast in the heart of defence directing traffic in front of him, putting out fires before they start and then launching attacks. I know it wasn’t for the want of trying but does anyone else quietly long for VVD shaped replacements every time we concede or just panic like fuck when the opposition attack?
I hope Klopp and the lads can put this right because watching them at the moment is like getting the best blow job of your life whilst being repeatedly punched in the face…
Being captain makes zero difference to commanding the back line. It should be part of a CB job description.
@KM1806 I think he means that making VVD captain may have been part of the appeal as to why Klopp wanted him – at least his view.
My view – That combination would make a difference when you have NO leaders in the team.
fair enough – but the captains armband is irrelevant here. Carragher was far more of a vocal leader and organiser than Gerrard ever was.
Organisation is only part of the issue though. Virgil Van Dijk could be given everything and it doesn’t stop half the goals we concede this season. It doesn’t make Winjaldum clear his lines against Watford, or Henderson with a piss poor header against City or Can winning his tackle, Gomez closing his man and Lovren messing up last night.
Its as much in the heads of these lads. I don’t know why, but complete brain freezes are too common. Why Lovren missing that routine clearance isn’t ability, system or tactics
Spot on Neil. Stop it. Exactly what I thought when they scored, or actually as soon as they took that quick throw in. Just fucking stop it.
Klopp has come out and said that a signing would not have solved our defensive problems and while this may be true it could very well have helped our problems.
Another centreback means options. It means pressure put on the other players to up their game.
I’ve had it with Lovren. He’s simply not good enough. While he may have good games there’s always a howler in him. Moreno into his 4th season and still can’t defend. He has no defensive instincts, it’s just not in him and these occasional good attacking moments don’t mask his deficiencies in defence.
Several left backs moved this season. We bought Robbo and while he may turn out to be very good should a team of our ambition have to sit around and wait?
Need to go 4-2-3-1 with sitting midfielders boyh sitting until we figure out (hopefully buy!) 2 strong no nonsense CBs.Dont get me wrong,it wont sort our problems out completely because of way we play but surely itll help this team turn into the side it should be!
Watching this team is like watching someone cook you the perfect Kobe beef steak, juicy inside, slight crust on the outside, nicely seasoned….then drop it on the floor and serve it on a paper plate.
with ketchup
Im worried about this defence, i think we needed 4 defenders and a keeper, existing players back up..we got none…robertson who had a great debut but for some reason we havent seen him since…moreno is playing well, by his standards but i still dont trust him…we are actually worse off at the back than last year..lucas filled a gap at CB if needed…so now we have 2 big games per week where we have to rotate lovren klaven and matip, sweet lord
Good footballers or headless chickens ? Liverpool need someone with a brain, someone like Jamie Carragher a leader to pull this team together. To make a good team a great team.
This is a haiku
Defensive errors
Still persist despite, at times,
Some lovely football
Neil, either play yourself or get some robots signed. Unbelieveably pointless moaning.
We proved the old adage “You win Nothing with kids” as “belief in youth” won Nothing. The next old adage we are having a go at is “You build from the back” and it looks like we are proving that too. It’s about adages, not cups. Cups are passe.
Oh Degsy, you took a hell of a beating.
Gini and sadio for PM and more sturridge please jurgen
The journalists (TAW, Echo etc..) have a responsibility to the supporters. We support whole heartedly with so much of hope only to get let down time and time again. Stop playing footsie with JK at the press conferences. Ask him the difficult questions. Make him uncomfortable. Ask him why are we not improving defensively? Quote the stats to him and ask him what is he doing about it….get him on record. The press conferences are all too easy and I think the journalists are afraid of asking those probing questions because they like JK too much. For me there’s no better manager out there that I’d want as our manager. But he’s had two years with these defenders now and I don’t see the improvement at all. I’m with LFC 100% but we have to improve defensively. YNWA.
that’s not exactly true – he’s had just over a season with Karius, Matip (notwithstanding injury gaps) and Klavan. Gomez and Trent are only just breaking through. Add Winjaldum to that as well (our mids are just as much to blame)
@Kirchlin Simhadri …Was thinking the same.
How come none of these journalists ever ask these types of questions? I don’t know if this is something of a trend or if it’s just the way it is now, but here in the US, interviews with major figure-heads are often pre-screened. Example, George Bush Jr., whenever he was interviewed during the Iraq war once most people asked where the WMDs were or still are or whatever?
His staff already had questions screened and answers ready.
I get the impression that unless it is a major scandal or if the corporation has already setup to cut ties with the said party, then it is free-for-all.
Anyways I don’t think Klopp’s interviews are that drastic, but I wonder if Journalists are scared they will not be permitted back if they asked the difficult questions.
TAW any thoughts on this?
he did get asked and he did answer it.
But these pre-match press conferences are soundbites for the morning papers. You’d need a proper sit down to really get the difficult questions out there.
And I can probably tell you, in advance, what those answers would look like.
That makes sense then with respect to the soundbites and even canned answers if there are any.
So is it the club/FA/Broadcasting Corps that has final say on the length of these pre and post match interviews?
End of the day, Klopp is not Mourinho – he has always, always favoured training ground development over the cheque book.
His Dortmund side was built around Seven Subotic and Mats Hummels – both lads were 20 when Klopp signed them. He basically took raw talent and developed them. They were not the players we know them as now. He kept Weidenfeller as his GK despite a horrendous set of stats behind him – a lad who get his first cap at the age of 33 for fucks sake.
All the evidence is there as to how Klopp does, and will continue to, operate.
Clearly, with some of the signings he has addressed a more expansive approach in terms of spending decent amount of cash, but his modus operandi is the training ground – and whether we like it, agree with it or want to lose our shit over it and show the world we know best, its the way it is.
Some of the fruit can be seen in the improvement in Coutinho, Mane, Can (at times), Lallana etc. Jeez, even Moreno has shown signs of getting it so far this season. Clearly the CBs are an issue, whatever Klopp wants isn’t sinking in, or at least is staying put for 90 minutes – we can only hope that it eventually does.
Our concerns, rantings, points aren’t going to change a thing.
@KM1806 You are right, in terms of no matter what we say Klopp will go about his way or the highway. Stubbornness perhaps or genius, we will find out in the coming months and at the end of this season.
While you’ve highlighted his current achievements which I am very happy to see happen, and want it to happen badly with other players, especially with Moreno, since I feel the kid is really trying and has stepped up at least by his standards, Klopp needs to be held accountable for the issues that might hurt his own development as a coach/manager.
Not that what I say on here matters to him, but to me (my perspective) in order to reach the heights of some of our greatest managers, some of his ideas seem like they are be forced.
Here are some…
Playing Henderson captain in the DM position, while in theory might sound great from time to time or the odd game, Henderson is better when he moving forward as he did in previous campaigns. It might be the spark he needs to captain the side with more assertiveness that I and some other fans think he lacks.
Buying a CB to help Lovren, Matip, etc, develop their game in areas they need to concentrate in, while may not be the sole answer to the whole defensive problems, I thought it would have been better trying for some of these players outlined in this article below, instead of all-eggs-in-one-basket approach with VVD, who might even be a dud or crocked player.
https://www.thisisanfield.com/2017/09/5-centre-backs-prove-jurgen-klopp-wrong-not-pursue-virgil-van-dijk-alternative/
You know the saying, you can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink right? Lovren is currently in that category. He will continue to make mistakes, as will Moreno, Karius, Henderson, because as fans we will always have a hard time to know what it’s like to play in the red shirt at any given time. Klopp also must realize this, but from what you say, it’s back to the watering hole or training ground then, and give them instructions for the umpteenth time in the hopes that they get it, while other teams have players who already have it and got it before arriving to their respective teams.
So you get rid of these players/employees who just don’t fucking get it via the transfer window. Some of these players have been at the club long enough, and under Klopp to realize his methods, and for Klopp to realize whether they get him or not. So far neither seem to be communicating well enough from a defensive stand point.
Rotating goalkeepers may seem like a novel idea and may help with building game confidence and experience for Karius, but Mignolet hasn’t exactly received any recent comedy central awards, because like Moreno he has tried to improve his game and may also be looking for, or is in need of consistency. Is this supposed to build his confidence? Then I’ve no idea what Ward must be going through.
Playing with a proper striker is another option to have, and I think should be used, but Klopp always favors this false 9 stuff. I dig Firmino, has his moments, but looking at Sturridge when he was firing on all cylinders once upon a time or Suarez, can’t help but see this approach these days to 4-3-3. It’s Klopp’s way then, until the other teams figure out how to null this false 9.
Klopp’s in game management continues to baffle me, especially with his timing. I’ve seen Mourinho outfox Ferguson, Pep do the same to other managers/teams, Conte, etc with the timing of their subs and they have game changers on the bench that the team and game seem to have benefited from this. In the last match, with (for once) having a quality bench, I felt I had no idea what the OX was going to do with that amount of time he had to change things, while Coutinho looked off the boil, and Sturridge was anonymous.
Finally this all out attack I admit is great to watch, but like with any kind of sport in which you are allowed to attack your opponent, if he/she is experienced/skilled/patient, can always find the gaps you leave. Think martial arts for example, where experienced fighters often use this against opponents to wait for weaknesses, as an all out attack if not executed properly to knock you out or is done one too many times leaves you wide open. I can’t say that is the case against every team LFC plays, but our repeated blitzkriegs have their place, and when it doesn’t work, then trying to defend should be some sort of plan B. To me it seems like Klopp doesn’t have one at this time.
If you’ve made it this far, then you’ve realized that this isn’t a rant, but venting of frustrations which is why we comment on here and try to have discussions about it.
Does Klopp give a fuck? No.. Should you? No, but that shouldn’t stop any of us or at times the writers on TAW, from letting off steam regarding frustrations based on what we all see, and try to make sense of it all.
Anyways I hope Klopp and the Reds show a much improved performance against Burnley, as I still want Klopp and the team to succeed as much as any LFC fan, whether it’s my way, his way or the highway. :)
We are an ugly, ugly club in defeat or disappointment. The knives are always ready. The toxic mist always waiting. We will never, ever win anything if we carry on undermining our own players. Groaning, gasping, abusing our captain. Why is Anfield so toxic? Klopp will leave if this continues and I wouldn’t blame him. Do we need another Hodgson to teach us a lesson?
Are our fans doing their best to support the team when things aren’t going their way? Honestly I would include you lot in that too. I’m sick of our fans undermining our players with their cowardice and negativity.