By David Lynch
I DIDN’T WORRY at all last summer.
Nope. The ‘Great Spurs Splurge of 2013’ never once raised even mild trepidation in me.
Back then, we were regularly informed that Tottenham had constructed a team to end Liverpool’s top four push before a ball had been kicked.
“They could even win the title!”
But I didn’t care because, basically, ignorance is bliss. They say you most fear the things you don’t know. But in football, that is only true of your own team, not others. No amount of hype could convince me that Erik Lamela, Etienne Capoue, Vlad Chriches or any of the players I had never seen would set the league alight. I didn’t fear them.
And the ones I did know?
Roberto Soldado switching leagues at 28? Christian Eriksen coping with the physicality? Question marks, unknowns, problems to solve. And so it proved.
It is for this reason that I was initially less fearful that Liverpool faced a similar situation. Things that I know include this:
Philippe Coutinho, Jordan Henderson, Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge are ridiculously good.
There’s no uncertainty around that. I can rely upon it to be true. That’ll be worth something next season. But there’s a fear hewn in Luis Suarez’s image that continues to niggle. I just can’t shake it. It’s getting worse.
To be honest, its grip has tightened since the deal to bring in Loic Remy collapsed. Of course, that is not because I believe the French striker could come even close to doing what Suarez did for the Reds. There’s a fairly sizeable talent gap to bridge there, for starters.
But the root of my concern are my strongly held beliefs over what actually made Liverpool great last season.
While words such as “mad”, “crazy”, and “breathtaking” were thrown about in attempts to describe the team, I always hoped that a deep cynicism was behind the remarkable football. (Romantic, I know). I honestly preferred the idea that FSG, along with Brendan Rodgers, had effectively worked this silly game of football out. Their plan – in my head, at least – was based upon the premise that teams who end up at the top tend to have scored more than the others.
The Boston-based hedge fund experts had officially realised that the clichéd pundit was right all along: Goals win games.
“Let’s be good at doing that above all else and we’ll be up there,” John Henry says, in my weird boardroom dreams.
Now Remy might not be Suarez, but he would have, you’d have hoped, brought at least 15 goals to the table. Get slightly better at doing the other bits of football – defending, controlling, yada yada… boring – then plug the gap with 15 goals instead of 31.
That seems logical to me.
Unfortunately, that deal fell through. And now we must head into the unknown which, as I noted earlier, is not a good thing when it comes to your own team.
People might get excited by foreign stars who they have seen little of coming in, but not me.
I wanted Remy. I wanted the cynical 15 goals.
What I see now is a team that is likely to be better in a lot of areas, but one of them might not be winning football matches. You can control, you can defend well, but you can still get beat by accumulating fewer goals than your opponent. As things stand, Rodgers is relying on the likes of Henderson, Sterling and Coutinho upping their output. That, to me, feels like heading into a season without guarantees. It’s an approach full of hope, not cynicism.
And it worries me.
The trouble is that now you’ll see Remy in a Spurs shirt next season. You will either be really happy you didn’t sign him, or those 15 goals…….
Anyway, Remy one way and Townsend the other? Don’t put money on it, but…. ; )
Jordan Henderson, Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge are ridiculously good. lmfao
Yeah the world cup really showed how overhyped they are or do you forget they finished bottom of their group ?
Or the fact that the england team was a liverpool select without the important ingredient Suarez !
Good luck next year when hes not there to bail you out
Peter you Buffoon…
Brendan Rodgers wasn’t England’s manager
Coutinho wasn’t playing for England, neither was Stirling given the same role
Roy Hodgson is a T*T
Oh and another thing
Liverpool without Suarez this season will still be a force to be reckoned with. You think this is a 2 year plan? No, it’s just the beginning and you’ll be admiring Rodgers and his young players this season and the next and the next…
England? Pfft who the f*ck cares?
Big brave Peter!!!!!
First of all I’ll point out a stat, Sturridge scored more goals when his team were behind than any other player in the squad. This alone makes a mockery of your final statement suggesting Suarez bailed us out. Secondly, England are managed by the most negative person football has ever seen, his tactics were wrong from the first whistle of every game. So to blame the Liverpool players for this is utter shite. We scored 101 league goals last season and suarez scored 31 of them, take them off the 101 and we still outscored everyone bar City and Chelsea
YOU’RE DOING IT PETER
We weren’t really trying to stop your push for the top 4, you ousted Manu last season, you’re like us now, trying to get into the top 4, and yes you had a great season last term, but believe me it will be very different this term, with you guys playing in Europe , you know the team from OT will be a lot stronger and I’m realistic, the top 3 will be citeh , chelski and the gooners, out of us 3 already mentioned and the toffees
There’s no doubt you can never write off the mancs especially as Richard Scudamore has stressed how important it is to have them back at the top again. You cannot write Liverpool off either though as the have significantly strengthened their squad too.
Liverpool must do and Arsenal on it when it comes to the CL and just take the money for taking part and concentrate on top four again next year.
I think is is going to be a fantastic season that will go right down to the wire for both title winners & top 4.
Hindsight is a marvellous thing.
Sturridge has admitted that he was pretty much in the last chance saloon when he signed. Having failed at Chelsea he had one last go at proving himself to being a great player.
Henderson was pretty much seen as a flop after his first season.
Coutinho like Sturridge had failed to live up to the hype of his early career and the move to Liverpool was seen as make or break.
Sterling made a huge impact last season but was still something of an unknown. He’s going to get kicked about this year.
The funny thing is, all were present the previous season when Liverpool finished 7th and none other than Sturridge has a good season.
If they repeat their performances or exceed them (whilst playing a fair few extra European games) then Liverpool will do well.
You’ll also get far more teams parking the bus
Without Suarez you probably won’t set a new penalty record again (though Sturridge is pretty good)
So on to Spurs…
Under the shittest and under qualified manager in the League they finished 6th. Most of their new signings got injured for lengthy periods so you’ve written them all off? If Spurs don’t improve significantly I’d be very surprised.
“The funny thing is, all were present the previous season when Liverpool finished 7th and none other than Sturridge has a good season.”
I’m sorry, but that’s a loaded statement.
Coutinho and Sturridge showed up in the latter half of 2012-13. They’re largely the reason why Liverpool finished as well as they did. You can’t say *only* Sturridge had a good season; he largely flourished *thanks* to Coutinho.
Furthermore, Sterling was the team’s single bright spot (other than Suarez) in the first half of the year. Injuries kept him out for much of the second half. That’s one of the main differences between him in 2012-13 and last year. What was the other? The fact that he was able to come back from the kicking. During his first year, he shone but couldn’t recover from being cynically kicked around by less talented opposing players. Last year, you didn’t see that. He’s a young player that’s maturing.
So really, you’re just saying that Henderson didn’t half a good year in 2012-13. Well, you’re right, he didn’t. But he had a very good year in 2013-14, did he not? Be honest, if he improves on his accuracy (and, let’s face it, there’s only going up where he’s concerned) and bags 6-7 goals this season, how many central midfielders will you rate above him? Especially at 24 years old?
Is this the Jordan Henderson who was ridiculously bad at the World Cup. I guess if he plays well for Liverpool it doesn’t matter how out of his depth he is in an England shirt. Will be very tough for Liverpool to end in the top 4 this year, but I hope they do because their football at time is exhilarating.
Big mal, no offence mate but all you Ingurland fans have the same disease, you can’t see what a fucking abomination of a manger Hodgeson is, a serial loser with an outdated don’t lose mentality will never win at tournament football. No matter what players he is managing.
well, just couldn’t care less about England, shite team, shite manager, shite FA. and the FA can go and do one.
Lfc do need to see Sturridge taking his opportunities though.
dont worry, brendan rogers ghas a strategy
David,
“As things stand, Rodgers is relying on the likes of Henderson, Sterling and Coutinho upping their output. That, to me, feels like heading into a season without guarantees. It’s an approach full of hope, not cynicism.”
I’d share your sentiment if Henderson and Coutinho were already serving up 7-10 goals a season and we were asking them to start contributing, say, 14-18. That would be silly. We’re not, though; we’re basically asking them to improve in terms of their shot accuracy and selection, and achieve a goal-scoring rate that is consistent with their demonstrated ability.
Let me put it this way. Say Hendo and Phil *don’t* improve on their scoring. Do you keep them? Of course not. If the goal is for Liverpool to be a legitimate contender for domestic titles and a shoe-in for Champions League, then there’s no way you accommodate players in such key positions who can’t score 7 or more goals. In that sense, Rodgers’ stated demands from those two players are hardly unreasonable.
Signing Remy was never going to make up for that. Remy was never going to get 15 goals, not without cutting into Sturridge’s playing time, pushing him off to the wing (where he isn’t as good), or forcing him to play in schemes that – even with Suarez – were starting to look awkward and not so much like partnerships by March-April of last season.
Do we need another striker for League Cup games, F.A. Cup fixtures against lower-ranked sides, or league fixtures when Sturridge needs rest? Sure. But that’s a concept wholly separate from the needed development of our #10 and the man who has become the heart of our midfield.
The problem is this, and Brendan Rogers has admitted it, the English players at Liverpool have no bottle in big games. This showed when England (with half a dozen Liverpool players) were swiftly ejected from the World Cup. Now Liverpool will embark on 2014/15 with more games than last season, maybe less penalties, less determination (justice96 anniversary ) a bigger stage in the CL where these bottling players will cause a poor set of results that will effect their moral as well as fatigue in the league. Not only this, they as of yet have not replaced their 31 goal,12 assist, Pentality winning machine Luis Suarez. All they have done is added numbers including more English bottlers to cater of the influx of games. Having said all that, they will still be battling for top 4 based on a good core and a very good manager, just don’t expect to be anywhere near last seasons standings.
I’ve never understood the modern fascination with trolling. When I was 12, internetless, and bored, I’d just grab a footy and have a kick-a-bout with me mates, occassionally we’d sit around a TV and play sensible soccer or mario. I can honestly say it never occured to me to actively seek out opposition support (which were mainly Everton and Man U fans round me ma’s) for the sole purpose of taking the piss. Granted doing it in an old school face-to-face manner would have resulted in me getting my head kicked in, but ultimately I just had better things to do. I guess what I’m trying to say kid, is… its summer, go and do something with your life, make some friends, go and play footy instead of chatting about it. Some of us enjoy reading articles about our club without prepubescents cluttering up the comments section. There’s a good lad.
1. It’s not trolling when the article refers to Spurs, because it then becomes fed to the Spurs newswire.
2. I myself have been there , done that and worn the football jersey, probably back when you were peeing the bed in the small hours.
3. Your response is the only prepubescent cluttering of the comments because you are the one that does not refer to the article. Sleep tight.
So you mean you wrote that shit and your not 12?
classic stuff, Craig, Steve. Well done boys.
It’s amazing. I read the liverpool offside blog comments made during the Manc pre-season game and one of the bloggers took a peek at the SBnation Utd blog.
He said 3/4 of the comments were about Liverpool! They just can’t help themselves. Fergie was the same, even when we were an irrelevance in the league – which was often, they were obsessed with us. Just bizarre.
If we dominated the league the way the Mancs did, I can’t imagine spending any seconds let alone minutes on another club’s blogs. I’d be too busy enjoying myself and rooting out other lfc fans to get drunk with.
Are we doing this football fan thing wrong????
Credit where its due, you scousers played some great stuff last year! thought Liverpool were fantastic to watch, if the players arent available go with what youve got until they are is my advice for what its worth.
no point signing players for the sake of it!
dont believe the hype about the fees we paid, Soldado was only £13m down plus add ons, and he aint added shit to his fee, lol same with Lamela, he was £15m down plus add ons…..
only Soldado will we lose money on, for all the players that joined and with no pattern of play we only finished 2 points worse off than the season before so not that bad.
The other teams were better pure and simple.
yeah, for a pigs ear of a season, you guys didn’t do badly points wise though you would have done everyone favours had you dropped out of the europa and allowed Utd in. A bit annoyed you didn’t do that cos you’ve likely damned your season now.
But what a year it’s going to be. If we do what you did in adding lots of players, lose 3 pts and one place, I for one will be over the moon. But it’s just not the same.
We need 2 full backs and are getting them. We need to do something about how the CBs play and the constant niggles they were picking up and we’ve bought another.
We need to rest sterling and Coutinho and Gerrard/Henderson and we’ve bought Lallana, Markovic and Can so that’s very good (if they can get fit!!).
If Lambert can up his game a bit and get some sharpness that will help, esp with bus parking teams.
Then we just need to get another striker/forward to spell STurridge through his niggles. If we don’t do that I’ll be worried, but for general play we looked good in pre-season and were very competitive with Citeh, the one game that really meant something and we had players available.
Need those new boys to get fit though.
Funny how when we were actually shite you never saw other clubs supporters anywhere near this site. Now , even though the evidence of the last 18 months points to the contrary, they are all over the thing with ill informed, poorly researched opinions on how we’ll fare. Thanks for the input lads , as desperate and deluded as it is.
We scored 101 goals last season. Here’s how they break down:
Suarez (31) Sturridge (21), Gerrard (13), Sterling (9), Skrtel (7), Coutinho (5), Henderson (4), Agger (2), Allen (1), Flanagan (1), Moses (1), Sakho (1).
I agree with the notion that you don’t just lose Suarez’s goals, but some of Stevie’s as well – since he was our PK machine last campaign. How many, though? Five. That’s how many penalties Suarez won (though, to read some posts, he must have won *all* of them).
That leaves us with 65 goals.
Of those, let’s be cynical and also write off 4 from Skrtel, since he never scored more than 2 for us prior to 2013-14. Three goals thus gives him credit for improvement, without asking for too much. Where the other centre-backs are concerned, I have no doubt that, between them, Agger, Lovren, and Sakho can replicate the three goals the Dane and the Frenchman got last season.
Moses is gone. Good riddance to him and his one goal.
That leaves us with 60 goals.
This article focuses on a striker to supplement that goal-scoring, but how? You can’t assume you’re always going to have a pair of strikers playing in tandem, each with 15-25 goals. What we did last season was the exception, not the rule. The idea is that, if Sturridge gets hurt, then your replacement is (ideally) someone who can replace him while maintaining that admirable goals/game ratio. We struck the gold mind with Daniel Sturridge; in reality, what we should be looking for right now is what we’ll hopefully be getting in Origi next year – a hungry young talent who has shown he possesses ability. What you don’t want is a question mark like Aspas.
With that in mind, Rodgers is spot on when he says he needs Coutinho and Henderson to step up their goal scoring. A club meant to be contending for the league, Champions league, and trophies, needs those players to score more. Asking for 8-10 goals from Coutinho is not unreasonable. Neither is asking for the same from Henderson. Tellingly, if they do meet those figures, we’re suddenly looking at 67-71 goals. That’s before we take into consideration Lallana’s contribution, which you hope will bring us to 74-80 goals.
That’s also assuming Sterling won’t improve at all, that Joe Allen will continue to have horrendous form in front of the goal (seriously, some of his misses were harder than scoring an actual goal), and Emre Can won’t score a single goal.
Even if none of those things happen, we’re still looking at more GF than anyone but ourselves and City had in 2013-14. In fact, for *at least* the past ten years, 74-80 goals has been good enough for a top-four finish. In at least two campaigns over the past decade, 80 goals was enough to win the League.
And by the way, if 74-80 goals (which, again, could easily be 80-86 goals) still sounds like Rodgers’ plan isn’t the sound one, consider this: Allen, Henderson, and Sturridge are 24 years old; Coutinho is 22; Can and Markovic are 20; Sterling is 19. Of the players you’re expecting to score from the field (Stevie doesn’t count, since he’s our set-piece and PK guy), Lallana is the elder statesman at *26*.
What this means is that, yes, our goal-scoring will take a significant dive in 2014-15, but it’s hardly the end of the world. It should still be good for 2 goals a game, and it will logically only grow. Improvement in defense was always going to be the focus for this year. Where that’s concerned, just like we can’t assume that Skrtel will score 7, you also can’t assume we’re going to ship 5 or more own goals to the opposition.
We’re going to be fine. What this club needs, more than ever, though, is supporters who will stick by all these young players and give them a chance to shine. City spent a ton of money (and will have to get increasingly creative where their finances are concerned) but still they barely finished ahead of us – and even then, that’s thanks to our own rotten luck.
That is a very well thought out breakdown of a particularly interesting perspective Phoebus, however what your stats are lacking is 1. How many goals was Suarez involved with, Sturridge would have a lesser tally if you deduct Suarezs’ 12 assists from the team, his flair and creativity led to many of the teams 101 goal haul, you are looking to replace at least 50 goals that the man had a major hand in. Plus you are assuming that the previous goal scorers from last season aren’t affected by the extra games that may lead to more injuries etc. I feel that Liverpool fans are deluding themselves, much like us Spurs fans did in thinking Bale’s departure would not derail us. Good luck.
Suarez had 12 assists last season. He’s gone and Lambert – who was next in the assist charts with 10 – has joined. So we’re a net -2 at the start of the season. And the glib assumption that other players who will now shoulder greater responsibility will struggle rather than flourish is a triumph of hope over the statistics. Sturridge certainly flourished in Suzrez’s absence last year, as did many others. Likewise with Henderson in Gerrard’s absence. And this canard about the CL i.e. LFC’s achievement last season was false due to no CL commitments and these additional commitment this year mean we’ll struggle – again, has no historical basis or statistical validity. What LFC did last season – begin the campaign as a non-CL club but mount a serious title challenge – is virtually unprecedented. If the absence of CL football is such a boon, how come other non-CL clubs over the years have been incapable or staging a serious challenge for the EPL title? Similarly, the teams who begin the season in the CL tend to b those in the EPL shakedown at the end. History and the numbers are on LFC’s side.
Still not convinced? Well LFC’s win ratio with Suarez is 50%. Without him it’s 64%. Don’t get me wrong: we’ll miss Suarez, of course we will. But anyone who seriously believes this ‘one man team’ stuff is deluded.
So, it’s ok to assume Suarez would’ve been directly involved in 50 goals this season but not to assume our other goal scorers would reach similar totals as las t season? Flawed logic and again pure speculation
Ryan,
Thanks for the kind words. As you may have guessed, this topic has consumed me somewhat. At one point, for instance, I went through LFCTV Go’s archive to see how many of Sturridge’s goals Suarez played a role in. Not just assisted, but played a role in – a part in the build-up play, for instance. The number might surprise you. Granted, this is based on subjective interpretation of video, but I’d say the answer if 6-7 during 2013-14. Far more promising in that regard was Coutinho’s partnership with Sturridge during the second half of the 2012-13 season.
Luis’s greater contribution, I think, is that he was such a dangerous player that he commanded the attention of other defenses – frequently being double- or even triple-teamed. What’s often ignored, though, is what happened when he was drawing on that extra defender: statistically speaking, Sturridge, Stevie, Sterling, Skrtel, Coutinho, and Henderson (the other meaningful scorers) *didn’t score more* when this happened. It’s not like he drew on extra players and, e.g., Coutinho could find Sterling. Rather, Luis more often than not, either had narrow misses or was stripped of the ball. I’m not going after the player here – it’s just a fact of life that goes with his conversion rate, which was 24%. Best case scenario was what happened when he drew a foul: Stevie’s 15 assists largely came from the resulting free kicks.
The thing is, those fouls were not exclusive to Luis. That they came primarily to him is in large part due to the fact that he commanded the ball for a large percentage of our possession in the opposing third. Sturridge is just as likely to draw that foul, as is Sterling. if he has the ball. So you really have to take into consideration the fact that Suarez wasn’t just providing tangible and intangible benefits to our attack. He was also responsible – and again, this is not criticism toward Luis – for other players not getting the ball as much as they will this year. The question thus becomes if, in Luis’s absence, Coutinho, Henderson, and Sterling will do more with their proportionately greater amount of time behind the ball. And whether Lallana will ably supplement their efforts.
Who knows? Maybe they won’t. Maybe Coutinho will continue firing off predominately weak and wide daisy-cutters. Maybe Hendo will keep firing nicely-served balls to the stands. Personally, I don’t think so.
Don’t take me as idiot that’s glad Luis is gone. I’m not. I would happily deal with the “headache” of figuring out how they’re going to fit him in with the rest of the squad for another 4-5 years. Will Liverpool score as much? No. Will we see as many out-of-this-world goals, like headers from the edge of the penalty box or strikes from 40-45 meters out? No. Will be able to cope, though? I think so.
One final note: I think the main difference between Spurs from last season and and Liverpool this one is the type of transfers you guys brought in.
Lallana is a “multi-tool” player who scored from three different positions last year and can play five. Markovic is for the future, as are Can and Origi (though the first two can contribute immediately). Lambert is backup. What I’m getting at is that we’re supplementing the attack we already had last year and reinforcing it for the years to come. The transfers we’ve made (and are hopefully still in the process of making) that are intended to outright *replace* players are for our defense: Lovren, and hopefully, Moreno.
By contrast, you guys brought in a striker and five players for the midfield and the wings who you expected to *start*.
You guys reinvented half your squad. We’re adding one guy to the starting lineup for the front two-thirds, and addressing the worst defense in last year’s top five (and eighth, League-wide).
Big mal, you can talk about Henderson not being good for England and you admit it it may not matter. I can say it doesn’t because Rooney has never been good for England and yet has still won a ton. Not only that England acts like he is undropable when Landon Donovan has done MUCH more internationally. I’ll take heat for that but international football means nothing in relation to club.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Liverpool have been a lot more savvy in transfer market than Spurs were, we bought players like you said that went straight into the team and it affected the ebb and flow dramatically. But now those players have had a year to play together, Lamela is now injury free and playing great pre season. My main concern for Liverpool is that you are not doing a Spurs exactly, but if you are only putting one or two different players into the starting line up then you are not replacing the threat that you had last season when you came second. Psychologically going into a game without a player like Suarez/ Bale does not cast the same doubt into the opponent, It does not carry the same confidence in your teams players. I do fear Sterling a little bit as a rival and Sturridge maybe but he can be poor at times, so you’ve got to look at the teams round you. Even Spurs have Eriksen and Lamela who I feel will be setting the prem alight this season..I guess what we are all feeling and thinking even as the opponents is that Liverpool need a big star signing in the upper £30-40m region who can bring that fear factor back to the club.
Ryan,
This brings us back full circle to the heart of the matter of this article and our debate. I’m not arguing that we’ll be able to get 100+ goals again without Suarez. I’m not even saying we’ll necessarily finish 2nd or 3rd, much less 1st (personally, I’ll be happy with 4th and would accept that as us being on course per Rodgers’ stated timeline; I’d be ecstatic with 3rd). What I’m saying is that these players (including Lallana) will hopefully score 74-80 goals, which historically is good enough for top four.
Might they fail to do so? Sure. See the bottom paragraph, for that.
Where the intimidation factor is concerned, I think you’re seriously underestimating what our squad is capable of doing. We finished the first half of 2012-13 ranked 10th, with just 28 goals for and 25 points. We finished the second half of that season ranked 7th… but we accounted for 43 goals, and our points total for that span was good for 6th. Did I mention we also took draws away from Arsenal, Chelsea, and City (two out of three of those away) and that we beat Spurs? And at that point, Coutinho and Sturridge had just joined the squad, Henderson was just starting to play well, and we didn’t even have Sterling anymore.
Sturridge poor at times? He’s averaging 0.74 goals per game since he joined us. Ironically, he’s only in questionable form when he has to play closer to the wing to accomodate another player. That won’t be the case this year.
Would I feel better had we signed a marquee player? Depends on the position. Do I wish we had signed Sanchez? Sure, what Premier League club wouldn’t want him? Would I jump for joy if Dortmund sold us Reus (assuming he wasn’t hurt)? Yeah, of course.
I don’t want us to throw money at a left winger for the sake of doing so, though. I don’t want to spend money to give Lavezzi the chance to score the same number of goals I should hopefully get from Coutinho or Markovic. I am perfectly happy with giving our squad its rightful chance and waiting until the winter transfer to see if we need to make a serious move. I don’t have a problem if we only take a point from Old Trafford, Emirates, Etihad, or Stamford Bridge with a midfield and forwards whose average age ranges (depending on lineup) from 22 to 24.
Good article and some excellent comments,
Seen this comment somewhere recently :
Press & opposition fans last year “Liverpool will need a bigger squad next year esp with champs league”
Press & opposition fans this year
“Liverpool are doing a Spurs”
Rodgers is doing just fine in padding out the squad with the Suarez dosh and if the right striker becomes available he still has the TV/Champs league/Last Jan money available,
Lamella is on fire pre season???
So was Vorinin a few years back Ffs.
Voronin was a 28 year old free transfer with no future potential, the fact he may have had a good preseason was nothing to shout home about. Lamela is a young £30 million prospect with bags of potential, the fact that he is settling and adapting to his new team and actually causing mayhem and scoring goals is an exciting sign of things to come. Mark my words he will score well into the double figures next season.
Ryan, in one comment you down play Daniel Sturridge , the second highest scorer in the league and in the next big up an unproven Lamela on the basis of a decent pre season. Oh but it’s ok , he cost 30 million. Seemingly your pre requisite for quality footballers. You are either very good at taking the piss or are in fact a moron. No need to answer which, as you do I’ll form an opinion devoid of facts. Moron.
do we really need the abuse? Just pointing out the inconsistencies was enough.
Sorry jonnyS. You’re right.
Re the England stuff, exactly how many decent players need to “underperform” for England before people start to cotton on that the problem may be England rather than the players? Go back to Keegan, Brooking, Hoddle…it’s never been any different.
You Spurs fellas are spectacularly missing the point of the article, which was not meant as a dig at you guys but rather addressing the concern surrounding “doing a Spurs” (now commonly accepted term for buying lots of supposedly good players who then fail to gel together). If you think you guys will do much better this year with a much better manager and a year to bed in your recruits (which I’m sure you will) that only goes to lessen the concern around selling the team’s star player and using that money to fill out the squad. Couple that with the fact that the measured way Liverpool has gone about its business this summer is the polar opposite to the Daniel Levy last-day-of-the-window wankfest, and I think any problems we will have will be quite different from the ones you faced last year.
If we tie up the deal for Moreno this week I think the window will prove a resounding success. Sure we will miss Suarez and I would like to see another dangerous final third player or two come in to cap it off but our greatest weaknesses last year were our defense and our squad depth, and I think we have done well to improve those areas. Unlike the Levy approach of just buying all the current flavours of the month he could get his hands on and leaving them up to a weak-as-piss manager (himself another flavour of the month) to mould together, Liverpool have gone out and bought young talent they have been scouting for years to fill areas Rodgers has identified as weaknesses. It may still take a few seasons for these players to come into their prime and understand everything Rodgers wants from them. But the point of the article was that minus one very good player we still have the core of the team who racked up some very impressive performances last year, including a certain game at White Hart Lane where the opposing team got their arses handed to them (sorry, couldn’t resist;).
It is going to be a fun season again this year, with some great games between the top 4-5 teams. Everyone appears to have done reasonably well this summer but I am expecting incremental improvements rather than anything dramatic (with the possible exception of Man U). Even though I rate Pochettino quite highly I think he has his work cut out to catch up to the level required for champions league this season because it takes time to get a team playing together and he is already a couple of seasons behind the Rodgers, Mourinho, Pellegrini’s and without access to champions league level players. But who knows, as I said, I think he is a good manager so we will have to see how he does.
Even though 18 mil is a lot for a 29 year old and it doesn’t match our buying strategy, I quite like the Lavezzi rumours because I think the biggest thing we are missing now Suarez is gone, is that strong, busy, twisting-and-turning player who makes the opposition defenses work hard, and from what little I have seen of Lavezzi he seems to fit that profile. It is a shame that Borini isn’t a little bigger as he could almost do it, but not quite
I have also grown more and more attached to the idea of Bony playing for us, although I am not sure how likely this is now. Probably mainly to be able to marvel at his superhuman strength in addition to getting someone who could teach Sturridge how to dance like black man rather than the awkward shoulder rolls he insists on celebrating his goals with.
Or Falcao, he would do nicely :) Shame it isn’t going to happen, I actually went to sleep dreaming of him coming to Liverpool like a 10 year old boy last night (probably time I grew up and stopped thinking about football so much but oh well what can you do?).
I’m with you David. Goals. we need them. More than most with our defending that involves no full backs ever.
We’re on 3 games in 8 days loops for a lot of this year. Sturridge could be broken by the end if September, if he’s fit to start at all.
Must have another striker but at least Rodgers has said the same. No idea who. Bony is totally the wrong type of player and scored all his goals in home games. Just a weird time to buy a goal scorer. Losing out to Sanchez wasn’t a surprise but still a real shame.
The gooners have melted with that signing even though it’s not their front that needed work – they got 79 pts – it’s their soft underbelly and they’ve only bought Chambers so far though i envy the Ospina gk signing. If they don’t solidify their defence and DM position they might not do any better next season.
You had never seen Capoue play? The French international. Or Paulinho, the Brazil regular? Never seen him either? Aren’t you a journalist? To be fair, you’re not a journalist are you?
Interesting that you’ve tried, and failed, to copy Neil Atkinson’s writing style.
Those who don’t fear Brendan’s Mighty Reds do so at your peril, try n face up to us, leaving space in behind, ‘All the best’
Park the bus, not every team has the players able to carry out tactics, or transmit them as well as Jose at Chelski.
Tight banks of 4, will be unlocked most times by Couthino, Lallana, Sterling, Studge, Rickie, Hendo, Suso, Lazar, Ibe, Texiera,
The Red tide has turned and is about to create destruction all over Europe with its sheer pace, power and ferocity,
We Are Liverpool