KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Top 4 is the target for this season - official

Agreed. This is why I think hitting the 30 point mark by the end of the year would be a good sign and a show of intent. We need 11 points from the next 5 games to do that - which I think is achievable. If we can achieve that, it'll be massive improvement, and I think a sign of progress to push us into the second half of the season.

If we were to hit the 30 point mark by then, there'd be 20 games gone, which is an average of 1.5 points per game - which extrapolated over 38 games is 57 points. There'd be a lot more work still to do in the second half of the season, but it's already fairly clear to us that the second half of the season HAS to be a lot better than the first half.

the only way i can see us hitting the top four this season is if everton, spurs and arsenal do us some serious favours by dropping a lot more points. we'd have to strengthen our attacking options in january. any new players would have to hit the ground running and somehow turn around or inability to score goals. it would take the sort of form the team enjoyed during kennys first 6 months in charge to make it happen.

but instilling this sort of mentality into the players minds can only be a good thing. this is our goal after all. at the moment we look a tough side to beat, we're playing well but just can't change our fortunes in front of goal. if this problem which has haunted the team for a very long time can be addressed in january we may be able to make a serious challenge. until then i think we'll be in the top half, possibly lucky to even make the europa league.

for the record i back brendan. he's been dealt a tough hand. he hasn't had a great deal of money to spend and has inherited an extremely young side. under his guidance i think we can make a serious challenge in the future once he has had time to assemble the right sort of players and our young guns have progressed.

Drone, I was just saying that we should EXPECT to beat WestHam. I know W.Ham are higher than us in the league but in my mind it is because we have been underperforming. I don't think that we should base our expectation on our current position, else it would mean, accepting to underperform.

I am convinced we have a much better squad than they have and I have watched a couple of their games, and they are not that good, even against Chelsea they should have lost in the first half. Against Arsenal they were nowhere in the game, granted I did not watch a lot of their games, but they definitely are not a top 7 team squad wise, I think we are.

I cannot believe that our squad is so poor that we can expect wins only against relegation zone fighters. Expecting a win does not guarantee anything, I am fully aware of this.

They're above us in the table, we are without Suarez. I don't see any way of winning this game. The most I'd hope for is a draw.

'The Table doesn't lie'

We are STILL underperforming, what makes you think we'll pick up our form (without Suarez) this weekend?

I disagree when you say you don't see any way of us winning. I also disagreed with Vish though when he said he expects us to win.

I think this is a game where we could still dominate possession and limit West Ham but will struggle to convert chances ourselves.

Yeah maybe I'll replace that with it's very unlikely we win this game, this is football after all and anything can happen. But without Suarez I just see our chances of winning as very slim indeed.

Suarez is a huge loss. With him I still wouldn't expect a win but would class us as favourites.

nope has to be judged points wise if your looking to see if we have improved as a team, progress can't be finishing higher in the table but more losses and draws not to mention less wins... [/quote]

No joe I'm afraid that's far too simplistic. If you were to approach it with logical and intelligent analysis you would understand and appreciate that we aren't the only variable that has changed from last year. There are 19 other teams, all better/worse than last year. This means that your method of analysis would only work if all those teams were exactly as good as they were last year. We measure progress by where we are in the table, this is because it takes into account in might be a particularly tough year to pick up wins (i.e. everyone is a lot stronger at home etc) or conversely, an easy year where all of the upper league teams are winning. League position can be the only valid method of comparison, as it is the fairest by a country mile. [/quote]





teams dont change that much in a year, they may move up or down three or four places but are usualy around about the same, the teams fighting for the League remain also the teams fighting relegation are normaly joined by the newly promoted teams. If we finished with 63 points this season but finished 10 for me it would show better progress than finishing 8th with 48 points... [/quote]

If you look at the table you will see that is completely false. Teams have changed dramatically thus far, apart from the very top teams obviously. I agree a superior number of points is something to look at. But again, if you were involved in professional analysis you would be asked to look at league position more than points gained due to the year on year change of other variables, which DOES change.

I just hope we STOP underperforming, this is my whole point. BR said after 10 games we'll see the difference and I have only one bloody wish, that we stop underperforming. I don't want to expect us to always underperform, else, we have a problem with the manager. He has to be able to get the best of the team and for me this means performing at least as the seventh best team. I am convinced we have at least the 7th best team in the league.

are we going to climb that table though, must be well over two years since we have won more than 3 games on the bounce and we have only won 4 times this season, none of those victories against mid table opposition never mind anything else, the signs for me show there is no chance of a run of victories needed to propel us up the table...