KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Brendan Rodgers: Genius or F.raud?

But with FFP United and Arsenal will have more to spend than City and Chelsea.

But city and chelsea will always find their way around FFP because they can afford to pay the fines.

I expect us to be in the top 4 throughout the season, neck and neck with third spot and with a fighting chance of a top two slot if one of the top two underperform like last season.

Why? Because:

- we have had three seasons with br and fsg to build a team. we should've got a good foundation, i.e. a defence, in place by now.
- we should be above Southampton, Manchester United and Tottenham. Each of them has a manager still in their first season. Not only that, each of them is a foreign manager, with only Pochettino having had previous EPL experience.
- Manchester United have the quality, made some big signings and have less fixtures. But they have still been under performing and we should therefore be above them.

We lost Suarez and Sturridge but we should've been prepared for it. the only difference it should've made was that insteat of winning 3-0, 4-1 etc.... we should've been able to get some wins by a narrower margin instead of some of the draws/defeats. I suggest the reason we haven't done so is our failure to sort out the keeper/defence over three seasons and our failures in the transfer market - esp with strikers.

Sakho's performance was very shaky. did you see his rugby tackle he just doesn't seem comfortable. Migs made that excellent save but his kicking was very poor again and he was extremely lucky not to have given away a penalty in the first few minutes; and we continue to use Can as a defender.

Well, that's more or less what we're doing now; winning by narrower margins and conceding fewer goals. We weren't at the start of the season, but it was kind of a perfect storm of things going wrong. Lots of new players to bed in, injuries, and career low patches of bad form for several players, but as we've dealt with those problems, we've more or less become the team I was expecting us to be after our summer business.

It took a lot longer than we'd have liked, but we're beginning to see what we paid for with Mignolet, Can, Markovic, Moreno, Sakho, and Lallana. Balotelli and Lovren have showed glimpses, but even if they don't work out, we have fewer holes to plug than we did last summer. A top striker, a different option in the midfield are essential, and though a backup keeper and maybe a right back (but I think between Manquillo, Flanno and Wisdom, we could survive) would be nice, I think we'd be ok if we only bought 2 players.

I'm not convinced. our clean sheets with narrow wins have been against sunderland, villa, Bolton and a depleted west ham side. We played well against Chelsea but defensive mistakes cost us in both games. the derby was a bore draw and yesterday could've gone either way.

I also wouldn't put Sakho in the no showing signs of what we paid for category. those signs are usually outweighed by the constant uncertainty they seem to create.

Who we have them against seems hardly relevant, considering Mignolet has more clean sheets than De Gea, Llorris, Hart, or even Cortouis, and they play the same teams we do. But we also have clean sheets against Spurs and Everton, and West Ham are no mugs.

As for Sakho, he didn't have the best game yesterday, but the slip was extremely unlucky. He's been massive in our turn around if form. Some people will never be convinced, but he's quality.

I think it does matter who we have clean sheets against if we're trying to assess whether a small sample/recent patch of results are a good indicator of a turnaround.

Sakho does have qualities... but does he have the basics and consistency required for the epl? not convinced yet.

Over the whole season, Mignolet has 8 clean sheets, and the other leading goal keepers have 7. Forster and Foster and Fabianski have more, but it's very doubtful that they'll finish above us. It's a fair sample size, and regardless of what you think matters about it, we have more clean sheets than they do over the same period as they do, full stop. That's not a thought; it's a fact. Who they come against doesn't matter anymore than who you pick up points against, so long as you pick up more than your opponents.

As far as Sakho goes, bar last night (which I admit wasn't great) he's been pretty impeccable since he came back into the team. If you're not convinced, that's your prerogative, but he's doing really well. I suppose we'll have to see if it continues, but I think he showed much of the same for France and PSG. I would expect it to continue.

his stats over the season look good. so why did br drop him?

my reference to a small sample size was regarding your comment bout the recent turnaround, which I presume you meant since dec/jan.

whatever the stats say, if you had a choice between courthois,de gea, hart, Lloris, forster, foster & fabianski... how many of them would you prefer over Mignolet?

And does Sakho inspire confidence? I'll be happy when he does and when we'd want his name in the teamsheet without hesitation. Like we did with Hyppia.