KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum What the hell happend against Man city

2 games? more like 5 (europa cup)and nowt to rite home about,, they were bad,shocking, and down...... right [oops]. getting rid of the fat spainish waiter was the right thing to do but this uncle roy guy???? oh krapppppppppppppppppp

bad,shocking and krappppp are the words that come to mind when reading your 2nd post bill.

the differance is when rafa finished 2nd in league an now is we had arbeloa better than johnson mash better than lucas we had alonso better than poulson keane better than ngog and the paceless technicalless kuyt im sorry but top teams buy top players with pace and technical ability not 30 year old has beens with no pace we still have no width of any class and no quality striking options apart from torres we played ok and yes the scoreline flattered city but its that class which wins games not just hard work it doesnt matter who the manager is we wont win teams like city spurs utd chelsea with 5hit players ngog poulson jovanavic lucas johnson aurelio kuyt not 1 is a top class player so until investment this is as good asit gets.

Fergie had proved he could manage at Aberdeen and was a lot younger than hodgson is.roy has been a manager for thirty years and I believe the Liverpool job is just too much for him.as I said time will tell.in fairness to him he has inherited some mess.

finally somebody who shares my views

At first I was confused, but it's beginning to make ominous sense now.

I respect Roy Hodgson, let me say that up front. He has won titles in other leagues, and he has performed miracles with clubs on the brink of relegation. He took Fulham to the Europa Cup final, and made something out of Zamora. He kept Stevie and El Nino when we all thought they would leave.

But he's failed to deal with Mascherano, who now balks at playing for Liverpool. Tell him to get his head straight or pay the difference in valuation between the Liverpool asking price and Barcelona's offer if he wants out so desperately. Otherwise we have no choice but to hit him with a breach of contract. This must be resolved immediately, and to the benefit of Liverpool FC. We know how much Alonso hurt the dressing room last season, and he wasn't even present to spread his poison. This will be worse. If nothing else tell the guy to go sit at home and don't bother to show up for training until he is ready to bleed red once more; threaten to end the career this football club made for him if he continues to mope.

But I see also that Hodgson's vision is limited. Liverpool playing 4-4-2 at Eastlands, with N'Goal and a half-fit Torres up front? What was he thinking? We have a plethora of talent in the front line, particularly in central midfield, yet we opt to play all our strikers at the same time in roles that neither has played regularly in the last 3 years? Against a side brimming with attacking talent? Were we trying to lose? Did he not see what happened when we played Keane as a second striker? I believe it's something like played 5 lost 4, scored none. So now it's played 6, lost 5, still scored none - what a great decision! This was a critical tie against a team trying to take over our top 4 spot, not a game we could afford to experiment!

He said the scoreline flattered City, so does he mean that we deserved to lose only 2-0? How is that even vaguely acceptable? If we played two strikers in order to score lots of goals, why did we threaten so little? Maybe because said strikers were isolated due to either unfamiliarity in the role or the inherant weakness of playing 2 forwards against 5 or 6 backs.

But if he plans to play 4-4-2 every time, then Aquilani is indeed surplus to requirements, as his place on the pitch is occupied by a second striker or a youth player like Pacheco. This is a squad that is perfect for 4-3-3 and its various fluid forms (4-1-2-3, 4-2-3-1, 4-4-1-1, or even 4-5-1 without the ball), all of which rely on a lone striker, and whether you like N'Goal or not we have at least two players who are capable of playing that role at this level (let's not forget Babel nor the number of goals Kuyt scored when he played up front). Yes, they are not the best players in the world (outside Torres), but show me the striker worth more than 10 million who will sign for us willingly, and I will show you a striker we can ill afford to buy.

So I ask you: did Hodgson watch the World Cup? Where were the teams that played 4-4-2? I guess Uruguay kinda counts, even though Forlan played more like a winger ala David Villa/Messi/Robben. None of the top teams used the formation; surely there's a lesson to be learned here. Even Capello has seen the light, ffs! 4-4-2 beats bad teams and is therefore solid when you're trying to avoid relegation, but if you want to play in the Champions' League you have to aim a lot higher than that, especially when you have the midfield players we do. Was it really too difficult to consider playing Lucas/Gerrard + Jova/Aquilani/Maxi + Torres before deciding to LOAN the Italian? What was the plan for when Cole is injured/suspended and Mascherano is out the door? Jova can play on either wing, so why did he run at Richards and fail all game instead of being told to change tack? My initial fear that Hodgson himself will not be able to raise his game has come suddenly to the fore.

This was not a near-miss; this was an abject failure, and I'm concerned the events around it will lead to further failures. Villa's loss to Newcastle by 6 goals seems somehow less significant. IF (and this is a big if) this old dog is not about to learn any new tricks, I fear greatly for our chances this season. If Hodgson wants Liverpool to play like Fulham then he will certainly succeed, but then we need to get ready to finish outside the top 8 for the first time since...since...the 90s?

i found it really strange to field a 4-4-2 away from home at man city with the whole pre-season to experiment with 2 strikers. with both torres and n'gog used to playing as a lone striker neither of them seemed to link well. kuyt (extremely poor vision/awareness) and johnson were woeful, jovanovic was bright first half but was poor second half and defensively. skrtel didnt have the best game after a good performance at home to arsenal which is disappointing. just outlines how much we need a decent left back. gerrard was the only player who stood out tonight and even he was far from his best.

i really hope we don't revert back to this formation often this season though, maybe at home against a few weaker sides but 4-4-2 is so out-dated to the modern game. you would have thought it was a no brainer to bring in aquilani to replace cole but maybe its a good idea to ship him out on loan if we get someone in.

still a long way to go yet just hope hodgson takes this as a lesson learned. there are certainly no positives to take from tonights game. seems to have upset a lot of fans, think chanting benitez's name is completely out of order and extremely outrageous. time to move on. if we beat west brom 4-0 on sunday everyone will be sayin we're gonna win the league again lol!

we really lack any depth at the moment and a bit of quality in a few areas. this result would have been more painful last season getting used to it now though, we are a few quality players away from 4th place

Thought long about posting following disappointing result in scoreline and performance. I had hoped that we would take the game to city and play as if we where at home but we hardly stretched City at all. I still think that players have become intimidated with the hype around City - I wonder if Shanks or even Keny would have sent the team out as they were last night - Kenny in the crowd looked absolutely pi##ed off to say the least.

I will reserve judgment on Roy as it is far too early and he has inherited an ownership which is doing the Club no good at all. However the Mascherano fiasco is just that an absolute faisco and he should be pi##ed off in next 48 hours! As much as I really appreciate the efforts of Dirk over the years I am afraid if we can get 15m for him then we should take it quickly - then the obvious class striker a wide man that can actually get past players and a left back who is a left back.

Now too last night what really pi##ed me off was the fact that it was City who were first to the ball on 9 out 10 times and we were completely out musceled in the middle of the park - SG did endeavour but the look on his face was a carbon repeat from last season. you could go through the majority of players and give them a major bollicking for an absolute inept performance completely lacking belief and passion and I thought that is what LFC has always been a trademark - too much friggin money BUT same for all Clubs at this rate we are playing for 6th or 7th at best - we need new blood with quality DNA and the existing members (majority not all) to take a good look at the shirt and start playing for it because if God help us we get new ownership then a good deal of you will never pull the shirt on again unless you pull your fingers out!

thursday's game now becomes massive as if we are to win anything this year then the Europa is right up there with the Carling Cup!!

Pi##ed off!!!

Hodgson tried a system that we don't normally play, a quite attacking system, and it didn't work. Fair play to him. At least we, on papaer at least, were going to try and win.

But it was always going to be a tough start and a point out of two games isn't great but its not time to start over reacting. City have spend more than our first team is worth this summer compared to our [oops] all so they really should be doing OK by now and Arsenal are always up there.

It'll be a tough season and until the new owners are in so I am not really expecting that much just yet.

it's virtually the same squad that finished 2nd. I don't think it's pathetic saying that he can't cut it with us. He's had one good season where fulham massively over achieved. His tactics where Fuuuckin daft last night, starting with ngog upfront when we should of had an extra man in midfield an he couldn't see that we where getting over ran in there, it was absolute madness an he didn't no what to do.