KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Official Moan, Whine and Stamp your Feet Threat

Roys Liverpool career reads :

5 victories over run of the mill eastern bloc teams in the Europa League. can only beat whats in front of you.

1 home draw to Arsenal, a battling but unimaginative performance
1 home win to WBA, a lucky enough victory and poorish performance
1 away draw to Birmingham, and very very lucky yo get the draw, terrible performance
1 away defeat to Man City, offered very little and were well beaten
1 away defeat to Man Utd, were let back into the game and didnt have the quality to hold on, never mind win

last nights debacle.

The results have been poor and the performances worse.

I would rather see them come out and play against Sunderland, create a load of chances, fail to take them and be held to a 0-0(or even lose) than see them grind out another 1-0 like the Baggies game.

attack attack attack, at the moment we seem to be playing some Rafa-lite type of ball.

i feel like having a moan! In general I'm trying not to judge Roy too early (which is becoming increasingly hard, but I'm forcing myself to discipline), so I'm trying to find the positives in everything that happens out there. eg won 5/5 in Europa Cup, Gerrard and Meireles look good as midfield pair, we may have 5 points in EPL but look at the task we had etc.

I'm also not going to fault Roy for his selection for last night's game (at least not the intent, but see point 1 below). He was right giving us no safety net, because frankly we should never have needed it. Had we won he would have been heaped with praise, and our young starlets would be full of confidence; "Mum, we won without needing Stevie G!". Instead, he can now pencil in a few names on the January transfer list, and almost certainly needs to rethink who should captain the B team. It's not whether you succeed or fail, but what you learn from it, and he should have learned heaps about the state of readiness of our squad and their ability to take what they practice onto the pitch.

[Aside: Honestly, I think Carragher should captain that side for every game they play; indispensable to the first team or not. If we're going to take a season to rebuild then it might as well be this one, where I don't think any fans have any realistic expectations of glory, at least not anymore.]

I find I'm only upset about 2 things actually, and they're probably inextricably linked. These two things have occurred in pretty much every game so far, which is why they worry me.

1. Initial team selection not matched to tactics or opponent, and/or possible complete lack of tactics. All I have to say is "Raul in the hole?" and you know what I mean. We have continually put in awful first half performances, and that makes me feel like the guys on the pitch just haven't played together very much in their selected positions (eg Johnson running forward and never finding anyone to pass to). Yes, yes, new signings, no time, blah blah. All I can say is, "Fix it already!" Pick a team that comes in ahead after the first half for once (in EPL, I mean). Right now we are doing nothing to prevent our opponents from playing their game, and all we do is pass it around in our half for a bit before hoofing it up and hoping for the best. That really isn't good enough for any schoolboy team, so it certainly is not good enough for Liverpool FC. When Roy signed on he said something about admiring Liverpool's pass-and-move game of the 80s, and he's done a stellar job of making the squad play like that so far, hasn't he? No, he [oops] hasn't. Pick the right tool for the right job already!

2. Roy doesn't attempt to change the game until it's far too late. We saw this clear as day on Sunday (Maxi was terrible all game, should not have seen the second half, but instead we waited another 20 minutes until we were 2 down before doing anything about it), and most dramatically last night where we waited until AFTER FULL TIME before thinking, "You know, this just isn't working". Roy needs to stop being so tentative, and stop hoping for a miracle. It's clear the guys on the pitch need a strong leading hand, and from the performances of the first team Gerrard is not enough. Roy needs to get up on the touchline and start yelling at people to get theirs heads out their backsides, and make a few proactive substitutions for a change. We can't keep playing with only 8 or 9 guys doing their job; 8-9 players can never beat 11, whether it's Manchester United or Isle of Man Fruit-Growers third team.

There! I feel better now. Actually no, I don't. I desperately want us to beat Sunderland, but I can't see how we're going to do it.

PS: I'm not having a go here, so don't take this the wrong way, but it must suck for players to play in an empty stadium. I know the intent of the boycott, but this forces them to get involved in the wranglings of the board, and that can't be doing their concentration or confidence any good. The sooner this mess is sorted the better, but let's cut the players a bit of slack rather than questioning their loyalty or focus when we don't turn out in force to support them on match days.

Glad to see your finally coming to the conclusions I was chatting to you about the other day thundyr. Roy is getting it terribly wrong at the moment, and the biggest thing for me isn't always results, it is how we play during the game. If we loose a game here or there but we play some football that the boys are capable of, then I don't think this thread for whining would be needed. It is because we are playing the worst football in the premiership that people are so unhappy.

I did all of my venting earlier this morning on the "concerned" thread but had a read through this one as well, I do feel a bit better to be fair after getting it off my chest.
had to laugh at Dexters comment though, "if we had Imbrohimovic" (spelling) we would have less injuries than with Torres, only reason that is mate is because he`s a lazy [oops] who barely moves.!

Actually the only point I didn't agree with (and still don't, btw - haha) was that you felt we were gifted the goals, when I thought something clicked into place and United simply weren't up to defending against it (maybe because it was so unexpected that we hit their glass jaw?). I never felt that clicking into place happened by design though, especially since Roy promptly broke the chain. Fact remains: we played terrible football for 80 minutes and deserved to lose by a lot more than we did (that United didn't win 5-0 was not entirely our fault). But! There was something bright to take from the game, and hopefully build upon.

Isle of Man Fruit-Growers third team.

have they got a decent striker by any chance??

Babel is certainly leaving the club in jan! He is not upto LFC level.. He is too lazy off-the ball.. Give him the ball and he will run like a mad horse without knowing where actually the finish line is.. Look at the Jova goal against northampton, Babel was near jova, slightly behind, jova got the ball he ran and n'gog on the other side ran as well but guess what's babel doing?? Babel is having a walk in the garden!! OMG.. Had the keeper punched jova's shot into the middle, babel is supposed to follow that one, isn't it?? So far, i have been feeling Babel has not bn given enuf chance to prove.. But now, my opinion is like Babel doesn't have anything to offer LFC.. The last transfer day, i was wondering y are we selling babel-copter but... I hav no regret losing babel in jan now..

fact is we are seeing the same performances from the same players as last season. They all seem to talk about new atmosphere and getting a chance blah, blah. However the results and performances are effectively still the same. last season we had some dodgy decisons to hide behind but this season we have gotten what we played for which is very little. Tactical issues 'yes' but a bit of get up and go wouldn't go a miss either.
4/5 players were given the opportunity to say I am here now, pick me. none took it.

CP, to my mind, performances this season are worse than last season. We had some creativity last season, we made chances and didn't take them. This season, we aren't even coming close to making chances.

Matt B: loooool, you're right, but when Ibrahimovic does move... he's magic. I watched him for his national side (Sweden) and he was incredible... He set up shots, made gaps to shoot, even went down the field to steal the ball back. Just incredible really.

LFC1984RHII: You may be right about lucas and babel being complete [oops] but obviously thats for roy to take into cosideration when going into the transfer market january and the summer. He didn't have any reason to sell lucas or babel because he never managed them before, I suppose he now knows how [oops] he is haha.