Arsenal-Liverpool Discussion

I'm expecting some thing like this

----------Mignolet----------
----Toure-Agger-Shako----
Glen-----Lucas-----Enrique
----Gerrard-Henderson----
-----Sturridge-Suarez------

I don't know if Agger & Enrique has any fitness issues, but if they have Skrtel & Cissoko will take their places. Coutinho shouldn't be more than a sub.

Yes I know Macggi has already said whatever I mentioned. Talk about great minds :-p

Good luck today guys, I will be rooting for you. Hopefully the luck from my other teams will work it's magic for you. I even bought a shirt to wear at the bar for the game today:

http://liverpoolfc.com/news/latest-news/148345-flanagan-starts-and-coutinho-joins-subs

Mignolet, Flanagan, Cissokho, Toure, Skrtel, Sakho, Lucas, Gerrard, Henderson, Suarez, Sturridge
guys is the correct line up???
can someone help me recover from the BR has some ballz to start Flano, I must say

Flanagan starting, what the hell is this? Hasn't played a single minute of Premiership football for over a season and now starts at the Emirates? ...

Excited about the game anyway, let's go play some ball there!

OMG all the confidence I had just got shot to the ground. How the f*ck is Flanno starting.

Yeah, what happened to Kelly! How Flanagan gets ahead of him!

F*ck man I don't see us getting much from this. Cissokho is super shit. He's the pussiest player I have ever seen in a red shirt. Scared to go shoulder to shoulder against players ffs.

1 - 0 Arsenal @ half-time.

We haven't played too bad, but not creating anything.
Can't say that our wingbacks Flanagan and Cissokho are offering us much anything put an option to pass to them, but they're not getting much done with the ball. Might as well sub Sterling and Coutinho on for Lucas - who has been bad - and Flanagan.

So disappointing. We haven't created any clear cut chances all game.

Outplayed by a much better team, Every player was disappointing. Won't even start on Gerrard.

Next game is Fulham at Anfield, Perfect match to get us back running.

We need to change this 3 at the back thing! Specially against big teams! Clearly leaving us vulnerable! Also who made Cissokho a footballer!!!!

Arsenal clearly deserved the win but our performance has a lot to be desired!!

Anyhow great to have Coutinho back!!!

#TrustinBR

I'm not too bothered about us losing, we are in a position when you sometimes just have to put your hands up and say that the better team won. Although I certainly expect us to get something out of the match played in Liverpool against Arsenal.

We couldn't quite create enough. On the other hand, we didn't give Arsenal too many chances. I can live with this performance - although some individual performances were not good enough for this level: Cissokho, Flanagan, Lucas.

Arsenal are topping the table and for a reason, let's move on.

We were lucky to get the nil today that's how shite we were. Gerrard and Lucas played like they didn't even care today, I just can't believe how lackluster they were. I will personally drive Cissokho back to Valencia if he ever plays for us like that again.

Dat Suarez selfish moment when we had 2 on 1 against the goalkeeper basically summarized our evening.

Toure was very poor also. Flanagan is never good enough to play for lfc so blaming him for being dire is unfair.

Everyone was else was piss poor as well.

On a positive note, glad to have little Cou back.

Also Agger MUST start next match. Still haven't kept a clean sheet since he's been out.

Arsenal absolutely deserved this, good for them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EDIT: Months Later




Their Goals

Everyone who are calling Agger back in the line-up are saying 'drop Skrtel', yet today it was Toure who was a poor CB.

I don't think we should draw too many conclusion from this game. It's the league leaders at their own ground. I thought we have had worse performances this season and won!

We had drive to go forward and get the ball to our danger men. But we need something more in midfield. Where the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea, City have players like Özil, Cazorla, Ramsey, Hazard, Oscar, Mata, Silva, Nasri, Yaya Toure to join the attack from midfield, we haven't had much anyone. Henderson and Gerrard very, very sporadically. Coutinho's coming back, that's a positive, but I don't expect one player to solve the whole problem.

First experience with an LFC supporters club today, sad it was a lost but amazing atmosphere and a great time watching the game (also getting drunk that early on a Saturday makes for quite a day...)

I must say I don't understand people taking issue with Flanno's performance today. He was one of the few players I thought performed admirably, I was thoroughly impressed by him out there. Was caught out of position once or twice, but nothing like Cissokho, he defended ok and had some solid control coming forward. Just poor crossing at the end of it.

That being said, Cissokho, Toure, Lucas and Gerrard were all awful today. We need better from our midfielders to take points off of the top teams, it's just not good enough. Keep in mind we're two months from the January window, though, so if we can keep taking points off the lower teams and maybe nick a few wins and draws from our harder games, we'll have come out of our first half in strong position.

Coutinho should of played in Cissoko's position on the left hand side when he came on. Us reverting to a 4 man defence (with Sakho as a full back) killed us. Sakho is NOT a full back, the sooner Rodgers see's that, the better. He plays far too narrow in that role, and offers nothing forward unless it's a set piece. To be honest, the sooner we go back a 4 man defence the better. This 3 man defence is crap. We don't need to play 3 at the back for Sturridge and Suarez to lead the line ffs.

And the sooner Enrique comes back, the better. I think I'd prefer Downing over Cissokho ffs.

Still have no clue why our goal was disallowed. If the score was 1-1 at half time, we'd be a lot more composed and not so disorganised at the back when the game opened up.

Also, is it just me, or is Suarez the only one that performs in away games? Everyone else just seems to play poor or without the effort they normally put in at Anfield which is frustrating, not just for them individually but for the team as well.

Anyway, Arsenal deserved the 3 points. Whole team was poor, including Rodger's tactical plans in the second half. (He was spot on in the first half, even if we were 1-0 down.)

Also, Henderson needs to work on his finishing.

He had two really really good chances today, and fluffed them both.

One coming early in the game where he strolled past their midfield and was in and then delivered a weak left shot. And the next was in the second half where he was inside the box, volleyed it, and didn't even hit the target. >.>"

stevieg8 wrote:
I must say I don't understand people taking issue with Flanno's performance today.  He was one of the few players I thought performed admirably, I was thoroughly impressed by him out there.  Was caught out of position once or twice, but nothing like Cissokho, he defended ok and had some solid control coming forward.  Just poor crossing at the end of it.

I was OK with Flanagan as right-back in the second half, but we need more attacking threat from a wing-back. Ability to dribble a bit and get in dangerous positions. All Flanagan was able to do was get out wide, stay out wide and you could always tell that the only two things he was ever going to do with the ball was either to cross it or pass it backwards or sideways back to the center. And since we're not that dangerous from crosses Flanagan didn't offer us much anything. Nothing against the guy, but both our wing-backs were just poor, we had no threat from out wide. Pretty much like Chelsea in their loss to Newcastle, playing too narrow and being too easy to defend against.

Does anyone know why Johnson was out, btw? Sorry if I've missed it. Some knock?

1. Though I was scared to see Flanagan start, he did alright. If anyone was expecting more from a fringe player starting after almost a year is simply kidding. Compared to Cissoko he was simply sublime.

2. May be it's a knee-jerk, but there's a reason why a team like Valencia rated Cissoko surplus.

3. In the hind-sight, perhaps Kelly, Coutinho and Moses/Rahim coming in for Toure/Skrtel, Cissoko and Lucas respectively and Henderson moving beside Gerrard would have given us more balance, steel and spark.

4. When we have four CB and things aren't working in a certain formation (for some games now), it's better to try plan B. We haven't kept a clean-sheet for some games now. Things need to change. Who should be dropped or recalled is another matter entirely.

5. Same goes for our mid-field. The present formation isn't working and it needs some change. And we need new addition in this area too.

Art Morte wrote:


Does anyone know why Johnson was out, btw? Sorry if I've missed it. Some knock?

He was ruled out with illness.

Although I wouldn't be surprised if he still had soreness from his knee and we as a club didn't want to risk it.

No, it's something like a stomach bug that ruled him out.

Some infection in his jaw/face.

He will play next week.

http://www.liverpoolfc.com/news/latest-news/148399-reds-provide-details-of-johnson-absence

I haven't been able to watch the game yet, as I was working and traveling yesterady. However, I feel the need to weigh in on a few things I've seen on here:

First of all, it's good to see an explanation of why Johnson wasn't even in the squad. That was a shock to me just seeing the lineup and scoreline. He's one of the players that is absolutely critical to making the 3CB system work. I'm a firm believer that in a League with the PL's stylistic and physical demands, the wingbacks could very well be the most crucial position for a team playing with 3 CBs.

To dovetail off of the last point, I can understand why Flanno was picked over Kelly (at least conceptually). Rodgers has seen Kelly play at RWB, and likely agrees with me that he is no wing-back. He simply does not have the attacking impetus (or more accurately, the attacking qualities that Rodgers prefers) to affect a match at that position. The thinking would have been to put Flanno there in hopes of getting a player with a bit more attacking drive. From everything that I have read, it would seem that Flanno was very-much so-so in his play in both attack and defense today, meaning that the gamble didn’t exactly pay off. In hindsight, I would have preferred to see Henderson pushed out to RWB with Coutinho or Allen coming into the center.

To reinforce my belief in the importance of quality at wing-back, Cissokho’s performance (in conjunction with Flanno’s inexperience and lack of attacking quality) sounds as though it absolutely crippled us. I can’t say as though the assessment of Cissokho is wrong, as everything I’ve read has said he was abjectly horrible for long stretches of the match. However, I will say that it is very disappointing, as I might have preferred him to Enrique without the injury.  While I don’t think he has the same propensity for moments of absolute brilliance, I did believe he was more steady and reliable, not to mention more intelligent in the final third.

As I’ve said, I wasn’t able to watch the match. Therefore, I can’t say how I would like to see Cissokho handled going forward (i.e. whether I’d like to see him get another chance or if he should have his name etched into a bench seat). However, I can say that the generally poor display that I'm hearing about makes sense with the quality of the wingbacks on the day. One weak wing-back can be overcome in this system, as long as they aren't a huge defensive liability. However, with both wing-backs underperforming, we would not have any natural wide outlet. This would necessarily narrow our play and make us far more predictable and easier to contain. In addition, without a true #10 from the start, we were always likely to have trouble bridging the space between the midfield 2 and the 2 forwards. Again, I would have played Henderson on the right, as he is by far our best option at RWB with Johnson out. However, it would be difficult to have anticipated such a poor performance from Cissokho. With Johnson out, Rodgers would have expected him to step up and be the main wide attacking outlet (with Flanno not nearly as naturally inclined to attack). The more I hear, the more it seems the Frenchman seriously let us down in this match.

In all, the result really isn’t the end of the world, and certainly not our season. It’s only one loss (and only our second of the league season). Yes, the result was disappointing. However, it sounds as though we were simply poor on the day. Those matches will happen. It was simply unfortunate to lose a critical player ahead of such a high-profile match. These are the types of matches that we could scrape points from against lesser sides. However, Arsenal are currently on amazing form and are justifying their place on top of the table. Do I believe this was a true reflection of our quality? No. Before the weekend, I was quite confident that we would at least draw with the Gunners. However, with several aspects going horribly wrong for us, it’s not terribly surprising we walked away from the weekend with nothing to show for ourselves.

I will be curious to see how we react. I certainly expect to see changes. However, whether that means tweaks to players, tweaks to the system, or wholesale changes, I cannot be certain. The positive here is that it seems this result was more of a one-off than a referendum on our season so far, our style of play, or our chances for the rest of the campaign. Arsenal were simply better on the day. Hopefully we learn from it and put forth a strong performance against Fulham next weekend.

to summarise the shity performance from yday's game is 'we were scared, everyone was shitting in their pants...i dont know what were the instructions from BR it was like the midfielders had accepted the defeat that they cant do jack shite about it'.
Seriously i cant get any other word to describe it. I dont mind losing but this attitude on the pitch was not a Liverpool one.

McAgger wrote:Merte trying to turn


Suarez should exploit that

LMFAO