QPR v Liverpool

Sorry if someone else was supposed to make this thread, but it's 10 hours until the game, so here we go.

QPR have been bad at home, 2-5-7, while we haven't been too good away, 6-1-7.

A game we should win... but we've gone to an equally miserable home-ground record of Bolton a little earlier this season and lost, so, well, I guess this match could go either way.

The biggest questions about line-up are, imo, whether Carroll will get a start and who will partner Skrtel in defence. I guess Carra, again, although I'd like to see Coates.

I can see Kuyt being played after Carroll had two consecutive starts in a relatively short amount of time.

Additionally, I would expect Coates to get another run-out. The make-up of our back-line will hinge on if Kelly is fit enough to play after picking up a knock at the weekend.

It's a somewhat similar situation for Suarez up top, as he too picked up a little knock at the end of the stoke game.

I also expect to see both Adam and Hendo start this game.

I predict a rather uninspiring lineup. Something along the lines of:
-----------------Reina
Carragher - Coates - Skrtel - Enrique
----------------Spearing
----Hendo - Gerrard - Adam - Downing
------------------Kuyt
Or...
-----------------Reina
Carragher - Coates - Skrtel - Enrique
----------------Spearing
----Downing - Hendo - Adam - Maxi
------------------Kuyt

Granted, my predictions are rather pessimistic about injuries and fatigue, but it's perfectly likely that we will be cautious after playing 3 games in 8 days.

I think Webb is the referee tonight

No Carroll, no Coates, me sad : /

Art Morte wrote:No Carroll, no Coates, me sad : /

Not to mention Adam starts...

Absolute failure of a season. Failure.

Our players are just not good enough. Cut their wages and make them fight for it.

What a disaster.

I am lost for words....




Shelvey is about to hand in a transfer request btw

Caotes what a goal.

After a terrible 11.5 hour day at work, this really rounds it up well. I think I'm going to be the first to call for Kenny's head. I'm definitely leaning in that direction at the moment, tbh.

Kennys squad desicions

poolsupporter wrote:After a terrible 11.5 hour day at work, this really rounds it up well. I think I'm going to be the first to call for Kenny's head. I'm definitely leaning in that direction at the moment, tbh.

No no no no no.

This has nothing to do with Kenny. See how well we played before we chocked in the end. Today, it comes down purely to individual mistakes. Mostly due to Carra, Jose and Skrtel.

His tactics were fine, but not his squad selection.

I ask you to reconsider since I know you are reasonable.

Arquitecto wrote:

poolsupporter wrote:After a terrible 11.5 hour day at work, this really rounds it up well. I think I'm going to be the first to call for Kenny's head. I'm definitely leaning in that direction at the moment, tbh.

No no no no no.

This has nothing to do with Kenny. See how well we played before we chocked in the end. Today, it comes down purely to individual mistakes. Mostly due to Carra, Jose and Skrtel.

His tactics were fine, but not his squad selection.

I ask you to reconsider since I know you are reasonable.

I didn't watch the game. I'll catch the highlights once they become available on e-season, but I have a strong feeling I know what I'm going to see there.

I'm definitely leaning towards his being let go and for the most part I think it's justified. Let's see what the end of the season brings us.

I'll gladly take two cups, but our football has been terrible this season on the whole. I'm sure I could count on my fingers the number of great games we've had.

Either way, I probably need a couple of days to relax from all the other BS in my life at the moment to think rationally and clear, but as it stands, I'm not a happy supporter atm.

Adam got injured, I'm so frakking glad. I hope he's out for the rest of the season that c*nt. 4th spot has been out of reach for a while now, the sooner you guys accept that, the less it will hurt. I actually enjoyed the game today, even if we lost, there were a lot of positives to take from this game.

Like I've said a billion times already, our squad needs a couple of more improvements to reach the contending level.

And please, for the love of God, Kenny bench Fatty Adam and get him the frakk out of Liverpool. I swear I have never seen a bigger cocky idiot than this douchebag.

I have no words to describe my disappointment at the result or this thread.

RedOranje wrote:I have no words to describe my disappointment at the result or this thread.

After the knee-jerking you know we partake in within this section, you expected any better? I myself had a flameout in the chat when it happened, I was pretty livid. While I don't rationally believe we're terrible or any of those other things, or that Kenny should be fired, I do think there are a few common sense things we seem to be doing wrong, that we as a group seem in agreement on just because it makes sense, and yet the same mistakes are being repeated. It gets frustrating to see each game, similar 4-3-3 setups that have failed for us all season long, especially after a successful (albeit short) run using other tactics. I'm sick of seeing Carroll being benched every time he puts out a good showing, and of hearing the fitness card played when Gerrard, Suarez, Enrique and several others played just as much in a short period. We've seen time and time again that Carra's big weakness at this point is dealing with pace, and yet instead of bringing on Flanno or moving Skrtel to right back, they have Carra playing up and down the wing for 60 minutes. It's very frustrating to see a game in which one of the consistent problems - difficulty breaking down negative sides - is solved, but to still lose the game due to problems we've seen before. I think we all had high hopes for this season, that we'd see something of a resurgence and a replacing of our name among the top teams, and yet we continually wallow below playing poorly, and it's frustrating to watch week in and week out.

I'm pretty much numb to our league results by this point. We're qualified for EL, we won't make it to CL. "Next season" is two words that are starting to feature in my mind more and more now. Next season.

I actually dont care about the league anymore. This season has been painful even though we won a trophy.

My eyes are set on the FA cup

Let me start by saying that I've generally never been a believer in the new manager every time something doesn't go our way style of thinking.

Stevieg8 mentions a point that is very important in my opinion though. As fans we see certain stupid things being repeated game after game and over the course of this season we have barely seen any improvement within those areas.

Our style of play, or lack there of is very apparent. I spoke to Red about this on Skype and we seem to have no tactics going forward. Secondly, Kenny takes too long before he makes a substitution. Third, Rafa was criticized when certain players put in a good shift and didn't make the team sheet the following week. Hell, Kenny big talked Carroll a lot when he first came, yet the kid is getting no play time whatsoever. There's more that I have noticed and I don't know about all of you, but I am starting to lose patience.

Is this a knee-jerk response? To a certain degree yes. However, it is a result of our performances every week.

Kenny is a club legend. The last thing I want is for his name to be tarnished because his second go at managing LFC wasn't great.

I'm not sure whether letting him go is the right decision or not, but I will say that it is becoming apparent that he might very well not be the person for the job.

I didn't watch the game. I'll catch the highlights once they become available on e-season, but I have a strong feeling I know what I'm going to see there.

I'm definitely leaning towards his being let go and for the most part I think it's justified. Let's see what the end of the season brings us.

I'll gladly take two cups, but our football has been terrible this season on the whole. I'm sure I could count on my fingers the number of great games we've had.

Either way, I probably need a couple of days to relax from all the other BS in my life at the moment to think rationally and clear, but as it stands, I'm not a happy supporter atm.

poolsupporter wrote:Let me start by saying that I've generally never been a believer in the new manager every time something doesn't go our way style of thinking.

Stevieg8 mentions a point that is very important in my opinion though. As fans we see certain stupid things being repeated game after game and over the course of this season we have barely seen any improvement within those areas.

Our style of play, or lack there of is very apparent. I spoke to Red about this on Skype and we seem to have no tactics going forward. Secondly, Kenny takes too long before he makes a substitution. Third, Rafa was criticized when certain players put in a good shift and didn't make the team sheet the following week. Hell, Kenny big talked Carroll a lot when he first came, yet the kid is getting no play time whatsoever. There's more that I have noticed and I don't know about all of you, but I am starting to lose patience.

Is this a knee-jerk response? To a certain degree yes. However, it is a result of our performances every week.

Kenny is a club legend. The last thing I want is for his name to be tarnished because his second go at managing LFC wasn't great.

I'm not sure whether letting him go is the right decision or not, but I will say that it is becoming apparent that he might very well not be the person for the job.

I have to disagree here.

We have seen improvement within our construct of our problems. Fact is too much blame is being put on Kenny and too less on our players.

See our play against Everton and too some extent, Stoke which clearly addressed our overall cohesion and scoring problems. There was a given element of unpredictably in our play as even yesterday, our passes were incisive, our decisions up front decisive. The games have to looked at more closely to see the marginal improvements. The only problem so far are the squad selections as lets be clear, bad squad selection is a small small problem compared to tactics and the system which I believe Kenny has nailed down. But I do agree Kenny must improve on his squad selection and take more risks.

I don't see how we don't possess a style of play considering many posters here and critics in the media alike hold praise for our pass and move element.

Our tactics up forward despite showing improvement in the end comes down to the players inconsistent decisions which would be quite harsh to blame. But keep into account how I noted improvement has been made.

We are into our first season by building ground up after the clubs worst ownership period and John Henry and CO. along with Dalglish have made it clear that this is a long term project very similar to Enrique's project at Roma or Bielsa's at Bilbao. ALL of them face the same problems as us, poor finishing, lack of consistency, but the difference is that the most sharp of viewers note the long term implementation and MASSIVE potential along with what can be done.

I mean seriously, when have we squandered a lead all season? You wouldn't be saying that when we were 0-2 up while playing a fantastic game. The last 20 minutes as evidenced were clearly down to our players complacency.

But if we speak of positives, there are countless ones. On how Downing was superb yesterday in his free role, on how Carroll (despite not playing) has substantially improved in his general play and has shown he is more than a 9. On how Spearing and Henderson have shown how capable players for us despite their low expectations. etc etc I can go on. Our squad may not be good enough to surmount a challenge for the PL, but is that his fault?

Kenny has profusely said he will not settle down to compromise and vie for the short term as even his old term at Liverpool, he displayed what a long term visionary he is for the club.

Speaking of all my faith for him, you think its because he was a godly player? I hope you have seen Kenny's 3 league title, 2 FA cup and 1 league title winning Liverpool. It was an astounding team with probably the most attractive football in english history and tactics far ahead of its time. Luckily as shown, Kenny has kept up with modern times as evidenced by all credit Rafa has given him for assisting him.

In the end, top 4 may be gone, but we're all prone to mistakes. There is still the FA cup to look forward to, along with the potential our squad can show at the moment yet taking into account what Kenny did with Liverpool before, there is not a shred of doubt in my mind that he can bring us back on the map despite his mistakes

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, I suppose), I was not able to find a good stream and was forced to settle for live audio of the match. Therefore, I cannot in good conscience level any sort of judgment on the performance of the club as a whole, individual players or tactics.

I want to complement Arq on his level-headed reaction to such a disappointing result, and there are certainly many elements of his analysis that ring true. However, I must say that I too feel quite a bit of frustration. I don't honestly believe that the QPR match was a managerial failure. The meltdown occurred in the last 15 minutes of the match. Prior to that, we were , by all accounts, firmly in control of the match. I don't see how we can pin this defeat on Kenny. Blame fatigue, injuries, uncharacteristic mistakes or what have you. But, the manager…? Really…? If anything, this result was a symptom, not the disease. In other words, this performance is a one-off result. What I hear are criticisms of things that stretch far beyond a disappointing (and most likely irrelevant) loss to a team in the relegation zone.

My personal frustrations are with the long-term disappointments we've seen. I understand the long-term vision of the club, and I am fully behind the concept. I would even go so far as to say that I would take disappointing results this season if we looked closer to competing in subsequent campaigns. The frustration comes in that our “building blocks” have laid a less than convincing foundation for future campaigns. We have certainly bought some players more for their future than for their present, but some of our purchases decidedly had a view to an immediate impact. Quite simply, they have not achieved the results we bought them for. Charlie Adam is one that has been rather disappointing. He was bought for an immediate impact at CM, specifically in the distribution of the ball and creativity in attack. He’s shown himself to be prone to over-eager passes and head-down runs in attack, coupled with poor decision making and unnecessarily aggressive tackles in defense. Downing is another. He’s shown a tendency to disappear in matches and at times has seemed incapable of providing the right kind of service to the forwards. (Although, it should be mentioned that he has put in some very good performances of late.) Even Suarez hasn’t been the prolific striker we had hoped he would be. Don’t misunderstand, it’s not completely his fault, but his finishing has been a source of frustration at times.

The worry is that the “foundation” we thought had been set in place will not be of sufficient quality to support a real challenge. I suppose there is one mitigating factor that strongly influences the performance of the team. That is, of course, injuries. It can be argued that two of our most influential players never played together this season (meaning Lucas and Gerrard). You can imagine how a midfield of Lucas and Gerrard could have boosted our league form. There is also the matter of Agger’s two (relatively minor for him) injury layoffs. In addition, Suarez’s 8-match ban must be taken into account. Combine the injury factor with what is at best a long acclimation period, and at worst a transfer flop, for the new “immediate impact” signings, and our situation makes much more sense. In the end, you get the image of a squad that has never had the opportunity to run out as it was conceptually formed. Unfortunately, the result was always going to be performances below the level of our end goal. Perhaps we are actually lucky to be in the position we are (winning one cup and still presenting a strong challenge for another).

This is quite obviously a posthumous justification of disappointments over the course of the season, but that does not necessarily make it incorrect. Unfortunately, we cannot be certain until we actually see the squad run out with a healthy complement of our first choice players next season. It is even foreseeable that, with a few shrewd signings, we could achieve far superior results to what we have seen this season. I suppose this means that I have finally written off the idea of achieving our original goal of Champions League football next season. You are all, of course, free to disagree with me. However, I’m not yet willing to write off the project that Kenny has started. It needs AT LEAST another season. Only then can we make a real judgment on the direction of the club.

This season, has been a strange one. in Rafa's first season, we were equally as shit in the league and great in cups, but you could see persistence with a method, a system, though it failed sometimes. However, this season which in someways is similar to Rafa's first, I still can't see a clear system that we are trying to imply.

All our youth set ups and reserves play 4-2-3-1. Kenny plays 4-4-2 one week, 4-3-3 another week, get Carroll to gain some form, when he finally finds it, he drops him. Last night when Henderson came in, we switched from 4-3-3 to 4-4-2 to accomodate him. which basically meant Kenny didn't really see him as part of a midfield 3.

Those baffling decisions of playing Henderson on the right, stop-start with Carroll, playing Gerrard too deep (happened in 2nd half yesterday) have been happening a lot and we don't seem to learn from them. Yesterday, our players attacked the box very well and it payed off for Dirk's goal, but it hasn't been happening for majority of the season. We sit back too often after taking the lead. We've lost soooooo many points as result of that and we don't seem to learn.

Teams, usually build around their best players. Gerrard due to his age, is not reliable for that, which makes the fact that we should build our midfield around Lucas, and our attack around Suarez. However, (deny it all you want) last summer, we tried to build a team around Carroll, who has 180 different skill sets than Suarez. Was it the right decision to freeze out/ship out players that were more on Suarez wavelength like Meireles and Maxi, in order to accommodate the new style?

It's always good to have a plan B. Even Barca does (throwing Pique forward)...but at the moment, we seem lost between plans A and B. We have seemed lost all season, and that's my main worry that this uncertainty will affect our summer targets and whether we'll even target the right positions, let alone the right players...

Thanks for the good reading, all of you guys. We may not be that many in here, but we've got quality

Anyway, what comes to King Kenny I've been satisfied with him. Our league season is threatening not to become merely disappointing but embarassing, but overall I've been satisfied with the way Kenny has steered us forward and presented our club. In fact, performances aside, everything else about his managerial duties seems to be in great shape, as there are no reports of the players being unhappy or anything else negative about the team. We haven't been playing brilliantly, but that doesn't seem to have affected Kenny's control of the team, something you can't say of every manager at every big club.

Moreover, it's not like everything is looking miserable regarding the future. In most games this season we've been very competitive, often been the better team even when we've lost or drawn the match. There are positives and there are firm reasons to believe we're not that far away from improving our winning percentage.

Obviously some of the blame for our poor league campaign has to rest on Kenny's shoulders, but all things considered, I keep faith in the man and want to see no one but him guiding us into next season.

I'm not going to quote the above posts as things just become too messy with this forum's implementation.

Thanks for the responses. I understand all the points of view put across, but I do remain skeptical of Kenny's managerial abilities.

@Arq: I have yet to see a consistent display of pass and move football by us. We've had the odd good game here and there, but for most part, our performances have been lackluster. People who have responded to me on Twitter, etc. have said "Oh, but we created soo many chances". Those stats are not the greatest as every cross that comes in from the likes of Downing or Adam is considered a chance, for example.

I completely agree that Rome wasn't built in a day. And please understand that I'm not stupid enough to have a knee-jerk reaction to one loss in a game that I didn't even watch in its entirety. What has led me to this train of thought has been the lack of improvement in our performances. (That is my opinion. Others may watch the game differently, but I truly believe there hasn't been much improvement in our play)

Unfortunately, Rafa is the manager I have watched the most and one could always see his mark in our plays to an extent. (Hard to explain what I'm trying to say here) But under Kenny we tend to look like a bunch of headless chickens up front. (That's not to say we're always like that, but for the most part)

I just wish there was some more encouragement from our performances. I understand we're a team that is a work in progress and hence the results don't phase me much, but the manner in which we've lost or drawn or even won multiple times this season has been discouraging.

When I mentioned the 'playing players out of position' comment above, I was talking about Henderson in particular. Constantly played on the right and he is ALWAYS anonymous when positioned there. Yet we constantly see him start there. He has proven a handful of times how he is more effective when played in a central role.

@DTTR - I agree with your points regarding the likes of Lucas and Gerrard not being there. However, it's hard to believe that I might be among the very few people who have found our performances to be very average.

So let me say this. I think Steve Clark has done a brilliant job with us defensively, regardless of the occurings of the match yesterday. We've all seen how good we've been in that respect all season long.

Our tactics and ideas going forward however have been terrible in my opinion. We definitely are not playing pass and move football and I'm certain of that fact. The lack of movement when we are on the pitch is my number 1 complaint each and every week.

Perhaps saying Kenny should be let go is a little extreme, but please understand that my frustrations are a result of the average performances and lack of improvement I've noticed throughout this season.

poolsupporter wrote:I'm not going to quote the above posts as things just become too messy with this forum's implementation.

Thanks for the responses. I understand all the points of view put across, but I do remain skeptical of Kenny's managerial abilities.

@Arq: I have yet to see a consistent display of pass and move football by us. We've had the odd good game here and there, but for most part, our performances have been lackluster. People who have responded to me on Twitter, etc. have said "Oh, but we created soo many chances". Those stats are not the greatest as every cross that comes in from the likes of Downing or Adam is considered a chance, for example.

I completely agree that Rome wasn't built in a day. And please understand that I'm not stupid enough to have a knee-jerk reaction to one loss in a game that I didn't even watch in its entirety. What has led me to this train of thought has been the lack of improvement in our performances. (That is my opinion. Others may watch the game differently, but I truly believe there hasn't been much improvement in our play)

Unfortunately, Rafa is the manager I have watched the most and one could always see his mark in our plays to an extent. (Hard to explain what I'm trying to say here) But under Kenny we tend to look like a bunch of headless chickens up front. (That's not to say we're always like that, but for the most part)

I just wish there was some more encouragement from our performances. I understand we're a team that is a work in progress and hence the results don't phase me much, but the manner in which we've lost or drawn or even won multiple times this season has been discouraging.

When I mentioned the 'playing players out of position' comment above, I was talking about Henderson in particular. Constantly played on the right and he is ALWAYS anonymous when positioned there. Yet we constantly see him start there. He has proven a handful of times how he is more effective when played in a central role.

@DTTR - I agree with your points regarding the likes of Lucas and Gerrard not being there. However, it's hard to believe that I might be among the very few people who have found our performances to be very average.

So let me say this. I think Steve Clark has done a brilliant job with us defensively, regardless of the occurings of the match yesterday. We've all seen how good we've been in that respect all season long.

Our tactics and ideas going forward however have been terrible in my opinion. We definitely are not playing pass and move football and I'm certain of that fact. The lack of movement when we are on the pitch is my number 1 complaint each and every week.

Perhaps saying Kenny should be let go is a little extreme, but please understand that my frustrations are a result of the average performances and lack of improvement I've noticed throughout this season.

Some great points.

The chances created rise above even Adam's hollywood balls and Downings endless crosses. I cannot remember where I viewed the stats but they involved a bevy of chances created by Henderson, Gerrard, Suarez, Enrique and even Carroll. There was also a stat on chances created by through balls as if I can remember, was pretty impressive.

I completely understand your point and wouldn't dare insult your intelligence, along with the fact I am 100% in sync with your frustration. I mean my first page post was complete knee jerk.

I understand your point in Rafa, but we did have more quality then, than we did now as the players were more in tune with each other along with some of our lesser impressive signings wouldn't even succeed in Rafa's tactics.

I know about your Henderson positional frustration, and frankly, this angers me as well. Personally, my ideal solution would be a dual pivot with Henderson and Spearing but with Gerrard in a advanced position. But as we know it isn't as easy to place that as I get the feeling Kenny is still in tune with Henderson's success on the right side at Sunderland. But I agree on this I hope as much as you do that Kenny will address this. What I can say is, that being a press reader of Kenny's words, he has stated that he wants Henderson to first acquire the right side position as he will slowly shift him to a central position. I know what your thinking as you read this but this is the only source of hope I can provide for both of us. Only problem is of playing Henderson as CM, is that he is defensively very frail and does not track back enough along with how he leaves gaps when central. But we'll see how this progresses.

Steve Clark is one of our main men responsible for our defense but should he not also be responsible for our poor defense lately as well. I mean our players are making simple marking errors.

Positive side is that our defense is relatively great on defending against the ball on the ground. But do notice that we concede mostly threw set pieces and aerial threats. Which is something I am SURE that will be addressed. Its positive since its a more specified problem in defense than a whole.

I have to make one point though, since the Carling Cup win, I feel our team has improved in attack substantially. Don't take the Sunderland game into account as that exceptionally was just a bad game on a whole.

But taking the game against Arsenal, Everton and QPR, ask anyone here and they will all say that even in the 2 losses (Arsenal,QPR) we played some superb football and were relatively composed and cohesive within our final attack. Only problem is we need to finish the chances created. But the overall tactics going forward have marginally improved as especially against QPR which displayed some spectacular football. Which is why I am calm and cool despite the last 16 minute choking.

One thing I do feel anger about is why we don't play how we did last year as Kenny played his original pass and move (from his first stint) as this year I have to agree we are more static than we should be. Either he is going for a different approach for more possession but I can say with confidence that this has improved also since the CC match.

One more thing, I have noticed our team plays substantially better without Adam (a man I know you loath[and slowly so do I]) as the team is almost like a breath of fresh air without him and his awful defense and random algorithmic passing. So in essence, Gerrard and Henderson have played better since as especially the former who has thrived without the burden of the chubby scot adam. Downing showed against Stoke and QPR that he can be a force for us with his newly more free role which has given him more confidence and ability to calibrate on what he is better at.

In the end, most of my words are without much base but I guess you'll have to take my word for it. But what I can do is wait till the end of the season so we can both judge what has dwindled and what has improved upon. I know you want Kenny to succeed as much as I do, but I am confident that he will leave us with a good impression at the end of the season as I (or we) value your judgement and opinion greatly.