Oldham Athletic vs. Liverpool

Well if you think the midfield is okay without Gerrard think again!....Robinson should never be allowed to put on the red jersey again!

Our marquee transfer signing in summer should be a "*bleep* off non-sense" centre back, as opposed to another offensive player.

Our defense has let us down more than our attack this season.

We can't deal with high balls, and Coates hasn't progress as hoped. Needs loaning out

I really dont expect that we dominate each and every game. But when our defenders have an odd game like this, they should defend putting their heart and soul there. It is not possible to score 3-4 goals in every match, so in such matches we should defend better. BR has to find a solution to this as soon as possible, either by bringing either new defender or coaching these lazy arses to defend better.

Also am I the only that thinks Rodgers needs a better staff? It's like he's doing everything by himself and the bunch scrubs just follow his orders.

I am also doubtful how much competent the current staff is for LFC as most of the staff BR has brought from swans.

stevieg8 wrote:Let's not overreact to this. Formation was good and should've been strong enough to take down this team, some players were rested and others (Allen and Sterling) were given a chance considering they haven't been playing as much lately. This is precisely what a manager should be doing against a League 1 side, and our recent games have shown us that our players can be much better than this when having a good day.

The formation or XI was unbalanced as hell, playing 3 strikers plus Sterling would at least require quality full-backs to support the two CMs, but we had two 19-year-olds making something like their 10th all-time LFC appearances.

It's also a little cheap by Rodgers to say "I was bitterly disappointed with the young players" when there were only Coates and Robinson in the team who Brendan has not been playing regularly in Premier League, too...

The kneejerk today is unbelievable. We've gone from to a relagation fight to a mid-table club to fighting to CL to well, "pathetic". We really should of beat Oldham but at the end of the day it was a bad day at the office.

Expecting a result against Arsenal.

Art Morte wrote:

Oldham had lost 7 out of last 8 games in league one, but that form was enough against us

Totally unbalanced starting XI and formation

Allen was again poor despite his goal, no meaningful distribution from midfield.

And don't even get me started on Borini
£15m and £12m for these two players respectively is sounding more miserable week after week.

Coates was plain bad in defence, really failed to take his chance to impress.

Jones's howler

Appalling stuff.

The squad didn't lack balance we just didn't have any gameplan. Squad was more then good enough to maul a pathetic side like Oldham.

Our lack of gameplan and what to expect completely killed off our chances along with struggling with their physicality which we can never seem to handle.

Hard to blame Allen when we know he struggles vs more physical sides especially without a defensive partner as he was left without yesterday.

I can't see how you can blame Borini when he was stuck out wide once again with this pitch and coming off from over 3 months from a broken foot which is bound to stunt development and rhythm considerably.

The teams fault game from no mental (or tactical) preparation as evidenced by our head on play which had little direction.

Art Morte wrote:It's also a little cheap by Rodgers to say "I was bitterly disappointed with the young players" when there were only Coates and Robinson in the team who Brendan has not been playing regularly in Premier League, too...

I disagree. I think putting out a heavily attacking team against a side at the bottom of League 1 is fully acceptable. In hindsight, it obviously didn't work, but I don't fault BR for the "lets get 2-3 goals in the first half, bring on Lucas or Glen, and be done here" approach. If the players had performed - hell, even if just the attackers had finished the chances they've been making lately (Sturridge and Sterling both had clear cut opportunities in the first half that didn't go in, not to mention our long list of corners which created f*** all and a couple of other instances where we came pretty close) we would've been ahead at halftime despite the shoddy defending. Coates and Robinson were poor, our attack missed a few clear chances, and the result was inevitable with those two parts. It was a one off bad game, especially looking at how consistently good our performances have been.

On a more general topic, I'm really beginning to not understand you. Everyone here has been in agreement since the beginning of the season - you included - that this year wasn't necessarily about winning trophies, but about improving. We saw that improvement at the beginning of the year, you didn't; fair enough, it was a difference of opinion.

But we've now had a good run of games that more or less dates back to the beginning of December, with occasional hiccups. We've started taking care of business at Anfield like we haven't in some time, and we're beating lower sides with authority - which we haven't in some time. Not to mention our standing in the table is getting more and more respectable with each passing week. Is everything perfect? Absolutely not. Are there things to criticize? Of course there are. But unless you were expecting to come out of this season with major silverware, it's becoming less clear to me how you manage to support your negativity with facts.

Edit: In retrospect, this post came off very attacking, and I want to apologize for that. I think I've inspired a few clashes with you before now as well, so I just wanted to take the time to say that I really do respect your opinion and your contributions to our section, even though we seem to disagree often.

I haven't seen any improvement compared to last season.

If it's facts you want, here's a couple:

- After 23 league games, we have picked up 4 points less than by this time last season.

- Liverpool's defeat was the first time they have been beaten away from home in the FA Cup by a team at least two divisions below them since losing at non-league Worcester City in 1959.


And no, I was not expecting trophies. Since Dalglish got sacked after finishing 8th and reaching two cup finals - winning the other - I was expecting improvement in order to be happy about this season. I was not expecting a lower points-haul by this point of the season, nor going out of the FA cup against Oldham and getting knocked out of the League Cup at home against Swansea.

There are 15 games left to reach a satisfactory or even brilliant (top-4) finish this season, but so far there's been very little for me to be positive about.