Liverpool vs. West Ham United

I think a true test would be this mini-death-run you guys have going on. Good for you that Sturidge is back just in time, well almost.

HEIL MEIN REDS wrote:

Natalie Portman wrote:Get Deadly Dan playing. enough is enough.

Our miraculous run of form will start this saturday.

Just as I predicted the exact same thing last February, almost 365 days ago before Arsenal game when all of you were in doom and gloom and worried about tOP 4 FOLLOWING DAT KOLO pass to Anichibe and underwhelming 1-1 draw at the Hawthornes.

If we win against West Ham convincingly, I dont mean goals wise but performance wise, I will join your bandwagon mate

I have no idea about that because I missed the second half but I am with Sepi and El Cujo bandwagon if we against Everton

Also, i have seen the second half in bits and pieces now. I think Ibe needs a chance over Lallana in Europa League or in some other games. As someone said, Lallana is more cold than hot, so we need Ibe to step in.

Same with Markovic, well Markovic defends good but I would again give Ibe a chance if he can play that RWB role as long as we are playing 3-4-2-1. The problem right now with Markovic is that when the CAM on his side (yesterday Lallana), he is not able to contribute. It seems like that from last few games. I think his game will pick up when Sterling play as CAM. Because when Lallana has the ball, he draws defenders to him but then that last moment of patience and persistence is required when you can make that pass to Markovic in space. But that doesnt happen. If you look at Coutinhos side, all the time the oppositon players are concenred about Coutinho so Moreno always finds space to run into.

Also as good Coutinho is, he needs to show more intent when he shoots and I dont want him to be another Özil, you know what I mean. I know he is just 22, but for me the problem is he doesnt have the technique at his feet and this is the time that he needs to start developing it.

Sturridge

One of the biggest things about Sakho yesterday was his calmness, his face was cool as cucumber really, looking at his reactions when he tackles or when he plays like a mifielder when he is ahead of that mid line, gives me so much joy that we have a defender like him. He has really grown in confidence and I have started like him now more and more.

Can had difficult time but did not give up. I was the first one to tell that he would a besast for us but looks like the need of hour has brought that out of him so early in LFC career.

Lucas and Hendo together

We look finally good

mr-r34 wrote:Meh, Rodgers has had to rebuild twice and you give him this much shit, if we make top 4 RIP RA.

If he was competent he wouldn't have to rebuild "twice" ffs.

He lost pretty much two players last season. One of those two was in and out of the team (Agger). The other, Suarez. (You can say Sturridge was injured for so long but he was injured just as long last season.......)

He bought 9 random players with Luis Suarez gone.

"Rebuild" is what Koeman did at Southampton. Soton lost half their team, and manager. Why did they gel / do so much better than we did?

Why did West Ham's signings gel so fast?

How did Cesc and Costa just magically "fit in" to Chelsea?

It comes down to other clubs had an actual transfer committee that targeted players that would adapt to them, not for the club to adapt to players. And the obvious, the other managers weren't arrogant. It didn't take them 5 months to realize "oh shit this isn't working maybe we should drop Gerrard and put Lucas in and maybe we'll start pressing as a unit again".

He's been here for almost 3 seasons now ffs. This is "his team". "Rebuilding" isn't an excuse.

You surley can't keep saying it was all suarez last year and then saying we only lost 1 player, choose a side.

Okay fine, I'll re-word it.

How do we effectively lose "one" player and go back to "rebuilding", 3 years after his on the job?

The truth is somewhere in the middle. Losing Suarez would have affected any PL team, but on the other hand we should not have been as poor as we've been for the majority of this season. Meaning that 'rebuilding' isn't an excuse, imo. At the start of the season I would have considered this season a success if we finished in the top-4, in other words perhaps dropping a place or two because of losing Suarez, but on the other hand not dropping to places 6-8 as in some rebuilding period.

You don't need me to to explain why we needed to rebuild, it's not like Rodgers sent out 11 random players each week and Suarez did it every week. The team was built around the best player we had, the team was built best for us to succeeded that season, no one could of slotted into the Suarez role and see us continue our merry way, we had to change everything to compensate for his loss.

You lose that extra piece of attack it needs to be made up somewhere else.

I really don't want to search up my post on Suarez departure.

But we lost his movement which opened space up for players to run into. We lost the fear factor he brought to the opposition to sit back. He brought so much creativity which took the burden off Coutinho so he was performing better. He brought the goals in. He effectively carried half the final third on his own last season. He made teams literally get pinned back. It wasn't just the goals he brought, it was the constant pressure, the determination, the leadership, the hunger (not a pun, or is it? ) and will to actually succeed.

And "top managers" don't build teams around 1 player.

It's what I kept going on last season. And it's the reason we "collapsed" this season.

And if I may ask, where and how exactly did we make up for it with his departure? lol

I didn't mean the last part in the way u think i did, what i meant was even if u replaced suarez i think you would need to create more attacking chances from other aspects of the team, which i believe Rodgers has tried to do with the formation we play now rather than any individual player.

I don't disagree with you on how he carried our attack, he was the focal point of our attack at the end of the day. I'm not trying to down play what he did, he was effectively top 3 player last season. But Sterling and sturridge combined were as effective as Suarez by himself, they deserve credit too.

don't even know why you've thought i said his a top manager, we just beat west ham and are on a streak and he still pissed me off a little, his got a long way to go in my eyes, a few seasons might be too early to call for his head considering results and circumstances we are in.

Rodgers is still like that 20year old kid from academy who was in great form last season and he got a big injury while away with NT in the summer and he Comes back but he was not able to perform straightaway in this season. But he learned to adapt his game according to attributes he have. I doubt we will ask such a talented player to be kept out of the starting 11 just because he did not perform for first part of the season; specially when he is in top form now.


The analogy may sound funny but I hope you guys get how I am thinking. Looking at the recent signs, he has given us hopes that we can still get something out of this season.
My few concerns are: I think Rodgers cant get his substitutions always right and his trasnfer dealings are still debatable.

IF we can get through the next two months still being within 2-3 points of 3rd or 4tth, well make top 4.

mr-r34 wrote:IF we can get through the next two months still being within 2-3 points of 3rd or 4tth,

even in that case, I think it will be really tight till the end and one or two H2H fixtures might decide it in the end !

United have a really hard run of games after our 2 months if they bottle it, considering we have a easy run with just chelsea, i think we'll do well.

How poetic would it be if that late Chelsea game costs them the tittle.