The Liverpool FC Thread XII

I think a lot of LFC fans on here are taking the top four for granted. I'm not as confident as some of you - I think it'll be harder and we may be pipped to the post this year.

... another Fergie? Long way to go yet.

If Can was ready, he'd have been played. Evidently Brendan thinks he isn't ready yet. I don't think Lucas is necessarily the issue at DM - he's been fine there when we've played him there imo.

I think a lot of LFC fans on here are taking the top four for granted. I'm not as confident as some of you - I think it'll be harder and we may be pipped to the post this year.

Gerrard and Lucas in midfield does not give me confidence. Despite me saying Allen offers nothing going forwards, when he came on, he did well and we looked more threatening.

I think Lucas will start against City as he tends to well up against Toure

Na. I think you'll use Gerrard, Henderson and Allen in midfield. Coutinho, Sterling flanking Sturridge. City tends to struggle against teams with a very high work rate and pace.

Team like Chelsea, Liverpool last season, Barcelona, Bayern. Bar the obvious quality in the first 11s the main thing all 4 of those teams have that is above City is their work rate and pace. City's team will destroy anybody without the respective work rate in the midfield(e.g. Arsenal and United) but Chelsea and Pool are very good at closing down space, either by sitting deep and congesting the space after the half way line or choking them so the likes of Toure has less space to play. Lallana and Can going to pool also makes sense for that reason. He's trying to get a team with a very high work rate.

Also there's a lot of space between their midfield and CBs for Sterling and Coutinho to run into and utilise to set up sturridge.

I genuinely think you'll beat City next week. They were nothing special the previous game and if Newcastle had a bit more composure and a better final ball City could have 1 point and not 3 points.

Lucas doesn't press? He won the ball in the opposition half 2/3 times yesterday. Either Lucas will start and go of for Allen at 60 like he did yesterday or Allen will start and he'll go off for Lucas around the same mark. Personally I think Allen is better coming off the bench so I would prefer Lucas to start.

When we beat them towards the end of last year Coutinho was the third man in the midfield with Gerrard and Henderson iirc

I think that the second half of last season is clouding your judgement of the previous season. I think you did well enough against United. You defended yes but it's the league champions and they clearly were struggling to get through the wall, you did the right thing that match. Same way that Chelsea should have pressed then park the bus. It wasn't a 90min defensive job either. You were better in the first half. Stoke you played well for one half and faded like I said. Villa same.

I think you're better defensively in the 4-2-3-1 than the 4-3-3. Because Gerrard and Lucas offer protection instead of just Gerrard in that formation, but obviously Gerrard's attacking qualities are great, it's whether the rest of the team post Suarez are good enough to fully utilise Gerrards attacking qualities. He's not good enough in a midfield two but it's better defensively than him playing as the only DM and the two CMs pushing forward into space. If England played 4-3-3 in the WC, I think we'd have found the answer to whether he could play that style, and create chances while not being exposed enough defensively without Suarez if that makes sense?

Another Fergie in getting the best out of the team. Also comparing the teams, Fergie was in an easier era, United had a lot of money under Fergie, while Rodgers may have money, but relative to the league you have two mega rich owners, a very financially astute Arsenal team and Manchester United. Spurs aren't poor either even if you're better off than them.

I think Brendan decided to go for a safe formation for this first match, only players he played were Lovren + Manquillo and with how the defence performed last season they were no brainers. He'll integrate the players to the team slowly.

Also with no Suarez, he probably felt to use a safer less attacking formation as I said before. Reckon you'll use Moreno and Johnson the next game. Then Manquillo will start the cup games and games preceding CL/easy CL ties. He'll have to play his way into the no.1 spot. Zerf is probably right on that score. But he will beat Johnson to the RB spot eventually. Johnson is not getting his contract renewed imo

And also, about Lucas in the team, it is directly Lucas' fault that we conceded yesterday. Skrtel's positioning wasn't brilliant but Lucas left the run untracked. Johnson should have been more alert too. Cba to watch it again but I have a feeling that Johnson was just spare, doing nothing.

Quote me at end of season.

Put it in your sig init.

Done

I don't have sig's showing automatically so I've only just bothered to look at yours. I love it, I'm just relieved that nothing I've ever said is in there.