The Liverpool FC Thread XII

Original post by LosingDogs

"I'm biased towards this player" at which point you proceed to tell us about he's one of the few players you know about because you've watched him since Stockport days. Just please stop posting lol

Posted from TSR Mobile

i'm sorry, you're really grasping at straws here.
it's just a desperate attempt to "get me back".
i'm surprised you're showing your face around here tbh - with the disapproval held towards me on these forums, being rekd by Lúcio must have killed you.

Reply 4482

Louis.

Ballotelli's obviously struggling, but its brought out the worst in the British media. Old fashioned narratives of "flash foreigners blocking the good, hard working English lad with a good story". Complete scapegoating. Ricky Lambert is not the answer.

Reply 4483

Lúcio

Original post by Louis.

Ballotelli's obviously struggling, but its brought out the worst in the British media. Old fashioned narratives of "flash foreigners blocking the good, hard working English lad with a good story". Complete scapegoating. Ricky Lambert is not the answer.

i agree to an extent - way too much focus on him however you're giving him too much leeway.
how many chances has he had now; how many starts has he had this season with 1 goal against a 4th seed CL team?
it's clear he's blocking lambert and possibly even borini too - i'm confident in saying that given the same amount of match time this season they would both have had a much greater impact than balotelli.
lambert may not be the (long term) answer but balotelli isn't just getting in the way of him, he's hindering the entire team.

it isn't just that the guy doesn't score, it's that he doesn't move.
he doesn't create space or opportunities for our other players, he slows the play down, makes the wrong decisions and takes a shot at every single opportunity.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4484

Mackay

17

Fair play to Jakupovic - it was only his seventh game for Hull and he's their third-choice goalkeeper so he performed magnificently to keep out Coutinho, Balotelli at the end, and all our other chances. He was a man in inspired form - reminded me a little of McCarthy's performance for Reading back in the 12-13 season when he kept foiling us time and time again.

We looked a far better side once Rodgers changed the shape. 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 is too rigid at times and I think Rodgers is guilty of not having a plan B on most occasions. Lambert linked up well with Balotelli, but the decision to drop Coutinho baffles me. He was our best player against Real Madrid and he was so key to our win at Loftus Road last week. Manquillo and Can were other positives, too, but there's still cause for concern in the defence. Lovren doesn't seem to have any authority or commanding presence back there.

Reply 4485

Bubzeh

3

Lambert will save you guys. Dont worry.

:biggrin:

Reply 4486

Isometrix

11

Original post by Bubzeh

Lambert will save you guys. Dont worry.

:biggrin:

Why aren't you playing FPL anymore

Reply 4487

The last thing you need is an immobile striker who can hold up the ball. Isn't that the main reason why people don't want Balotelli in the first place?

Balotelli obviously has pace but he doesn't always press the back line and make great runs behind defences.

Reply 4488

Original post by Shady's back

Big teams, in general, tend to get more points than they 'deserve'. That's where quality, in goal scoring, comes through.

He's missed more than just sitters. His finishing has been outright atrocious. What the stats don't show is where he just hasn't even connected with headers that could be sitters, I remember three off Moreno crosses off the top of my head and there's more.

Yeah, Sturridge isn't infallible. No striker is. But Sturridge would have scored 10 in the same stretch as Balo currently, no doubt about it though. It's not just goals that he offers and everyone knows that. He's a genuine creative presence. Last season his instructions were to stay on the last defender and he did that to aplomb, but he's always, always talked about himself as being a creator and scorer both and it shows, he plays like a true 9.5 when he's the lone striker. He is such an upgrade on Balotelli it's unbelievable.

Exactly.

Weird you changed your tune about Sturridge's creativity. When he did play as lone striker he did very well in terms of a creative presence. Made great runs, good link up play, able to switch possession quickly. When he did drop deep it was only to quicken the play of the midfielders so he can then quickly get into an attacking position. There's little need for him to do that when Suarez came back. But Sturridge's run of form when Suarez got the ban from after that Chelsea game until his return was very good and your results to come with it were quite good.

I feel Sturridge is still underrated to this day. If he was fit at this time of year he'd be in the 25 man shortlist for Balon d'or easily.

Reply 4489

Shady's back

Original post by jam277

Exactly.

Weird you changed your tune about Sturridge's creativity. When he did play as lone striker he did very well in terms of a creative presence. Made great runs, good link up play, able to switch possession quickly. When he did drop deep it was only to quicken the play of the midfielders so he can then quickly get into an attacking position. There's little need for him to do that when Suarez came back. But Sturridge's run of form when Suarez got the ban from after that Chelsea game until his return was very good and your results to come with it were quite good.

I feel Sturridge is still underrated to this day. If he was fit at this time of year he'd be in the 25 man shortlist for Balon d'or easily.

Can't remember every word of our last discussion but Sturridge's link up play is far from perfect. It ranged between good and mediocre but I have a feeling that with Suarez not around it'll be better.

He's not underrated, just not fit. Can't put him in a BdO shortlist if he's barely played all season.

Reply 4490

Original post by Shady's back

Can't remember every word of our last discussion but Sturridge's link up play is far from perfect. It ranged between good and mediocre but I have a feeling that with Suarez not around it'll be better.

He's not underrated, just not fit. Can't put him in a BdO shortlist if he's barely played all season.

Yes that is true. I'd have personally put him in the shortlist last year, if you're going by the previous year 2013, he should have got in.

Reply 4491

Deshi

Shady's Back: We're effectively agreeing about the same things just to varying degrees i.e. Balo being really bad but imo not bad enough to be a scapegoat for every thing wrong with this team, Sturidge coming back will be a great boost but not such a boost that we're all of a sudden going to be playing like last season.

Original post by jam277

So essentially you proved my first sentence that people judged him on his past glories. :rolleyes:

What are you going on about, read over what you said. How is it past glories if we're talking about his time at Liverpool and how we should feel about team selections/rotation? The season before he left we had one our best seasons in recent times. You don't get frustrated with team selection and rotation (which wasn't as drastic as you guys are making out) if you do well.

Reply 4492

Best season, aka no trophies and bottling 5-10 point lead due to over rotation of the players. Who then decides to be a genius, attempts to replace Xabi Alonso with Gareth ****ing Barry and that doesn't even go through and you have to use lucas and Aquilani there. :rolleyes:

Guy has been spent since 2006 for Liverpool.We're acting like he's doing an amazing job elsewhere as well when he's either been rather ordinary or quite pathetic.

This Rafa defence mechanism is hilarious.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4493

Deshi

Original post by jam277

Best season, aka no trophies and bottling 5-10 point lead due to over rotation of the players. Who then decides to be a genius, attempts to replace Xabi Alonso with Gareth ****ing Barry and that doesn't even go through and you have to use lucas and Aquilani there. :rolleyes:

Guy has been spent since 2006 for Liverpool.We're acting like he's doing an amazing job elsewhere as well when he's either been rather ordinary or quite pathetic.

This Rafa defence mechanism is hilarious.

For someone that likes to harp on about how knowledgeable you are compared to other posters you don't half talk some crap do you, did you even watch football back then? Constantly bringing up "defence mechanisms" when yours is to simply spout crap.

Once again with this rotation of players, if you want to criticise Rafa for anything in the 08/09 season it's for the transfer window preceeding it and how we didn't strengthen enough. 08/09 was a season where Gerrard/Torres both got injured, Gerrard through critical times. Torres didn't even play 25 games. We went through that period where we were struggling for goals, Torres out, that Middlesbrough game still gives me nightmares. United went on an unreal run of winning and all those consecutive cs to boot.

The Alonso/Barry thing is another thing only bought up by people that genuinely have no clue of the league back then. Alonso had come of a bad bad season and Barry a really great one, sufficed to say he was the better player at that moment in time, in hindsight it's easy to say it's a mistake but no-one saw Alonso picking up his form like that in 08/09.

Rafa spent since 06? You sound ridiculous. We went from a team barely making Champions League to consistently getting into the top 4 and getting to the quarters.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4494

I don't talk about being knowledgeable.

Said many times that there are plenty more knowledgeable posters than I am and I'm willing to admit that. Plenty of people on this site are terrible, I'm willing to admit that.

Just see how defensive you got over a couple Rafa comments.

Rafa's 09 season was good but still culminated in no trophies, no prize for best loser mate. Rafa's record since then has been pretty poor or rather average. Guy was at his best around 05, now he's just in the 3rd tier of top managers. Maybe that's why he's getting **** jobs that's going to go nowhere bar the odd cup win like at Napoli or winning europa with the best team in the competition by a distance and was made an interim manager at our club.

Reply 4495

Deshi

Well it's not as if he had the chance to go for the Champions League considering his predecessor struggled in the group stages :rolleyes:

You're going off on tangents. I don't care what he did after Liverpool. You just said in the previous post that he was done by 06 even though in the season after he got into another Champions League final.

But yes, keep putting it down to other peoples "defence mechanisms" when people call you out for spouting crap. Lost 08/09 due to his rotation, seems legit.

Reply 4496

Shady's back

Watch out Deshi, if you expose him now then in two weeks he'll just say he was trolling lmao

Reply 4497