Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Sun May 11, 2014 6:34 pm  

Just simply brilliant to see Liverpool somehow mess it all up, when they'd come so, so close. This was an amazing chance for a non-huge club to win it. United not even starting the race, Chelsea an utter shambles throughout, completely lacking firepower, City trying their best to be meaningful in Europe and again being completely and utterly reliant on Kompany and Toure. Spurs were a mess and destroyed their opportunity early, Everton were never going to have the squad to challenge. Liverpool came up the rails superbly and collapsed spectacularly when it actually mattered.

The man responsible for the collapse? Stevie Gerrard. The man that optimises the club more than any other in this era. Oops. I can imagine the Premier League Gold season review rehashes being played on Sky year after year now.

Watching Liverpool today and there was even more evidence that Gerrard simply cannot play this deep role he's been given, at least not without a superb defensive midfielder with him. Too slow, not quite getting there in defensive positions several times. He provides such a weak screen for the back four that it's no surprise they are exposed so often. The big test for Liverpool now is how Rodgers tweaks his tactics to provide more defensive security. Can he do it without sacrificing the attacking fluidity? Or does he just throw another £100m at a proper back four and keeper and do it that way?

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Sun May 11, 2014 7:36 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

Just simply brilliant to see Liverpool somehow mess it all up, when they'd come so, so close. This was an amazing chance for a non-huge club to win it. United not even starting the race, Chelsea an utter shambles throughout, completely lacking firepower, City trying their best to be meaningful in Europe and again being completely and utterly reliant on Kompany and Toure. Spurs were a mess and destroyed their opportunity early, Everton were never going to have the squad to challenge. Liverpool came up the rails superbly and collapsed spectacularly when it actually mattered.

The man responsible for the collapse? Stevie Gerrard. The man that optimises the club more than any other in this era. Oops. I can imagine the Premier League Gold season review rehashes being played on Sky year after year now.

Watching Liverpool today and there was even more evidence that Gerrard simply cannot play this deep role he's been given, at least not without a superb defensive midfielder with him. Too slow, not quite getting there in defensive positions several times. He provides such a weak screen for the back four that it's no surprise they are exposed so often. The big test for Liverpool now is how Rodgers tweaks his tactics to provide more defensive security. Can he do it without sacrificing the attacking fluidity? Or does he just throw another £100m at a proper back four and keeper and do it that way?

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Sun May 11, 2014 9:12 pm  

WireFanatic III wrote:

:roll:

One of those times when a post annoys you and you try to formulate a response to it, but then can't actually find anything wrong with it eh?

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Sun May 11, 2014 9:28 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

One of those times when a post annoys you and you try to formulate a response to it, but then can't actually find anything wrong with it eh?

Not really, it was just a standard reply to a standard WUM post.

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Sun May 11, 2014 9:54 pm  

Genuinely struggling to see what he said wrong? Haha

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Sun May 11, 2014 10:32 pm  

Really pleased with our season. People claim we've bottled it but we had no right to have a chance, there are wealthier, more experienced clubs that could only dream of playing how we've played, to be managed how we've been managed. Really enjoyed everything as a whole. United's demise has been hilarious, Chelsea's failures were hilarious and oozed irony. It was nice to see the bluenoses have a stab at something for once as well, but they never troubled Arsenal really, did they?

Next season will be tough as we'll need more depth and more quality. I imagine Spurs, Arsenal and United will be looking to recruit quite heavily, it's going to be very hard to maintain what we done this year.

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Mon May 12, 2014 8:05 am  

Roddy B wrote:

Really pleased with our season. People claim we've bottled it but we had no right to have a chance, there are wealthier, more experienced clubs that could only dream of playing how we've played, to be managed how we've been managed. Really enjoyed everything as a whole. United's demise has been hilarious, Chelsea's failures were hilarious and oozed irony. It was nice to see the bluenoses have a stab at something for once as well, but they never troubled Arsenal really, did they?

Next season will be tough as we'll need more depth and more quality. I imagine Spurs, Arsenal and United will be looking to recruit quite heavily, it's going to be very hard to maintain what we done this year.

Everton and Liverpool's seasons were pretty similar in a lot of ways. Performing ahead of most people's expectations and with a month to go looking like they would both achieve their overachievement, then ultimately failing. I think Liverpool's collapse looks worse as they were getting the bigger headlines going for the title. The defeat to Chelsea wasn't bottling it, the collapse from 3-0 up at Palace was.

It'll be interesting to see what effect the Champions League has on Liverpool next season. And whether they get any more attention towards Suarez.

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Mon May 12, 2014 2:51 pm  

A rather predictable England squad today with no real headlines to come from it. He's made the right calls so far IMO in freezing out Terry and Cole. Funny to see Wilkins still banging the drum for Cole today, refusing to admit on Sky Sports News that Baines is better than him.

One player I think is unlucky is Adam Johnson. He's not a great player but he's had a good season and when you look at the selections of Oxlade Chamberlain and Wilshere he's unlucky. Neither of those have done anything to warrant selection and the later particularly is in purely on this perception that he's got the potential to be a great player. He's never lived up to that so far. You can't claim to be picking on form when you pick a player that's played 27 minutes in two months.

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Mon May 12, 2014 5:09 pm  

Roddy B wrote:

Really pleased with our season. People claim we've bottled it but we had no right to have a chance, there are wealthier, more experienced clubs that could only dream of playing how we've played, to be managed how we've been managed.

Liverpool had a ridiculously good chance to win the title. The way the season played out, things started falling into place for them. After 24 years without a title, and with the money the likes of city and chelsea can throw around this was simply a massive chance blown. So this, ''well we had no right to challenge anyway'' doesn't really wash with me. They did challenge, not just challenge but on the verge of winning it.

I suspect though, it won't be clear how much liverpool blew it until we're into next season and liverpool are back in the pack battling for 4th place, struggling to cope with the CL fixtures and goal scorer supreme Suarez at madrid, with chelsea and city stronger as well as United being back in the mix.

Liverpool fans will be able to take a step back, take stock and they're gonna think F*CK.

Re: Football Chat Thread PART II : Mon May 12, 2014 5:12 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

A rather predictable England squad today with no real headlines to come from it. He's made the right calls so far IMO in freezing out Terry and Cole. Funny to see Wilkins still banging the drum for Cole today, refusing to admit on Sky Sports News that Baines is better than him.

One player I think is unlucky is Adam Johnson. He's not a great player but he's had a good season and when you look at the selections of Oxlade Chamberlain and Wilshere he's unlucky. Neither of those have done anything to warrant selection and the later particularly is in purely on this perception that he's got the potential to be a great player. He's never lived up to that so far. You can't claim to be picking on form when you pick a player that's played 27 minutes in two months.

Ray Wilkins is a cock, simple as.... The media's attempt to have Ashley Cole and John Terry hijack the England squad has been disgraceful and also, especially the championing of Terry, massively disrespectful to those who have actually got this England squad to Brazil in the first place.

As for Adam Johnson, I'm not quite sure the problem - He is a nothing player, a poor man's Joe Cole.... Chamberlain is a much better pick as he has pace, which is crucial at this level. He will make a good impact player off the bench - With Wilshire, I can understand your questioning of his selection, but overall I much prefer him to Johnson, as he has Champions League experience and does have the potential to be a half decent player, something which can't be said for Johnson, who struggles to have a consistent run of form in a poor Sunderland side.