Stewart Downing - West Hahahaham player

[Shaggy]

Twenty. Million. Pounds.

He's ****ing garbage.

[Craig_H]

Or bang average?

[Exiled_red]

I thought he did ok, he put a few decent crosses in, first half in particular. He created the chance for Carroll early on which Carroll should have scored, and he found Carroll with a few crosses at the back post, Carroll headed them down but there was no-one there to pick them up. If we had people on the end of Carroll's knock downs I think people would have viewed Carroll and Downing's performances yesterday differently...

[Arn]

I thought he did ok, he put a few decent crosses in, first half in particular. He created the chance for Carroll early on which Carroll should have scored, and he found Carroll with a few crosses at the back post, Carroll headed them down but there was no-one there to pick them up. If we had people on the end of Carroll's knock downs I think people would have viewed Carroll and Downing's performances yesterday differently...

How do you get people into the box playing 4-4-2 with Lucas and Adam as the CM?

If you play 4-4-2 then it is one of the CM that must get into the box and Adam isn't mobile enough to do it and Lucas shouldn't do it because it is isn't his job to do it. His job is to protect the back four.

Another big tactical mistake by Kenny.

[Exiled_red]

We could either do it by getting Suarez closer to Carroll in these situations or one of the wide players coming in off the wing, or by getting a midfield player up in support. I wouldn't have Adam in the team, for me he'd not good enough.

[Arn]

I would still sell Downing in January by the way.

He shouldn't be first option on the left. Why? He don't deserve it.

We paid £20m for a player that is in no way better than what we already had, Maxi.

Maxi should be first choice on the left, not Downing.

[Craig_H]

How do you get people into the box playing 4-4-2 with Lucas and Adam as the CM?

If you play 4-4-2 then it is one of the CM that must get into the box and Adam isn't mobile enough to do it and Lucas shouldn't do it because it is isn't his job to do it. His job is to protect the back four.

Another big tactical mistake by Kenny.

I'm not going down the blame game, but this is one of your best posts.

If we have the ball wide on the left with downing, Carroll & Suarez should be in the box, Kuyt should be tucking in from the right and in the box and one of the CMs needs to be in the box too. You cross to four options in the middle and you have much more chance of success. We cross to one man in the box, surrounded by 5 defenders, and we wonder why we dont score from it.

We dont play percentage football at all. It's not luck that the mancs get late winners so often, they load up bodies in the box and increase the chances of scoring, we dont.

[danperkins]

Twenty. Million. Pounds.

He's ****ing garbage.

I would be lynched if i said this

Love the honesty though

[Craig_H]

Tried my hardest to defend him out of sentiment but it really isnt happening. I spent about 20 mins of the 2nd half yesterday trying to work out who we'd brought on for Downing, until i realised he actually was still on the pitch.

[Shaggy]

I'm not going down the blame game, but this is one of your best posts.

If we have the ball wide on the left with downing, Carroll & Suarez should be in the box, Kuyt should be tucking in from the right and in the box and one of the CMs needs to be in the box too. You cross to four options in the middle and you have much more chance of success. We cross to one man in the box, surrounded by 5 defenders, and we wonder why we dont score from it.

We dont play percentage football at all. It's not luck that the mancs get late winners so often, they load up bodies in the box and increase the chances of scoring, we dont.

I would be lynched if i said this

Love the honesty though

I'm expecting to get lynched too

Thought I'd wake up feeling a bit better about it all but I don't. Downing has never been good enough for us - not one fan has ever called for us to sign him but when we did loads of people all of a sudden thought he was good. Well he's not, he's ****.

[Exiled_red]

I'm not going down the blame game, but this is one of your best posts.

If we have the ball wide on the left with downing, Carroll & Suarez should be in the box, Kuyt should be tucking in from the right and in the box and one of the CMs needs to be in the box too. You cross to four options in the middle and you have much more chance of success. We cross to one man in the box, surrounded by 5 defenders, and we wonder why we dont score from it.

We dont play percentage football at all. It's not luck that the mancs get late winners so often, they load up bodies in the box and increase the chances of scoring, we dont.

I agree with all that

[Shaggy]

And he did that thing again yesterday....absolutely no idea what to do with it so just ****ing blast it against the defenders legs.

[Fredo]

Downing is one dimensional. He can cross a ball and that's about it. He can't beat his man with any degree of consistency. If his main asset is his crossing then we have the wrong type of players bar Carroll.

[danperkins]

I'm expecting to get lynched too

Thought I'd wake up feeling a bit better about it all but I don't. Downing has never been good enough for us - not one fan has ever called for us to sign him but when we did loads of people all of a sudden thought he was good. Well he's not, he's ****.

with these performances i don't think you'll get lynched

We do have a habit of jumping on the bandwagon with players, i suppose it's fans trying to take the positives of out things, well either that or wearing those rose tints

I know i've been criticising Downing, and i don't mean to harp on about it, but the most disappointing thing for me is, that this particular position, LM. This has been a problem area for over a decade now. I genuinely thought we would nail this position down, and all the stop gaps we've put in there over the years would be a distant memory.

Originally linked with Downing i was gutted, we he signed i was trying to look on the positive i.e. coming off the back of a productive season, and concentrating on his stats etc. In pre season he looked good, sharp and direct. But if people are honest Stuart Downing is doing for LFC, exactly what he has been doing his whole career. And that is, not much.

Now i'm sure Downing will eventually get an assist or a goal and people will jump on the offensive. Fine by me, if it's good enough for LFC happy days, but IMO i don't think he has or will ever have the mentality to make it at LFC & to my frustration i think he will be just another stop gap, in a history of average stop gaps in that position. £20 million quid, what the hell were we thinking!

P.S. Does anyone have a count on how many times downing has hit the ball against defenders legs, jesus fooking christ it's annoying!

[danperkins]

How do you get people into the box playing 4-4-2 with Lucas and Adam as the CM?

If you play 4-4-2 then it is one of the CM that must get into the box and Adam isn't mobile enough to do it and Lucas shouldn't do it because it is isn't his job to do it. His job is to protect the back four.

Another big tactical mistake by Kenny.

to be fair this post is spot on.