Liverpool vs Birmingham match thread

[andrewces38]

you mean roy, rafa is the inter milan manager

whhoooooooooooooosssshhhhhhhhhhh

[Gibbo]

Rafa took far too long in making substitutions today. And when he did, Babel, Pachecho, Ngog all left on the bench.
Did Rafa not want to win the game? Same as last year....

Did he bring Voronin on instead?

[Taxi]

We've had a tough start to the season, we'll see what our real position and form are like in the run of games between Man Utd and Chelsea IMO

or 7 points off the top already

[Mattshark]

He was the ONLY person creating any goalscoring chances IDIOT! I can't understand morons who say Gerrard's had a **** game beacuse he hasn't single handedly won the game for us or scored from the halfway line - he is still head & shoulders our best outfield player ffs!!!

He is, but that doesn't mean he played well today and he hasn't really played great over the last season. Not saying he was the only poor player today, most where (Pepe aside), but he is playing well below his level.

[Frodo]

Rafa, Roy?
Today it looked as if Rafa was still in charge. Two defensive midfielders. What the hell are we gonna do with two defensive midfielders. That was Rafa's biggest problem last year and Roy had just gone and started doing the same. No wonder Torres and Gerrard look so pissed off. They can't get the ball cause our midfield is so crap and provides them with no service at all. Two freakin defensive midfielders....
United are gonna piss all over us.

[Gibbo]

Rafa, Roy?
Today it looked as if Rafa was still in charge. Two defensive midfielders. What the hell are we gonna do with two defensive midfielders. That was Rafa's biggest problem last year and Roy had just gone and started doing the same. No wonder Torres and Gerrard look so pissed off. They can't get the ball cause our midfield is so crap and provides them with no service at all. Two freakin defensive midfielders....
United are gonna piss all over us.

ahh, see what you did. sorry for not twigging on

[Mattshark]

Rafa, Roy?
Today it looked as if Rafa was still in charge. Two defensive midfielders. What the hell are we gonna do with two defensive midfielders. That was Rafa's biggest problem last year and Roy had just gone and started doing the same. No wonder Torres and Gerrard look so pissed off. They can't get the ball cause our midfield is so crap and provides them with no service at all. Two freakin defensive midfielders....
United are gonna piss all over us.

We played that when we finished 2nd too. Two DM's is not the issue, Spain won the WC doing that. Inter won CL playing like that. It is an issue with the players in front of them and with appropriate movement between them, on top of that you need appropriate support from the full backs.

And you'll find that Rafa made subs earlier and we actually controlled games.

[banditos]

The problem is playing with two players in that position who are better at spoiling the opposition than at creating anything. It also seems that Lucas has regressed under Hodgson as he has been so static in his movement.

[vonk]

We played that when we finished 2nd too. Two DM's is not the issue, Spain won the WC doing that. Inter won CL playing like that. It is an issue with the players in front of them and with appropriate movement between them, on top of that you need appropriate support from the full backs.

And you'll find that Rafa made subs earlier and we actually controlled games.

He can't come in and completely change a system that's been in place for years in one month. We'd get beat every week. I'm hoping he's going to change it over the space of a few months. There were plenty of away games last season where we never controlled anything... Pompey, Fulham, Birmingham, Stoke come to mind.

[red g]

or 7 points off the top already

Top is of no consequence.

2pts of 4th is the most important factor.

[Frodo]

We played that when we finished 2nd too. Two DM's is not the issue, Spain won the WC doing that. Inter won CL playing like that. It is an issue with the players in front of them and with appropriate movement between them, on top of that you need appropriate support from the full backs.

And you'll find that Rafa made subs earlier and we actually controlled games.

Disagree. Xabi Alonso is not a defensive midfielder. He's a Midfielder. He can defend, attack, create, score goals etc etc. He controlled the midfield the year we finished 2nd. He was the foundation for many of our attacks. He is NOT a defensive midfielder.
Poulsen, Lucas? Defensive midfielders. Close down, break up the opposition play they do. Attack they don't. Play passes which get us attacking, they don't.

[Mattshark]

The problem is playing with two players in that position who are better at spoiling the opposition than at creating anything. It also seems that Lucas has regressed under Hodgson as he has been so static in his movement.

No ones movement was great to be fair (and our biggest problem). One of Lucas or Poulsen need to move up in an attack though and neither did. While they held on to the ball well (8 misplaced paces between them, 4 each), they never got forward enough.

Carra's 9 unsuccessful clearances are a bit of worry defensively.

[Mattshark]

He can't come in and completely change a system that's been in place for years in one month. We'd get beat every week. I'm hoping he's going to change it over the space of a few months. There were plenty of away games last season where we never controlled anything... Pompey, Fulham, Birmingham, Stoke come to mind.

Disagree with Birmingham and Stoke away last year. We should have won both those games too.

Pompey we were down to 10 men, I never saw Fulham game.

[Bender]

Liverpool boss Roy Hodgson was not too disappointed to come away with a draw.

"They played extremely well in the first half,'' he said. "We started well but the final 15 minutes before half-time they pressurised the ball well and made life very difficult and we were depending on two very good saves from Pepe Reina.

"But I thought we kept our shape well, kept working at what we were doing, and the longer the game went on the stronger we were getting. It was a good performance from Birmingham and I'm not too disappointed with our performance either.

"We kept to our task well. It's early days for me and there's a lot of new players coming into the team trying to come to terms with what is being asked of them.''

Birmingham are now unbeaten in 17 games at home, and Hodgson expects many more teams to come here and struggle this season.

"This is a very tough place to come and play,'' he said. "They've got a very good home record, they're unbeaten in goodness knows how many games and this is also a game on the back of an international week where we've had a lot of people away.

"My expectations were not that high anyway. It would have been disappointing to lose but I'm not that disappointed to draw.''

[Fierce]

Load of ****. I think with Cole and Meireles we'll look a different team. Would like to eventually see the latter alongside Poulsen. No Lucas. Well, one of them anyway. I think

Pepe
Johnson Carra Agger Konchesky
Poulsen Meireles
Kuyt Gerrard Cole
Torres

Poulsen as a holding midfielder, Meireles slightly ahead with more forward runs


Thought Konchesky had a good debut, shame he got a knock. Have we got any news on that?

Pepe is a god