Liverpool v Arsenal Post-Match Thread

[Fredo]

Watching Match of the day. We should have scored 6 goals. 6 clear cut chances.

[Redshadow]

Mattshark - Even if we get all the players in positions you suggest & I'll possibly agree with you on the midfielders to provide a better level of cover in the middle thinking about it with Lucas & Gerrard out; But wingers etc? What good will they do? Help us create More chances to waste? Help us to control games even Further & have a great record defensively All to no avail? No mate - We really Need finishers ASAP plain & simple & preferably? As many of them as possible as Soon as possible.

BTW? Just had Scezney on MOTD saying he's gone the right way & saved None of the previous 3 penalties he's faced - Just Our sodding luck He finally gets the speed & direction right. And when Will we find a reliable pen' taker again? Kuyt used to be that but's missed 2 of his last 3.

Just hope we go on a similar purple patch to what we did around this time Last year under Kenny where after missing everything/woodwork/penalties etc? Everything started going in via deflections, rebounds, hat-tricks etc - Funnily enough? Most of that started against Sunderland in an away match as well IIRR which is a good omen if nothing else. This time though due to our diabolical Home form & goalscoring form in general? I doubt even That will be enough now anyway for 4th. The obsession with That position anyway? ****ing annoys me as I've said elsewhere on this forum. It wasn't necessary for Spurs/Chelsea in 2003/City in 2010 or us in 2005 when we Won the damn thing to build from Any of those positions to following campaigns of fearsome strength & much greater league progression than might have been expected beforehand. The obsession with 4th IMO? Is an illusion talked up by the TV companies as Far more than it really is partly to publicise the CL & partly because we're all blinded by money in football now. It doesn't have as much of an effect as is made out put it that way.

Remember? Every successful campaign leading to getting 4th & going further - To win titles from nothing? Has to start from somewhere & that doesn't necessarily Have to be from a team getting 4th the season before. Besides given last years transfer fcukups? I doubt even 4th would help us at this rate bar giving us yet more money to burn unless we finally remove Commolli & the owners hands from transfers completely & let Kenny & the scouts decide Who to buy as right now? I don't think he's entirely in charge of our transfers. Certainly Carroll is glaringly Not a player of the type to fit in Kenny's favoured game for his teams if That is anything to go by. In short? I think all is not it seems behind the scenes at Anfield in respect of transfers & further? I don't think that's necessarily a good thing all the time - Still we shall see soon enough.............

NB Just watching MOTD & Sturridge for Chelsea - Wonder if A) We should have taken him in exchange for Torres or Not sold the Spaniard or further? B) What if the answer to our current goalscoring woes is in our own reserves as Sturridge was in Chelsea's for a while? Maybe we should try out Adam Morgan in the league games to come - If anyone knows where the goal is at our club right now? It's Him & we've nothing to lose from trying IMO. If you ask me? It wouldn't hurt anyway & we could gain a lot more from trying him out than we might first think................

[Mattshark]

Mattshark - Even if we get all the players in positions you suggest & I'll possibly agree with you on the midfielders to provide a better level of cover in the middle thinking about it with Lucas & Gerrard out; But wingers etc? What good will they do? Help us create More chances to waste? Help us to control games even Further & have a great record defensively All to no avail? No mate - We really Need finishers ASAP plain & simple & preferably? As many of them as possible as Soon as possible.

Sorry mate, can't agree, we need much more and Henderson and Downing is just not enough quality we and we need better back up. We need the players for both 442 and 4231 and right now we are short in midfield imo.

[Darkon]

I seriously don't understand this "our midfield is weak" argument. We have just bossed Arsenal (one of the top teams in the PL) around for 98 minutes, with our 2 best midfielders out injured, and we have a weak midfield?? We are controlling most games we play apart from the obvious 2-3 teams, and it's the midfield that is the point of blame?

Besides Adam, I think we have a very good midfield. Gerrard is world class, Lucas have turned himself in to a world class midfielder, Henderson have played well over the season (and very well today), Spearing although not quite there to be a starter does decent as a squad player and we have a few good looking prospects.

Our main problem is further up the pitch, where our wingers/IF are not scoring enough and our strikers are quilty of the very same.

We have the foundation for a top-4 challenging team, we just need some better players up front that scores goals. Suarez, Carroll, Kuyt and Downing are just to ineffective. Only player that have been consistently effective is Bellamy and he can't play all the games we need him to unfortunatly. Give me a striker and a better winger and I think we are looking good.

[Fredo]

West Brom is 4 points behind us. Unreal.

[Daniel 7]

Haha, this post reminds me of trawling through lines of badly indented code.

All I could see were the bolds. Couldn't be ****ed with the rest

[Redshadow]

We need all That do we Mattshark? After bossing virtually every team in the league at least once this season & that includes the much vaunted Arsenal today with what virtually amounted to our reserve midfield playing? Maybe long term regarding the personnel required for us to finally Win the damn league we do mate but to get in the CL short term? No sorry I Don't agree mate - This season thus far & a few games last year under Kenny? In terms of possession, attacks, shots, woodwork etc? We've battered virtually every side we've played at least once & sometimes twice in All respects bar scoreline - That indicates? The main, enduring & Only current problem we have? Is scoring bloody goals!!!

Maybe longer term yes in terms of becoming perennial challengers for the League Title as we once were? Then perhaps you have a point & Yes? We might Just need more backup & deeper cover to play different formations but given how we've played at times this season & all those bloody draws? Most especially at Home? Are you really saying if Van Persie, Balotelli the Old Torres or even Michael Owen/Robbie Fowler in their prime were bolted on to our current side? That we wouldn't be at least comfortably in the Top 4 & at most? In the title fight with the Manchester Clubs? I think either of those scenarios would apply to us were we to have good finishers right now & by a good distance to. It's so glaringly obvious & Has been for so long? It shouldn't even Need mentioning now but there you go...........................

Just to reiterate? We really Need bloody Finishers!!! Nothing else, nothing more, nothing less. That is All we need right now. It's All we've needed since last Summer's spree finished & even before to back up the one we lost last January. Simple enough problem - The answer's a Bit more difficult or so it seems thus far...................

NB BTW Mattshark? Henderson & Downing have created a Lot of chances at times this season - It's not there fault if the forward line are more impotent than a castrate in a brothel. Had all those chances been put away? I doubt you'd be complaining & anyway? Henderson created our goal today so showed he can create when needed. Remember him making one for Gerrard against Newcastle as well. Downing in particular's been unlucky in that a Lot of the chances he's created? Have been saved by GK's in the final minutes of half those bloody Home Draws IIRR. A few inches or slower reactions by Keeper's either way? And we'd be singing a different song re' Downing who I think has been very unlucky at times with us.............

[Daniel 7]

Sorry mate, can't agree, we need much more and Henderson and Downing is just not enough quality we and we need better back up. We need the players for both 442 and 4231 and right now we are short in midfield imo.

That line up today could theoretically have lined up in either 442 or 4231

Many put it as 4231, but it was clear he was going to have Kuyt pushed up alongside Suarez.

[Daniel 7]

That Win Don'tAll Old NeedNeedAllBit

Huh???

[Rich]

Fact is we played well today. Tough decisions in the summer but Kenny needs to be making them. Not another manager.

[MrMichael]

We need not have gone ahead and tried for the obvious - Falcao, Mata, Hazard etc. We were bound to fail due to the lack fo CL and inability to offer City style wages.

What we needed to do was to show a little bit of innovation, a little bit of creativity and inspiration in our scouting. For example Reina, Garcia, Arbeloa , Hyppia - relatively unnown and was a massive success.

I thought that was Commoli's and his bunch of merry scouts role. We have been so uncreative and uininspiring in our attacking purchases that it is mindboggling (To be fair that was an issue before this reign also).

We have full time scouts, an army of them. Do we really need their services to purchase Carroll, Downing, Henderson, Adam for the prices we paid. I am fairly confident if John Henry had approached est1892 and started four threads, we would have been able to provide an accurate description of their strengths and weaknesses by watching match videos over a weekend.

This summer we are still going to find it difficult to attract the top level talent due to lack of CL. That does not mean we should go and blow the transfer money on Darren Bent. There is a big market of players outside of top level and mediocre British talent which can be exploited if we do our scouting properly.

Indeed, good post. Most of our signings have been particularly unimaginative, perhaps with Bellamy excepted (and Coates, though we've not seen much of him). I would say though that these things can take time, while we turned up the Arbeloas and Hyppias in the past, we also signed the likes of Josemi, Kronkamp, Nunez, Gonzalez etc etc. However its totally true that even without CL footy we can still find good buys without spunking untold millions on more Downings.

I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but look at Newcastle. Ba, Tiote, Cabaye... not the most amazing players in the world ever, but for the money they've been a thousand times better purchases than some of the ones we've made. Hopefully though that will start to change in the upcoming windows... it needs to.

[Daniel 7]

I seem to recall Rafa's scouting network being dismantled in the pre-season. It might be we're just in a bedding in period, but our signing methods have been a bit uninspired.

[peekay]

You may well be right there mate, but if what you've said there is true, is that really any real shame? Kenny's only been here 1 year. Obviously it'll take time to build a side capable of a title challenge.

I agree with the 1 year time frame. It will take time and he definitely should be given the time. However, given the amount spent this summer I was hoping for one precocious potentially world class talent kinda like Alonso when he came here. The sort where there is no doubt about their ability and everyone knows that given time and maturity this player X deserves to be in a premier league winning team. Thats where our scouting department should earn their corn.

[MrMichael]

I'm sick of all this 'conversion rate' bull****; if we did this, did that we'd been amazing ****e.

Fact is, you could dissect most teams and come up with similar stats.

FACT - we are 7th
FACT - we've spent millions on mediocre players
FACT - posts, near misses etc; goals converted is disgusting and embarrassing
FACT - most fans think passing it back and forward nicely means we deserve wins
FACT - we used to be great, now we are average has beens
FACT - Kenny has not taken us much further in bottom line results since Bodge

When are you guys going to remove this ridiculous over-analysis nonsense crap and move out of the 80's.

We are a million miles away from where we should be, Kenny is not the man for the job and we are falling away further from the pack.

Lol, you really believe its a simple as that? Good god man When were we last "great"? After 3 years of negative net spend and the complete dismantling of a squad, you really think one transfer window with a £40m outlay should make us "great" again?

If you can't see the difference between the way we're trying to play under kenny, a guy who bleeds LFC, and the way we played under Hodgson, a guy who held the club and its fans in little more than contempt, then you must be blind. Of course its not all perfect, of course things really could do with improving, but it really isn't as black and white as you're making out no matter how many times you present mainly subjective opinions as FACTs.

[ChesterDave]

So, I thought we played well today. We lost. All those people who were pissing and moaning that we didnt play well when we won our first trophy for 6 years last weekend...

What do you feel about todays result/performance?