Newcastle away Monday 25th Aug 8pm

[baitman]

We definitely need more beef in our midfield.

[RedReet]

No doubt we played poor overall but scored 3 excellent goals. Not too shabby. I remember last season being similar early on

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This was from 19/20. I know it's different circumstances, but lots of similar vibes, ie "midfield is ****", "we're too easy to play against", "gonna get caught out soon", "results papering over the cracks". And that year it was OBVIOUS that our high line wouldn't wotk, just like it's obvious Wirtz can't play in midfield.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/s....co/FSwiJypHNs

Liverpool’s Opponents: So Close, So Far, So Frustrated

Liverpool is unbeaten and has led the Premier League race all season. So why do so many of its beaten rivals feel they could have fared better?


By Rory Smith
Oct. 18, 2019, 1:27 p.m. ET

LIVERPOOL, England — When Chris Wilder went into the changing room, he did not try to sugarcoat it. His Sheffield United team had lost to Liverpool at Bramall Lane, and he did not really understand why.

Wilder told his players that they had missed a “massive opportunity.” They had, he said, succeeded in frustrating Liverpool, the European champion. They had forced the runaway leader of the Premier League into an “off day.” They had created a handful of chances to score, and their goalkeeper had barely needed to make so much as a “regulation” save. And then, in the end, Liverpool had beaten them anyway.

A week earlier, Chelsea Manager Frank Lampard had been a little more positive. He had congratulated his players in his postmatch debriefing at Stamford Bridge on matching Liverpool — particularly in the second half — and on remaining “right in the game” until the end. He said he felt they had merited at least a point. They did not get one, of course. Liverpool won that day, too.


It was the same after Leicester, when Brendan Rodgers felt his team was “in control of the situation,” and “might even go on to win.” It was the same at Southampton, when Ralph Hassenhüttl was pleased with how his side “had big chances to score, and stretched them very early.”


Sean Dyche, of Burnley, felt the score line when his team hosted Liverpool flattered the visitors; Newcastle’s Steve Bruce believed his side’s fixture at Anfield hinged to no small extent on a goalkeeping error. Liverpool has played eight Premier League games so far this season. Almost every time, its opponents have felt they have acquitted themselves well, had a chance, done enough. Every single time, Liverpool has won anyway. It is just that it is not always clear how.


There is a contrast, here, with the team Liverpool has to dethrone if it is to win a first domestic championship for three decades: Manchester City. Over the course of the last two seasons, Pep Guardiola’s team has won 64 of 76 games, and won most of them well.

In the aftermath of his team’s 8-0 defeat at City last month, for example, the Watford manager, Quique Sánchez Flores, observed that it was clear within 15 minutes that it was “impossible” for his team to resist the sky-blue tide. It is the sort of thing opposition managers often say about Manchester City. Guardiola’s team possesses a superiority that is visible to the naked eye. It does things that other managers, other fans, know their team simply cannot do.


The same is said less easily of Liverpool. It has, in Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino, a front three that is the envy of almost every other team in soccer. In Virgil Van Dijk, it boasts arguably the finest central defender in the world. Alisson Becker, absent for all but 37 minutes of this season so far, could lay claim to the same status among goalkeepers.

But Liverpool’s style is not, or at least does not immediately seem to be, as slick as Manchester City’s. It is not as technically flawless, not as boundlessly inventive, not as smoothly mechanical.

Its squad is not quite as packed with supreme talent. It picked up Andy Robertson and Georginio Wijnaldum from teams that had been relegated. Joel Matip arrived on a free transfer from Schalke, and few opposition fans understand quite how Jordan Henderson became the Champions League-winning captain of one of the world’s biggest clubs, or racked up 55 appearances for the English national team. These are not players who command the same awe as Kevin De Bruyne or Bernardo Silva.


It is not as evident as quickly why Liverpool, as it heads to Manchester United this weekend, has won 17 Premier League games in a row, or why it has an eight-point lead at the top of the table, or why it has reached two Champions League finals in a row.

All of those managers who have fallen this year have had a point: there are times when Liverpool does seem to struggle to click into gear, when its passing goes haywire, when even its vaunted forward line seems out of sorts. There are times when Liverpool seems vulnerable, as if it might stumble. Increasingly, those times come just before it chalks up another win.

The easy explanation for this, of course, is the one that will give most solace to City: that Liverpool, basically, gets lucky.


The winning goal against Wilder’s Sheffield United was a basic goalkeeping error; so, too, was the strike that gave Liverpool the lead against Newcastle. Rodgers’s Leicester lost because of a “soft” injury-time penalty. Hassenhüttl’s Southampton missed a glorious late opportunity to equalize. Burnley was undone, largely, by a mis-hit cross from Trent Alexander-Arnold and a mis-hit pass from its defender, Ben Mee.

It is not an argument entirely without merit; it is hard to argue, certainly, that Liverpool’s performances this season and those of Manchester United have diverged quite as widely as the 15-point gap between the teams entering Sunday might suggest. There is hope, in that, for Guardiola; at some point, presumably, Liverpool’s good fortune will run out, and the ball will bounce the other way.

It is not, though, quite that straightforward. In all but one game this season, Liverpool has created more and better chances than its opponent, according to Opta’s Expected Goals metric. It has, in that sense, deserved to win all of its games, the visit to Chelsea apart.

That cognitive dissonance hints at an alternative explanation for why so many coaches have felt their teams might have avoided defeat against Liverpool, if only they had not made one or other telling mistake. Where Manchester City’s great strength is in making itself look good, at least part of Liverpool’s success can be explained by its capacity to make its opponent look bad.



Jurgen Klopp’s team has undergone several small but significant transformations in the last two years. Last season’s incarnation chose its moments to unleash its press more carefully, and became more comfortable in possession. This year’s is experimenting with a higher defensive line, squeezing the play, restricting space.

Its primary tenets, though, remain constant: Klopp’s style is designed to force and then ruthlessly exploit errors. City is at its best when it is sweeping through teams; Liverpool’s aim is, instead, to disrupt them. It is why opponents often feel they have been complicit in their downfall. It is why it can be hard to understand Liverpool’s superiority. It does not seem to be doing things other teams cannot do. It is just doing them better.

It is doing them more, too. Last summer, in the aftermath of its Champions League win, Liverpool came under considerable pressure — both internally and externally — to bolster its resources, to build from a position of strength. Michael Edwards, the team’s sporting director, refused and resisted. In part, that was strategic: it is fair to assume that Liverpool was keeping its powder dry in order to invest more substantially in summers to come.

But it was also an acknowledgment of what Klopp had built. Edwards, like Klopp, felt this team had more to give. On the road to the Champions League final last season, Klopp had described his players as “mentality monsters.” There was a desire not to disturb that precious, fragile team spirit.



It was no coincidence that Liverpool was in Leicester’s penalty area, deep into injury time, seeking a winning goal, just before it was awarded a penalty. It has not come upon those goalkeeping errors or defensive mistakes by accident. If City blow teams away, then Liverpool, when it needs to, merely grinds them down.

The question, now, is whether it can last the course. The challenge ahead is considerable, starting with a run of fixtures over the next few weeks that includes not just Manchester United on Sunday but Tottenham and Manchester City, too. Liverpool also must navigate the added complication of a December trip to the Club World Cup in Qatar.

And, most of all, it must maintain its focus in the white heat of a title race that seemed to start almost on the first day of the season, a consequence of the standard City has set.


There has been no jockeying for position, no chance to ease in to the season: Liverpool had to hit the ground running, and it will have to keep sprinting until the end. Manchester City will be lying in wait for any slip by its rival, any sign that the psychological pressure of delivering the club’s first title since 1990 is starting to tell. Liverpool has no choice. It has to keep going, keep winning, even if, at times, nobody seems quite clear how.

[kingfunk]

Who got MOTM?? Was Dom for me.

[Doc_Piptorious]

We definitely need more beef in our midfield.

Beef is easy to get as there will always be big groks available, but beef that comes with the sort of skill set we need is difficult to find.


Also if you look at the best teams out there (of which we are one), very few have midfields made up of big aggressive players. Most have fairly athletic players who are highly skilled and highly mobile.

Sure that sort of midfield will lose a battle with groks in a game every now and then but over the course of a season they will come out on top far more often than not.

Looks at the midfields of teams like us, PSG, Real, Barca and even City teams of seasons gone by, and mobile with a lot of technique is what most focus on having.

[frank the tank]

So he invited him on to the yacht to watch the game… and then at half time said alright man that’s enough, off you go…

Probably would have been weird if yer man was still there while Johnny Boy was getting his half time blow job off Linda she'd have been like "who's this?"

[peterbread]

Gravenberch missed the community shield and Bournemouth so is a bit behind with match fitness, Dom had to cover RB and Alexis didn’t play. Midfield is the strongest part of the squad. Add in Endo and Nyoni as well.

[Sus]

Probably would have been weird if yer man was still there while Johnny Boy was getting his half time blow job off Linda she'd have been like "who's this?"

good point

[SB]

[Bence Bocsák] I don’t think Curtis Jones is getting the plaudits he deserves for his performance yesterday. He won all of his duels (7/7), completed 100% of his dribbles (2/2) and had an 89% pass accuracy (50/56)... His final ball could have been better one or two times but in general he kept things very tidy in possession.

I’ve said it before he’s not going to steal the headlines and be the most high profile player and definitely has things he still needs to work on but what a great squad player to have who can fill in multiple positions and will do his job without any fuss the majority of the time.

He should have scored from Mo’s assist though

[ChesterDave]

Gave me a giggle

LIVERPOOL RIVALS & HATERS DEVASTATED 😫 REACTION TO NEWCASTLE 2-3 LIVERPOOL | PREMIER LEAGUE - YouTube

18m 38s

Yes fam, yes blud.

[Harv]

lol - take everything a bit too serious pal

[Harv]

Yes with the poor start he hasn't got to show what he can do going forward. I was wondering if he's been asked to play a very different role than he is used to? Early days and as you said in a disjointed team

I just thought his defending for their first was odd.

Clearly caught in two minds and didn't read the flight of the ball at all. Then just got over powered. Happens to the best of them, let alone a young player getting used to a new playing style and also the frenetic atmosphere on Monday.

Don't think its anything for people to be fretting about though. He's young, he'll learn.

Konate and our inability to keep hold of the ball are far bigger worries for me at this stage.

[RedReet]

[ame]https://twitter.com/KayLFC05_/status/1961067467800781059[/ame]

[Charly]

lol.

I always loved that Roy Keane...

Oh... hang on a sec..

[BootRoom]

Keane has no problemo putting the boot into Newcastle, especially after his run-ins with Shearer.

[peterbread]

He doesn’t say the same nonsense you hear from most ex player pundits. It’s so boring hearing the same crap repeated over and over.