Football: Just Slaven Away

[Consigliere]

13 hours ago, polishgenius said:

It's annoying coz we play City the weekend after the last group game so a basically free game would have been handy.

What's really annoying is that we made zero attempt to even try and win the game in the 2nd half. We played for a point and were deservedly punished for being so negative.

I think Mourinho will still rotate the team for the CSKA game as only an extraordinary result would see us fail to qualify. Basically, CSKA will have to hand us our biggest ever defeat in European competition. And lets face it, we will need to rest some players as we are gonna spend most of the game against City chasing shadows.

 

[Rorshach]

Dear Santa. 

For Christmas this year, I would very much like a manager. Someone who can make me feel like there’s hope for ... you know, keeping a clean sheet, scoring first, winning games, that sort of thing. 

No, not Tony Pulis.

Yours truly

etc etc.

[polishgenius]

8 minutes ago, Rorshach said:

Dear Santa. 

For Christmas this year, I would very much like a manager. Someone who can make me feel like there’s hope for ... you know, keeping a clean sheet, scoring first, winning games, that sort of thing. 

No, not Tony Pulis.

Yours truly

etc etc.

Bielsa might be about to be available...

[MercenaryChef]

holy shit was Everton garbage today. 

those atalanta supporters were having the time off their lives in the stands. must have been so amazing traveling abroad and watching your side smash the home team. 

[AncalagonTheBlack]

Watched a new BBC docu  today: Shankly: Nature's Fire.pretty good and learned about some stuff i had no previous knowledge about.

Some of our players need to be strapped to chairs and made to watch this.They might actually learn what it means to be a Liverpool player.Great interviews with Ian St. John,Kevin Keegan, Irvine Welsh, Denis Law etc.Well worth the watch.

[Consigliere]

16 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Bielsa might be about to be available...

Biesla is a bit of a nutter, no? Not convinced that combination would work out with an Everton team in disarray. The Everton owner has recently mentioned that they are close to appointing a new manager though.

[Rorshach]

1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

Biesla is a bit of a nutter, no? Not convinced that combination would work out with an Everton team in disarray. The Everton owner has recently mentioned that they are close to appointing a new manager though.

I suspect polish is trolling me. He will never see revenge coming....

[Consigliere]

5 minutes ago, Rorshach said:

I suspect polish is trolling me. He will never see revenge coming....

Do you think that Silva is almost a done deal. From my understanding, he was the #1 target. If the owner is saying that an appointment is immanent then I would expect that a deal has been reached over the club's #1 target.

 

[polishgenius]

54 minutes ago, Rorshach said:

I suspect polish is trolling me. He will never see revenge coming....

I'm just indulging in my insistence that every team looking for a manager should get Bielsa.

That said, although his record of long-term success is pretty much nil, and he is a nutter, if there's one man who could make something workable, at least temporarily, out of Everton's midfield-heavy squad it would be him.

[Jordan La Cabra]

I am curious about Harry Maguire. English media and Gareth Southgate talk about him as if he is some specialist ball playing centre half. I’ve tried to pay close attention to him tonight, as I never quite understood where it came from. Everytime he’s been on the ball he’s looked awkward and ended up playing it square to Wes Morgan or to Christian Fuchs. I really don’t get the hype.

[Hereward]

5 hours ago, Rorshach said:

I suspect polish is trolling me. He will never see revenge coming....

I saw a joke that says Everton should be put in charge of Brexit. They only spent £150m and were out of Europe in three weeks.

[Jordan La Cabra]

I think he’s a solid enough defender, and he put some decent performances in for Hull last season, it’s just the whole ‘ball playing’ thing I don’t understand. 

Southgate as good as said the reason the likes of Maguire and Stones are being picked over Smalling is because they can play out from the back. It’s impossible not to notice that Stones is comfortable on the ball, but I really don’t look at Maguire and think ‘wow, he’s much better than Smalling on the ball’. 

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Soylent Brown said:

I really like Harry Maguire. I'm not familiar with him before this season admitedly,  but every game I've seen him play since, I've liked him and thought - why weren't we after him?

I mean, seriously - Sami Hyypia's nana is better than Klavan, so why are we struggling so much?

Well, the fact that he spent last season in a team that conceded 80 goals is probably why Liverpool weren't after him.

 

In any case, while personell upgrade are defo needed you're not gonna fix the issue with players like Maguire. Klopp doesn't bother to organise defenders, so almost every CB is going to look worse when he moves there than when working in a properly trained unit. He got away with it to an extent at Dortmund because he had two CBs who were great at staying on basically rescue duty the entire time, and it's impossible to know who that's going to be until you seem them in action. But Maguire doesn't strike me as one.
Tarkowsky so far this season might be the best example of the type in the league atm, but again, it's hard to know how he'll handle himself when torn away from the greater quality around him at Burnley.

[Rorshach]

17 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Do you think that Silva is almost a done deal. From my understanding, he was the #1 target. If the owner is saying that an appointment is immanent then I would expect that a deal has been reached over the club's #1 target.

 

I’m really not in the know, but I never really thought he’d be interested. So, yeah, I think that one’s dead. And, seeing that no-one bothered to tell Rhino that a new manager was «imminent», Rhino is also out. Samuele withdrew himself. Van Gaal as well (thank goodness!). 

Not sure what’s left, really. 

16 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I'm just indulging in my insistence that every team looking for a manager should get Bielsa.

That said, although his record of long-term success is pretty much nil, and he is a nutter, if there's one man who could make something workable, at least temporarily, out of Everton's midfield-heavy squad it would be him.

Well, I suspect he’d come, watch a training or two, and then leave in a huff. But I’m an optimist.

 

11 hours ago, Hereward said:

I saw a joke that says Everton should be put in charge of Brexit. They only spent £150m and were out of Europe in three weeks.

See? We can do something right!

[Jordan La Cabra]

9 hours ago, polishgenius said:

 

He got away with it to an extent at Dortmund because he had two CBs who were great at staying on basically rescue duty the entire time, and it's impossible to know who that's going to be until you seem them in action. But Maguire doesn't strike me as one.
Tarkowsky so far this season might be the best example of the type in the league atm, but again, it's hard to know how he'll handle himself when torn away from the greater quality around him at Burnley.

I haven’t seen much of him this season at Stoke, but Kurt Zouma while at Chelsea seemed quite good at that type of defending. 

I can remember a few games when we got hit on a counter attack and he was able to use his pace and power to get back quickly enough to make a last ditch tackle or block. He even won a couple of foot races against Sergio Aguero and Theo Walcott to stop them getting through one on one with the keeper.

I agree completely with your points about any defender coming to Liverpool right now will immediately look worse. That’s why I have never understood certain Liverpool fans who whole heartedly believe that if VvD arrives, they’ll be fine (I don’t think there are any on this forum, but I have seen some on the daily mail comments online).

Southampton defenders tend to look good because they play in a team that relies on a solid defensive base because they’ve never been a team that attack and score a lot of goals.

Personally, I think Liverpool should be looking at defenders whose strength is being comfortable in recovery when playing in teams that play a high defensive line, attack gung hu and are often exposed on the counter attack. Certainly none of Liverpool’s current centre backs fit that billing and I don’t believe VvD does much either.

[polishgenius]

Well that wasn't very good. I see a few people online are starting to turn on Lukaku- I'm not on that boat, but his lack of smart movement in the box is a concern. Maybe Jose should switch it so that it's Rashford up the middle and Lukaku coming in from the wing since he goes out there to find space half the time anyway? I dunno, but Lukaku against a packed defence isn't great.

[Philokles]

Oh my god! What a derby.

Schaaaaaalke!

[polishgenius]

1 minute ago, Horse of Kent said:

Oh my god! What a derby.

Schaaaaaalke!

Fuck me, don't see that every day. 93rd minute equaliser too.

[Consigliere]

Not a good performance and a very fortunate goal. Our performances have been average for a couple of months now. Not very confident about our chances in the next three games (Watford and Arsenal away, City at home).

[polishgenius]

43 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

Not a good performance and a very fortunate goal. Our performances have been average for a couple of months now. Not very confident about our chances in the next three games (Watford and Arsenal away, City at home).

We did improve as the game went on and although the goal was a proper fluke, huge deflection off a corner we should never have had, it wasn't undeserved from the pressure we were putting on at that stage.
But the lack of creativity and mobility in the final third is a huge issue. When Pogba's around we can keep the pressure going and play some real nice buildup stuff, but it speaks volumes that a lot of the time he was playing more incisive passes from 30/40 yards than Mata and co round the edge of the box. We really need a change in the creative department. Seems fairly likely that Mkhi's on his way out, and we're probably gonna go for Forsberg to offer a bit of true width, but it needs more than that.