Jump to content

Football: half-way point


Iskaral Pust

Recommended Posts

He's been our best CB this season and second to Wan Bissaka as our best defender overall. He gets pillared because of the transfer fee United paid - there's no doubt we overpaid by 15-20 million even with English tax included. He never was and never will be in the same class as Van Dijk but the many twitter twat United fans think that he should have magically transformed into VVD 2.0 as soon as United paid 80 million for him. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Solskjaer won't do this but I hope he puts out the reserves in the FA Cup and League Cup  - it would be better if we get knocked out because the squad isn't deep enough in midfield and up front to cope with four competitions especially now with us having Matic and Fred as the only fit midfielders in the entire squad.

Nah, I definitely can't see him playing the reserves in a cup semi-final against Manchester City. (not to mention the cups are our only shot at winning a trophy)

I agree with the point about the squad depth, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

Nah, I definitely can't see him playing the reserves in a cup semi-final against Manchester City. (not to mention the cups are our only shot at winning a trophy)

I agree with the point about the squad depth, though.

Yeah, that's why I prefaced that with "Solskjaer won't do this". He's just not very good at managing his squad. Klopp had a go in the cups when he first joined but was smart enough to realise that he didn't quite have the depth in his first two full seasons at the club and so sent out the reserves in the league cup and fa cup, got knocked out early which eased the fixture congestion and allowed him to concentrate his main squad on finishing in the top 4.

Solskjaer otoh has stretched the squad to breaking point in the hopes of winning a domestic cup that does nothing to help us in the long run. The league was priority #1 followed by the Europa league as those are the two routes to CL football. The two domestic cups should have been for the reserves to play in since we don't quite have the depth to compete in four competitions. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My point was less about his ablity as a manager that about the fact that when you play Manchester City on a cup semi-final, you basically don't play the reserve, independently of whether your squad is thin or whether you are a good manager.

But yeah, it became less relevant when our squad is so flat that playing these games actually put our league campaign, thus our season, in danger.

And I actually think OGS wants to emulate Klopp's tenure. Refreshing the squad by margin, rather than by a big single turn-over. Spending big in the areas where the team blatantly lacks, and less where youth are else can be used. Developing the young, talented players, especially in attack, while using more medium-to-aged players with high workrate, in midfield.

That's partly the Klopp schedule, and I believe Ole wants to do that. Whether he'll be given time remains to be seen. But perhaps some people should remember that Klopp did struggle in his first seasons, and was put into doubt at some point.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

34 minutes ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Liverpool: Alisson, Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson, Henderson, Wijnaldum, Keita, Mane, Salah, Firmino.

Subs: Adrian, Milner, Lallana, Origi, Phillips, Jones, Elliott.

Looks good.:cheers:

Keita's now out, ffs. He looks good when he plays but he's no use to anyone if he's going to miss half of every season.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

That's partly the Klopp schedule, and I believe Ole wants to do that. Whether he'll be given time remains to be seen. But perhaps some people should remember that Klopp did struggle in his first seasons, and was put into doubt at some point.


I'm not as completely down on Solskjaer as Consigliere is, I think he's done some good work integrating the signings he did make and some youngsters, and we have slooowly improved how we handle games against teams lying deeper, so I'd like to at least see what he does in this window, but there's very little comparison to be made between him and Klopp. He's not bad at the initial setup and getting better but his tactical adjustments suck and he takes too long to commit to decisions.

Also I don't know if it's Solskjaer or Phelan or who the fuck making the transfer decisions but we really need to get someone less Brexit doing the scouting. If the rumours are to be believed (and although obviously we don't get everyone we're linked with the chatter abbut the chatter in summer was about largely British players and that's what we got) it's pitiful how uninterested we seem to be in bringing in younger players from abroad. Like there's nothing wrong with homegrown and all three are good players but if we're focusing on Sean Longstaff- and Emre fucking Can coz he's played here before- instead of young stars from France or Germany as our targets something's gone badly badly wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice to have an early goal from Salah.  I hope Keita isn’t too badly injured.  The squad looks really, really thin again.  It’s amazing that we’re still relying on Henderson, Gini and Milner so much just because they don’t get injuries.  All of our MF back-ups like Lallana, Keita, Ox and Shaqiri have been so unreliable.  At least Fabinho seems to very robust aside from one unlucky ankle sprain. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Nice to have an early goal from Salah.  I hope Keita isn’t too badly injured.  The squad looks really, really thin again.  It’s amazing that we’re still relying on Henderson, Gini and Milner so much just because they don’t get injuries.  All of our MF back-ups like Lallana, Keita, Ox and Shaqiri have been so unreliable.  At least Fabinho seems to very robust aside from one unlucky ankle sprain. 

Could be groin issue, if online comments are to be believed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

That's partly the Klopp schedule, and I believe Ole wants to do that. Whether he'll be given time remains to be seen. But perhaps some people should remember that Klopp did struggle in his first seasons, and was put into doubt at some point.

I doubt Solskjaer will be given time because the results are not there to justify it. Our progression under Solskjaer is non existent whereas it didn't take long for Klopp to stamp his imprint on Liverpool - there was a very clear gameplan, style of play and progression from the very beginning. Klopp's position was never actually in doubt either - the only really inconsistent season was 2015/2016 where Klopp joined in October and they finished 8th but got to the finals of the league cup and europa league. However the actual style of football had improved a great deal. They were more consistent the following season finishing 4th and maintained that consistency during 2017/2018 finishing 4th again + reaching a CL final. After that, Liverpool turned into one of the juggernauts of European football. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I'm not as completely down on Solskjaer as Consigliere is, I think he's done some good work integrating the signings he did make and some youngsters, and we have slooowly improved how we handle games against teams lying deeper, so I'd like to at least see what he does in this window, but there's very little comparison to be made between him and Klopp. He's not bad at the initial setup and getting better but his tactical adjustments suck and he takes too long to commit to decisions.
 

I feel like I'm watching a different United or maybe I'm just going mad because I see no improvement whatsoever. There's not much else to our gameplan beyond trying to play in the quick boys up front as they try to run in behind. When that fails, we are clueless 95% of the time. If our manager was anyone else other than a former player who is considered to be a club legend, the calls for him to be sacked would be universal among the fanbase. 31 points after 21 games this season and 39 points from our last 30 league games speaks for itself. Solskjaer is objectively performing worse than Moyes, LVG and Mourinho ever did. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...