Season 2012-2013

[the dude abides]

Could prove problematical in a heavy downpour. I wonder how many pints of liquid they hold.

would need to see if there was any correlation in Rafa's player performance data - re if Carra is any slower during rainy games.

[Tes]

would need to see if there was any correlation in Rafa's player performance data - re if Carra is any slower during rainy games.

Test his boots and check how porous they are. And those damn fangled modern fabrics the socks are made of don't hold any liquid so it would al be swilling around in his boots. Think of how a half full washing up bowl becomes unwieldy, it's no wonder Carra couldn't control his hoofing. He didn't have proper control of his feet. Once the momentum of the swilling water in his boots got going it would be like trying to putt with a wrecking ball.

[the dude abides]

Test his boots and check how porous they are. And those damn fangled modern fabrics the socks are made of don't hold any liquid so it would al be swilling around in his boots. Think of how a half full washing up bowl becomes unwieldy, it's no wonder Carra couldn't control his hoofing. He didn't have proper control of his feet. Once the momentum of the swilling water in his boots got going it would be like trying to putt with a wrecking ball.

if we could only design hi-tec boots for carra, with jets at the back of them, then:

1) we could get rid of the excess water that builds up on rainy days (causing him to slow up, and wobble, during wet days)

2) redistribute the water, via the jets at the rear of the boots, in engine type fashion, via a spray, thus making him ultra-fast.   It would appear like he was on jet-skis......even the fastest opponent could not get away from super-car

[Martinmarx]

 


You'd be forgiven for thinking this discussion got a tad OT. On the other hand it's an indication we're all happy with the result if not the performance. But then again, that's a nice change as it's usually the other way round.

[Tes]

Martin, Dude and I have always had a tendency to take threads off at a weird tangent. We both have the pythonesque sense of humour.

Admittedly it's a bit of fun at the expense of one of our players but that's the whole, no malice intended.

None of us needs to go all radical on another member of the forum.

It's good a to get a bit of fun back into this place and on that we both agree.

[Ed]

"The reality is we're a long way off in the league," said Rodgers. "We finished eighth last year. If we can improve on that, it'll be fantastic for us.

"That's the reality of where Liverpool are I'm afraid. But our young players will get better and better."

Maybe I'm just a little old school but fantastic?? It would be fantastic??

Is that fantastic as in  Wonderful or superb; remarkable.

Hmmm...

[Tes]

"The reality is we're a long way off in the league," said Rodgers. "We finished eighth last year. If we can improve on that, it'll be fantastic for us.

"That's the reality of where Liverpool are I'm afraid. But our young players will get better and better."

Maybe I'm just a little old school but fantastic?? It would be fantastic??

Is that fantastic as in  Wonderful or superb; remarkable.

Hmmm...

As in "super, smashing, great". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umA1YevBTSI&feature=related

[Ageing Stick Insect]

Ed, I wouldn't take his quotes too literally. He like that word just as he likes "okay" which he must have used dozens of times during Being:Liverpool when adddressing the players pre-match. We all have our little foibles! 

[Tes]

An interesting comparison to where we were after 11 games over the last 4 seasons:

12/13:
13. Liverpool 11 2 6 3 14-16 12p

11/12:
6. Liverpool 11 5 4 2 14-10 19p

10/11:
9. Liverpool 11 4 3 4 12-14 15p

09/10:
6. Liverpool 11 6 0 5 25-16 18p

[Ed]

Ed, I wouldn't take his quotes too literally. He like that word just as he likes "okay" which he must have used dozens of times during Being:Liverpool when adddressing the players pre-match. We all have our little foibles! 

lol, maybe 

See I love straight-talking and I remember RH went down a similar route
in terms of talking the club down 'til it reached the point where we'd be
lucky to get a point off the mighty Wolves at home.

I also noted last season Kenny develop a penchant for the word fantastic.

Personally, I don't think it would be fantastic to finish above 8th, the league
only has 20 teams?

Anyway we'll leave that aside, before Marx and 224 pile in and start kicking up.

However, the vibe I'm picking up early November with incessant talk about the
January transfer window, young players and Jamie Carragher aint necessarily filling
me with confidence is all.

[Tes]

James Lawton begs to differ, I don't with who, but he does  :

James Lawton: Brendan Rodgers calls classic tune for Liverpool

Monday, 12 November 2012




The weekend was supposed to be about indomitable United, defiant City and a Chelsea team winning back at least a little of the authority you associate with European champions. It was shaping up as a re-statement of some pretty well established power.

Yet who is so unmindful of those currents in football that spring up with arresting force on the most unlikely of occasions that they could ignore the significance of Liverpool's latest declaration that they, too, are on the mend?

It may be a long job and one ultimately decided by the willingness of their American management to back seriously the vision and the nerve of their young manager Brendan Rodgers, but in the meantime there is no reason to ignore the force of his team's recovery at Stamford Bridge yesterday. For some time Rodgers, despite a run of unbeaten Premier League games, seemed to be still locked in impossible odds against a team for whom the midfield axis of Juan Mata, Oscar, Eden Hazard and Ramires is promising new levels of superior touch and coherence. But then something remarkable happened. Liverpool, buoyed by another strike from – who else? – Luis Suarez, not only started to play immeasurably better football; they also looked distinctly like, well, Liverpool.

A Liverpool from a somewhat different age, that is. A Liverpool who could create authentic momentum and who on this day, which had for some time threatened a discouraging descent into futility, had more than the extraordinary Suarez to conjure a little belief in a brighter future.

Steven Gerrard, passing milestones of longevity as he anticipates his arrival in England's club of centurion cap winners, found again moments of striking influence. Raheem Sterling's startling precocity has rarely looked so securely moored to a remarkably old head. Jose Enrique supplied width and craft as the course of the match switched sharply in Liverpool's direction – and if this was just possibly a crossroads for the Rodgers project, who better bravely to signpost new possibilities than the near superannuated hero Jamie Carragher?

His flick on from the impressive substitute Suso's corner re-lit some old Liverpool fire as Suarez detached himself utterly from the Chelsea cover. As a piece of gnarled but brilliantly marshalled old pro savvy it almost rivalled the supreme example provided by John Terry.

Extraordinary, isn't it, this ability of Terry and Suarez so regularly to produce moments which, for some time at least, put on hold on the contortions normally involved in any positive assessment of their contributions to English football.

Their redemption is the one that often persuades their managers to pull down a veil on the worst of their excesses. Kenny Dalglish carried himself to managerial oblivion partly because of his unshakeable loyalty to the controversial, and sometimes appalling, Uruguayan, and if Roberto Di Matteo is at all ambivalent about Terry's place in Chelsea's future it is doubtful if the Spanish Inquisition could have persuaded him to say an unkind word about the club's captain.

It is hardly a mystery – not when Terry comes back from his four-match ban and Di Matteo's decision to leave him out of last week's ordeal of fire against Shakhtar Donetsk with a predatory masterpiece at a corner. It was as much as anything a professional mugging. Branislav Ivanovic tied up Daniel Agger so comprehensively he failed only to apply handcuffs, then Terry stole into the empty space to send a superb header past Brad Jones in the Liverpool goal.

Among the Chelsea faithful there was, inevitably, adoration which was compounded when he was carried off the field after a gut-wrenching collision with Suarez. There, in a moment, was a physical expression of all kinds of football fear and loathing – and dogged admiration for the best qualities of these players: Terry, at first howling with pain, then stretching out a knee that there was reason at first to fear had been shattered, and Suarez, unequivocally innocent in this affair, standing over him with his face a picture of, if not compassion, then genuine concern.

With Gary Cahill in Terry's place and the Chelsea midfielders beginning to ripple pleasingly, it seemed like nothing more than a re-assertion of that Premier League power complex, with Chelsea, surely, moving to within a point of United after the victorious escape from a punishing sentence against Shakhtar.

Yet Rodgers was not easily discouraged. He sent on the vibrant young Spaniard Suso, re-shaped his back-five formation, and Liverpool were once against impressively competitive. Suarez scored his sixth goal in six Premier League games and suddenly he found sources of unusual support.

Rodgers warmly applauded his players at the end, as well he might have done. He is a young manager engaging in a huge task of renewal – and he is doing it extremely well.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/columnists/james-lawton/james-lawton-brendan-rodgers-calls-classic-tune-for-liverpool-16236789.html

[Ageing Stick Insect]

See I love straight-talking and I remember RH went down a similar route
in terms of talking the club down 'til it reached the point where we'd be
lucky to get a point off the mighty Wolves at home.

Yes, that was appalling but I don't think you can compare BR's comment to Hodgson's.

I also noted last season Kenny develop a penchant for the word fantastic.

Almost as much as "In any way, shape or form". 

Personally, I don't think it would be fantastic to finish above 8th, the league
only has 20 teams?

Perhaps he's playing the same mind games as Mancini did in the closing weeks of last season when he repeatedly said they had no chance of winning the title. It takes the pressure off the players. Canny move, maybe.

However, the vibe I'm picking up early November with incessant talk about the
January transfer window, young players and Jamie Carragher aint necessarily filling
me with confidence is all.

In fairness other team's supporters are doing it too for their club. Carragher had his best game for ages considering he played 90 mins midweek. He must have been knackered!

[Ed]

Almost as much as "In any way, shape or form". 

Good one! 

It is true that there is another argument that can be put forward on
his behalf. Personally, I thought we were outclassed for at least 60
minutes by the Blues (who had a tough midweek fixture as opposed
to us resting 7?), granted the team showed character to get back into
it but i think in the chances department it was even stevens in the
last 20 minutes arguably with a bit more momentum from us in the
last 10.

In other words I'm certainly not getting carried away like Winter et al.,

Whether he understands it or not, this period is less about BR blooding
young players and more about the fans blooding a new manager.

Btw, Alan Hansen's demeanour concerning LFC on MOTD 2 last night was priceless.

Strange programme MOTD2 they had some guy from a Village People's tribute
act on the panel. Suppose it's the only goal he's likely to achieve this season 

[the dude abides]

An interesting comparison to where we were after 11 games over the last 4 seasons:

12/13:
13. Liverpool 11 2 6 3 14-16 12p

11/12:
6. Liverpool 11 5 4 2 14-10 19p

10/11:
9. Liverpool 11 4 3 4 12-14 15p

09/10:
6. Liverpool 11 6 0 5 25-16 18p

interesting data.

3 years ago, in these first 11 games of the season, we were scoring goals, and prepared to go for it......no half measures.

in the subsequent years, we stopped scoring goals, and that is the core of the problem (allied to factors like team balance, transfer activity and tactical expertise).   

As well as jettisoning top players, like kuyt, maxi, bellamy, moreless, and desayun......we have failed to bring in equal replacements.  We bring in forwards who cannot score goals, and the same is true of new midfield acquisitions.  e.g. this past summer, I kept scratching my head at the Allen transfer.  Did we relaly need another non-scoring midfielder at Anfield.  I was perplexed (never mind his tiny height and weight).

The club has been on a fast downward spiral these past three seasons.    There is no-one of sufficient expertise at Anfield to arrest her decline. 

[the dude abides]

Btw, Alan Hansen's demeanour concerning LFC on MOTD 2 last night was priceless.

what did Hansen say, Ed?