2013-2014 Season

[Martinmarx]

At least he's honest about it. From the offal:

The Reds suffered their first defeat of 2013-14 as Dejan Lovren's second-half header secured three points for the visitors.

Afterwards, Rodgers was honest in his appraisal of his side's performance.

He told his post-match press conference: "I think both [the result and performance] were very disappointing, in all honesty.

"We never really got going from the off - it was a bit lethargic and technically we were short today, so it was a very disappointing result and performance for us.

"As I said, technically, I was really disappointed today. I thought we never really got going and we were flat and slow in our game.

"Which hasn't been like us. We've normally started games very well. But we'll just put it down as one of those days and now we need to go on another good run."

Rodgers elected to select a back four consisting of Kolo Toure, Daniel Agger, Martin Skrtel and Mamadou Sakho for the contest - and reporters quizzed the boss on his reasoning.

He explained: "It was really what we had available. We've got Glen Johnson out injured and Martin Kelly's only returning - he's had a few games, but he's still trying to work up his fitness having been out for a year.

"Jose Enrique is one we've got to keep an eye on his knee. He's got an issue with his knee and if there is an overload on that, it could maybe put him out longer term. We've got Cissokho out already, so it [Enrique's knee] was one we needed to keep an eye on.

[Tes]

For honesty we get 'nul points'.

As the saying goes, 'if you can't be good, be lucky', which we were in the first three games. Today we were neither.

At least maybe reality will now set in.

[Tes]

People need to step up in (fill in the name) absence.

Juan, how long have we been saying that? It seems to be for a very long time.

This is where the idea of buying two players for £15M rather than one for £16M seems to have been our undoing for too long. Concentrate on quality and fill in the quantity with young players if need be. It gives a more stable team, fewer new players to integrate and we may just get a hero rise up from one of the young lads.
Despite the more obvious problems, I'm convinced that this is why Arsenal always find themselves in the Top Four come the end of the season, as they have a stable core line up and less new faces to integrate.

[Tes]

Injury problems of Kelly/Johnson leaving us without a senior right back, and the curse of both left backs being injured, really bit us on the a$$ today.

Wouldn't it have been better to play Gerrard as a no10 instead of Henderson and use Henderson's energy deeper in midfield where Gerrard simply appears to now lack the legs.

[Tes]

The only positive to come out of that shambles is that we lost by only one goal.

[Ed]

Injury problems of Kelly/Johnson leaving us without a senior right back, and the curse of both left backs being injured, really bit us on the a$$ today.

Dunno Tes, we seemed to make it hard on ourselves today playing out
from the back with 4 centre backs.

& sure Southampton came with a simple plan to press high up.

I remember Rodgers saying last season, how were this to happen, the solution
was to pass it over their heads to the gaps they leave (whatever!) - instead it appears we
continue with increasing desperation to play it out from the back!!!

I haven't seen the game (off to dig it up) just watched the highlights on MOTD.

No disguising that it is a desperately poor result though. Manager isn't angry, just
one of those days.

You see I never bought into results we got in the back end of last season, when the
pressure was off, & was surprised to see the gaffer continually refer to those results
this season. What I see is an appalling home result (my understanding is that
the performance was also appalling) coming on the back of a shocking last 30
minutes against Swansea - where neither the manager or the players could turn it around.

Maybe Swansea and Southampton are the best teams in the division but I'd have been
very angry today in the post match, most particularly because the team started the day
with the opportunity to hold onto their position in the league, with a draw or win in a home
game and finished the day ceding the position (it's not particularly relevant that it was the
top spot).

Makes a mockery of notions of maturity, mental toughness and resilience!

[Juan]

The only positive to come out of that shambles is that we lost by only one goal.

Agreed

[Juan]

Juan, how long have we been saying that? It seems to be for a very long time.

This is where the idea of buying two players for £15M rather than one for £16M seems to have been our undoing for too long. Concentrate on quality and fill in the quantity with young players if need be. It gives a more stable team, fewer new players to integrate and we may just get a hero rise up from one of the young lads.
Despite the more obvious problems, I'm convinced that this is why Arsenal always find themselves in the Top Four come the end of the season, as they have a stable core line up and less new faces to integrate.

In fairness thats generally the approach we are trying to take now. Its not necessarily about how much we are willing to spend but we are now trying to buy a certain type of player, technically capable players. It looks like it might take Aspas a while to show if hes capable or not but its far too early for us to write him or any of the other new players off.

[Juan]

You see I never bought into results we got in the back end of last season, when the
pressure was off, & was surprised to see the gaffer continually refer to those results
this season. What I see is an appalling home result (my understanding is that
the performance was also appalling) coming on the back of a shocking last 30
minutes against Swansea - where neither the manager or the players could turn it around.

Maybe Swansea and Southampton are the best teams in the division but I'd have been
very angry today in the post match, most particularly because the team started the day
with the opportunity to hold onto their position in the league, with a draw or win in a home
game and finished the day ceding the position (it's not particularly relevant that it was the
top spot).

Makes a mockery of notions of maturity, mental toughness and resilience!

I dont necessarily think it was one of those days. I dont think we have performed well yet this season at all. However we have shown an ability to get results while playing badly and I know from the second half of last season we are capable of playing well. So if we can pick up points doing both this season hopefully we can challenge for fourth.

I havent seen the Rodgers interview yet and I think hes doing a good job but I hold him completely accountable today and he should probably take some of the blame for Monday night also. I know Agger got injured, as did Toure for the United game but we had seen enough in the first 3 games to know the defence doesnt need tinkering especially with new buys being played for the sake of being played. Toure shouldve started central either beside Agger, Sakho or Skrtel. Enrique shouldve started left and either Kelly or Wisdom right. When I saw the team lineup I moaned I'm sure like every other Liverpool fan. It just looked as if he was playing all four centre backs because he didnt want to drop any of them.

I'm not sure what type of football we are trying to play this season because the sharp quick pass and move seems to have broken down aswell. Players arent showing for each other enough, theres no sustained team pressurising of the opposition like there has been in the past and the team lacks fluidity. 

Today is a reality check. I genuinely think Rodgers is building something worthwhile at the club but he needs to take the courageous decisions of putting out a team for the right reasons because that starting back four certainly didnt seems to be picked for the right reasons today and for me the defence cost us for the second game running.

[Ed]

I'm not sure what type of football we are trying to play this season because the sharp quick pass and move seems to have broken down aswell. Players arent showing for each other enough, theres no sustained team pressurising of the opposition like there has been in the past and the team lacks fluidity. 

Today is a reality check.

I haven't seen the game Juan but what worries me is, Swansea showed the way
against us on Monday, almost attack is the best form of defence, they kept coming
forward at us, so there was no time or space for us to do the usual pass the ball to
death thing. They were also buoyed on by some very old-fashioned banging of
drums by their home supporters.

Today from what I say in the highlights it was simply a tactic of the team pressing
us high up the pitch, which seemed to totally unnerve us.

Swansea came at us in the centre of the park and encroached into our half with
their own decent passing game & Southampton had a variation on that i.e. we don't
need the passing bit if we just apply the pressure at the jugular with simple energy.

So it goes back to the much debated question of only plan A: How brittle is it? Have
so-called lesser teams sussed it? Two different sets of tactics home and away in space
of a week have proven very effective against us.

& other teams are watching...

It's not the counter-attack stuff & big striker thing which used catch us out last season.

It's actually the pluckiness of the opposition to have a go, a belief they seem to have in
the last two games which would have me wondering...

[Martinmarx]

What really hurts the most, besides the lacklustre performance, is the fact we lost one-nil. I'd much rather we lost 1-2 or 2-3.

In fairness we have probably played the two most in-form teams in the league in the span of 5 days. I'm not making excuses I just don't think either Swansea nor So'ton have Another 10 games like  this in them this season.

Just as there was no reason to gett carried away with the opening three wins, there's no reason to resort to negativity and anti-Rodgers rants after this poor result. It remains a fact that with all players available we're deffo in it with a shout, 3-4 injuries and we're less so. I have no doubt in my mind that with Johnson, Enrique, Coutinho and Suarez we would've stood on 15 Points today.

Besides having a thing squad I would say our center midfield is becoming the main problem for us with non of Lucas, Henderson and even Gerrard looking even remotely close to being good enough for enginge a 4th spot. Lucas may well pass 43 out of 45 sideways/backwards balls spot on but he NEVER EVER offers leadership in his role as holding midfielder. I won't rule out Gerrard but Lucas and Henderson for me raises big questions of whether we can reach 70 points this season.

[Juan]

Today from what I say in the highlights it was simply a tactic of the team pressing
us high up the pitch, which seemed to totally unnerve us.

Swansea came at us in the centre of the park and encroached into our half with
their own decent passing game & Southampton had a variation on that i.e. we don't
need the passing bit if we just apply the pressure at the jugular with simple energy.

So it goes back to the much debated question of only plan A: How brittle is it? Have
so-called lesser teams sussed it? Two different sets of tactics home and away in space
of a week have proven very effective against us.

& other teams are watching...

It's not the counter-attack stuff & big striker thing which used catch us out last season.

It's actually the pluckiness of the opposition to have a go, a belief they seem to have in
the last two games which would have me wondering...

Southampton were all over us like a rash from our kick out alright. I think the fact that our defense was so unfamiliar probably added to the sense of uncertainty. I dont necessarily think we've being found out but its definitely something that needs to be addressed.

As for our plan A, at the moment it just doesnt look like its being incorporated effectively yet this season. We had only managed to play well in patches up to yesterday without showing the type of football we watched in the second half of last season. I assumed there would be a marked improvement in performance starting yesterday but such hope went out the window with the line up. It will be interesting to see how we respond over the next five games in the league. They could define how our season will take shape. If we can pull things together and start a new run of wins yesterday will prove to be a blip. Dropping more points in the same fashion as yesterday could see us struggle. We cant afford to start playing catch up this early.

[Tes]

In fairness thats generally the approach we are trying to take now. Its not necessarily about how much we are willing to spend but we are now trying to buy a certain type of player, technically capable players. It looks like it might take Aspas a while to show if hes capable or not but its far too early for us to write him or any of the other new players off.

Every game I've seen Aspas in there's been a moment where he's done something which offers some sort of promise, therefore I'm hopeful we'll see something more once he's got used to the pace and the more physical aspect. I've certainly got more hope for him than I have for Borini.
I wonder what his best position is and if he's going to get to play in it. That may be the thing that proves a deciding factor as to whether he settles long term or not.

[Juan]

Just as there was no reason to gett carried away with the opening three wins, there's no reason to resort to negativity and anti-Rodgers rants after this poor result. It remains a fact that with all players available we're deffo in it with a shout, 3-4 injuries and we're less so. I have no doubt in my mind that with Johnson, Enrique, Coutinho and Suarez we would've stood on 15 Points today.

Besides having a thing squad I would say our center midfield is becoming the main problem for us with non of Lucas, Henderson and even Gerrard looking even remotely close to being good enough for enginge a 4th spot. Lucas may well pass 43 out of 45 sideways/backwards balls spot on but he NEVER EVER offers leadership in his role as holding midfielder. I won't rule out Gerrard but Lucas and Henderson for me raises big questions of whether we can reach 70 points this season.

I dont think theres been any anti Rodgers rants as such after yesterday Martin. I'm willing to give Rodgers a fair crack of the whip. For me hes doing a very good job at the club. But just like hes deserves acknowledgement when things are working I think we cant ignore scenarios when he gets it wrong too. For me yesterday was one of those days and I feel his defensive line up cost us and allowed Southampton the chance to grow into the game.

I do think 70 points is achievable. We still have our weak spots, we are all agreed that middle of the park looks particularly weak. It could be time to start seeing whether Allen can cut it or not. There are big questions over Henderson Gerard and to some degree Lucas although I think hes still been the best of the three. For me Rodgers needs to go back to what he knows and whats been working. Toure has to start central. It could be time to give Stevie a wake up call too. Nobody should be un droppable because at times we look like we are playing with 10 hes contributing so little.

I'm very optimistic and probably just hopeful too that yesterday was nothing more than once off bad decision making from the gaffer and a bad day at the office for the players. You will hear talk of a reaction now, with the United game seen as a perfect opportunity. But for me the reaction needs to be winning the next 3 league games to prove we do mean business and this start wasnt down to luck and a favorable fixture list.

[Juan]

Every game I've seen Aspas in there's been a moment where he's done something which offers some sort of promise, therefore I'm hopeful we'll see something more once he's got used to the pace and the more physical aspect. I've certainly got more hope for him than I have for Borini.
I wonder what his best position is and if he's going to get to play in it. That may be the thing that proves a deciding factor as to whether he settles long term or not.

Agreed Tes. A goal or two could change everything for Aspas. He was poor on Saturday but he was also probably treated like a bit of a scapegoat by being subbed at half time. It could have easily been 6 other players but he just seems to be the easy one to take off.