Tes, I don't mean to take anything away from an impressive and very competent Southampton side but in my honest opinion it remains a fact they haven't put in such a perfect performance before or since their trip to Anfield.
I do believe we have a good chance to take 6 points in the coming week. After that, however, and based on our away record thus far, I fear we'll lose another 3 games between now and the New Year's.
While Skrtel have been brilliant individually, I do believe Rodgers needs to find and stick with a different CB-pair to create a solid back-4, a functional defensive UNIT. My choice at this time would be Sakho and Toure. I know this won't go down well with most of you but I think it's time to quit looking at individual brilliance and instead try to pick our best defense. Johnson is weird, he can be absolutely sublime one game and yesterday he was sluggish and indifferent.
What's disappointing is we're so far from having that Manc-mentality, i.e., "fork this, lets win this game now". I'm a tad despondent today but I do feel that the wheels will start to come off now. Injuries played its part, true, but Rodgers have also struggled to find a formation and a starting XI which haven't help team development and continuity.
On the flipside of things are Flanagan's recent performances, of course. I am mighty impressed by how he's transformed into this mature and intelligent player! (cred to Rodgers as well I guess).
I agree with all of that, Martin. Pochettino got his tactics perfect and his team executed them to the letter - a mark of a top coach is to devise the right tactics and to get your team to respond to you, play for you and execute your tactics perfectly.
I agree with your centre half pairing as that combination gives us more of the sum of qualities you need in a centre half pairing than any other combination. Agger has been a disappointment for me during Rodgers' reign, but I still think the problem lies with the method of play, or rather lack of it, than the personnel involved.
Agger and Skrtel performed well in a unit (not neccessarily individually, especially in Skrtel's case) under both Benitez and Dalglish's caretaker stint (credit to Steve Clarke) so are both capable of being part of an effective defensive unit, if the method of play has a strong defensive component to it.
I think when you look at our Summer transfer dealings and then look at the squad in May and September, you can see that there was a certain haphazard quality to our transfer dealings and that players were moved in, out and around without really addressing the issues and improving the quality of the squad.
Rodgers mentioned squad depth last season, and is now talking about it again, but we've added to the squad depth to a reasonable level in terms of numbers. Most of the players that left in the Summer played little or no part, or as in Downing's case, completely ineffective. But now looking at who and what was added you can that the acquisitions weren't well planned. Although it's nice to add 'for the future', our level of need and size of transfer funds means that we aren't at a stage where we can add for the future. The
present first team can be the only priority, and if he chooses to add for the future (Ilori and Alberto) then he takes funds away from strengthening the present first team squad. Therefore he can't now moan about squad depth.
His transfer method this Summer more and more has the look of 'buying because they were available' rather than focus solely on what was required and acquire only those players. If a player(s) isn't available for a position in need of strengthening, then surely given our limited funds (compared to other clubs) you keep hold of that money until a player you
need becomes available, rather than spend it on one that is available though not in a position that is a priority, or is 'one for the future'.
