theGreenBaron

Jusr had a little look at the first few pages of the thread.... how times have changed

Even the version of Crespo we had wich might have been a year past best, playing today, would be top 3 strikers on the planet

In today's landscape most of those would be at top clubs, and far better then what we have today, by the way, i don't think Ameobi belongs in that company

Gusto just can't come inside, I think he's a very very good overlapping fullback, even wingback, but he is not a center mid, he also isn't James, who again reminded us what a miss he is when he's not fit. World class. Somthing palmer said in the presser. He got tired of going backwards and sideways and decided to just take it on. Why isn't that happening week in week out. Was that agasint what Enzo tells them to do? If this was the same 11 next season, id be looking to put palmer out on the Rightand play with Lavia, Caicedo and Enzo in center mid. As it is we have 50 more wingers joining so lets see. On Maresca him self, I haven't really enjoyed large parts of the season. I would swap right now for quite few others, but from a results based business if you had offered me this finish at the start of the season i'd have taken it. As a club if we don't now buy at least one center forward in the summer... well I honestly dont know

Ill save you some effort, you wont win me over with Stats alone, it has to come with the eye test. Example that iv'e mentioned more then once, I'm not the biggest fan of JFH, you wont get stats much better then his but watching him I never felt we had enough with him to win the big things, static, poor in the air, loved to throw his arms up in the air. What i take away from watching Sterling was missed chances, greed, fustration and just running the ball in to defenders like that was going to work

Sterling was awful, did less for the team. Sancho, Has not done enough, but I think neto has been very decent, especially in some big moments. In general I think Maresca's system is not great for wingers, the full backs provide almost no support so we see that often they have to go back, because they are isolated agasint 2-3 players. Under poch full backs over and underlap so it created more issues for the opposing defence

My money is on Ganacho, but quite honestly, its criminal if even a single unit of your prefered currency is spent on anything but a striker and then a keeper. any change left, id be looking at top center back and only then a winger.

He is just so far out of his depth, we have 3 of the best overlapping fullbacks in the league (Chilli is the 3rd) and he makes them do this strange out of position lets get caught on the flanks all the time but offer nothing going forwards rubbish. The club is a bit of a Joke. No sponsor for the whole season, because they arrogantly thought they deserved more then was on the table. Sacked a manager who was taking us in the right direction and hired a Btec Pep while trying to follow the brighton budget model, two philosophies completely at odds with each other. No stadium updates, quality players isolated while meh players are included in the squad.

Noni's an interesting one, out of all the wingers we have he's the one you would pick to go one v one with a fullback and come out on top (jut a side note, our wingers generally have zero help because maresca decided he doesn't like full backs overlapping so they its not all that easy) some times I wish he would just practice that cut in and shot in training so its robben like and the consistency will be there. But offten times this season you see his focus just isn't there, mind wondering and ball watching. The tools are all there, he now needs some lampard like mentatlity

I saw a fantastic meme the other day, so shocking I had to confirm it. Lukaku has more career goals then Ronaldo (the Brazilian Flavour) (I'm old so im not using the initial number nickname) What i saw yesterday was a player giving us somthing we had been missing for a while, he put us on the front foot, no one else has done that in his absence, ill ignore that stats for now thanks

Well we had a few months with him in top form, a few month of him looking completly nackered and a few months with him out and then yesterday wich was abit of column A and a bit of column B opinions on his quality might range, and you can make the argument we need an upgrade (you can cirtainly make a case of at least another number 9, although I guess that was Marc) but any chance of top 4 this season means we need him starting, we have no other viable option.

I'm confused how this is relevent to my post, I was just saying that i don't think liverpool is the attacking front foot team people make them out to be, from what I have seen't they play a bit deeper then they did, limit oportunties and catch teams out with world class counter attacking talent. That doesn't make them invinciable.

Liverpool look to me to be playing prime Jose football - compact, defend well, break and punsih

He got the blue balloon out - to be honest, i'm ok with it, and for a change he actually threw him self at somthing and showed a modicum of bravery.

Haha, I took a much needed sabbatical from the forum and forgot my password . been 5 years so figured a fresh start (I was not banned in a previous life.) I tend to agree with you, I had moments of hope in certain games, but now I wonder if that was the players playing against his instructions. League is also pretty dire compared to recent seasons, very little consistency from those around us. And the fringe player comment is spot on, I mentioned elsewhere that I was concerned by his player loyalty, and that might have been the wrong word because of the Sanches scenario. But look at the Veiga situation, it makes no sense, KDB - you brought him here, you surely knew he wasn't good enough.... I guess a better way to put it is I've seen nothing to get excited about in his man management, you aren't going to see videos of players in 10 years time saying they would have run through a brick wall for him

@coombsie great to see you post, its been many a year since I shared a post cobham football tournament beer with your good self and your inisght now is 1000% spot on. The real sickness in this club right now is the DOF's... less we forget, we didn't get the top dogs from the clubs they came from, we got the office tea boys who probably talked a big talk but had never delievered anything. We should have been out for the one of the top DOF's world wide, someone who had overseen such a transfomration before... if your going to bring in project players and project managers you really can't have project dof's. Let me thought for a moment play devils advocate, we stit in 4th. We control our destiny, If Maresca wins the ECL (wich he should do) and finishes top 4 - do we consider this to be good enough? are we focused on outcomes or do we think what we see with our eyes could have been achieved by any btech pep and we should be doing better

I'm torn on this one - didn't want him in the first place, then saw elements of play in november that were really impressive. Villa and Brentford games spring to mine - I was at the Brentford game last year and it was terrible so ups and downs. The truth is we haven't got the players to be in a better positon then we are, and that is not his fault and I'm trying to remind my self that both klop and Arteta needed a few seasons to get rolling, I think Arteta took 2.5 years to make champions league, klopp missed it in his first season and scraped in, in his last game in the Conte season.. we are very much used to our managers having an instant impact or being shipped out. So on the one hand, I say keep going, this will be a process and results like yesteday can happen when you are this young as a side... on the other hand, if I woke up tomorow and Jose was walking thought the building ready to tourch the earth i'd be smiling ear to ear

There are no excuses for what he pushed out yesterday... it was utter turd. Not being played in your best positon is one thing, Zero effrot and moaning and blamining your team mates for everything has nothing to do with your positon, thats about as bad a performance Ive seen from a chelsea player in a long while, we have had some dross but more often then not at least they put a shift in.

The manager should be stepping to protect him at this point, he's out of form and looks burnt out. Needs some one to share the responsibility a bit. one week to go and we may as well have a huge neon light screaming, Striker and GK needed an the SD's will buy another winger

I think you are correct btw - just an observations that things can come to life in the last days

were you on holiday in Jan 2011 actually you can just go back to 2023

Outside in if i look at the KDH treatment, the Viega situation, and now with Trev, It doesn't have the Jose feeling about it does it... that I'll run through a brick wall for this man thing... time will tell and there are things I really like about our season, you could easily make the call that most of the games we haven't put away have not been for a lack of chances, we just haven't killed teams off wich the manager can't do him self

Think most judgments need to be made at the end of the season. Klopp scraped 4th in his first full season, Pep also hardly set the world alight. He's done enough so far with what he has to have some decent credit. I think my main issue is he doesn't seem to have any player loyalty, and I can see him eventually losing the players.

It shouldn't be to hard to take him on loan at 50% wages... and as for his fitness issues.. it seems Seria A instantly cures all injury prone players. Its also pretty much now the reserve leage for english tallent who arn't quite top tier but don't want to drop down the lower end of the the prem

Is it not a bit confusing that there seems to be no noise around Chilwell moving on somewhere? It's not like it's not been clear that he's not part of the plans for a while. You'd have thought a well-run org would have had the deal done for Jan 1st?