Ofcourse there's Poch revisionism because we narrowly lost a fixture he was threatening to break the PL loss record in.

4 minutes ago, Argo said:

Ofcourse there's Poch revisionism because we narrowly lost a fixture he was threatening to break the PL loss record in.

You've got to excuse Poch for that, he was forced to play Enzo on that night due to injuries you know.

11 minutes ago, OriginalS said:

You've got to excuse Poch for that, he was forced to play Enzo on that night due to injuries you know.

I mean technically speaking Nkunku, Carney and even Casedei were on bench.

Wonder if some of the issues on the back line, is the keeper communicating with the back line.

I’m interested to see how these next few games go against the better teams and whether we can go up a level or two. 

On 21/10/2024 at 02:14, Scott Harris said:

His defensive coaching has been as bad if not worse than Pochettino's so far. I genuinely hate watching us off the ball and the stupid mistakes every single game from the defenders are ridiculous. We can say they are all individual errors and the coach can't do anything about it, but I think these mistakes are a symptom of a greater problem. This slow build up creeps into their game off the ball. Both of Liverpool's goals came from this. Colwill wasn't aware of the danger around him, wanted to play it out of defence, realised too late that it wasn't on, attempted to boot it clear but was too late and caught the player. Sanchez should have reacted much quicker to the Liverpool players first touch, but he was stuck to his line. They all play too slow, they all react too slow, everything is too slow from them. 

Personally, I think we are too slow in all most every way we play, but it starts from the defence. They set the tone and that is how we play for 90+ minutes, and we inevitably make mistakes that cost us goals because the longer they play at this tempo, the more likely it is that they will be caught sleeping. It's happening in every game. You can feel it as a match progresses, more and more errors creep into our game from the same type of situations, getting too casual and not keeping up with the increase of tempo from the opposition. Then we concede.

I think our tempo is fine. From entertainment pov, I am not big fan of press bait football but it is a perfectly fine way to play football. 

Our defensive problem is pretty straight forward. Our midfield doesn’t exist and our pressing is not great. it is very strange reading many fans saying Lavia will be the guy who fix our midfield. He is brilliant on the ball, off the ball, nope. 

7 hours ago, Bob stark said:

I think our tempo is fine. From entertainment pov, I am not big fan of press bait football but it is a perfectly fine way to play football. 

Our defensive problem is pretty straight forward. Our midfield doesn’t exist and our pressing is not great. it is very strange reading many fans saying Lavia will be the guy who fix our midfield. He is brilliant on the ball, off the ball, nope. 

He's always been a bit all over the place off the ball even at Southampton but he's still very young and it can be worked on. 

7 hours ago, Bob stark said:

I think our tempo is fine. From entertainment pov, I am not big fan of press bait football but it is a perfectly fine way to play football. 

Our defensive problem is pretty straight forward. Our midfield doesn’t exist and our pressing is not great. it is very strange reading many fans saying Lavia will be the guy who fix our midfield. He is brilliant on the ball, off the ball, nope. 

If you were our manager, who would you select in midfield Bob ? 

Against Liverpool, I saw everything he explained in that YT video for the "Coaches' Voice". Especially in the 1st half when Sancho, or Madueke, were the "free man" on many occasions on the wings. When they were marked, then we managed to easily find that free space in the middle of the pitch and to be fair there was acres of space there. 

He needs time, but things look very promising and his job is even harder having to do it all with probably one of the youngest squads in Europe that has tons of pressure to deliver on top of that. 

I feel we need a couple of big results for everything to explode and a win at home against Newcastle and another one at Old Trafford would do wonders for this squad. 

16 hours ago, Wearyourblue said:

Wonder if some of the issues on the back line, is the keeper communicating with the back line.

The keeper isn't responsible for ball watching, not tracking a man, et al. Or silly, naïve penalty-inducing tackles.

2 hours ago, dermott said:

The keeper isn't responsible for ball watching, not tracking a man, et al. Or silly, naïve penalty-inducing tackles.

And what's with all this Let's all cram into the D, then they can't hurt us, tactic

2 hours ago, petre ispirescu said:

I feel we need a couple of big results for everything to explode and a win at home against Newcastle and another one at Old Trafford would do wonders for this squad. 

Beating Newcastle on Sunday is crucial. 

3 points separates us from 3rd and 13th. 

 

3 hours ago, WhiteWall said:

And what's with all this Let's all cram into the D, then they can't hurt us, tactic

Slightly better than that nightmare image against gent (i think, gent. can't remember now) but still bad. I don't get it! Reece needs to be vocal and be a leader on the pitch.

I miss JT for that tbh. He would drag someone by the fkn hair if they were out of place, (ok fine, drag them by the shirt, but hair will do for me, lol)

Edited October 22, 20241 yr by Simplymo

Think Maresca is channelling this dude's vibes.

Dont worry about monstrous defending this halloween - just outscore your opponent. I would love it if we beat Newcastle and condemn Eddie howe to the sack. 

My neighbour is a massive Liverpool fan and said he thought Slot was weary of our attackers so rather than go toe to toe with us he was pragmatic and counter attacked.

You will see a lot more teams doing this moving forward because if you try to play football against us we will rip to shreds.

I think that now shows a massive shift in mentality towards Chelsea if Liverpool didn’t want to go toe to toe.

We really need to fix our defence because if we stop conceding silly goals we win a lot of matches.

 

Feel like this team and the manager need some wins against some big teams. That’s the next step. 

I think it's nice Liverpool respected our ability and adjusted, but ultimately they won the game so there's not that much consolations for us. Liverpool wasn't good on the day, but they didn't have to either. We aren't title challengers, getting the top 4 would be a great improvement. Against better teams, we aren't going to score 3 goals a game, so adjustment will be required.

14 hours ago, Sexyfootball said:

If you were our manager, who would you select in midfield Bob ? 

I don't think there is a choice. Caicedo will play because he is the only one who can run. Enzo cost us 120m, benching him for Lavia for a long period of time is not good for everybody. 

 

 

Oops, I totally forget KDH exist 😂😂😂This has been a pointless signing. I understand maresca reluctance to play Veiga vs pool, fun big player, a bit raw. But post international break, Caicedo n Enzo were tired as usual and we have a senior midfielder rotting on the bench. 

 

 

21 hours ago, Sconnie Blue said:

Beating Newcastle on Sunday is crucial. 

3 points separates us from 3rd and 13th. 

 

I agree and I think it is going to be a little more difficult than United.

Newcastle have a pretty good and physical midfield three in Tonali, Bruno Guimaraes and Joelinton and lots of pace on the wings from their young full backs and wingers.

None of the starters for Newcastle should play in Greece tomorrow. We need Cucurella and Gusto fresh in defence and Caicedo and Lavia fresh in midfield.

Newcastle will do exactly what Liverpool did park it then try and capitalise on our defensive errors which we all know will come.

We just have to perform better up top and out score them.

 

Arne Slot taking about people making fun of us.

 

 

1 hour ago, El regreso said:

Arne Slot taking about people making fun of us.

 

 

So he's essentially confessed that he played a conservative game for a reason and would hope he could control the game like we did at Anfield. 

3 hours ago, El regreso said:

Arne Slot taking about people making fun of us.

 

 

"That team we just beat without too many problems should keep doing what they're doing".

Reminds me of Guardiola praising Sarri's style of play after (before?) just having beaten his team 6-0.

On 22/10/2024 at 19:48, JM7 said:

Feel like this team and the manager need some wins against some big teams. That’s the next step. 

Indeed. No good just winning against B rated teams and Tottenham.

Maresca 7/10 so far. Can he organise a consistent defensive solidity? Still big doubts