Dispelling the myth - Games played last season

[CCTV]

To rotate fab/hendo/thiago

[Steveo]

The solution is simple CC. He needed more backing.

Our manager has been competing with teams with that have 2 or 3 squads but he barely had 1.

The only way we managed to remain competitive - is - through his incredible man management and ability to motivate a group that POST summer 2018 combined some world class talent with a few willing workhorses. The world class talent has aged and the work horses have lost their legs.

Barcelona and Real comparisons are outlandish when you look at the base level of those squads before Klopp arrived AND the turnover in players since.

With the tools at his disposal, he has overachieved - it's pretty clear

[Steveo]

AND to pin point 19's sentiment in this thread and why it is ridiculous to isolate it:

Last seasons 63 game slog came following a torrid season where we had to dig so deep just to make the top 4. Playing with a mixture of Rys Williams/Kabak and Phillips at CB after trying to utilise Henderson and Fabinho there and the wreckage that ensued as a result.

A season almost entirely without Virgil Van Dijk, missing 8 of our 9 defeats. and made a total of 370 minutes.

A season where Matip missed 8 of our 9 defeats and made a total of barely 700 minutes.

A season where the man you love to hate Gomez missed 8 of our 9 defeats and a made a total of 500 minutes.

A season where a record number of consecutive home defeats was recorded with the absence of a defence.

Feel free to up the combined minutes across the entire season our senior CB’s recorded.

The question should surely be — How on earth did we finish 3rd?

A good answer would be: That we had a younger, hungrier and fully functioning front line with 2 world Class Mids behind them in Fabinho and Thiago. That’s what rescued a season that would have been at best - a mirror of this one.

So stop chopping and changing your narrative to best suit what you see as the unravelling of this disaster of a season. A few weeks ago after a few wins, everything was going back to the future. A few bad results later and you are off on another tangent.

One simple example of your bias would be your continued assertion that when Thiago plays and we lose - it’s because of him - BUT when we win and he plays - he has nothing to do with it.

Bonkers…

You are trying to force a solid iron box into a smaller circular granite sinkhole. It won’t go in there - it simply doesn’t fit.

[Steveo]

Peps barca side were incredible for work rate, and the current Real side are incredibly well organised and pragmatic.

Scratching my head at how anyone can compare this kind of beautiful, low tax football with that which our players were asked to produce.

You need better players to play this way.

[Steveo]

And as for Real... well they have had the best midfielder in 2 decades in Luka Modric.. Off the charts good.. and this trio operating together managed to win a fair bit.



Midfield - Midfield - Midfield..

You can defend deep and spring. You can dominate at the other end and unpick a lock... you have the ability to control games with and without the ball.

Players can reach the age of 37 years and STILL humiliate counterparts in their twenties...

[CCTV]

I've addressed some issues in the post on the previous page. But let's start with the supposedly easy, low energy game plans... versus Klopps horribly high energy demanding football (touch of sarcasm)...

Tikitaki football, possession based as per Barca under Pep.
Apparently very low energy, so many minutes don't matter.
An aggressive regaining of possession within 5 minutes, both Klopp and Pep apply this style high up the pitch.
We also have a lot of possession in many of our games.
There's not a huge difference between us on possession with city. They are routinely the highest in the PL.
So many of the fundamentals require teams to be at it.

The bus, you just pack the defence play on the counter and again, this has been deemed low energy football by both Klopp and Pep during their PL stints.
Both dumped out by Real recently.
Yet we have players well suited to playing on the counter.
For me both Pep and Klopps comments came from frustration. Let's say at the top level.. Jose, Rafa and Carlo to a degree.

I've rarely heard of a top team that plays with low energy, the demands at the top level of sport are always astronomical.

As per previous page, I've said we should have offloaded Keita & Ox last summer. So we're not totally at odds.
But there's this idea you seem to have that.. yes, klopp through incredible management and a low net spend could take us to the top of football.. but he couldn't keep us there on a low net spend.
Enter real a team at the top, who've net spent less than us under Klopp and remained largely at the top of club football.
It can be done, and as I've pointed out we've lost numerous players on free transfers and failed to move some on ox/keita.
With others like Matip who might leave this summer for 15m, well we could've bitten the bullet a fee seasons back and cashed in for 50 Mill.
Now I've no grudge against Matip, but in terms of finances such decisions cost us 35 difference in transfer fee over 3 years, that's a rough 225 grand a week to keep him here the last 3 years.
Real in contrast toom their chances and ditched Ronny for a wedge and got in Vinny.
They ditched Casemiro and got in Touchy.
Gini, Origi, Bobby, Keita, Ox all leaving for zip.
It's bad business versus good business and there is every indication that Klopp plays a role in that to some degree as he likes a settled group.
Then we gave barca who net spent shit loads and fucked themselves. Stuck with expensive flops and a barca levy cause they got know for spending whatever.

This year, we've maintained a system and selection preferences where those choices haven't been working out for us continually.

You can blame a lack of investment all you like, but you have to adapt and find a way.

We can talk about Real and Barca as the big 2 destinations for top footballers.
But we're talking about the PL also. We're talking about games v the relegation candidates we've lost.

As said, I'd sack Lijnders and hire Rafa as assistant coach.
Then maybe we could go for one of these easy, lazy, low energy styles on occasion.

[Nineteenx]

Some fine points well made there CCTV, pressing and counter pressing isn't high energy when it's done right, it's more about reading of the game, anticipation and expert positioning off one another than charging about like headless chickens, (Elliott, Jones, Oxalde, Fab rushes of blood reactionary waster)

We haven't maintained a system or selection at all, not at all

We binned off our brilliant right side of last season to include a Championship player at RCM in almost every game, who isn't even a mid and that fucked a lot of things up for a start - We changed system, we changed style, we constantly changed personnel, we blamed players for the team failing through the managers changes, binned them off, then failed worse, then brought them back, picked up a little, but kept changing

We binned of employing a LCM controller at all in loads of games, that's how and why teams have been playing through our left side and left of centre so easily all season, we put it back for the 7-0 over the filthy, then binned it off and brought in Bajcetic who should never have been starting nay game as a more attacking LCM for example

I don't get why anyone is lauding this lad, his stats are terrible, he has been absolutely powder puff and dreadful in at least 3 of the starts he made, he is a decent prospect for the future

I wouldn't sack Lijnders, i'd make him stick to coaching and not give him any input into team management, he went away and tried to wear the big boys pants and was a fucking disaster, lasting just 4 months in the job in the Dutch second tier there are very good reasons he's a coach and not a manager - There have been accusations that his book about other people's ideas and methods gave opposition managers an insight into how we were so successful and help in getting results against us and nullifying us this season, he's a bit of a Rodgers character in my book