Elliott opens up about fear of joining Liverpool

[Nineteenx]

I can't understand that STILL even now, no-one gets that in any midfield, not just a pressing and counter pressing one, your No6 vacating their position and leaving their man wide open in the centre of the park in a rush of blood to charge into a situation there are already 2 or 3 of your players v 1 opposition player, giving the heavily outnumbered opposition player an easy outball to the player your No6 just left allowing them to take 3 or 4 of our players out of the game is a HUGE fucking problem

In the passage of play we're talking about, Fab does exactly this, getting Robbo, Thiago and himself easily taken out of the game, when it wouldn't and couldn't happen of he stays with his man and lets the 2 players after the opposition player try and deal with it, it really is that simple and basic

[Steveo]

Again it is you who is talking complete bull.

We try to contain them with numbers on our left but using more and more players to cover, the players on the right do nothing and eventually get exposed. They simply don't see the play. They don't see it because they aren't capable of playing it. That's the goal. watch it. Watch it again and keep watching until you actually understand what has happened. I don't expect clodhopping defenders to see it at first.. but try and try again..and maybe you too will understand.

There is a reason why there is not one single top manager from these shores in world football today. Strongest league in the world they say.. All those players, pundits and hacks like you. Yet not 1.. Not one single top level player or manager.. Hmmm.

From where I am sitting you simply cannot pit the likes of Modric against the likes of Jordan Henderson. Not IF you have genuine ambition to win. Certainly not when you have a few others who can play it short and cute as they do. This is what you cannot see. Running is important when you have a team flush with WC talent in their prime, we havent been that for 2-3 years.

Jurgen himself has an issue here too. It's not that he doesn't see it, but he continually THINKS he can get past it. It might happen on occasion but in general play, most of those Spanish sides or a mean Italian one - will do you and find that weakness out.


And on the Spurs final.. I certainly was shitting it - as any Red with half a brain or indeed a pair of eyes should have been. You and all your bravado mates with their red glasses can say what you like.. That penalty swung that game massively. It was beyond harsh and we would NEVER have stopped going on about it had it gone against us. No penalty at that crazy early stage - and our nerves build and build. I don't even want to think about it. That is still the only final we have actually won outside of the 2 penalty shoot outs last season.


BUT back to Elliott your entire diatribe against him is once again NOT backed up by the facts. Look at our best form this season and look at our worst, Elliott is not an answer to our problems but he sure as shit isn't the cause.

You are dancing in circles because you are shit scared that more and more eyes are turning towards the player you love most. That would also be totally unfair but it seems to be something you are acutely aware of.

[Nineteenx]

Absolute bullshit

They had far less possession than us this game, we were rarely trying to contain them at any stage of the game, they only had FOUR shots and only TWO on target all fucking game, where as we had 23 or more shots and NINE on target, you're literally making stuff up and trying to paint a scenario that never happened, as fucking usual

They had just got possession, just turned it over, their move was effectively a quick and very direct counter attack rather than them sucking us in as you claim, made easy by Fab being Fab giving Mordic of all people, being pressed by 3 players a piss easy ball out, which in turn gave Casemiro a piss easy ball to release Valverde, it's clear as day watching it

Answer this one question to prove you have some actual understanding of the game - Had Fab stayed with Casemiro, so there isn't a pass on for Modric, does their goal happen?

I'll cut you some slack for my transposing of Carvajal and Modric possibly confusing you

[Nineteenx]

I'll tell you something, were it Elliott, Keita, Jones, Joe Allen, Thiago at RCM in that passage of play, I wouldn't be even mentioning them, because they could do nothing about it and it wasn't remotely on them

Were it Hendo, Lucas, Gerrard, Alonso, Souness, McMahon, Whelan, Hughes in the No6 position doing what Fab did, I would be saying exactly the same, they stay where they are, with their man, no goal, end of, finito subject closed

[Nineteenx]

1m14 Fab has Deeney, leaves his man to get involved in something 2 other players are dealing with, ball goes to his man goal



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf1ldO-Wl-c

There are loads and loads and loads of these I could dig out if let loose in our analysis room with access to our full library, quite a few leading to goals, a lot more we get away with

[Nineteenx]

2m 02 Fab has Fornals, leaves him in a situation he needs to stay with him, Fornals scores



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8veO-sclnYU

[Nineteenx]

That is still the only final we have actually won outside of the 2 penalty shoot outs last season

Liverpool 1-0 Flamengo

We had plenty of Cup Finals in 19-20 too, literally every team was raising their game massively for their games v us, with all the media STOP LIVERPOOL hysteria, their game against us and wanting to be the team to put a spanner in the works or end our unbeaten run made playing us a Cup final for all of them

[Nineteenx]

You are dancing in circles because you are shit scared that more and more eyes are turning towards the player you love most. That would also be totally unfair but it seems to be something you are acutely aware of.

I'm not dancing in circles, I stick up for Hendo because he gets stick he doesn't deserve and blamed for things that aren't on him, I'm usually the first to say when he does fuck up and it at fault, and there are so many people, in our own fan base so keen to try and rubbish his incredible legacy at any and every opportunity

I'm quite happy for us to sign Stach for that RCM role in the summer and for Hendo to be relegated to a more Milner type role, I've been disappointed with Hendo's lack of quality medium to long balls, switches and crossing this season, which he has previously always been exceptional at.

I've not bashed him for it, because I don't know if it is under instruction not to hit those balls and to play more tappy crappy and overplay more, or that he has an issue playing them now because of an injury, it does seem that as I warned we have lost a lot of the runs in behind, width on our left and Robbo's timed runs forward, all the runs he used to connect and he's still better than anyone else we have to play there right now, because of his pressing, game intelligence, positional play, simple link play and manipulation of space

[CCTV]

Cctv is there any stats for percentage of attacks down the flanks and middle? It feels like our RHS gets targetted a lot more, which would make the stats you've shown even more sobering as if they are seeing increased attacks down this channel the stats should be higher due to increased exposure. This season has been a lamentable mess. Feels like the squad is unfit and out of condition in a big way. Our injury stats and running stats are backing it up as well.

Not over a season, but game by game its the default tab on the page for each game - under match report and scroll down the page - average position the last tab on that infographic

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1635069/MatchReport/Europe-Champions-League-2021-2022-Liverpool-Real-Madrid

For this one we attacked rather evenly down our left 31%, middle 35% and right 34%
Whereas real were more specific in areas they attacked:
Left 41% (down trents side), middle 23% and right side 36%.

On average positions
For real valverde is on the halfway line, benezema and vinny furthest forward the only 2 real players in our defensive half on average positions.
For us Fab is on the halfway line, only matip and virgil deepest the only 2 players in ur wn defensive half.

Carlo parked a bus by positions/territory, and made sure to shut down Diaz our form player and Mane to a point, almost risking Salah who was largely bang out of form.

Whereas we played a high line and left virgil and matip up v benzema and vinny.
Benzema left of centre and vinny left side playing in behind matip.

[CCTV]

Really straight forward answers to both and things i have comprehensively covered several times

Salah's levels dropped off hugely because he wasn't given the new contract he had demanded, he was trying to ensure he protected himself from injury (including in the Champions League final when he otherwise had to score) so he could potentially move in the summer if he didn't get what he wanted One player of the 3 doing this effects the others, really obvious basic team game stuff

The other is symptomatic of what you see every match thread and elsewhere from those who have never liked the captain, there's been a lot of it coming Trent's way too

The Real goal came down our left, through poor positional errors and play from Thiago, then Fab, and officials letting the goal stand even though Benzema effectively dummied it, letting it go mm's from his toe and was offside

At the point Thiago fucked up, then Fab had a rush of blood leaving Casemiro, Hendo was where he should have been as RCM blocking any pass from Casemiro to Vinicius, it all happened incredibly quickly down our left/left of centre, it's actually ridiculous to suggest the RCM on the opposite side could have got anywhere near to it

And what you did there is a perfect example of the blaming of players by those who don't like them for fuck ups by their favourites

Trent got bucket loads of abuse in the City match thread for goals i said and analysis on all broadcasters later concurred were down to really poor errors from Fab, other players getting blamed for goals coming from Fab fuck ups has been going on here since he joined

Think that's a little harsh on Salah. Both he and Mane were looking for north of 300 kpw.
Salah would've been better off being in form and banging them in if he wanted to get more money.
Think it was down to a yips for him - which can happen.
Most other elements of his game were still high in quality, whereas trents no fucks attitude was more evident and hendos notions likewise.