Match Thread : Toulouse v Liverpool

[jozza800]

So wait, are we back to being shit again?

Unfortunately so...

[Steveo]

As ever with 'half a story'...

Mac and Diaz aside, the other 9 players would not be in the first 11. It's a reserve side, however you want to paint it.

13 players all of whom feature (or in Endo's case SHOULD) in our first 11 with regularity... for 10 outfield positions is not - I repeat NOT a “reserves” side mate .

But carry on


And BTW - I can paint.. Can you?

[BOBPAISLEYFAN]

I think we can all agree to disagree on what we consider to be our best / preferred starting 11, I do think that the team we put out against Toulouse is clearly not our strongest starting eleven, but by the same token I also agree it can hardly be considered as a reserve side either.

Unfortunately, when you chop and change any side, especially one with a recently completely rebuilt midfield, its going to negatively impact the team as a cohesive unit and so games like this can easily happen, especially when it is combined with players making individual errors at key moments and like last season a drop off in performance levels across the starting eleven in the same game…

Hopefully we will see a suitable response at Anfield on Sunday……. prediction… who knows … Lol!!

Fingers crossed it is just a glitch in the software rather than a hardware issue… lol !!

[Insidious]

So wait, are we back to being shit again?

Nah.

We have however put in a couple of poor performances and people rightly have concerns.

The secret is to turn up for the next game and show more effort and less complacency.

Ground duel activity against Toulouse stinks of them "wanting it more" - a bit of a Samuel Allardici one that but still applicable -

- Mac Allister ended won 2 out of 10
- Diaz won 4 out 11
- Doak won 5 out of 10
- Elliott won 5 out of 7
- Tsimikas won 1 out of 2
- Szoboszlai won 1 out of 4
- Núñez won 3 out of 5
- Salah had 0 ground duels
- Jota had 4 and lost all 4
- Trent won 3 out of 4
- Quansah won 2 out of 4
- Matip won 2 out of 2

There's way more to football than ground duels and statistics aren't everything, but a few lads there had stinkers in the "without the ball" department.

If that was tactical (unlikely) it can be fixed. If it was individual and collective complacency, it can be fixed. We will likely still qualify from the group and put this stinker of a game behind us, then barely think about European football until February.

Key is to put it right against Brentford and keep it right. Too easy to let 2 bad performances become 4-5 and then you're in bad form - but it's very fixable.

Credit to Toulouse who treated it like a European night under the lights (which it was) and deserved it - even though I was unhappy that the VAR analysis went so far back that Mac Allister still had a Brighton shirt on.

[Steveo]

We have ridden our luck to be where we are in the league too - possibly used it all up for the season in fact. Robbed at Spurs for certain.. utterly robbed..yes - but grabbed 3 point on other occasions we could scarcely have expected them.

Let's not pretend that we didn't need a lad - whose father was held hostage - to come on and rescue a point at Luton either..

That said - we have shown some character and mentality to win games with 10 men.

We were NEVER "shite" under Klopp - he is the best manager around... But we are not the team that many were suggesting we were a few weeks back. Perhaps we grow into that team - but as yet it's a work in progress and I am not sure how much longer Jurgen is going to around to influence things.

This is my biggest worry.

[Kev0909]

we can blame chopping and changing.. but been fine in the europa so far doing so, it's only a excuse that goes so far

that team still should have beat them, I think it didn't help we know we can afford to lose I guess, I know that's not great to think, but could be a fact.

[Steveo]

we can blame chopping and changing.. but been fine in the europa so far doing so, it's only a excuse that goes so far

that team still should have beat them, I think it didn't help we know we can afford to lose I guess, I know that's not great to think, but could be a fact.

True.. In Toulouse - although you never want 'Toulouse' (© Justincredible) .. if there was a game where it really wasn't that important - this was probably it.

Must get back on the horse v the mighty Brentford....

[jr81]

we can blame chopping and changing.. but been fine in the europa so far doing so, it's only a excuse that goes so far

that team still should have beat them, I think it didn't help we know we can afford to lose I guess, I know that's not great to think, but could be a fact.

We could afford to lose, yes. And maybe tge attitudes reflected that. BUT if we had won, we had top spot guaranteed which meant we could rest for the last 2 games. Now, we might need to win both games to get top spot. So we may not be able to rest as many starters. I think Klopp should have went stronger for that game and put more importance on it.

[CCTV]

Not really. And saying that was the reserves is stretching a point to the limits. Also it comes off the back of the game at Luton.
Not sure if you are deliberately missing the point or dare I say it.. (heaven forbid) maybe even trying to look like a superfan.


I was responding directly to the thinking that our latest sketchy form is due to us missing a British Isles born - so called leader in our ranks. Which seems to me just a shallow a description as some who - just a few weeks ago - saying the opposite while the form was looking great. The narrative then being - see - now that Hendo and Fab are gone we are a force again. It's all far too knee jerk. I am actually railing against that yet having the accusation aimed in my direction.

This was why I cited the fact that last season all 3 were here while we dropped so many points.. I was however also suggesting that last season there was more of an excuse than this. 2 things can be true.

We will naturally wait until the end of the season but, as I was alluding to - last season we would have finished far higher had the circumstances been different. We had that crisis which for some reason went under the radar of most. Perhaps the media realy can manipulate the thing of the majority..

IF you need it spelling out:

What cannot be refuted is that since the break up of Klopp's all conquering front 3 - we have been a different team with different problems. Last season we started off shattered after playing almost 70 games! We had just lost Mané - an absolutely crucial part of the front 3/4 for years..

From the off we were missing Jota..So minus 2 of the 4 while trying to integrate new lad Darwin. Then went on to suffer an injury crisis - with Jota out almost entirely bar the Arsenal 3:2 and 1:0 home win v City...until mid February 2023... Diaz then went down IN that very Arsenal game.. And wasn't seen again until Mid April 2023..!

The front line was so thread bare in the winter of 2022 - Gakpo was brought in out of the blue.. Extremely doubtful he arrives - at that time at least - but for that. In light of these clear difficulties and specific issues we saw this type of game time after time.. The midfield was always going to become the focus and its rather pedestrian nature was examined ruthlessly by fans and media alike. BUT until the latter part of the season for so long - we couldn't field a consistent front line at all. It ruined the season as had a similar crisis in the title defence.


FROM TIA
'The problem has been that only one ‘seasoned’ striker, Salah, has been consistently fit. Gakpo has only recently arrived and Nunez has unsurprisingly taken a while to acclimatise, while Bobby, Diaz and Jota have each been medium to long-term absentees.'


I was trying to point this out at the time while everyone was lamenting our midfield in isolation. The midfield issue was a clear issue BUT it was a glaring problem being pushed down the road…the season of the near miss quad - so it spilled into last season too - BUT once Mane had gone - with Jota and Diaz injured and an ageing Bobby - we were gonna struggle.

Here we are another season later and a major transfer window - where we were supposed to go big - and we didn’t. We intimated that we might - but we didn’t.. Frankly - unless Szobozlai wants to emulate Gerrard - we will see more of these results and performances than most would have expected a few weeks ago - when we had transformed our midfield into a beast..

Lack of investment across the entire club IS going to be F$G’s legacy. Klopp mitigates just how awful these owners are. Most of you might not see it yet.. but that’s to be expected - most people DON’T see what comes next until it has happened.

________________

Whatever happens in the near future - whether we beat City by 7 goals or lose - whether the squad manage to will and mentality their way into another title race or not.. Some of us can see what is going on.

LFC v City
Gk
Ederson/Ortega v Alisson Kelleher

RB
Walker/Lewis v Trent/Gomez

CB
Konate/Matip/VVD/Quansah
V
Stones/Dias/Gvardiol/Ake

LB
Robbo/Tsimi v Akanji/A.Gomez

MF
Endo/Bajcetic/Sobozla/MacA/Thiago/Gravenb/Jones/Elliott
V
Rodri/Philips/Silva/KdB/Kovacic/Nunes

ATT
Salah/Gakpo/Nunez/Jota/Diaz/Doak
V
Foden/Grealish/Halaand/Alvarez/Doku/Bobb

[justincredible]

True.. In Toulouse - although you never want 'Toulouse' (© Justincredible) .. if there was a game where it really wasn't that important - this was probably it.

Must get back on the horse v the mighty Brentford....

Yes Steveo. The game was ours Toulouse, and we did, and now we're shit. The end.