Brendan is in the most difficult moment of his Liverpool tenure, and he may be only a game or two from getting the bullet IMHO. I think he's been let down by the players (who once again this week he refused to criticise), is being let down by some of our fan base who have turned on him ridiculously quickly, and is probably going to get let down by our ownership as well as they have previous. I think sacking managers unless you have a bottomless pit of cash is the road to ruin myself, but I don't make the decisions. What I do though is make bold statements on forums which nobody takes any notice of, and here's another. If I were Brendan this is what I'd do to turn things around:
Firstly he needs to look very closely at the team selection and cast all previous preconceptions out of the window. Now is not the time for favouritism or for harking back to glories past, it's the time for realism in terms of where we are and what we need. The realistic assessment of where we are is that we currently look like a poor team who is devoid of confidence. My suspicion is that we are significantly better than how we look, but nonetheless in the here and now we are extremely ordinary. Also and perhaps even more worryingly, we look lacking in character, fight and desire. Things aren't going to change on their own, and unless we can put a group of players on the pitch who are willing to role their sleeves up and battle for the cause, we are going to continue to lose football matches. Brendan needs to look into the whites of the eyes of his players and choose very carefully. His job is on the line here and he's in the trenches, if he's going to go he may as well go while swinging and have players alongside him who are going to swing as well. If I were him, I'd be finding ways to get the likes of Kolo Toure and Lucas Leiva into the team, and trying to find ways to get players such as Glen Johnson out of it.
Step one in terms of coaching is to make us significantly harder to both play against and score against. To that end, it's time we worked massively harder when we haven't got the ball. I'm not talking about some diagram based pressing system here or some "transition" theory, I'm talking about players busting a gut to prevent the ball from going into our goal. Players making sure they get goal side of Joe Ledley before it gets squared to him on Sunday, players busting a gut to get back and double up on Bulasi as he's having a stormer, players busting a gut to block off Dwight Gayle so the rebound doesn't fall to him. Players busting a gut to chase a lost cause even, something to warm the hearts and get the crowd going a bit. Think Dirk Kuyt and how he would have played on Sunday, giving it the Duracell headless chicken and absolutely busting a bollock to get us back into the game. Dirk was never the answer when you needed a bit of quality, but he definitely was when you needed grit, effort and determination. Who's our Dirk Kuyt in this squad? We'd better either find one or appoint one and sharpish. I'd also like to see players giving it the occasional Jon Flanagan, lets put a few tackles in FFS it's not outlawed yet. Lets have a little snarl, a spit into the turf, a grab the opponent by the throat, a little argy bargy, a little nastiness. Lets get on the refs case, not waiting till after the game to moan about a decision, lets get in his face and demand a fairer crack of the whip.
Since I'm on the subject of hard work, we need midfield players and strikers who get into the opposition box. Once they're in there, we need players who look like they give a flying f*ck about whether or not they get on the end of something. Once again it's character we're talking here, and if I were Brendan I'd be looking for ways to get the Rickie Lamberts and Fabio Borini's into the team, and leaving the Marion Balotelli's of this world out of it.
For me at this moment we need to pick our best eleven battlers not bottlers, our best eleven grafters not shirkers. Character is what we need, backbone, men who are up for the challenge. If I were Brendan I'd mimic Mourinho's 4-2-3-1 in the short term, and I'd mimic Chelsea's more direct approach. I'd tell the players who are on that I want them to run themselves into the ground, and which point we'll bring on a sub who'll also run himself into the ground. Lets get the crowd up for it by the sheer "drop dead trying" effort we're prepared to put in.
If I were Brendan and my neck was on the line, this would be the team I'd pick to go into war. Apologies if any of these are injured/unavailable:
Mignolet.
Manquillo Toure Skrtel Enrique
Lucas Can
Henderson Gerrard Lallana
Lambert
It's not necessarily about the best players right now, it's about the right players. To play my "get f*cking stuck into em" style, these are the best players for the job. The Sterlings, Coutinho's, Lovren's, Moreno's, Markovic's and the like are for another day when we are starting to play well again. This is the team for tomorrow night if I were Brendan, one that'll battle for the shirt.
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