"We Need To Talk About Gerrard."

He had a much better game yesterday, especially when moved forwards which proves what I have been saying that he should be played as a supersub these days.

Bit of a nerve really considering Stevie had to bail out Hendo after a horrendous pass in the first half which nearly cost us.

But yet he went on to score the winning goal which more than makes up for a bad pass...

I thought Gerrard had a great game yesterday both in his sitting role and when he moved further forward. I would certainly consider Gerrard to play behind Balotelli when Sturridge is next unavailable.

I think he showed enough yesterday in his linkup play with Balotelli that he can still play in that position if only in the short term while we are a striker short.


 

I thought Gerrard had a great game yesterday both in his sitting role and when he moved further forward. I would certainly consider Gerrard to play behind Balotelli when Sturridge is next unavailable.

I think he showed enough yesterday in his linkup play with Balotelli that he can still play in that position if only in the short term while we are a striker short.


 

Didn't see the full game yest, but by all accounts SG did well when pushed forward. If it works, then great - it's an option for BR.
Concern would be that if Lucas slots into the holding role, against a better/quicker side think he'd really struggle. Though hopefully Allen is close? Would be surprised to see SG start a game in the advanced role, but you never know - can understand BR will look at every angle to squeeze the most out of the form players available.

I thought Gerrard had a great game yesterday both in his sitting role and when he moved further forward. I would certainly consider Gerrard to play behind Balotelli when Sturridge is next unavailable.

I think he showed enough yesterday in his linkup play with Balotelli that he can still play in that position if only in the short term while we are a striker short.


 

Yep I agree mate, Gerrard has that quality whereby I think I could play up front alongside him and look good, he's that good. I've a hunch that once Sturridge is fit we may see Gerrard pushed up top with Balotelli once Danny takes his customary breather after about 70 minutes. It kind of kills two birds with one stone, it gets our best player on the ball in the final third and also absolves him from the majority of defensive responsibility. My guess is that it'll be Can as well as Lucas who drops into the holding role, but whichever way you look at I the lack of predictability as to where Stevie is going to play is making him exceptionally difficult to man mark.

2 weeks of international break will do him alot of good

. Bit of a nerve really considering Stevie had to bail out Hendo after a horrendous pass in the first half which nearly cost us.

If it's the pass I'm thinking of then it was Manquillo who gave it away, despite what the dickhead commentator on match of the day said. And Stevie didn't actually bail us out on that time, Berahino still got the shot away.

Henderson got a bit of a rough ride from the commentators actually. They said that pass was him, when it wasn't and they said it was Lambert who played into Lallana for the goal when it was actually Jordy.

Well he had a decent game yesterday didn't he, in both positions. where are the 'he can't play three games in a week' crowd today? That's all I could read in here the other week

Yea I thought he had a good game too...

He does need the younger players around him these days though , just as they need him..

His pace is expectedly slower but he made up for it in his positional play and worked hard..

Just needs to be careful with the amount of frustrating Yellows he's picking up along the way due to his lack of pace..

Yea I thought he had a good game too...

He does need the younger players around him these days though , just as they need him..

His pace is expectedly slower but he made up for it in his positional play and worked hard..

Just needs to be careful with the amount of frustrating Yellows he's picking up along the way due to his lack of pace..

I don't think it's a question of pace, Gerrard still has pretty good straight line speed but it's the change of direction and ability to quickly reset his feet which has deserted him the past couple of seasons which is no surprise given he is a big guy.

It obvious he needs to have energy in the team alongside him in order for him to function at his most effective but yet I keep reading that this is such a bad thing, as if it's wrong to make those adjustments just for Gerrard when the reason you have to make those adjustments is because the skipper can do a bunch of stuff that no one in the team can. It's that simple for me. 

I don't think it's a question of pace, Gerrard still has pretty good straight line speed but it's the change of direction and ability to quickly reset his feet which has deserted him the past couple of seasons which is no surprise given he is a big guy.

It obvious he needs to have energy in the team alongside him in order for him to function at his most effective but yet I keep reading that this is such a bad thing, as if it's wrong to make those adjustments just for Gerrard when the reason you have to make those adjustments is because the skipper can do a bunch of stuff that no one in the team can. It's that simple for me. 

Agreed.. He's still our best and deadliest free kick taker in or around the edge of the box.. and of course the man to dispatch that 90+3 penalty..
his last couple of bookings were given due to that lack of pace in his change of direction..

Interesting piece by Suarez in today's Guardian talking about Stevie.

For me the key message is actually how cynical we have to become in order to win things consistently. Our successful teams in the past were good at gamesmanship. The Suarez approach to the game is more successful in league campaigns than Stevie's.


http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/nov/05/luis-suarez-chelsea-liverpool-jose-mourinho
Luis Suárez says Chelsea player was uneasy over time-wasting at Anfield
Luis Suárez has claimed that one of Chelsea’s players expressed misgivings about José Mourinho’s time-wasting tactics when they played at Anfield last season in the game where Liverpool’s title challenge started to unravel.
Suárez says he approached the player, who he does not name, to voice his own irritation about the ultra-defensive way in which Mourinho had set up his team for Chelsea’s 2-0 win, described by Brendan Rodgers as “parking two buses” in front of goal.
“Every coach plays the way that suits him, so I don’t mind that,” Suárez writes in his new autobiography, Crossing The Line. “The only thing I didn’t like was the way that they wasted time from the very start. I was asking myself: ‘Why are they doing this from the first minute?’ I even asked one of their players. ‘What do you want me to do? If he makes us play like this, I have to play like this,’ he replied. ‘What else can I do? If I don’t, I won’t play. What would you do?’”
Liverpool play Chelsea at Anfield again on Saturday for the first time since that crucial encounter in April and Suárez recalls how Steven Gerrard was so distraught about the slip that let in Demba Ba for the opening goal that he was unable to travel to the Professional Footballers’ Association dinner that night.
“If I had been in Stevie’s shoes, I don’t know if I would have been able to carry on playing,” the Barcelona striker recalls. “Emotionally, it must have been very, very hard.
“In the previous weeks, so much had been said about him, the expectation had built so much, the talk had been about him leading Liverpool, his club, to a first title in over 20 years, on the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, in which his cousin had died, and then that happens. The captain, the former youth-teamer, the one-club man, a Scouser born and bred, and he was the unlucky one to make a crucial mistake.
“He still hadn’t won the league title. Stevie had started to believe, we all had. And now it had been virtually taken away from him and like that, with him slipping against Chelsea. I’m convinced that if Chelsea had not scored like that, they would not have scored at all. And once you are a goal down against them, it’s virtually impossible.”
Suárez’s book, released on Thursday, reveals that he made the mistake of starting to think Liverpool had virtually won the league, asking one of their coaches whether there was anything special planned at the end of the season, and hearing other players openly talking about it.
“We had gone into the game knowing that a draw was good for us. With the atmosphere at Anfield, with the fact that we had just beaten [Manchester] City, our attitude remained the same: we wanted to win. But we were conscious of the fact that with a draw we were still ahead of everyone. What I didn’t expect was for them to play for the draw. It’s true that they won the game but I am convinced that without that stroke of luck, they would not have scored.
“We knew that some of the normal [Chelsea] starters weren’t going to play, but we also knew that if they wanted to win the league – and people forget that they still had a chance to do that – they would have to play to win. For them to try to waste time when the draw was no good to them was something that I didn’t understand.
“We didn’t play that well, but I honestly think that there was nothing we could have done differently. We had 10 players in front of us, almost all of them in the penalty area. We could try a one-two, or move the ball quickly from player to player to try to pull them out of position, seeking to create some space, but then there would always be another defender in front of us.
“It’s very hard when you see that there is no space to move into. Meanwhile, every time we looked up at the clock, time was running out.
“The way that they seemed to be playing with the clock frustrated us. They tried to wind us up, I think, and we were drawn into that. ‘Come on, hurry up.’ We should not have been dragged in.
“Mourinho knew: if you waste time, if you break it up from the very start, they’re going to get frustrated, they’re going to play a bit more crazily, they’ll do anything. They pulled us out of our normal routine. And, of course, we never imagined the slip and that was what truly made it hard for us. Nor did they. You can’t plan for a player to slip.”
 

i think it was hazard

You can’t plan for a player to slip.”

Something Gerrard will probably be haunted by for the rest of his life.

i think it was hazard

Wouldn't surprise me that, doesn't seem like a player who would happily spend a game time wasting where as the rest of the team were probably more than happy to.

In 2 minds about G playing.

I personally reckon that ever since that c**t Jose first tempted Stevie to come to those Chav cu*ts, everytime we've played them, Stevie has either put in an ordinary performance or had a some sort of F**k up that's cost us, prime example of the slip last season.

Do we play him against the Chavs and see if he can inspire us or do we let him sit on the bench and cop the taunts he's gonna get from those chav c**t supporters and just hope above hope that our home crowd drown out their singing?

Let Stevie play and punish the bas**rds for the grief they caused him last season. Stevie will not make the same mistake twice and I am sure he will finish up on the winning side, even if the tw*ts park 11 buses in front of their goal.

Think he should start further forward.

Without the goal threat from last season we need to be tighter and he's still one of the most creative players we have.

I read somewhere(cant find it)  that the owners are willing to offer Stevie a new contract, BUT he has to accept  50% wage cut

 don't know if its true, I think if it is the will be the last season we see Gerrard in a LIVERPOOL shirt


YNWA

I read somewhere(cant find it)  that the owners are willing to offer Stevie a new contract, BUT he has to accept  50% wage cut

 don't know if its true, I think if it is the will be the last season we see Gerrard in a LIVERPOOL shirt


YNWA

Why?........... is £70k a week not enough for him having earned millions in his LFC career.

Why?........... is £70k a week not enough for him having earned millions in his LFC career.

It's probably enough mate... I could probably live on it if I cut back on a few luxuries, but he knows he could get much more than that elsewhere, especially in the USA. Also Gerrard gets no image rights included in his wage, elsewhere he would and he is also one of the top shirt sellers in the world. (I don't mean he sells them down the market)   

Utterly appalling today.

A legend will always be a legend, but no player is bigger than the club, and its high time he was dropped.

I feel Rodgers may be deluded about his abilities now because of his past, like many fans who think it's 'disrespectful' to drop him.

No pace or penetration, and no ability to hold onto possession (surely all the fundamentals of Brendan's philosophy?) leaving an already shitty defence look exposed. He is not THE problem, he is of course only part of the problem.

Big questions about the likes of Henderson too - the vice captain has been appalling the last few weeks, offering no creativity at all. If anything, put him deeper for his physicality and pressing, but creatively? It's not happening.

The only players I can absolve from any blame from this team is Mignolet (who hasn't been at fault of late), Moreno, Coutinho and Can.

Then there are those like Lallana and Toure who must be exasperated at not playing.

The majority of the team - mainly this unbelievably sh*t first XI that somehow finds its way into the starting line up EVERY WEEK - are so bad that if they were racehorses, they'd have all been shot a long time ago.

Utterly appalling today.

A legend will always be a legend, but no player is bigger than the club, and its high time he was dropped.

I feel Rodgers may be deluded about his abilities now because of his past, like many fans who think it's 'disrespectful' to drop him.

No pace or penetration, and no ability to hold onto possession (surely all the fundamentals of Brendan's philosophy?) leaving an already shitty defence look exposed. He is not THE problem, he is of course only part of the problem.

Big questions about the likes of Henderson too - the vice captain has been appalling the last few weeks, offering no creativity at all. If anything, put him deeper for his physicality and pressing, but creatively? It's not happening.

The only players I can absolve from any blame from this team is Mignolet (who hasn't been at fault of late), Moreno, Coutinho and Can.

Then there are those like Lallana and Toure who must be exasperated at not playing.

The majority of the team - mainly this unbelievably sh*t first XI that somehow finds its way into the starting line up EVERY WEEK - are so bad that if they were racehorses, they'd have all been shot a long time ago.

Unfortunately all True.

Gerrard vs Chelsea on Vimeo

Gerrard against Chelsea

Check 33 sec mark. And towards the end. He has zero positional sense to play as a DM let alone CB. He made his career by creating and scoring goals near the opposition box as a AM or right mid fielder.

Just see the difference between Matic and Gerrard under pressure. In that clip towards the end you can see 3-4 players pressing Matic including SG who should be marking the player roaming infront of the defense. Matic took out our entire defense with a simple flick. If it was SG or Hendo, they would have passed it all the way back to GK to relieve the pressure. Because of this and zero pace upfront, all the teams are pressing us and we look completely clueless.

Lucas has the ability to do that, and know when to press and when not to. He showed it against Madrid.