Big decision time

We are fast approaching a potentially major turning point in the club's history.

In stark terms, we need to decide upon whether to play safe and build on our gains or to push our chips across the table and go all in.

On the pitch we have to solve the oft debated question of whether we should prioritise 4th, or, in the case of the Europa League competition, silverware. On the face of it, the decision should be easy since winning the cup competition in Warsaw this year also qualifies us for the Champion's League and its attendant money and cache. 

The stakes are massive. The new TV money from BT means the qualifying clubs can expect £40 million pounds even if they lose every game in the group stages. Winning the thing could add £60 million to the club's value. To put that in perspective our entire matchday income comes to £42 million a year.   

If you are one of the deluded few who thinks that doubling your income whilst keeping the same overheads wouldn't make a huge difference to our team wait and see what happens when our rivals spend that money instead of us.

Winning the domestic cup competitions would make such comparatively little difference to a club's fortunes now that we can soon expect to see teams fielding weakened sides in FA cup semi-finals. That should give pause for thought for anyone who thinks winning those competitions is a true sign of progress. And yes, that includes Kenny's time in charge.

Yet, in this most attractive years for targeting silverware, the stakes are raised further by our most recent victory over Tottenham. Suddenly it is no longer clear which team is favourite for one of two, or possibly even three, Champion's League spots that are up for grabs in the league. Whereas we faltered with our European campaigns of late, in the league we are top of the form table. The competition is absolutely wide open and we now know that we have as good a chance of success as anyone.

So what do we do?

We are fast approaching a potentially major turning point in the club's history.

In stark terms, we need to decide upon whether to play safe and build on our gains or to push our chips across the table and go all in.

On the pitch we have to solve the oft debated question of whether we should prioritise 4th, in the case of the Europa League competition, silverware. On the face of it, the decision should be easy since winning the cup competition in Warsaw this year also qualifies us for the Champion's League and its attendant money and cache. 

The stakes are massive. The new TV money from BT means the qualifying clubs can expect £40 million pounds even if they lose every game in the group stages. Winning the thing could add £60 million to the club's value. To put that in perspective our entire matchday income comes to £42 million a year.   

If you are one of the deluded few who thinks that doubling your income whilst keeping the same overheads wouldn't make a huge difference to our team wait and see what happens when our rivals spend that money instead of us.

Winning the domestic cup competitions would make such comparatively little difference to a club's fortunes now that we can soon expect to see teams fielding weakened sides in FA cup semi-finals. That should give pause for thought for anyone who thinks winning those competitions is a true sign of progress. And yes, that includes Kenny's time in charge.

Yet, in this most attractive years for targeting silverware, the stakes are raised further by our most recent victory over Tottenham. Suddenly it is no longer clear which team is favourite for one of two, or possibly even three, Champion's League spots that are up for grabs in the league. Whereas we faltered with our European campaigns of late, in the league we are top of the form table. The competition is absolutely wide open and we now know that we have as good a chance of success as anyone.

So what do we do?

I would think some of that decision was made already by doing nothing in the transfer window....problem with going all in on a competition that rests on one final match is that anything can happen in a one off match scenario...the best team or the team that "goes all in" does not always win.

Have you guys heard of periodization? I hadn't until recently. Essentially, its one of these new fangled ideas which isn't really that new fangled, but just the way it is being implemented by coaches like Rodgers is.

"This technique [periodisation] involves dividing training periods of up to a year (the macroycle) into smaller periods (mesocycles) which are divided further into microcycles. This approach is designed to prevent overtraining and result in a peak in performance at the time of competition (Wathan, 1994)."

Essentially the way our team is set-up has us at peak fitness from after Christmas to the end of May. The business end of the season if you will. Its no coincidence that under Rodgers we tend to be much stronger in the second half of the season (and probably why the last two January's we have bought no-one). The benefits of this mean that as a team, as long as we have 48 hours of rest, rotation is only needed for injuries and the most extreme of fixture pile-ups.

We don't need to prioritize one or the other. We can go for it in both. I expect Rodgers to give chances to fringe players in the Europa league though, purely because for each game we get two shots to win and because a draw isn't necessarily a bad result in a knock-out competition whereas drawing 0-0 against relegation fodder because we gave Borini a shot is. The defence is unlikely to change, so the main variable that will, will be the number of chances created.

Winning the domestic cup competitions would make such comparatively little difference to a club's fortunes now that we can soon expect to see teams fielding weakened sides in FA cup semi-finals. That should give pause for thought for anyone who thinks winning those competitions is a true sign of progress. And yes, that includes Kenny's time in charge.

I was watching BBC news a few months ago, and they compared the Women's FA cup final to the Men's financially. Women finalist got 5k-10k (can't remember exactly) and Men was 1.5m.

It's a no brainer for me, I would choose top 4 and group stages over FA and Carling cup wins. No doubt this is better long term for us. We should priorities this until we become stronger as a squad/team and constantly challenge for the title and CL.

No need to prioritise anything, we have the squad to compete on 3 fronts so go all out to win every game. 

No rotation, apart from cup tied players, best 11 available to play in every competition for me.

We beat one of our form rivals yesterday missing 2 of our best players, we held our own against the title favourites recently even though we eventually lost. 

We should have no fear about anyone we've still to play in any competition.

Really good topic and one I have been thinking about all week...

I think BR will F**k this up. He has openly admitted he has been tasked to win silverware this season and to save his job he will priorities the FA Cup 1st because that's the closest chance. A lot of pressure on him... league form, keep job or go for broke? Keep job...

Plus going away in Europa will ultimately affect our league form unless we send over the ressies and purposely go out. which we wont. We dont have the depth in the squad to play thurs sunday and do well.

What to do...

We have to prioritise. That starts by resting a few players on Saturday I'm afraid.

Really good topic and one I have been thinking about all week...

I think BR will f**k this up. He has openly admitted he has been tasked to win silverware this season and to save his job he will priorities the FA Cup 1st because that's the closest chance. A lot of pressure on him... league form, keep job or go for broke? Keep job...

Plus going away in Europa will ultimately affect our league form unless we send over the ressies and purposely go out. which we wont. We dont have the depth in the squad to play thurs sunday and do well.

What to do...

Don't know where you're getting the idea that Brendan is fighting to save his job this season. Whether we qualify for the champions league or not, he's going to remain our manager like it or lump it.

We have enough players to make changes in certain games so that we can focus on all three of the competitions in the coming weeks and months.

No point going 'all in' for the top four and risk still missing out and ending up with just a 5th or 6th place to show for this season.

I still take silverware over just top 4 Hollywood and will never ever change my view on that.

We are fast approaching a potentially major turning point in the club's history.

In stark terms, we need to decide upon whether to play safe and build on our gains or to push our chips across the table and go all in.

On the pitch we have to solve the oft debated question of whether we should prioritise 4th, in the case of the Europa League competition, silverware. On the face of it, the decision should be easy since winning the cup competition in Warsaw this year also qualifies us for the Champion's League and its attendant money and cache. 

The stakes are massive. The new TV money from BT means the qualifying clubs can expect £40 million pounds even if they lose every game in the group stages. Winning the thing could add £60 million to the club's value. To put that in perspective our entire matchday income comes to £42 million a year.   

If you are one of the deluded few who thinks that doubling your income whilst keeping the same overheads wouldn't make a huge difference to our team wait and see what happens when our rivals spend that money instead of us.

Winning the domestic cup competitions would make such comparatively little difference to a club's fortunes now that we can soon expect to see teams fielding weakened sides in FA cup semi-finals. That should give pause for thought for anyone who thinks winning those competitions is a true sign of progress. And yes, that includes Kenny's time in charge.

Yet, in this most attractive years for targeting silverware, the stakes are raised further by our most recent victory over Tottenham. Suddenly it is no longer clear which team is favourite for one of two, or possibly even three, Champion's League spots that are up for grabs in the league. Whereas we faltered with our European campaigns of late, in the league we are top of the form table. The competition is absolutely wide open and we now know that we have as good a chance of success as anyone.

So what do we do?

Win our next game.

Don't know where you're getting the idea that Brendan is fighting to save his job this season. Whether we qualify for the champions league or not, he's going to remain our manager like it or lump it.

Hopefully your right mate. And I'm a fan of his that wants that but he said his targets are silverware and top 4. Hopefully he can survive if he doesn't get them is all. If I had any doubt in my job I would do everything to get a trophy and the fa cup is the easier.

Personally I would much rather have either 4th or win the Europa League over the FA Cup, obviously because both bring Champions League football. But I don't think there is a need for prioritizing, we certainly have a big enough squad to compete well in all 3 comps.

To be honest I think it'll come right down to the wire for 4th, theres 5 teams vying for those 2 places (Utd, Arsenal, Spurs, Southampton, Us) and whilst we are the form team right now, huge games against Southampton and City coming up could easily change that. However I do think we will at least make the final of one of the cup competitions, hopefully the Europa League, but as the first reply says, those games are very difficult to judge, you can't pin our Champions League hopes on 1 game.

I'd want to win the Europa and finish in top four to be honest. Top four is no achievement to be honest, I'd just like to see us in the CL next season again.

In terms of the Europa, winning that gets us CL qualification so that's high on our priority in my opinion. Otherwise, if we could pull an FA cup out of this season we'd be laughing too. Would love if we could pull a double out of nowhere, as we didn't expect it from our start to the season.

Win our next game.

So you mean if Daniel is carrying a niggle and we risk worsening it and having him out for six matches we should be starting him in the Europa games and chasing the win?

our club has always been known for it's bravery but, at our peak we were respected for our canniness too.

We may come to a point where throwing our best team at theEuropa competiton makes more sense than using it in the league.

So you mean if Daniel is carrying a niggle and we risk worsening it and having him out for six matches we should be starting him in the Europa games and chasing the win?

our club has always been known for it's bravery but, at our peak we were respected for our canniness too.

We may come to a point where throwing our best team at theEuropa competiton makes more sense than using it in the league.

The rule for me is, regardless of the games importance don't start Sturridge with a niggle.
Players play worse while carrying knocks anyway.
If its a final with a few months til the next game, you might be able to make a case, but as a general rule, don't play injured players particularly if they are injury prone.

Just worked out that if we beat Palace this weekend and make the semi finals of the Europa league we will have 2 games a week (mostly thursday-sunday) until the end of the season; also if we make the semi final of the FA cup then we will need to reschedule a game (no idea when, we may have to play 3 games in a week (tues-thurs-sun perhaps). Ny on impossible to play full strength every game and thats without injuries.

So you mean if Daniel is carrying a niggle and we risk worsening it and having him out for six matches we should be starting him in the Europa games and chasing the win?

our club has always been known for it's bravery but, at our peak we were respected for our canniness too.

We may come to a point where throwing our best team at theEuropa competiton makes more sense than using it in the league.

Seems to me we won our last game by taking Sturridge off,
but you go ahead and over-analyse my response. 

The rule for me is, regardless of the games importance don't start Sturridge with a niggle.
Players play worse while carrying knocks anyway.
If its a final with a few months til the next game, you might be able to make a case, but as a general rule, don't play injured players particularly if they are injury prone.

It's the 14th May, two matches to go in the league and we only have an outside chance of making 4th, Danny has a niggle BUT we are in the Europa League semi-final.

Are you saying you would rest him?

Take each game as it comes and play our strongest available line up. Attacking wise we have quite a few options and a couple of our players should be reasonably fresh, consider how Lallana hasn't been playing too regularly, Sturridge has missed half the season, Ibe will be used sparingly (I'd assume).

Personal preference would be to see us focus on the Europa League if we were to put all our eggs in one basket, but think we have the squad to compete on a few fronts, otherwise what was the point of fleshing out the squad in the summer?

It's the 14th May, two matches to go in the league and we only have an outside chance of making 4th, Danny has a niggle BUT we are in the Europa League semi-final.

Are you saying you would rest him?

For starters that's mildly shifting the goal posts as you are saying that our chances of top 4 are different to how they are now.
Ignoring that though I still definitely wouldn't start him. Might be a 60 minute sub. Not because of the last two fixtures which are Palace and Stoke (easy enough without Sturridge), but because its over two legs. We will need him more in the other semifinal and indeed the final. Wouldn't risk him.
I'd probably play a tight game and hope that we can nick it. Play him in the return leg.

With Gerrard out now for up to 3 weeks and Lucas also out I would think we are going to see a shift.

The choices are: Allen midfield...leave the back 3 alone

                        Can to Midfield....Lovren in the back 3.

Tough choice.

For starters that's mildly shifting the goal posts as you are saying that our chances of top 4 are different to how they are now.
Ignoring that though I still definitely wouldn't start him. Might be a 60 minute sub. Not because of the last two fixtures which are Palace and Stoke (easy enough without Sturridge), but because its over two legs. We will need him more in the other semifinal and indeed the final. Wouldn't risk him.
I'd probably play a tight game and hope that we can nick it. Play him in the return leg.

OK that's your view but that's the point i was getting at in the thread; I'm not shifting goalposts to say we are heading for a moment in which we decide whether or not to prioritise between the competitions.

I'm not saying that point is now or how it will manifest but it is coming.

OK that's your view but that's the point i was getting at in the thread; I'm not shifting goalposts to say we are heading for a moment in which we decide whether or not to prioritise between the competitions.

I'm not saying that point is now or how it will manifest but it is coming.

Fair re:goalposts
Still would be bad call to play Sturridge with a knock in any fixture we get two shots at.