OK, so far we're not very good. What are the reasons and how do we fix it?

Things will improve a lot when Sturridge is back. He'll create more space for Ballotelli and Sterling and we'll hurt teams a lot more. We rely on goals because it's almost a given we'll concede when put under any pressure at the back.

A great defensive structure is all about military drilling on the training ground, day in day out. It's boring and repetitive, but crucial to winning teams. The defenders have to relish the battle of winning first balls on corners, free kicks etc.. Right now the aggression level of our defence is always under-cooked. We need a relentless drill sergeant on the training pitch working with the defence.

Fabio Borini
Joe Allen
Oussama Assaidi
Nuri Sahin
Samed Yesil
Daniel Sturridge
Philippe Coutinho
Luis Alberto
Iago Aspas
Simon Mignolet
Kolo Touré
Aly Cissokho
Mamadou Sakho
Tiago Ilori
Victor Moses
Rickie Lambert
Adam Lallana
Emre Can
Lazar Markovic
Dejan Lovren   
Divick Origi
Javier Manquillo
Alberto Moreno
Mario Balotelli

In bold , players who have had decent Premiership experience
In Italics , players who have had a bit of Premiership experience

The rest haven't got a f**kin clue about playing away in the FA Cup on a shitty winters day or how important 3 points at the Man U game is to us lot..
Apart from Coutinho and maybe Moreno none of the rest have shown me that they can play decent football..

Souness touched on it last night , we just don't have an Infectious player who can flick the switch on the rest of the team..
Suarez WAS an infectious Player for us.. he made everyone else up their game around him..
Stevie G used to be like that , Rushy was like that , Kenny was like that.. even Torres was for one good season.
Balotelli needs to step up to the plate , like now !! otherwise the press/media are gonna start haggling him and he will lose his rag and f**k his Liverpool career up before it's even started properly..
I just don't understand why, with 2 big centre forwards on the pitch for the last qtr of an hour we didn't throw one decent high cross over for Mario & Lambert to stick their heads on..
F**k me , just look at Peter Crouch.. even Victor bloody Moses put an inch perfect cross in to him the other night to win the game with a header.. don't think I ever saw Moses cross a ball whilst he wore a Red shirt..

Been asking the same question for a long time. Wtf we do on the training pitch? Some streching exercise and some beach footvolleyball? Really frustrating looking at those crosses coming in, no quality at all, just whack the ball into the box and hope for the best.

I think all the coaches need to be replaced at the moment and get in some quality coaches. But our 5-6 yards passes are near perfection.

Zero net spend actually means downsizing. They aren't even maintaining the club according to the asset depreciation rules that the taxman allows.

Imagine what we were putting in during the Moores years after allowing for inflation.

Moores was an arrogant pr**k. But we got to 2 European Cup finals with him. The next two sets of jokers are nothing but parasites. Pretending the new income is their work. But in reality, its just down to the changes in football - such as bigger Sky deals, bigger Asian TV deals etc.

We could even have seen the 2 new stands 15 yrs ago. But even Moores thought it would be too little too late. So they decided on a new ground. The new ground was abolished because Fenway failed to get a sponsor (this happens with selling clubs!)

Anyway, all THIS is the reason we ain't very good. Talk of the players and tactics is minutae in comparison. Its like giving someone some aspirin for a tumour.

Which 2 European Cup Finals would they be?

Please provide evidence that the new ground was "abolished" because of the reasons you state.

Zero net spend actually means downsizing. They aren't even maintaining the club according to the asset depreciation rules that the taxman allows.

Imagine what we were putting in during the Moores years after allowing for inflation.

Moores was an arrogant pr**k. But we got to 2 European Cup finals with him. The next two sets of jokers are nothing but parasites. Pretending the new income is their work. But in reality, its just down to the changes in football - such as bigger Sky deals, bigger Asian TV deals etc.

We could even have seen the 2 new stands 15 yrs ago. But even Moores thought it would be too little too late. So they decided on a new ground. The new ground was abolished because Fenway failed to get a sponsor (this happens with selling clubs!)

Anyway, all THIS is the reason we ain't very good. Talk of the players and tactics is minutae in comparison. Its like giving someone some aspirin for a tumour.

Narrowly missing out on the league title must have come as a hell of a shock for you.

Which 2 European Cup Finals would they be?

Please provide evidence that the new ground was "abolished" because of the reasons you state.

are you being serious or pedantic regarding 2005 and 2007 Cl finals.

are you being serious or pedantic regarding 2005 and 2007 Cl finals.

He's being accurate.

He's being accurate.

I still think we have won the European Cup 5 times.

I still think we have won the European Cup 5 times.

We have.

Swab was still being accurate though. Have another look.

Do we also rotate too heavily?

Seven changes from the Newcastle game to Madrid game, and then pretty much the same amount of changes from the Madrid game to the Chelsea game. No continuity whatsoever.

We keep signing players that aren't very good.

We keep signing players that aren't very good.

Or aren't ready.

one thing I do know is that the English premier league is an absolute joke in terms of defending. if we could just become hard to beat for a couple of games we would be in the top 4.

The CL is still up for grabs because everyone else is a sh*t as we are.  Chelsea aside, who we gave a pretty game to are going walk it. But I repeat its a joke.

Lets get Tony Pulis in as defensive coach. Laugh all you want.

Do we also rotate too heavily?

Seven changes from the Newcastle game to Madrid game, and then pretty much the same amount of changes from the Madrid game to the Chelsea game. No continuity whatsoever.

Turns out the manager was resting his best players CR.

Worked a treat.

Or aren't ready.

Yup. Signing for the future.
Not much good if we keep losing players for now.

Yup. Signing for the future.
Not much good if we keep losing players for now.

Absolutely mate.

What needs to change?
THE APATHY needs to. Applauding wholly disinterested, cynical, money thirsty owners for selling world class and buying an assortment of low waged tat.

No one should be remotely surprised we are struggling.
Infact, we should be surprised we did as well as we did last yr.
Write down a list of all the stars we've sold in the past few years. Add in a particular manager... or two.
And write down ... say just the best of whats replaced all that.
If we've lost 8 or 10 world class players and a manager, what have we gained?
I can only think of Sturridge. And he has injury problems, nor is he the easiest striker to find a partner for

We lost Reina, Arbeloa, (arguably Carra and Hyypia) Gerrard, Mascherano, Alonso, Torres( had he have been managed thro injuries), Suarez and Rafa.

Add in 3 or so top quality players, and that could have become one of the great teams of all time.

What do we have instead today?

A so so keeper, rookie fullbacks, a disjointed centre of defence, a Gerrard who has been rather overworked, a sadly injury prone Sturridge, and a midfield that is pretty ordinary.

We sold 3 players alone for 155m (and that was when Alonso @ 30m was a LOT of money).
What did we get in? Joe Allen, Lallana, Barrelofjelly, Borini, Poulsen and a long list of Shitemart style low wage crap.

Even Rodgers is starting to wonder which side his bread is buttered. In May he said he wanted a couple of top class players rather than 8 cheapos. So he promptly buys ... EIGHT CHEAPOS! (Very reminiscent of the "open letter to the fans" when Henry stitched him up over letting Carroll go with no replacement).

And now we're hearing  some blerts say the reason top players don't come here is because Liverpool FC is based in Liverpool...(unlike all of our snr management...).

Hmm, I mean its not like we are a club who've won 5 European Cups or something like that is it...

Obviously the reason we aren't getting decent players is that there is no intention of paying the transfer fee or the wages.
And while Fenway are still getting our money without an ounce of dissent, that will continue.

one thing I do know is that the English premier league is an absolute joke in terms of defending. if we could just become hard to beat for a couple of games we would be in the top 4.

The CL is still up for grabs because everyone else is a sh*t as we are.  Chelsea aside, who we gave a pretty game to are going walk it. But I repeat its a joke.

Lets get Tony Pulis in as defensive coach. Laugh all you want.

The problem is that the pisspoor defence is also a result of the piss poor midfield.
Oh.. and the pisspoor attack.

Pulis, like that tosser Bodgson is good at making crap players play better. So yeah, he COULD improve the defence. But the attack would be even more dire.

What I think we need defensively is one, or even two athletic and intelligent WORLD level midfielders. Thats why we slumped after the Rafa heyday. And Poulsen, Allen, Adam, even Henderson were never gonna be in the same league collectively (or individually) as the Alonso, Gerrard, Masch combo. Lucas was never quite there, and injuries have robbed him of what he has as a Premiership midfielder unfortunately.

Henderson is hyped up as some big thing. Yes he's improved, but watch his composure on the ball. Not in the same league as a real top midfielder. Certainly not a lynchpin.

Even with the midfield sorted, there's a major attack problem to sort. And without an attack, there is no deterrent against opponents bombing fwd. THAT ofcourse is the big difference between this and last yr.

Basically we have to decide between playing like Barca OR like Drogba-era Chelsea. The vast majority of the players in our squad should be playing either one way or the other. Instead what we have is:


Players playing a high block, front foot pressing system:

Moreno / Johnson
Lovren
Toure
Lallana
Sakho
Alllen
Lucas
Henderson
Can
Borini


Players playing a fast, counter-attacking style from a low block:

Mignolet
Skrtel
Manquillo
Coutinho
Sterling
Sturridge
Lambert
Balotelli


We are neither one nor the other and BOTH sets of players are having to completely change what they are doing in order to accomodate Stevie at the heart of the team who is neither defending or creating.

Thus, in order to protect him we need the backline to step up and compress the space around him - Lovren does that but finds that Skrtel is dropping off in the opposite direction thereby resulting in us losing the offside trap and leaving him isolated. Skrtel, of course, has to do this because (a) it's his natural inclination and (b) Mignolet ain't coming off his line so he can't afford to have an attacker running behind him.

Meanwhile, Moreno is halfway up the pitch and Johnson,  in order to cover Stevie, has been moved inside leaving Coutinho to cover the right flank's defensive duties and leaving Balotelli, who likes receiving the ball with his back to goal, holding off defenders, to both press the opposition and make penetrating runs - both of which he has never done at any of the clubs he has played at. the "first team" is pretty much split down the middle between playing two completely different styles.

It's not a coincidence that playing the "second string" against both Swansea and Madridactually resulted in us playing the most cohesive football we have all season despite "inferior" players.

Easy fix....

Get rid of the carpet-bagger owners, fire Brendan, sell all the players.


Get rich Russian oil-tycoon to buy us, hire Mourinho, buy Chelsea's players, plan EPL Title parade.

Simples.

F**k me the quality of some of the posts on here is absolutely atrocious.

Where do some of you people come from and where have you been?

Unbelievable.

We have lost 3 games in a row, all by the odd goal, and all of those goals could have been prevented with better defending.

Sort out that part of our game and the rest will grow from the confidence of clean sheets.

Rafa's 2009 team was built on a solid defence and an awesome attack on the break.

 So he promptly buys ... EIGHT CHEAPOS! (Very reminiscent of the "open letter to the fans" when Henry stitched him up over letting Carroll go with no replacement).

I love how we think £20million players are now cheapos. .

My home team is Motherwell, I get so pissed of Premiership fans moaning about not spending 80 mill on 1 player, ffs.

The well are struggling to compete with league 2 teams in transfer windows.

LFC are a very good position financially, FSG have steadied the ship, the manager is doing his best, the players do thier best most of the time, maybe they are not good enough to be the very top, but hey we all can't have shieks and russion billionares as owners.

We have lost 3 games in a row, all by the odd goal, and all of those goals could have been prevented with better defending.

Sort out that part of our game and the rest will grow from the confidence of clean sheets.

Rafa's 2009 team was built on a solid defence and an awesome attack on the break.

Although you are bang on bp, Im not sure BR knows how to stop leaking goals! I thought a defencive coach would need to come in (steve Clark is kicking his heels around the house!!) but BR has dissmissed that idea!

He is a good young manager who is learning on the job like a rookie player does in his first years of playing. In both circumstances they need to hold thier hands up and admit they need a bit of help when the going gets tough!