Are you suggesting that is fine for a club like Liverpool? That is nowhere near an acceptable standard and just goes to prove my point a few days ago whereby fans have come to accept mediocre as the order of the day at Liverpool FC.
I'm not suggesting anything. I'm posting what actually happened. However, I don't consider winning the second most important domestic cup as accepting mediocrity. A cup is a cup. We haven't won very many in the past 10 years, so we'll take what we get, thank you.
That's faltering at the final hurdle.
It is what it is. You said it happened "again" when it didn't. Instead it was nearest we've come to winning it in 25 years. But just getting that far was an achievement in itself considering what we were up against. That's not mediocrity either, that's the reality of where we stood at the time.
That's because they also have some better players. Vardy is a better striker than Benteke and is proven it for fun. Mahrez is a better player than all of our creative players other than Coutinho. As it currently stands, in form, he is better than Coutinho. They are not B grade fodder players at all. They are better players than what we have, because whilst we showed a complete lack of ambition bringing in a domestic level manager and domestic level overrated English players, Leicester City have gone out and bagged a credible Ranieri and talent on the continent. Lets stop accepting this mediocre nonsense and start accepting that other clubs who will not accept mediocre are surpassing us because we are allowing them to do so.
When the tough gets going, there is no fight, and that's because this is a side of domestic level players built by Rodgers. Other clubs have gone out and got the true talent abroad whilst we have splashed a ridiculous amount of domestic B grade fodder. As for leaders, yes there's none. That's because all of the players who had any ounce of fight in them have either retired, sold or were surplus to requirements by that genius called Rodgers. You can defend Rodgers all you like but the reality is we now have a team with no spine in it because Carragher retired, Agger was sold and not replaced, Gerrard was deemed surplus to requirements and Suarez sold and replaced with a player who is about as far away from Suarez in styles as possible.
Vardy had his chance recently to show Benteke how much of a better player he was. He was hauled off while Benteke scored the winner. Why are we having this discussion?
Mahrez made no impact either, and Leicester haven't scored in 3 games. Looks like the honeymoon there is over.
There's been a lack of fight and leadership here for a long time, even when Carragher and Gerrard were around. The kind of players that want the ball when we're coasting, suddenly look like amateurs when the going gets tough. And at Upton Park, the tough often gets going.
The reality is that Balotelli, when on the pitch, was the designated penalty kick taker. Rodgers himself even admitted that. Henderson was in the wrong for trying to spot up the kick in the first place.
Who takes spot kicks is irrelevant. This is an issue of leadership. And a captain needs to be a natural, authoritative, strong leader where his word is law, not be pushed around and disrespected by his own teammates. If they see him as weak, they'll treat him as weak. He came across in the incident as someone who isn't up to the job. And he isn't. Fortunately for him, few of them are.
Meanwhile on a side note, regardless who is in charge, playing him against Sunderland is simply idiotic imo as I don't think his heart is in it. He's still an active fan of the club after all, who is known to still go to their games. Put it this way, he wasn't applauded off the pitch by their fans this week for nothing.
Thankfully, despite Jürgen's by now daily moaning of how busy our schedule is, the next game is just around the corner. That's how it is in England, one game after another this time of year. Perfect for filing results like this one as a footnote in the season.
