Just pulled this from another cracking post Jon and it really does sum us up.
You couldn't really highlight it more when we have Raheem Sterling and Markovic playing as wing-backs. Their talent wasted in positions that will only serve to frustrate and underwhelm both fan and player alike. It's been a recurring theme throughout Brendan's tenure that players are played out of position. Now the question would be, is it his fault through not getting the players he wants? I believe the apologists would attempt to sell that story but it doesn't wash for a second, he's also had plenty of what he did want and he's failed to fit them into a coherent unit.
Can for example, the German national coach let slip that Brendan wants to play him in Gerrard's role as the deep lying play maker, yet when he's figured this season he's actually played more as a right sided midfielder. Last season he was a CB or RB, this lad is a talent but we're developing him with no long term plan in mind he's just shoved in wherever there's room or crisis it seems.
That's why it frustrates me to see the likes of Markovic go out on loan, he was one of Europe's absolute best but I feel his confidence is destroyed and that's thanks to being managed by Brendan. Sure he may not have been good enough in the end but his management sure as hell provided him with no platform to showcase his talents and when you're constantly subbed off at half-time is it any wonder you fail to produce when asked?
Gomez a CB or RB comes into our team as a LB, the list goes on and frankly all I see in our team now is a group of players who don't bring out the best in each other, no leadership, very little top quality and far too many mistakes waiting to happen. I've said it a few times now but I'd gladly trade this squad for the one Brendan inherited:
Reina
Johnson Skrtel Agger Enrique
Lucas
Henderson Gerrard
Kuyt Rodriguez
Suarez
That team could almost win the league in my opinion (cue people ripping into Kenny on the back of that comment), where ours I believe are 5th - 8th place at best. West Ham may have been only one game but the performances in all 4 have finished me completely with Brendan and I really do hope we come to our senses sooner rather than later.
Good post Luke
The more I think and look at the transfers under Rodgers/FSG I struggle to see the sense in so many of them.
Brendan doesn't seem to have a preferred formation that he is buying for, he has played versions of 4-3-3' 4-2-3-1, 3-5-2, 3-4-2-1, 4-4-2, 3-4-1-2... It's baffeling to me let alone a strategy to buy to.
Looking at the players that have been brought in during the last 3 years, discounting for the most part youth signings and the keepers.
Borini
Allen
Assisi
Sabin
Sturridge
Coutinho
Alberto
Ings
Milner
Clyne
Firmino
Be take
Aspas
Toure
Cissokho
Sakho
Lambert
Lallana
Can
Markovic
Lovren
Origi
Manquillo
Moreno
Balotelli
Gomez
That's a lost for 3 years, not a decade or something.. The lack of joined up thinking in the strategy is frightening, some signed by one man, some signed by others, all the time no real system to fit them into.
I'd think the following have suffered due to no real ideal system to fit them into.
Allen
Sahin
Lambert
Lallana
Can
Markovic
Balotelli
Are they good players? Yes all of them are but we haven't brought any of them in my opinion to fill a role in a specific system and they suffer for that.
Some others
Assaidi
Borini
Aspas
Ings
Toure
Not the best players of course, but no team is made up of superstars and had we been playing a set system and these were signed with ideas of roles they can fill within that to do a job for the squad and system they wouldn't have utterly flopped
The likes of Firmino, Benteke etc could go the same way this season as currently we are repeating the same mistakes with them.
Some of the obvious wastes of money I can't understand either.. The Fact we spend nearly 40m on two CBS is an utter waste, even if Brendan didn't ideally target Sakho, at 18m and a cb of his talent he should be able to work with him and improve that situation, get him and Skrtel settled and have Toure and another youngster of whom we have plenty to fill in around them, get them settled as a pair.. Why go out and then spend another 20m on another cb which by default fucks up the spending of the 18m on the previous one when you could have spent that elsewhere, either on wages or a better option/upgrade on a different incomer.
I can't believe some of the players who have come in with seemingly no plan on how to use them, the turnover of the squad in recent years has been criminal.
Just a separate point on the one you made on Gomez, I know I've been absent recently but I have thought all season using him at Left Back isn't a long term solution, not even a short term one.. He's a good lad, I'm impressed but it was clear it wouldn't take long for good managers at this level to look at him and target his side, a right footed cb playing at lb where he constantly has to check his feet and come inside.. It's not really fair on him. He had played what 20 first team games in the championship never in that position and we think that he won't get targeted? Or that the obvious way he can't overlap wide left and we filter everything through Clyne wide right won't become easy to stop? When it's the only outlet