05 Apr 2023 09:40:16
This season has been tough to watch for so many reasons. Everything has felt knee jerk to me.

Klopp said we didn't need a midfielder and the panicked last minute and signed Arthur. Probably the worst signing ever purely on footballing reasons and not finances. 13 minutes in the senior team is a shambles.

Season starts and its immediately obvious we've changed tactics to a more controlled possession based approach. A few rocky results and it was back to the panic stations. We started trying to press again having clearly not prepared for that in pre-season and now we're playing some weird hybrid of possession and pressing which is neither here nor there. The team is just perpetually in limbo and you have players like Trent and Robbo getting caught in no mans land because they don't know whether to press or drop off. It's carnage.

Then in January we're crying out for a midfielder but a player we like is suddenly available so it's back to panic stations and we sign Gakpo (who we didn't really need until Bobby/ Jota leave) so we don't miss out on him. We had a midfield target in Amrabat who was another panic attack because he had a good world cup, but then balls up the deal somehow and end up with nothing but a left winger we didn't really need.

Bajcetic has a few good games though. Boom. We're saved. So they panic again and over play an 18 year old kid who was constantly tiring or cramping up late in games (showing general signs he was struggling and wasn't quite ready to be a regular) . But we were in panic mode so we pushed his body to the brink and now he's injured and it could severely damage his progression as a player.

The common denominator here is the backroom staff. Klopp, Pep, Ward etc. It's not been good enough. It feels like we're up the proverbial creek without a paddle and the 3 of them are all paddling by hand in different directions, whilst the players drill holes in the boat.

Thank god it's only 10 more games until we can hit reset. A new DOF, freshen up the squad with at least 5 new players, cut adrift the fringe players we don't need on high wages, and sort the tactics out in pre-season. I want to believe in Klopp and his team again, but we all need to see something worth believing in.

1.) 05 Apr 2023
05 Apr 2023 10:34:06
A lot of good points there mk. whatever management have done this season they have got it completely wrong, we haven't looked right from 1st 20mins against Fulham in 1st game of season.
In saying thatI don't think u have touched on no.1 reason for state we in which is lack of investment in team. Reality is we spend like a mid-lower table team, which our net spend shows. It takes us 10 transfer windows to do what our rivals do in 2. No gurantee spending leads to success but u can gurantee u won't sustain any success without spending heavily like your competitors do.

2.) 05 Apr 2023
05 Apr 2023 10:38:35
Why do you need a preparation for pressing when that is how we have been playing form years? We don’t have the physicality to play the press. Our players especially in midfield has been ran to grounds and they don’t have the legs!

{Ed001's Note - such nonsense. They have not done anything like enough to have worn themselves out. They are simply not training hard enough.}

3.) 05 Apr 2023
05 Apr 2023 10:22:41
My biggest gripe is nothing has been changed. neither the players, nor the style.
What could you possibly learn from bringing James Milner/ Ox/ Keita on for the last 10-20 mins? It would be much better to give those minutes to Carvalho and Jones. And it's not like there's any difference in the performance.
Henderson is so poor these days that I feel sad for him. He's a good player, but even at his best he was not one to control games. Right now, he's just a huge liability. Fabinho just looks slow to everything. Jones at least showed composure, but idk why he never passes forward, or dribbles for the senior team. He does that so well for the youth sides. Thiago is the only one who can actually play, but he's often injured. Elliot is good technically and with cute passes etc., but not someone who can do the defensive work yet. Carvalho has great technical ability, but he's never given the chance. Ox is the only one who can drive with the ball, but he's leaving anyway. Let's not talk about Keita and Arthur. Having a purely workman like midfield was great when you had Trent in prime form. But now neither is he anywhere close to his best, nor is this midfield giving him enough protection to do his bit.
And man, how was Joao Felix turning our CBs yesterday. Not a good watch. Just makes me miss prime VVD so much.
As for the attack, Salah can't beat a man most days now. Jota, idk, what he adds right now without the goals. And Nunez is crowded out everytime he gets the ball, because every team knows he is our only attacking threat. Can't wait for Diaz's return to push Nunez back to the centre, though it would be unfair to expect him to hit peak form so soon.
But a lot of our attacking problems will be solved once we can actually start controlling games, and force the opposition midfield to open gaps. Right now, there's absolutely zero control. We need to somehow get Trent/ Thiago back to playing well, or just playing for that matter.

4.) 05 Apr 2023
05 Apr 2023 10:52:18
Dragons, pressing properly and effectively requires a lot of preparation in pre-season both in terms of conditioning and tactics. You can see it wasn't the plan this season and we're caught in 2 minds every week trying to press when the teams just not been coached to do it.

I do take Diggers point though. Investment to replace the aging and injury prone players has been missing and it's gone stale.

5.) 05 Apr 2023
05 Apr 2023 11:55:10
At this point it's a multitude of factors. It all started with the shift in tactics and was exacerbated by neglecting the midfield recruitment. Add to that the trauma of missing out on the big two at the very last moment last season, the memory of the 20/ 21 injury season, we have this hot mess on our hands.

The cuts made in the summer need to be deep - across the squad AND the backroom staff.