The College Dropout

Thats not gonna happen. If he's warming the bench next season he'll be sold at some point in the follwing 18 months. Very difficult to have two class fullbacks vying for the same position. Eventually one loses out and is sold. Happened to Sylvinho & Bridge (both because of Cole lol) at the height of their prowess.

That's a redundant comparison. Neither of them had a player of Ben Arfa's type to leave on the bench. The next manager found it very easy to drop Larry Robert. A man who rarely bothered to pretend to track back.

Might aswell go in for Martinez on that logic. He built the foundation for that club and will play decent football all the way until his team finally get relegated.

Arguably, that's more than Danny Boy has got going for him. Tbf I think he's a better defender than Raylor obviously but he's horrid on the ball. I'd play Simo ahead of Raylor when we are against better wingers but in general I don't want to see him.

Direct football doesn't always have to be s****. With the right players it can be extremely effective and entertaining, especially in England. It's only entertaining when your winning. The worst part of this, is that it doesn't benefit our better players very much. Most of our lads can play a bit.

They'll be in the top 8, if not this season. The next. He can do that with any PL team imo. Won't ever do better than 7th for any side he could realistically manage.

Yep.

I'm scared S'land will overtake us.

The standard of the league has fallen in the last couple years. Mourinho made everyone step their games up.

Wouldn't mind at all except that it would make Ben Arfa a waste of money. Would just love players of that type in our side.

Ruiz has looked good for what i've seen of him and he'll only get better. Imagine him instead of Mr. Potato-Head

Yohan in particular could've easily seen straight red.

Him & Tiote have 9 yellow cars between them right? Not a good look. I keep saying this but i'd like to see him in a more advanced role.

Who was our top 3 players in attempted and completed passes tonight and what was the totals? Seems like he had loads of the ball compared to everyone else.

It says a lot that perhaps Obertan aside, we could probably get away with playing any of our wide players (Simpson, Taylor, Gutierrez and Santon) in any of the four positions. But the age of specialised wingers is over. Football's more and more a cat-and-mouse game. Etc, etc. Bale, Lennon, Valencia, Downing, Robben, Young etc.

I agree it's hard to drop him when he delivers better set pieces than anyone else. Indirect freekicks and corners etc. Would have him ahead of Simo in most league games and dropped altogether when faced with genuine class.

wtf BBC?? we're one frickin point off the "top six sides". gahhhh. The Top 6 in stature is a valid statement to make. Everyone else in the league are basically feeder clubs to the top 6 atm. Only in the top 6 do you stand any chance of your players not being swiped by someone else in the league. Spurs just about kept hold of Modric, same with Gerrard some years earlier. Everyone else will ALWAYS bend with the pressure.

What a player. We don't even create many chances either tbh.

Don't like how Ba always plays 90 minutes tbh. Give the lad a rest before he picks up an injury. At 2-0 with 15 minutes left he should be the first lad off.

It's all BS. He said something that is considered racist in the UK and he is being punished. Simple. He may not be a racist man but you operate fully within the society you live and work in. This applies to everyone. Only at LFC would this turn out the way it has.

Yep it's not just down to Tayls injury. Saylor himself is likely to concede a penalty or a dangerous freekick at any time tbf. It's gotten that litle bit worse since he's been out but the problem is more deep rooted than that.

We seem to do it a lot. I reckon we've conceded more of these than any other team, or atleast a higher percentage of goals conceded the most. Why is it? Team too short? Or something more deep lying? Discuss lads.

We're not shooting enough from the edge of the area, Cabaye was peppering the goal from distance early on, can't even remember his last effort now other than his goal against Wigan, although he has been playing deeper while Tiote's been out. Other than Ba off the post the closest we came to scoring on Saturday was Jonas who has notched several from outside the area for us, which goes to show you don't have to be Laurent Robert to have a dig. That was another reason actually which made Pardew's reasoning for not bringing HBA on on Saturday look even more ridiculous. An effort from range might have been the only way past Swansea's defence and we know how well he can hit them. While I'm not a huge fan of Jermain Defoe as a first XI striker, I love watching how easy it is for him when he picks the ball up 20 yards out, he makes it look like he could stick it in the corner 99 times out of 100 without the keeper getting near it. He doesn't have fantastic technique or a rocket shot but he hits it low, hard and into the corners and that generally gets the job done. In terms of technique, the way he hits a ball is completely wrong, he's like a pinball machine launcher with the plunger pulled all the way out constantly, out of no-where - PING - .. wtf did that come from? He does it damn well though, love it when he scores those goals that make the defence/goalkeeper scratch their heads. WTF am I reading here? Defoe has excellent shooting technique from those positions. The way he gets so much power and accuracy with such little backlift is due to excellent technique.

Enjoyed reading these posts but i'd disagree with this post. In football the elite players aren't always the most elite athletes. Mental and technical abilities don't peak until later in a footballers career. I'd take a 29 year old Zidane & Xavi over the 24 year old counter part. Same with most footballers.

Aye Fletcher's very good. Been on fire when playing this season.