The College Dropout

The problem with our high line is that we don't press the opposition. If you don't press the player on the ball, Nolan can gather enough momentum to put M'Biwa in trouble from a simple ball over the top.

One of his s**** signings was Andy Carroll. How did he fit into Liverpool's carpet football plan? That was the thing. Dalglish never seemed to actually have a long-term goal he was consistently working towards. Thought it was quite obvious what he was trying to do by buying Downing and Carroll (them 2 at least). Enrique was a good buy too. That's not a strategy, it's a tactic. Dalglish football was aimless and inconsistent but never roundly turgid. Get it down and play was the broad aim. Not carpet stuff but better than Pardew, Allardyce and Moyes imo.

What? He was crap imo. One paced.

A draw.

Aye. "What will be, will be" refereeing. Hummells handball he didn't see.

And if he doesn't see, he doesn't give it. Miles better than whoever officiated the Chelsea SF last week.

Webb tends to be very lenient on big matches. Doesn't want to make any massive decisions, which can lead to De Jong/Alonso kick type situations. It's not the worst approach. Very easy for the Madrid fans to force freekicks and penalties everywhere.

In terms of performance. That period when we had Cisse on fire, Ba playing well and HBA on fire was the only period we played very well. That's 2 months. The rest of the time we where solid in defence and Ba/Taylor/Cabye knicked us goals. 80% of last season was 4-4-2. Tiote/Cabaye sitting deepish. Wingers. We managed a FIFTEEN clean sheets. Cisse/Ba managed 30 goals between em. Pardew's tried and failed to get us solid again whilst ignoring us going forward. You can't tell me, overall we played excellent football last season. Organised. Spirited. Worked hard, with our quality players showing up when it mattered.

Benzema been so poor, again.

West Brom away we scored most of our goals on the counter. Same thing with Stoke. We attacked when we could but it was built on defending first and taking our chances. Same thing with Man Utd. at home. Just look at the goals we scored. A Ba goal from a flick-on, a 35-yard freekick and an OG. Pardew hasn't changed his stance between this year and last. The difference are the results. Pardew is a manager who likes to win by fine margins. We win based on what we do without the ball. So when you string together a few 1-0's, 2-1's in 5 matches the confidence flows that you can do that and we did it last year. Keep it steady, go ahead and have the confidence to see it out or score another on the break. But that's the fine margin. We never won from behind last year because Plan A, B, C involve a clean sheet or atleast being equal/ Even though we finished 5th, we ended on GD of +5. We beat a few sides comfortably 3-0 but we didn't score 4's, 5's and 6's like a side in 5th might do to a few sides in a season. This year, the fine line has swung in the opposite direction. Can't hold on to our leads. The team has no confidence it can do it and we aren't set-up to score and impose. You can see he's STILL trying to recreate last season's start by being defensive and hoping to nick a goal. That's how we beat Fulham & Stoke. But it's a limited startegy that simply isn't working and cannot work long-term.

At one point in time. Michael Essien was arguably the best midfielder in the PL at a team when the PL had brilliant CM's across the old Top 4. Now he's a weak link playing RB, he shouldn't be playing in a CL SF.

Dortmund look shook.

Delusions of grandeur here like. The only place our players' would get ahead are their areas of weakness. That's RB - maybe. Up top - maybe. HBA would get into their side fully fit. Swapping with Bale during games. Maybe Cabaye for sandro. Krul's excellent, so is Lloris though. Lloris wins on distribution.

Building with cheap youth on low wages and their attacking play. I see those similarities between Klopp and Lambert.

Villa are not getting relegated.

If we don't beat QPR we will go down and deservedly so.

Our lads simply lacked heart.

Ferdinand has been superb. Best Premiership defender in the last decade.

Team of the year is pretty spot on IMO.

£15m and i'll carry him to Dortmund on my back.

The amount of times the Chelsea midfielders shoot instead of passing to Ba

Ideally i'd like a Laudrup style appointment. De Boer perhaps? I know he didn't want to even talk about the Liverpool job.

Oxlade-Chamberlain was terrible when he came on like.

Agreed.

Sagna needs to be subbed asap.