The College Dropout

It's different players almost every week though.

Number one cause of Liverpool's defence woe is the manager. Lovren's not a terrible player but he's a shell of himself. No confidence in what he's doing.

Liverpool have invested too much in this style of play to get Rafa in now I hope.

Aye Firminho doesn't have much fret. Difficult to find a striker with great all-round game and gets goals.

Who played the free hit and took out Otamendi for Valencia and Salah for Sterling........ me! Also took out Lukaku for Jesus ffs.

He's developed into such a great all round centre forward mind. Would be amazed if either Real or Barca aren't in for him in the next year. Aye. His link up has been beautiful. If he had some pace... He's deceptively quick IMO Quick in the mind. But in a straight leg race he's not the quickest at all.

Milner's legs have gone. Left for dead.

He's developed into such a great all round centre forward mind. Would be amazed if either Real or Barca aren't in for him in the next year. Aye. His link up has been beautiful. If he had some pace...

Spurs are so fucking good. Crying shame if they don't win at least an FA Cup this year.

Townsend has looked poor in general play for Palace most of the time he's been there. Had a few good games but hasn't been consistent there at all. Hasn't always started either. It's not working out for him there so far. Hasn't found the form he did under Rafa.

Aye. Sigurddson is similar, he's not as creative on the ball as his stats would suggest. But he's top, top quality from set-pieces. Ritchie is currently on pace for 13+ assists for the season. I don't see this happening under any other manager nor do I expect it to continue at this rate. Last season there were teams of genuine low-quality. Boro and Sunderland. This time I think there's a more even spread of quality in the league. Overall we are a team that really believes in "the project". Super motivated. Confident. Well organised. Fairly big team. Quality on dead-balls. We compete physically and mentally. We can keep it tight, CB's rarely exposed and there's belief we can score goals. With another manager at the helm a lot of that would disappear. It's a team built by Rafa for mid-level Rafa ball. Rafa is the main reason why I don't think we'll ever go 4 or 5 defeats in a row or prolonged periods of terrible form. Which will give us a good level of confidence.

First time hearing Ozil speak. Has a much more monotone German accent than I was expecting.

In a terrible space mentally. Performing poorly from day 1. Whatever plan he had in the summer hasn't worked. And I think the players don't believe in him anymore and he is probably spinning mentally himself. Bought loads in the summer, half of them can't even get in the team. The others haven't impressed so he's brought in kids. I've always thought of Koeman as a very functional manager. 4-2-3-1. Well organised. So this is a total mess.

This is rank though. Kinnear, Pardew, Carver, McClaren rank. Very much in that image.

This is rank though. Kinnear, Pardew, Carver, McClaren rank.

I don't think that's always the case. But aye, for someone like Benitez it took a little while. If he had the same amount of games as Allardyce did, with a transfer window we would've stayed up comfortably i'm certain. Heck, if we had brought him in after the Chelsea game we would've stayed up.

I'm genuinely surprised anyone believes this. The lad pretty much never fails to prevent crosses coming into the box. The lad often lets off the ball runners swan past him. While tidy on the ball, he's no more likely to create a chance with the ball at his feet.

Kenwright might let Koeman ride it out.

Yedlin did similar and got away with it

I totally disagree like. There aren't really a set number of teams from 10th downwards tbf, which is kind of the point. Anyone outside of the top 6 bar Watford and arguably Burnley are all about the same for one reason or another, but I'd argue that our reason is almost entirely Rafa. In terms of squad quality we'd be right down there imo and I think with any other non-top 6 manager we'd be that stand out team that looks like a cert for relegation. Agreed. Our defence is better than the sum of its parts. I put most of that down to Rafa and the coaching staff. I do feel like we would be exposed and concede far more under most other managers. I like the majority of our back four, but I don’t think any are high quality. Not yet, at least. Going forward. I think we are pretty toothless and there are next to no goals in the team. We lack pace and creativity in the final third and rarely look threatening. Individually, I don’t look at any of our attacking players and think we’re lucky to have them and they’ll be off to a bigger club soon enough. Whereas in recent years, that has actually been the case. I really do think on the whole, that this squad is made up of Championship/low end Prem players, bar a few exceptions. Throw in the fact that even ignoring the quality of the players. We are short in 2-3 positions. Then I really do think we’d be in a right scrap without Rafa. Agreed. Just look at Everton man. We aren't any better than these man for man. They also don't have much going forward. But we have Rafa and they don't. Over 38 games Rafa keeps up both of our relegation teams in recent years. Comfortably at that. 12 maybe or so PL managers this season would relegate this bunch.

The quality of this squad is bottom 6-8. far from clearly better than the bottom 6. Quality wise we are no better than Palace - which is why our game was so close. Don't think Palace are a certainty to go down. Reckon they'll still be in with a shout of staying up with 2 or so games to go and will actually stay up. They're not cut adrift just yet. And I could see them winning 4 or 5 on the spin at some point.

Everton been awful everytime i've seen em. Lucky to be only losing 2-1.

Injuries. Wanting to leave. Giroud.

Everton letting Arsenal do what they like. 1 thing about Arsenal is they lack discipline. If you're disciplined you can expose their lack of it. Instead they're trying to go toe-to-toe in this open, fluid money which they aren't suited too.

The lad is pap. Not sure he's any better than wor Shelvey. He can pass it some but that's it.