Parky

Yeah but we just don't have the players for a reliable and penetrative 4231. It turns into a 451 first sign of trouble. Couple this with the lack of leadership and intelligence on the pitch and you have a recipe for disaster. We don't have the really solid DM and Winj is finding it hard to penetrate the second line (go past the others covering mf)...Which it seems the plan is when they have the odd chance to make it work. Plus it looks like we have the wrong strikers for this, neither are mobile or have much real pace.

One thing I will say is that rejigging a side to start playing more from the back takes time (maybe that's where the 10 games comes from) and nearly always unless you are Rodgers and flip flop it produces results in the long term. This probably sounds hyper optimistic but I have seen fleeting signs of players trying to do things differently from the Pardew punts and pressing from the bad old days.... Quite a few times one of our CD's has brought the ball all the way past the half way line and played into rotating midfielders or wide to winger in space... It might not have time to work as we're all aware as games tick by and as others have mentioned McC is somewhat hamstrung by a few disenchanted players which must the nightmare of every manager. I'm not defending his other blunders but there seems to be some method to it all. Poor fucker he must really be trying to drum it into them.

Some fine reading the past few pages.

Thauvin although early days looks like a vanity purchase. His stats are very average 1.2 in 8 goals and 1.1 in 8 assists in the easier French league. Looks like another one got in not as a finished article or close to but one that can be profited on at some point. I do like the fact that he tries to take players on and it will take a couple of months to pick up the pace of the league....Honestly not sure if he's athletic enough or has that burst of pace to do real damage. Hope he does obviously.

Sissoko should be the lone striker. Mobile, pacey and decent finish. As soon as he gets the ball everyone in the vicinity has to run around him for the 2nd phase. I can't think of anything else.

Would cost about 25m in pay offs and heavy money for Klopp. They won't sanction it. My guess is they will give him more money at Xmas which he will spend on Spanish players of doubtful pedigree.

You've got about 70m worth of bad buys out on loan, the club is now at the heart of a cyclone of confusion. He looks ready to go but won't resign.

You can only really play one up top if you have a gaggle of pacey and talented AM/F's pushing on. We haven't.

Fantasy land.

5 yeas past his sell buy date, I guess him and supermarkets have a lot in common. He'll end up living in a bus shelter with the rabbit on a string begging for coin.

It's like at a party where there is always a bad room, you feel it as soon as you go in.

Too many lightweight midfielders who can't get a grip in the engine room. I'd like to put it all down to the manager, but we really could do with some height and presence down the spine of the side. Yup.

Winjambum will be alright. Needs another 5/6 games.

Let loose the Wullie!

They've got the things we haven't..Pace, power, high tempo and a Machiavelli of a manager. We're mostly skinny white boys with hot birds.

Team really lacks brains. Not one player out there reading the game or communicating ideas.

Too defensive and conservative so far.

We haven't really been a team that is a goal threat for quite some time now and hence nicked a few wins here and there by chance or buckling down to long periods without possession...Cisse can't play as a lone striker and we don't seem to have the players who can join up with him quickly although Winjambum looked like he might be able to do that and Sissoko has done it irregularly in the past. Think we have to accept that this is a project in its very early days and Win and Thauvin will take a few months to get upto pace of what is a very fast and physical league packed with very fit high octane players....Not something they have faced in France and Holland. The biggest revelation is that we really lack a 'door opener' a Hatem type and the final phase is too slow and by the book so mostly easily read and average..Win could become more of a ball player but he seems very similar to Sissoko in many ways with bursts of pace and athleticism but maybe not an eye for the killer pass...We don't really have someone who looks up in posesssion...Colback and Anita are steady and goodish but have very little impact on games bar being tidy and getting themselves around the park...All in all we're a very nervous reactive side that can't yet see how to control phases of play for a few minutes here and there...I'm not fooled by all this passing it around deep in our half stuff. The am/f/wide either have to come narrow or the one on the alternative side of the pitch to where the ball is coming from has to get into the box with one other and we have to do that regularly...There simply has to be more threat on goal from somewhere. Nobody seems to know how to break a side down...

Not sure what the idea is here...

Firmino looks absolute shite.

Gay for Putin.

Marcial looks no different to Wellbeck.

Needed a mohican early doors.

Thought DeGea was blind.