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25 minutes ago, KaKa said:

Please ... for those concerned, the team is not going to fall to pieces because Trippier is no longer in it. Stop it.

 

Besides if he goes I'm pretty sure it will be with a view to bringing players in this window.

Outside of Bruno he's our most significant playmaker.

Take any playmaker out a team and the team will be impacted. I can see both sides of the argument in this case but saying a team that is already out of form won't "fall to pieces" when one of its most influential players are sold is naive at best. 

Was convinced Adama Traore would be world class once his end product came. 

His end product never came. 

Shola Ameobi - a striker who played at the highest level and managed 53 league goals in 312 appearances. 

Wasn't quick, didn't have great technique, wasn't a clinical finisher, couldn't dribble, wasn't particularly strong or have good links up play, wasn't good in the air, not skillful - no discernable quality which warranted the career he had.

I can't explain this career at all. 

3 hours ago, Holmesy said:

And yet Pep, the best manager in world football has continually tweaked, adapted, evolved and has won 5 PLs out of 6 and a treble last season. Pep's approach largely stays the same - front foot, possession-based, lots of technical players but look at peak tika-taka Barca - they don't look the same as current Man City. And when was the last time City had a bad season? They are an anomaly of course, but central to their success is constant evolution around a theme. 

Don't get me wrong, I would love us to have Klopp-levels of success but i'd rather we were a bit wiser during this transitional phase so it's not feast or famine.

I'd say the fact they have a world class 2nd team is central to their success.

I rate Pep as a managerial freak who as you say is able to constantly innovative and implement, but give him a bench that drops in quality to the degree it does for us then I don't think any plan B, C or D he has gives him the same success he's already had.

5 minutes ago, Holmesy said:

Klopp has a deep squad full of top talent. Conditions are rarely non-optimal for Liverpool.

It also worked for Barcelona and it works for City etc. - both deep squads full of top talent.

Conditions are far less likely to be optimal for us, for at least a couple of years at least, so being pragmatic rather than stubborn makes more sense. When we have a squad full of world beaters, i'm all for 100% of plan A.

 

Burnley came up playing a certain style and they'll go down because of their slowness to adapt to the quality and rigours of the PL. The only way they'll stay up is if they adapt and find a different way to get results. We're not Burnley but we're also not Liverpool, we're somewhere between the two right now.  

Klopp had similar injury struggles when he first implemented his style of play and stuck with it.

If you're playing against a team who press as well as Liverpool you need to be both extra sharp on the ball and have lots of movements off it which takes energy and effort. If your energy levels are down then you just won't get through those types of games, which we're finding out now.

We can all agree our midfield had a poor game and have been poor for a while - great - so who comes to replace those who aren't performing at the right level? It was the hallmark of Howe's selctions last year and something referenced numerous times by players such as Willock and Longstaff - you had to keep performing otherwise you'd be swiftly replaced. 

We just do not have that option and haven't had that option for a while. For the past 2 months if you've played poorly, you're still likely to get 90 mins. No manager and team can operate at a high level with that kind of handicap. Ridiculous to assume otherwise. 

I legitimately thought Cheick Tiote could be world class until Pardew tried to convert him to a box to box.

Same with Longstaff when he first broke through, just looked like he had so much time on the ball. 

1 hour ago, TRon said:

 

Has he actually shown that over an extended period of time though? If he had the composure and end product I don't think Chelsea would contemplate letting him go.

If anyone should understand the impact of an unsettled club on a player's performance, it should be us.

12 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

Tonali is meant to have physicality and work rate. So if we still believe in him what’s the point in getting Gallagher?

 

Whole time Almiron and Murphy are our first choice right wingers. But we want Tonali, Longstaff, Gallagher to play RCM.  

I see the work rate in Tonali but my personal observation is I don't think he's as strong in the duel as a Bruno or Joelinton. 

And for what it's worth I'd say Gallagher is more an upgrade on Longstaff than Tonali and he's definitely shown himself to be a key player for us (in the early part of the season in particular).

5 minutes ago, PauloGeordio said:

Think he’s a lot of huff and puff with no end product! If Eddie chose him I’d back him. Where’s this rumour come from or just speculation? 

I think he's been OK at Chelsea but has played about 3 different roles in that team, not an easy thing to do where he'd be a classic number 8 in our team and would do well in that role. He showed and Palace that there is composure in his game too. 

6 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

I think he’s a good player. But he’s similar to what we have. Somewhere between Longstaff and Tonali. 
 

Whole time we need guile. 

I think he's has exactly what those 2 lack. 

The composure in the final 3rd that would make Longstaff a top top player and arguably the physicality and work rate off the ball that perhaps Tonali lacks from what little I've seen. 

Just me who thinks Gallagher would be an excellent signing for us then.

We're always playing down our positions. It's par for the course tbf.

They might bring summer business forward but I dont actually think we're that limited, especially with the new commercial deals in place.

Big fan of Philips. Would give us some much needed positional discipline in the centre of midfield but also give us some technical quality too. 

I still would like to see Bruno allowed a little more freedom in the final 3rd and Philips would give us that option. 

I don't know which one of you had the foresight to know that we'd have the below injured or out on near enough the same period of time and should have recruited accordingly but whoever you are, you're wasted on us simpletons at NO. 

Pope

Burn

Targett

Botman

Longstaff

Joelinton

Willock

Wilson/Isak

Barnes

Murphy

Anderson

Tonali

Out of interest, to those who think we are paying for less than ideal recruitment; what or which positions could we realistically have recruited that would have negated the impact of the above? 

Second question would be if we started the season with the available squad we had now, then where do you think we would/should be? 

5 minutes ago, Ronaldo said:

No team with any ambition has ever given a manager a free hit for 2 years 

Didn't Arteta finish 8th twice?

EDIT: yes.

9 minutes ago, Gallowgate Toon said:

It's the most physically intense league in the world. No team is winning without being at 90% physically, regardless of tactical approach.

There's not too many teams who press like we do as well. That requires even more physical effort.

I still can't peel myself away from the beleif that these injuries are front and centre as the reason we're playing the way we are. 

There's certainly questions to be asked about selction and lack of tactical flexibility at times but when your game is built primarily upon intensity and you can't maintain that due to lack of options off the bench then something will give.

Our form will not fully recover until we have people who can come off the bench and help maintain that intensity for the full 90 minutes.

Said it earlier in the thread but it's funny how no one's now complaining about Howe making almost the same subs at bang on the 60 minute mark because he hasn't had the luxury to do so and our performances are suffering as a result. 

4 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

You’re being sensitive. I’ve not said he’s a bad manager or anything like that. 

I mean, I'm very much  not being sensitive, odd characterisation of my question tbh. 

So far I've read you say "I can see how Howe got Bournemouth relegated" and how you can see how he's "streaky" based on a ludicrously small samples of poor admittedly poor performance.

I just think they're really shite opinions tbh. We all have them sometimes, some more than others though?

8 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

The 1 in 9 away games. Having not gone to any of the toughest away grounds bar Etihad. 

You're characterising Howe as 'streaky' based on 9 away games in an unprecedented injury hit season.

Seems rational. 

7 minutes ago, OverThere said:

The one where we are very good at home and shit away. We could get 50 points at home and 10-15 away.

Oh! So 9 games out of nearly 100. 

Got it?

6 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

He was the manager for the entire season Bournemouth were relegated. That was his squad in full. If it was another manager - we would say that manager relegated the team. 
 

I don’t put a whole lot of stock in that. As others have said. He took them all the way up the football pyramid playing good football too. How can such a talented manager get relegated from the PL with a side that had been up for 2 or 3 seasons? I can see how with a little bad luck it could spiral.  That Bournemouth fan said he was ‘streaky’ and i see it. There’s a fair amount of hard running and ‘sticking in there’ when the going is tough in Howe-ball that works when the chips are up, but won’t work when the chips are down.  

We've had champions league form since January 2021 and are currently 7 points adrift of CL this year round.

What 'streak' are you exactly seeing that others aren't? 

5 minutes ago, SiLvOR said:

Was gonna say something similar - which manager would fare considerably better in this situation? Impossible to say, obviously, but I think Eddie can absolutely turn this around. The tactical shift today will hopefully be something we work on and push more for our away games. Genuinely think that once players like Barnes and Willock are back we will see a marked improvement away from home.

 

I don't actually think there's much to turn round tbh.

Our success has been almost entirely down to our intensity and ability to win the ball in the opponent's half. When you lose an entire team of players to injuries then fatigue will 100% cause that intensity to drop off, affording the opposition more time and space in possession.

Not being able to keep that intensity up by virtue of not having the depth in key positions is ultimately what is costing us. Players like Almiron, Gordon, Bruno, and even Isak (until recently) have been playing none stop for the best part of 2 months, some through injury. 

Does no one notice how no one's now not complaining about Howe making the substitutions at the 60 minute mark? 

Anderson, Joelinton, Willock, Murphy and Tonali are big big misses in key areas. 

We're certainly short of confidence at the moment at not playing anywhere near the standards we've been blessed with the past 2 years but there's not a single atom of me that sees this as any of Howe's doing.

No club could plan for the sheer number of injuries we've had this year and no club could sustain the quality of football we've played historically with those injuries. 

We have a really big January window coming up.