Viana

Gazzaschicken:

Jesus. £50m feels a lot, but he also stacks up quite similarly to Anthony Gordon in terms of goal return and skillset. If it's £50m in guaranteed money that's a rough deal though.

Yep. I like him a lot. Good bloke, highly intelligent, but they need mobility to kill transitions. Amrabat looked like that guy but they don’t seem interested. I don’t know who does their recruitment (one for @Froggy to answer) but their moves don’t appear to have much joined up thinking. It’s very odd to me.

Man Utd don’t need Hojbjerg.

We basically battered Villa then seemed meek against a genuine threat. If they return to even just the same speed and level as against Villa - regardless of result - I’ll be happy.

I can’t find the alleged footage anywhere?

Reading posts here from those in attendance it didn't sound like the TV did things a disservice. The last competitive game I was at was against Man Utd, Christmas 2021. It was bouncing from start to finish. Part of me feels like we need to get back to that mindset. It will sound twee, but when the stadium and the players are in unison it's one of the toughest places to go. It's all well and good waving flags before kick off, and for big Champions League games, but watching the games I've felt sometimes we dip off when it goes a bit quiet. Sometimes we have to give them a gee up when heads drop or shoulders slump. That's what it means to be the 12th man. We shouldn't be waiting for them. We were often talked about as being a great set of fans when stuff was going poorly, it should be even easier now.

It's definitely an issue, I'd want more clean sheets, but the truth is we play an aggressive style that relies heavily on the back four winning their individual battles over being a compact unit. For the most part they do a good job of limiting chances and ultimately goals conceded. With all that said, it does concern me how little we have in the way of recovery pace. That was all Darwin Nunez had today if we're being frank. He was able to run in behind twice. Once he got a lucky bounce, and the second time Burn wasn't able to keep up with him. Lewis Hall and Livramento will offer us a different profile at fullback, someone that can dribble and cross and be a genuine threat with recovery pace, but I do worry a bit for Schar. He's great at a lot of things, but his game has never been about physical prowess. It's why I think we likely go in for a CB on loan before the window shuts.

It did surprise me we didn’t see any of the one twos we’d heard so much about.

It is hard to see what the plan is with KLD outside of sign young players and hope it goes well. I'm not sure how achievable it is to just hang about the Championship either given how competitive it is. It's early doors still but Bellingham is looking like the jewel in the crown, so it'll be interesting to see if he keeps this up in 12-18 months time.

But he did score though mate I know the point you're making, but in the Premier League, especially at the top level, it's not about what might have happened. I love Miggy, but Gordon's on a goal and an assist and overall has been involved in a lot of best moments in these first few games. We're moving away from the days of Ashley whereby the squad was small and we had to embrace the lads faults because it was all about stopping up. We've got huge aspirations and every place higher in the league earns us more dosh and opens up more opportunities for the club. It's not like say Wilson where he's begging Barnes to play him in. Miggy had three big chances. One was an outrageous save, but the other two have to be seen as poor finishes in the cold light of day.

We're going for a CB if anyone I think. Losing Botman today was a reminder of how vital he is (first goal aside lol). Edit: Just watched a highlight reel of him and christ on a bike if he doesn't feel like someone describing Saint-Maximin with a dash less flair.

Yeah, a bit like our loss there last year it's a huge test for them now. They have to come back and show they've got character, potentially without Botman there.

I'll give you that. Allison, Robertson are very good and Trent's great on the ball, but still, the rest are in that upper echelon of players relative to the league whereby mistakes are few and far between. I also don't want this to get lost in the mire - we created a lot of chances we just didn't take.

We have to be a bit careful here. That's an elite Liverpool squad that just dropped 120m on midfielders. They brought on a 80million striker without blinking. I don't know how often we'll face that kind of quality sitting off us and asking us to break them down. Throw in the fact Allison bailed them out and we fluffed some good half chances. It's a perfect storm of events that contributed to this defeat. We can still make changed to the midfield so Bruno is slightly further up. If anything I think Howe has geared our transfers so that we have versatility and different options in different positions. We don't have the financial flexibility to buy specialists like James Maddison.

This was a different game though. Even before the red card Liverpool sat off us and wanted us to play. That's a different kind of game to say Man Utd or Spurs who tried to out fight us and got steamrolled. I think I'd agree that Barnes feels like an accessory to his style right now, but Tonali feels like a central building block that is adaptable enough to play in several styles. The same is true of Gordon. I think it's difficult to justify anything but ample opportunity for Eddie to impart his preference on the squad while we build, but it's interesting to see your interpretation of the deals, as I believe a lot of the major signings are not one style players but rather promising players that can be moulded if a new coach comes in 2-3 years down the line.

Hmm, it's an interesting discussion to have, I just don't know if I can see the other side of the argument. They tried for a more 'pedigreed' option in Unai Emery and were rejected. I don't remember who else was available at that time, but you'd have to consider the first 18 months of Howe's tenure an success. In terms of transfers, it would appear from the limited exposure on All or Nothing, that deals require full alignment from the recruitment team, and I can't think of any that have been total failures (Wood is probably the worst, but was a desperate, temporary, solution). That leads us into the topic of his style. He wanted us to bridge the gap as quickly as possible and has clearly (if somewhat ironically) seen a blueprint in what Liverpool did under Klopp. No system is infallible, and Howe's next obstacle showed itself today - how do we break through teams that sit deep. We'll need to figure that out and we'll need to do it promptly.

The good thing is Eddie seems pretty resilient. Go back to his methods and figure it out. Coaching is a journey after all.

Worth noting, and I can only speak personally, a lot of the frustration here is because it's Liverpool. A more sanctimonious bunch of cry arses you couldn't wish to meet, and we've somehow gifted them three points. Makes Turkey Teeth look like a genius and Darwin Nunez like he's not a horse in an ice rink.

It's been a tough start to the season, but we should be on six points here. My only concern early on is that I felt like against City and Liverpool, we let a wounded animal regain composure and ultimately beat us. I'm not quite seeing that same 'intensity is our identity' stuff. It's a long season, it's an even longer project, so we'll just have to see.

He was something special today. Justified the big billing he got in the Amazon doc. Trent used one of this three wishes to get him taken off because he made him look like a mannequin.

Honestly, think he was put in a tactical quagmire today. You can't have him play six and attempt to take risks against a team that counters as well as Liverpool. Either drop Joelinton in there to screen and shift Bruno up or have Tonali do it. If I have one criticism of him it's that he's desperately trying to make them 1-2s happen and they just aren't. I also feel like I see three or four instances a game where he's asking for the ball in space and not getting it.

Echo all of this. I could have understand Barnes possible for Miggy if you wanted a more clinical option to get on the end of overloads and make most of the space, but it just felt like Howe was trying to inject some energy into the game without considering what we would lose. I love Longstaff, but the first few weeks have only shown the drop off between him and Tonali. This team's whole success has been built on energy, intensity, and ruffling feathers. We had none of that and looked terrified by their potential on the counter. I give Allison credit for some mammoth stops, but this was a brutal afternoon for Howe in terms of trying to prove he's ready to step into that top tier of managers. If he doesn't learn from this he's fucked.

He's getting stick because if you're taking off one of him or Gordon it has to be him. It's fine margins, but Gordon had Trent on toast every time. I love Miggy, and he was denied a wonder goal by an outstanding save today, which makes the one that hit the post all the more important. As the margins get finer at the top of the table he's going to need to be more clinical.

This is the first time under Howe I'm genuinely baffled by every decision he's made and I think he's cost us that game by over-thinking. We had them, we absolutely had them and he takes off Anthony Gordon and Sandro Tonali for absolutely no good reason. The first 30-35 minutes we kept it even and had the better of it. Then after the red card we just forgot where the gas pedal was. Sorry like, but need an absolute barnstorming performance against Brighton now to eradicate that.