We are and have been very lucky so far this season. I doubt that any of us, least of all Rodgers, truly believed that we would have another season like last year especially after we sold Suarez. Personally I doubt that the club truly believed that they would keep Suarez after both his World Cup antics and Barcelona's offer. That left us with an untried side, attempting to play a different style of football and then being ravaged by numerous injuries and loss of form. Now none of that sounds lucky at all. However, the saving grace for us in the Premiership is that the majority of our rivals are also having a bad time of it! I truly feel sorry for Rodgers. He's never had the opportunity to play what I think is his idea of his best starting 11. To make matters worse his 'go to' players have been singularly hung-over from last season. Yet we still lie handily placed in the league. Finally, out of desperation, we played 2 up front in the 2nd half yesterday. Combined with Coutinho re-finding some form the effect was electric - Liverpool found some pace and attacking spirit! OK we couldn't make the breakthrough and we still can't pass to each other accurately but we finally took the initiative!!! More of our players look as though the are recovering and the standard is improving - albeit slowly. I don't know what's going on with Sturridge but we need to prove to ourselves that our prospects do not hang on one man. If Rodgers can do that then he will still save this season. If he can't then the club will need to look for other options - but I think we are along way from that presently.
We're at home, playing Hull, not a bad team but beatable. He should have started with the formation we finished with. Rodgers was at fault yesterday.....we could have won that game. That said, there are signs of a recovery....and for the first game in a while, we looked capable of scoring rather than static and slow. Coutinho on the bench is a joke. He was clearly the best player on the pitch yetserday.
I put his in Rodgers That set up should be our starting set up week in week out. Coutinho is our best player at the moment (with Sturridge out and Raheem a bit off form) and 2 strikers and a diamond is our only 'proven' formation that works in attack. I still can't understand why we've been persisting with Balotelli as a lone striker and Coutinho as a sub. It hasn't worked for months and it's never looked like it's going to work. Balotelli looked a real threat when Lambert cam on and also when he played with Sturridge v Spurs. Yet Rodgers keeps trying to play him alone with bad results. FFS Brenden, open your eyes. We do have good players, you're just misusing them.
We've lost 50+ goals from the team compared to last year apart from first couple of games). even if we'd have brought in a quality CF (remind me how many of them moved this year) we'd still be struggling for goals. The new players haven't hit the ground running which is what was needed really. Pretend last year we didn't have a crazy season and finish 4th, we'd have prob finished 5th or 6th. In that case, we'd then be looking at pushing for 4th this year and I don't think that should chance. At the moment, we're level with our rivals for that 4th place having missed arguably our most important player for a quarter of the season. Sturridge not only helps us attack but his presence helps us defend. His pace means teams cant push up as much because we have a player willing to run in behind.
I thought 0-0 wasn't that bad a result tbh, they had just drawn 2-2 to Arsenal away and probably should of won and would of came to Anfield for the same game plan. The fact we kept a clean sheet we should see positively. For me, if we got rid of Rodgers right now there is no one whatsoever we could bring in who would an improvement. If Klopp was available then I'd say go for him but that's not saying he would be an improvement just my opinion. This is the problem with knee jerk sackings, when you look at the bigger picture the manager you sack is actually better than the one you replace him with. There's a stat somewhere that a new manager coming in has no influence whatsoever and the outcome of that team, if a team gets rid of there manager while there lying in 18th they go on to get relegated. I wouldn't mind seeing the 3-5-2 come back once Sturridge and Sakho are fit, we basically play with no wingers now and both our full backs get forward a lot so why not give them that freedom? --------------------------Ming ---------------Sakho---Skrtel---Lovren Manquillio-----------Gerrard------------Moreno ---------------Henderson-----Coutinho/Sterling --------------Sturridge-------Balotelli/Sterling
Judge him on results. Results have been outstanding up until now. 7th place to second. This is a big test and time will tell if he passes it and he has earned time. Judge him at the end of the season
We're only 9 games in Got to take the bad with the good. We all knew last season we're far from perfect and right now we're adapting to being without two top class players from last season. We still sit in a decent position all things considered, I think a bit of patience is needed. Our squad is in very good shape, we just need to give our players and Rodgers a bit of time.
At least we know why he won't drop him now http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/liverpool-boss-brendan-rodgers-makes-4509504
Rodgers really needs to consider bringing in some experience to his back room staff - Pascoe and Marsh, are they good enough?
Who played up top with Balo in the 2nd half. It's about time. He's incapable of playing as lone striker.
Still too early to call for his head tbf. It is increasingly looking like last season was a one off caused by Suarez and not the steady progression of his managerial skills on the team like we had hoped. If we miss out on Cl place, the brutal truth is that we are back to square one and no better than before Suarez.