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Football Thread |OT11| Campaign: Save a donkey in Colombia

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V

Vivalaraza

Member
Wilbury said:
Yeah, apart from a few Napoli matches I've seen you've consistently been the best team in the league



I thought there was definite promise in Kagawa's performance today when he was drifting in, so hopefully Fergie noticed that and thought that using him and Rooney as switcheroos would be great. Rooney's more than capable of playing out left so if the two swap and roam and support RVP, on paper we'd be great.

Real promise in the Carrick/Cleverley partnership as well, both were very good today for the most part.
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Actually seeing Kagawa out wide today has warmed me up to it slightly. I think he's struggling to find space and the tempo in CAM at the moment. Perhaps playing out wide will be better for him for a while. He doesn't provide natural width but Evra does bomb on an awful lot. My biggest concern would be defensively, he tracked back well today and did a solid defensive job but he was up against Downing and Wisdom, so yeah.

Carrick and Cleverley have been really great, their combination is working well. Cleverley plays his tactical role smartly, I've been pleased with him and his consistency. The problem is going to be against teams like Spurs where a duo of Sandro and Dembele will make life difficult for them and have the legs to keep up with the passing pace.

I thought Rodgers showed himself to be a little naive today. He kept asking his players to play out from the back and their midfielders were receiving the ball facing their own goal. Our wide players and attackers pushed up high on their defense and then Carrick and Clev high into Allen. The only out ball was the long one to Suarez which we dealt with easily. Sturridge coming on forced us to drop a little deeper and they found more joy playing out from the back. Was interesting to see and I think that could be a problem for Liverpool if they don't try to stretch the game. Reina almost never goes long anymore, his distribution to spring counters was class for them, don't have that threat under Rodgers.
 
W

Wilbur

Banned
TheLucifer said:
Milan XI vs. Sampdoria (4-3-3): Abbiati; De Sciglio-Zapata-Mexes-Constant; Montolivo-Ambrosini-Boateng; Niang-Bojan-El Shaarawy.

Dat Niang.
Click to expand...

Has Bojan featured much yet?

Yurt said:
Yeah Gio is a fantastic second striker <3 We just need a classy striker like Llorente or Welbeck to play in front of him.

It's technically 11 goals (Mirko stole his goal) and he's leading our assists chart with 5
3AQmK.gif
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Welbeck :lol, should just go all out and pay what Bilbao want for Llorente this season.
 
G

GolazoDan

Member
Wilbury said:
:lol

How'd it look from the stadium?
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Good performance and the atmosphere was a lot of fun throughout. Welbeck and Van Persie worked SO hard from beginning to the end, fantastic workrate. Similarly for Kagawa and Cleverley as a pair, very impressed with both and if Cleverley had scored that volley I may very well have wet myself.

Good to see Vidic and Ferdinand back together too. Sad Evra won't get the goal but Vida getting it is just as good, :)
 
W

Wilbur

Banned
Vivalaraza said:
Actually seeing Kagawa out wide today has warmed me up to it slightly. I think he's struggling to find space and the tempo in CAM at the moment. Perhaps playing out wide will be better for him for a while. He doesn't provide natural width but Evra does bomb on an awful lot. My biggest concern would be defensively, he tracked back well today and did a solid defensive job but he was up against Downing and Wisdom, so yeah.
Click to expand...

What I thought was pretty damn positive about today is that there were a number of times where - and its very similar to how our players treat Carrick - the ball would go Player 1, Shinji, Player 2, Shinji, Player 1, Shinji, Player 3. Cleverley and Evra especially were finding him, feeding off the space he created, receiving his passes. I do think we should have stationed Welbeck out wide from the start of the first half; like you say Shinji's a little suspect defensively, but I think considering Skrtel and Agger aren't the fastest of CBs and were struggling with containing Welbz at times, Kagawa could have had a fair few opportunities in front of them.

I love the way he strikes the ball as well; his shot today was just delish, so fucking graceful. Time to wank.

Carrick and Cleverley have been really great, their combination is working well. Cleverley plays his tactical role smartly, I've been pleased with him and his consistency. The problem is going to be against teams like Spurs where a duo of Sandro and Dembele will make life difficult for them and have the legs to keep up with the passing pace.
Click to expand...

I'd be tempted to start Anderson against Spurs, give ourselves a little bit of physical presence and energy. If Scholes starts we're fucked.

I thought Rodgers showed himself to be a little naive today. He kept asking his players to play out from the back and their midfielders were receiving the ball facing their own goal. Our wide players and attackers pushed up high on their defense and then Carrick and Clev high into Allen. The only out ball was the long one to Suarez which we dealt with easily. Sturridge coming on forced us to drop a little deeper and they found more joy playing out from the back. Was interesting to see and I think that could be a problem for Liverpool if they don't try to stretch the game. Reina almost never goes long anymore, his distribution to spring counters was class for them, don't have that threat under Rodgers.
Click to expand...

To be fair to Rodgers, I think he identified a problem and then countered that; bringing Sturridge on as early as possible was a good move, and he definitely worried the defence more than we had been at any time in the first half. He was naive though (or egotistical, whichever way you want to look at it), I couldn't believe how quiet we kept Suarez and how Reina was making rudimentary errors when kicking the ball out.
 
B

Bo-Locks

Member
The table never lies, no matter what. You can point to bad refereeing decisions, injuries and other factors, but the state of the table is by far and away the best (only?) measurement to quantitatively assess the difference in quality between two sides.

To argue otherwise is foolish.
 
Y

Yurt

il capo silenzioso
Mirko Vucinic's dummy was intercepted by the hosts and it caused the counterattack with led to the equaliser, and Conte claimed that the trickery was his idea.

Conte "The goal was my fault, because I called the dummy when Vucinic was on the one-on-one," told reporters.
Click to expand...

Covering for Mirko, I like it.

faridmon said:
notsureifserious.jpg
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Not serious I'm 'farid.

Sorry. That doesn't even make sense
 
G

GolazoDan

Member
Wilbury said:
I couldn't believe how quiet we kept Suarez and how Reina was making rudimentary errors when kicking the ball out.
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Reina's been pretty bad for like a year and a half. Gets by on his rep from years ago. Cech was the same until Chelsea went on that Champions League run in the later rounds and he found his form.
 
L

Linius

Member
Just finished The Walking Dead Game (last episode was indeed a bit shorter) and it was the conclusion to a great game. For sure my GOTY now. Clementine is the best.
 
C

Clegg

Member
About 70 minutes through the game now.

Liverpool started the second half much better but our second goal was coming imo. Welbeck was through if Skrtel hadn't brought him down.

Kagawa seems a lot more involved this half. Getting a lot more space as Joe Allen isn't closing him down at all.
 
T

TheLucifer

Member
Wilbury said:
Has Bojan featured much yet?



Welbeck :lol, should just go all out and pay what Bilbao want for Llorente this season.
Click to expand...

20 games, 3 goals. Pretty much everytime he plays he helps quite a lot our strikers, but it's like he's always missing something to become a much more important player.
 
F

fuenf

Member
spidye said:
a very unpractical way of defending. you have to watch it if you can.

and that hojbjerg kid from brondby is really good. I can see him as our next talent who makes the jump to the first team
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Yeah Hojbjerg will be awesome, unfortunately he's a central midfielder too, so it will be hard for him to crack the first team. But he could be Schweini's successor in 3-5 years. (I cant believe I'm talking about Schweinis potential succesor, I feel old now...) It's amazing how much midfield talent we have, though.

Tbh I'm currently not that interested in football :( That's why I'm not watching any of the Bayern friendlies...
 
W

Wilbur

Banned
Arnie said:
Wish I could've been part of this.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/1/13/1358090179958/Liverpool-fans-011.jpg[/MG][/QUOTE]

So that's why Joe Cole was missing against Sunderland

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/TwSxA.png
Click to expand...
 
A

Arnie

Member
I agree with Rodgers.

Sue me.

Oh, and:

#LFC Fans locked in half an hour, out comes a familiar face, climbing over the seats to show his appreciation. Class.
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BAgLZmvCQAEcuzv.jpg


If he's David Brent then I'm happy with that.
 
F

Fry

Member
Rodgers needs to drop his bias of Allen right away. It's worse than Heynckes and Kroos. Dude simply isn't good enough. Lucas and Gerrard should form the midfield with Sneijder.
 
C

Clegg

Member
In the same post game interview Rodgers said he didn't expect Liverpool to bring in any more players before the end of the January window.
 
C

Clegg

Member
Finished watching the game.

Probably should have been two or three up by half time.

We were in control until the 60th minute and then Liverpool started coming back into the game.

Pleased enough with the performance though.

Bring on Spurs.
 
V

Vivalaraza

Member
Clegg said:
Finished watching the game.

Probably should have been two or three up by half time.

We were in control until the 60th minute and then Liverpool started coming back into the game.

Pleased enough with the performance though.

Bring on Spurs.
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We weren't using the ball well enough in the final third.

I think RVP could have got a second goal and Welbeck definitely should have done alot more with the positions he got in to.

Cleverley's volley was so close. If that went in, holy crap, only God's knows what would have happened in here.
 
F

Feorax

Member
Having Borini back is a big bonus for us, and we are in a better position than we were for the first half of the season in terms of the balance of the squad.

Still, having a window where you get rid of 2 players and bring 1 in for a squad that was already wafer thin isn't great. We need to hope we have no more lengthy injuries until the summer.
 
T

Tim the Wiz

Banned
Looking forward to seeing Nani, Rooney and Shinji link up behind RVP again. I don't think we've played better this season.

Arnie said:
I honestly thought he was terrible. Really.
Click to expand...

If Kagawa was really terrible, then what was Downing? Class is permanent, silly rabbit.
 
C

Clegg

Member
Vivalaraza said:
We weren't using the ball well enough in the final third.

I think RVP could have got a second goal and Welbeck definitely should have done alot more with the positions he got in to.

Cleverley's volley was so close. If that went in, holy crap, only God's knows what would have happened in here.
Click to expand...

We were definitely wasteful in the final third but our midfield controlled the game pretty well until Liverpools goal. Carrick/Clev is a decent partnership and it's the one I'd like to see start against Spurs.

Reading back through the thread I've noticed some posters giving Welbeck a lot of stick. He was nowhere near as bad as a lot of them are making out. He made some very clever runs behind the Liverpool defence and harried and closed down all match. He just has zero composure in front of goal.
 
W

Wilbur

Banned
350px-Soil_forming_factors.JPG


For West Ham

------------Lindegaard (if fit)
Jones - Smalling - Evans (if fit) - Buttner
-----Fletcher - Scholes - Anderson
-----Valencia - Hernandez - Young

Take control of the midfield, and watch as it backfires and we bring on RVP after 65 mins and he scores the winner.

For Spurs

De Gea
Rafael - Rio - Vidic - Evra
Anderson - Carrick - Cleverley
Kagawa - RVP - Rooney/Nani (depending on fitness)

with Shinji behind Rooney if he plays. Then bring on Valencia and/or Nani, and Hernandez late on and stretch defence and wing backs.
 
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