Greenlizard0 PL & Championship Football Thread ** spoilers ** [16th - 24th Jan 2021]

Caporegime
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What is wrong with him. He is in my opinion a generational talent at right back. Potential to be this generations Ashley Cole but he is having a stinker this season. I just think the whole past 3 seasons have taken it out of them and they need a rest.
He's still got the passing and crossing ability but he's crossing in to a packed box to players that wouldn't look out of place in the shire. He's always been a terrible defender but looks short of pace this season, perhaps he's just fatigued or suffering from a lack of competition like Firmino is with Jota out again.
 
Don
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VVD popped up with a surprising number of important goals and generally made space for others on set pieces. Jota was scoring a lot of Pools goals at the start of the season. They perhaps already had cracks showing and the loss of some of those players papering over them has exposed them a lot.

Just a culmination of a lot of factors. Massive hangover from finally winning the PL and without the fans that make such a difference they are suffering.
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say we had cracks showing before injuries to VVD etc. We'd just blew the League away and won the CL & picked up 97 points the season before. There was very few cracks in that side.

The side we were last season and the side we are now is totally different. We're not just without VVD and Gomez at the back but Fabinho in midfield too. We are/were a much more structured, mechanical side than a free flowing side like City and without that base at the back it's very difficult for the rest of the side to function as it did before. For 4 years people have said to play against us you need to sit deep and narrow but for 2 years prior we'd steam rolled almost every side that tried to do that. It wasn't through beautiful one touch football like a City would do but we just smothered them and broke them down - our midfield wouldn't let them out and our fullbacks were camped in the opposition half. We're not doing that any more. There's no sustained pressure.

Throw in the fact that we've suddenly forgot how to score and can't buy a decision and we're pretty ****ed right now. The finishing and our luck with decisions can only get better but until we can get some structure in the side again it's going to be an effort to win games.
 
Caporegime
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Really this is just showing how incredible Fergie was. People were calling this Liverpool team the best team of all time last season. Fergie showed how to maintain that form over multiple seasons.
 
Don
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Really this is just showing how incredible Fergie was. People were calling this Liverpool team the best team of all time last season. Fergie showed how to maintain that form over multiple seasons.
"That form"? What was Utd's highest points total under Fergie? I can't remember Utd ever getting into the high 90's points totals.
 

fez

fez

Caporegime
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Way less competition as well.

That depends on how you look at it. Leicester won in what should have been a competitive season. We came third last season with 66 points. Whatever team wins this season won’t be posting a massive points total in all likelihood.

What Liverpool did last season was impressive but as they are finding out, it’s hard to “go again” to borrow a phrase.
 
Man of Honour
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Really this is just showing how incredible Fergie was. People were calling this Liverpool team the best team of all time last season. Fergie showed how to maintain that form over multiple seasons.

I’m sure most people would begrudgingly admit how incredible he was. Reinventing a team over and over again like he did is one hell of an achievement.

Klopp’s time at Dortmund ended badly, I think they were bottom of the Bundlesliga in Feb. Obviously that won’t happen here but things could be tricky for a while. They have been particularly unfortunate with injuries though to be fair.
 
Don
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What Liverpool did last season was impressive but as they are finding out, it’s hard to “go again” to borrow a phrase.
Didn't we "go again" last season? In pretty much any other season in the history of the game we'd have won the League in 18/19 and after that season there were a lot of shouts about how we'd struggle to come back again. I'm not sure our issues this season are down to character, attitude etc - we're just stuck in a rut where everything that can go wrong has gone wrong.

Our CB situation pretty much sums up our season. In the summer there was a lot of chat about us not signing a replacement for Lovren but I was very comfortable with it - 3 CB's + Fabinho and a well stocked midfield was a risk worth taking if it meant we could sign Thiago. A couple of months into the season and we've got no senior CB + Thiago, Keita, Ox and Milner out.
 
Caporegime
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Didn't we "go again" last season? In pretty much any other season in the history of the game we'd have won the League in 18/19 and after that season there were a lot of shouts about how we'd struggle to come back again. I'm not sure our issues this season are down to character, attitude etc - we're just stuck in a rut where everything that can go wrong has gone wrong.

Our CB situation pretty much sums up our season. In the summer there was a lot of chat about us not signing a replacement for Lovren but I was very comfortable with it - 3 CB's + Fabinho and a well stocked midfield was a risk worth taking if it meant we could sign Thiago. A couple of months into the season and we've got no senior CB + Thiago, Keita, Ox and Milner out.

Indeed the 'go again' last season wasn't supposed to happen, the hangover of the emotion of 18/19 was supposed to stop it.

Failure to prepare for the season with Lovren's departure has caused a massive drop in form, sacrificing your best midfielders to play CB was largely going to have only one result. (Granted not this bad but I didn't think the rest of the league would be this bad either, someone should be way further ahead)
 
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