Mooster

Is Alan Hansen on holiday? Only I've been waiting for his updated "worst for 50 years" article all week but no sign...

Re. the way Roy's setting the team up, have we seen a decent first half performance in the premiership this season? Be nice if we could have a start against Sunderland like last year's.

Given his size I guess it's not that surprising he stands out at under-18, but he's clearly skillful, scores all sorts of goals and I thought he more than stood his ground against Sol Campbell in the ressies the other week. I think he's got an excellent chance of making it.

Exactly. We've already seen the media target him for not caring/making any effort etc this season, now we'll get the diving accusations. All added pressure on the player which might in the long run be another reason for wanting to head back to sunny Spain if the opportunity arises.

I don't think it's that surprising though really, I think our levels of optimism have taken a proper kicking over the past couple of years both off the field and more recently on it, to the point where it's become much harder for us to be positive and just give things time. If you look at Rafa's first season worries about the poor league form could be offset by the knowledge that he'd a very recent track record of winning things. We then promptly went and won things. Even last season around February/March I and I suspect plenty of others were still sure we'd pull things around because we'd seen Rafa put together long winning runs at the end of seasons, we knew he was capable of getting those sort of consistent performances and results when it mattered. We still had that hope and belief. Unfortunately I don't think Roy's previous track record gives people enough to be optimistic about. His high-point season in the league when he got Fulham into the UEFA cup was achieved with 53 points, a total that wouldn't have been enough to get qualification in any year since 2000 (and maybe longer, I didn't look any further back than that.) Last year he got to the UEFA final but the league total fell to 47. It may have been a great achievement at Fulham but that's all it was, great for a club of Fulham's stature, but not something for Liverpool fans to dream of. We were told Roy would steady the ship, be a safe pair of hands, a return to the dignified Liverpool of old etc etc, I just don't think that's what we needed at all. There's no rallying cry, nothing to make you believe, nothing to inspire. It seems that succesful teams often appear to mirror the character of their managers (Mourinho's Chelsea, Mr Ferguson's Man U, us under Rafa) where will we be under Roy? This was always going to be a difficult season, and the lack of a manager I can just believe in is making it worse.

As a forty-something supporter the appointment of Roy Hodgson is a totally new experience for me, in that he still feels like someone else's manager, and this despite the media's heralding of him as a return to the good old days. As I was growing up Liverpool managers were Liverpool to the core and (Souness excepted) had no association with managing other teams. When Houllier arrived I knew nothing about him other than his involvement in the french national set up, I certainly couldn't remember ever having seen a Houllier team play so had no real previous form to go on. Add in the tales of him standing on the Kop as a teacher in the 60s and hey presto he qualifies for a honeymoon period. With Rafa we knew he was coming off the back of two La Ligas and a UEFA cup win, and we'd seen first hand his team play us off the park, therefore more than enough reasons to give him a honeymoon period. Roy Hodgson on the other hand has baggage. We remember his unsuccesful time at Blackburn, we've seen his Fulham teams for the past couple of years and whilst he's been succesful at Fulham's level we've also seen first hand what sort of a team and tactics he's built that success on (and last season and the season before's Fulham performances at Anfield were as negative as any I can remember in recent years.) Add to this that he is replacing a (largely still) very popular manager, that he's been appointed by a board we don't know we can trust and that they chose him over an absolute living legend and he's up against it. Then add in a few uninspiring signings, some less than impressive performances, and some seriously questionable post-match comments and any chance of a honeymoon period are pretty much gone. I'm just really struggling to feel a connection with our manager at the moment.

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He is still really young though, so physique/stature are bound to be a concern - he looked on the small size compared to the rest of the ressies the other night. He's clearly got the ability but whether he could stand up to a few crunching tackles I'm not so sure. If you look at Jack Wilshere for example, he's two years older than Suso and doesn't seem to be quite up to playing full 90mins for Arsenal yet.

When the LDV to Fulham story broke last year was there not a suggestion he has pretty keen to go then? And I seem to remember there being a story earlier on in the season about him kicking off about being in the under 18s rather than the reserves? Does anyone know how long he had left on his contract? I'm not happy about him going by the way, just trying to understand whether there were any other logical reasons why we were prepared to let him go.

You keep painting this picture of the second half of that game being one of the worst performances ever, I don't remember it that way at all. I just remember coming away from the ground wondering how the hell we lost and whether in future we should get someone to break Arshavin during the warm up just to be on the safe side. I certainly don't remember them playing keep-ball and embarrassing us.

no need for that, he was only asking like...

Pretty much the only thing I remember Hleb for was his rubbish fall over Dirk's knee and look pleadingly at the ref routine against us in the champions League - and I only remember that so well because Wenger kept banging on about it at every opportunity. Really can't muster much in the way of a positive feeling about this, and I'm trying, honest.

Can people stop going on about chips, it's making me hungry.

He should try cheering up a bit too, the moody fecker. Costs nothing to smile you know...

tears in my eyes reading that...

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I binned Sky at the start of last season, and they keep offering me various half price deals to go back. I nearly weakened this time, but after reading this thread I'm glad I didn't. And with Sky Sports News disappearing from Freeview imminently I'll be rid of Gray, Keys, Merson and all the rest for ever.

I enjoyed Grosse Pointe Blank despite her.

Slight difference this time in that we seem happy enough to let him go if someone stumps up the cash, as opposed to last year when he was told no chance, you're staying. Also it's possible his jetting off to South America to captain an Argentina side that looked like it might not qualify for the world cup was a pretty big factor in last year's poor performances early on. He certainly improved after they qualified.

Suspect Arsenal would be delighted if Masch doesn't play. And besides, don't you want to see a Masch and Poulsen tackle and boot-fest at least once? Especially on Arshavin?

Really? I know you seem to be enjoying accentuating the positive these days but do you not think that underplays what they've done since arriving just a little bit?

Sure I saw them supporting The Field Mice once

Think this brings us back to the need for youngsters to get games though, and I'm really not so sure Roy would pick a talented but unproven youngster over his personal choice of experienced back up, especially as Luke Young would be on a much bigger wage than Kelly and he might feel he had to justify that outlay. I can see both sides of the argument given Kelly's injury problems, but I reckon Young's arrival would seriously limit Kelly's chances of getting games. It seems harder than ever for young players to get first team experience, and the main reason why I hope Insua and Ngog stay around is to see whether the experience of playing so often last year improves them, given how unusual it is for players to have that opportunity now.

I can recall us playing with a centreback with two left feet however. Where is Djimi these days?