épieur

Forgot they even existed. It's criminal that city have a 17.5m and a 20m striker as 4th and 5th choice and they are not even special. A cancer on football.

3 points is still 3 points. Flat track bullies can win league titles.

I like this. Please preface all praise or reluctance to critisise the manager with your stance on whether Hodgson should be sacked or not. Opinion on this will be critical to how your post is otherwise perceived.

In fairness, were we not playing catchup just to get back in the top 4, he is of the quality that should be 3rd choice. Great 3rd choice to have, but squaddie nevertheless.

I've forgotten about him. In a world where it somehow worked out that he was 3rd choice for years and still developed, I wish we never sold him. Hell, I now wish we never sold Riise.

for a brief while, Agger was all that.

Sliding tackles near the byline to cover for the fullback.

He'll never be able to emulate masch's mobility and battle rage. I can see him developing the kind of defensive guile Didi had though. If I am not mistaken, Didi was not a holding player at 23 either.

I would love to win in spite of the manager. I'll take consistent clueless luck over inconsistent masterminding any day of the week. This would be a great thing for LFC fans actually. If we're winning with Hodgson in charge, we might actually be able to have a good laugh at his press conferences too.

It was said in conjuction with this: 'I will stay at Liverpool at least until the end of the season. I know there are rumours about me leaving but I want to make it clear that I have no intention of going back to Spain.' Regardless, I doubt he will leave. Despite Hodgson's efforts to open up that door, we don't sell our best players to rivals.

Real Madrid, Chelsea, Juventus, Inter, Barcelona, even Valencia, Milan and Roma.

Regardless, we are not and should not be Benitez FC. Plenty of top clubs around the world can sack a manager and the team moves on without evena small exodus on the cards. It is a weakness of the 'cult of the manager' culture here in England (and perhaps especially at LFC) that this even comes up.

I won't say 'top form' but he has been steadily improving over the past year. And though he wasn't exactly a lone shining star in a sea of darkness last season, he was very often the player who managed to keep his level when everyone around him were not keeping their level. Lot of people who were utterly blind to this though, and in fairness much of it probably has to do with the fact that Lucas is/was just not good enough to raise the level of his teammates by playing well the same way someone like Alonso is. He's a 'keeping things ticking' and 'providing good protection' kind of player, but not in the same class of Alonso or masch in either category to really stand out in that. Hence, when he delivers a decent performance in a bad team, the result is he just keeps the turds ticking. I think some of it also comes down to the fact that many players in the team were just not willing to give him the responsibility of being the man to turn to in central midfield. That's obviously changed now as he is consistently the player with the most passes in our team now. If you paid attention to what he actually did last season though, it was generally encouraging and it was the kind of performance that would by no means look out of place in a team that is playing well and can make use of what he gives to the team. He seems to be stepping his game up further this season and hopefully it will continue but the notion that this just came out of the blue is frankly plain wrong. This comes as no surprise to a number of us who have seen his steady improvement for a while now. He's getting there fast though. The number of tackles he makes in a game is really high these days. I think he is growing into the holding role though it's taken a fair bit of time for him to adjust to the rigorous positional discipline and tackling ability required by that role.

No, that is not worth applause from a player that wants out. It is never a positive for the club to have players who play only for one manager.

What? It's not like he's corrupting our youth or anything. Why on earth would we want to get rid at any cost?

That is one difference between 17-20m players and 4-5m players. Rafa spent 55m+ on Keane, Johnson and Aquilani in the space of a year. So far, Rafa has not even had the chance to shop in that price range to screw up on that scale. Wow. Sorry, but Konchesky has been dreadful. As bad as Insua ever was defensively and miles worse going forward. And we paid good money for that privilege. Seeing as Meireless is more often than not shifted out to the right, he doesn't seem to be direct competition for Aquilani. And either way, it makes no sense to weaken our squad with a quality player for the sake of 'retaining his value'. We've basically given him away this season to avoid paying his wages and there's no way that was a good idea. Sending them out on loan was a terrible decision and one hopefully we'll be able to rectify. Same way Rafa fortunately did not manage to sell Finnan to Everton when he first arrived. Managers make some bad calls evaluating a squad that is not yet 'theirs when they take over a club. It happens, but there's really little point trying to rationalise it.

Same age as Alonso when he joined the club, fwiw.

That and goals.

I didn't actually mean 'this is the general trend here' though I guess I should have worded it better. More along the lines of 'as far as lazy arguments go, this is the general trend here' moreso than actually giving him credit.

I suggest a bit of reading between the lines on your part - taking 'gerrard can't play central midfield' literally as 'a sudden and fatal incapacity if he is positioned in central midfield' is imo a somewhat unjust reading. But I have heard many argue that he lacks the positioning and playmaking ability to do a proper job there. Personally, I am not convinced between the lines is necessarily his best position. For me, in either case it comes down to who he plays with and the quality of the player who loses his spot to wherever Gerrard slots in. Two years ago, this was a no-brainer. Mascherano and Alonso are both world class and should obvious start and Gerrard has a great understanding with Torres between the lines. Even then, it took a while before Benitez himself was willing to concede this as the default assumption. When Alonso left, the fact that Gerrard and Mascherano together in midfield just seems to have too many off-days as a pair made it easy too. I don't think there's been a noticable difference in quality between his performances in midfield and further up front this season. And even in the seasons where he's been 'playing up front' he has still had a number of games where he slotted into midfield and did equally as well. In fact, there's been games where we've noticeable improved by dropping Gerrard back into midfield (I recall vs Arsenal some years ago, where he changed the game after dropping deeper). Hell, I am pretty sure that if you look at the stats, he is not even less prolific in central midfield. The same argument was had when he won player of the year as a rightsided midfielder and suddenly that was his best position (despite him playing half that season centrally and still doing really well). For me it comes down to a simle fact that Gerrard is an outstanding footballer with so much to his game, he can play a number of positions with little need for adjustment. It's less a question of what position is most useful to the team at a given time, in terms of what players will play around him. Gerrard will be world class at any rate.

I think this is well worth noting. The myth that Gerrard can't play central midfield is just that - a myth.

I would say it is the generally lazy trend to assume Roy can take no credit for anything around here.

doesn't change the fact that there are still many here who are willing him to fail, will go out of their way to rationalise away any credit that might be his due and see mistakes in things and statements that aren't mistaken at all. It's a bit pathetic to be honest. As much as I don't care for him, if he keeps winning and gets us back into the top 4 at the end of the season I'll have to hold my hand up and acknowledge he has lived up to the demands of the job without reservations.

Lucas Torres Kuyt