MFletcher

Against Wigan, a team who should be considered cannon fodder at Anfield. The same with Reading, who we edged past 1-0. Norwich away was a good performance, but Norwich aren't a great team either. The three teams we've put will probably be there or thereabouts for relegation at the end of the season. There's only so long we can blame woodwork or cite "we were the better team" before you have to ask why we've been saying it for a year and a half and we're still not winning enough.

What I'm about to post is entirely my own opinion. I'm going to preface it by saying that I sincerely hope that I'm very, very wrong. But either way, I'm prepared to make it and open myself up to future ridicule if that's what transpires. As it stands, I'm of the opinion that Rodgers is not going to take us to the next level. I think he has been over-promoted and does not harbour the skillset required to push us on. I think this for the following reasons. I recognise his football ideology and its commendable. I want us to play pass and move in the manner of Liverpool teams of old and anything even half-resembling the current Barcelona side. Unfortunately, with the players available, results are being sacrificed on the altar of footballing ideology. This team, with this setup, will not score enough goals over the course of a season to win enough games for us to challenge for things. We're passing it around the back eight, occasionally moving it up the pitch before restarting again, and pretending that control of the ball equates to control of the game. We're not threatening anywhere near enough and are almost entirely reliant upon Suarez, with occasional input from Sterling, to score a goal, never mind win a game. A change in approach simply has to be made whilst the current players are available. Poor transfer market dealings. I am fully aware that he expected a replacement for Andy Carroll and I recognise that he appears to have been shafted. However, when you take a step back and look at it, he decided Andy Carroll wasn't for him before he'd even turned up for training after Euro 2012. This demonstrates, to me anyway, that ideology is getting in the way of making the best use of the players at his disposal. Carroll isn't world class and might well never be, but managed properly he could be a very useful squad player and refusing to use him wasn't really on. In terms of incomings, we spent close to £11M on a striker who looks like he probably won't score very much and who he was playing out of position whilst Joe Allen has regressed massively in the last six weeks. There's an argument to say that £26M has basically been "blown" over the summer. Poor results so far. We're currently on 16 points from 13 games. We've only won three games in three months in the league. We have one away win all season, only two at Anfield. In terms of players availability in those 13 games, we show the following: Suarez: 13 starts Gerrard: 13 starts Allen: 13 starts Sterling: 12 starts Agger: 12 starts Skrtel: 12 starts Johnson: 11 starts Reina: 9 starts We can't exactly plead injuries or lack of available talent. The squad lacks depth, but our key players (Lucas aside and Reina for a run of four games) have been available. With that first team and the percentage of starts the key players have, we should be doing a lot, a lot, better than 16 points from 13 games. Poor performance in other competitions. We're out of the league cup already and could well go out of the Europa League. Even if we went through, I'd have no confidence in getting through the next knockout stage. He's also taken it upon himself to suggest he can't really do very much unless he gets better players in and suggested other managers contacted him to sympathise because the group he took over weren't very good. I find that very difficult to believe. It looks to me like an excuse being made. Ultimately I just don't see it. I think he has been overpromoted and is showing significant signs of inexperience and naivety. He might well improve markedly and we'll suddenly push through and beast the second half of the season, but I can't really see it happening. I think we're getting mid-table results with a mid-table manager and I think that's where we'll stay. I again emphasise that I hope I'm very, very wrong and that we'll all point at this post in three years' time and have a go, but this is my honest view at this time. I do not want us to lose to re-emphasise my point. I do not want us to struggle so I can "look right". I want us to win games, and I don't think we're going to win enough of them under Rodgers. I await the inevitable "why don't you just go and support Chelsea" posts that will follow from a small minority.

He's a coward. More than once he looked at a bouncing ball or one coming in high and went "ooh, I don't really fancy that" and either did f*** all or made a half-hearted attempt to clear it. Reina nearly got his head kicked off trying to clear up once of these instances. Just f***ing release him on a free, it would be preferable to the lingering chance of him getting in the team.

I'm pleased to see Henderson in the team but I continue to sigh heavily whenever I see Downing in the 18, never mind the 11. It's probably our best back five though.

Three of them at home where we got 1 point. I don't want it to look like I'm having a go, but we're three months into the league season and we've won three times - all three of them against pretty poor teams. We're in danger of going out of the Europa league, we're already out of the league cup and squad and personnel management has been a bit poor overall. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't having reservations about all this, because "brave new era" or not results have, so far, not been up to the required standard regardless of supposed mitigating factors. Given we've had Suarez available all season with Reina, Skrtel, Agger, Allen and Gerrard playing the vast majority of games, we can't exactly claim to have a substandard team either. The squad might be a bit poor, but the first team is far from 1.25 points a game material. We need to do better.

"Unlikely" is a significant understatement.

It's not meant to be snide, but I do think it's concerning that he basically resolved to move Carroll on about three days before he was even back in training. Not that anyone expects Carroll to be thrown into the team or considered to be Kluivert before he turned s***, but to basically just say "not for me" wasn't really good enough. To me, anyway. Henderson's a different matter given he was apparently prepared to exchange him for short-term solution Clint Dempsey.

1.25 points a game. We're looking at 48 points this season at the current rate, which is pretty dire.

We're not winning enough games and Swansea are inconsistent. We could really do with a win.

I do have concerns about the lack of use of Henderson and what appeared to be some sort of ideological refusal to use Carroll, as if his mere presence in the side would compromise "the plan". We're not loaded with money and more flexibility should be shown whilst he "builds his own team". Seemingly refusing to use players who might be useful is strange.

There were some really s*** games in Rafa's last season, but with the benefit of hindsight and given how f***ing toxic the atmosphere he was working in was you have to wonder how focused he really was. Looking back on it now, the best image I can make is that he was the man standing with his hand covering the hole in the dam. When he was "mutual consented", he left and this river of complete s*** flowed out. We're still cleaning up the mess.

We aren't winning enough games is a simple summation of the season so far, and I don't really buy "small squad" as a catch-all reason for it. He's tried certain things and certain things haven't worked. Which is fine, but I don't just want to see those same things over and over and over again in the increasingly forlorn hope it will suddenly work

Torres has lost the searing pace he had in his first couple of years. There was one game, I think it was Sunderland away in the first season, where he basically just knocked it between their two centre backs around the centre circle and blitzed through as if he was Usain f***ing Bolt. It was unreal. He's lost that and hasn't really adapted his game a great deal. I'm past actively disliking him and I just feel sorry for him now. He made a move he shouldn't have and I think he knows it. He's miserable, playing like s*** and is nowhere near the player he was. It's just a s*** situation really. Chelsea are raging because they spent £50M on someone who isn't performing, Torres is miserable because he hates playing there and we're annoyed because one of our great modern players walked off to our rivals and we decided to spend £35M of the money on Andy Carroll. In terms of all parties losing, it's probably the single most calamitous deal in history. Except for Newcastle, who won the lottery.

s*** result.

That is f***ing gutting. Ultimately he shouldn't have been sacked and the last two and a half years demonstrate that. He should have been offered the job back last summer. Not that I dislike Rodgers, I just don't have all that much faith that he's going to do very much beyond what we're currently doing. That doesn't mean I don't support him or want him to go and win us the league next year. That I have to add this caveat says a lot.

My stream went down for the second half, any links for the goals?

Looked much better when we moved to a back four.

Joe Cole. What is the f***ing point?

I don't like the defence at all, and I can't really understand it given it necessitates playing Carragher, Wisdom ahead of Coates and a complete change of formation and setup. I'm concerned.

We could well get tanked tomorrow given they have Mata, Hazard and Oscar.

Nothing would surprise me with Comolli the massive chancer.

Where was that?

It's not a s*** point, because it exemplifies how unsatisfying the start to the season has been. Wigan being a side who have started every single season slowly, who have added no significant quality since last year, who only escaped relegation after a quality run in the last few games of the season have had a broadly similar start to the season as us despite having much s***ter players. We're ten games in - that's more than a quarter. I expect results by this point. With league cup and Europa League games, we're more than a quarter of the way through our likely season. There comes a point where "we're in transition" isn't really good enough to justify another game where we just didn't do all that well.

I don't think we have. We clearly lack any firepower whatever beyond Suarez.

Suarez is shouldering pretty much the entire burden of scoring and assisting. He hasn't been involved in only four of the thirteen we've scored in the league. As a particularly galling point, we're ahead of Martinez' Wigan on goal difference only.