Football

BR being the only manager of a top 10 european club

A top what club?

There is so so much more but I don't wanna use bandwidth here bangin on about the past

If only all kopites would think like this...

BBC Price of football survey. Price of pies...

Who eats between 3pm and 5pm?

Lunch, football, home for tea/dinner/supper/#ohfucknotthisagain

The more usual pattern for a 3pm kick off is:

11am Pub
2:30/2:45 move to ground
2:55 grab a pie and a pint in the ground
3pm match
3:45 half time pint
4:50 pm pub
some time later crawl home and watch Match of the Day

Being a non drinker, I may have missed something but, generally, the time in the pub before the game is key to the atmosphere during the match.

It also accounts for people constantly getting up for the loo during the match itself.

Following this itinerary, the pie becomes an essential part of the day's sustinance.

If you're had a liquid lunch and planning on a few pints before you
get home, pie seems acceptable. Until you realise it will still be hot
enough to burn your mouth until way after half time.

Better that it is hot rather than luke warm. I once spent a less than enjoyable train journey home from Wigan thanks to a moody pie.

ahhhh, now i understand why thrushy has been keen to keep himself in the media spotlight, even if it means screwing over his team

new book week

But Wigan is pie.
They must have detected a slight southern twang in your accent.

@Multi_Grooves I don't think Klopp will get given time in the press.
They love him, for now. His aim is: don't get relegated, bed in a team, try and make some progress this season, crack the top 4 by the end of three years. I can't see him doing that with the resources. I don't see LFC as having the bottomless pit of cash needed to acquire people, or the network to attract the bubbling unders to become the bubbling overs. If that makes sense?
I would love to be proved wrong, because a new guy coming in with new ideas and imposing the mad mad world of press and attack and ping ping ping ping peow football would be great.
But he's going to get monstered by the sky mob.

I didn't word it proper:

Take all the top 10* teams of all the top 5 European leagues, BR was the only not to see the need for a destroyer/defensive minded (Wanyama-esque) type of player yet ends up using Lucas EVERY game having tried to sell him and not looking for a replacement in the whole of his tenure. His tackling stats will surprise many.
But this glaring omission is what makes our midfield unresolved/unbalanced/soft as a dunked biscuit IMO.

• It might be the top 5 teams
  

http://www.chelseasupportersgroup.net/2015/10/driver-on-the-wings-weather-for-chelsea-v-aston-villa-6/

But you had Slippy G ruling the midfield. While he could stay on his feet.

So Liverpool are a top European team as long as the definition of top means in the top 50. You are about as top european a club as Leverkusen. Do Liverpool players even need a valid passport these days?

While it's nice to poke fun etc and so on.
A though experiment:

Let's think about this. Where would you rather move to, Spurs or Liverpool?
That's the comparison. Liverpool are challenging to be the new Spurs. Challenging to get into the top 4 or 5, getting into the Europa, doing well and getting into the Big Cup. All things considered, where would you rather be?

If both teams could get into the Big Cup (unlikely) where would you move to?
Which club is most likely to become something big and interesting?
Spurs?
Liverpool?

(Kevin Turvey?? Showing your age there)

Correct me if Im wrong but this sounds like your advacting that Sky disease of "marquee" signing®.

You simply do not need to blow £50m on players to be good. His Dortmund team had a net cost of £30M. But but this doesn't include the free transfer of Lewandowski whos value would have been about £25M. So that in theory is a spend of £5M to have achieved their domestic league!

If you do what LFC did and seemingly send all your scouts to St Marys, then yes you desperately need marquees. As I said before BR was well out of his element and flipped flopped on a weekly basis. FFS the VIlla semi final saw use use 4 different formations in one half alone with players out of comfortable positions all over the pitch. Fine when you're winning. I imagine that 'show the world how clever you are' ego trip sapped the guys on the pitch mentally by the end. Point is the bar is set so low Klopp surely must hit the basic target of improvement.

He hates the media already. For that I love him.

[Yeah, Klopp was talking about that shirt to the German media, in terms of how they get carried away in England with his slip of tongue...

To FromShankelyon: "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." ]

It sold a few hundred copies in the first week. Fergie's sold the better part of 100k in its first week. Illiteracy amongst Chelsea fans, or do they dislike him just as much as everyone else?

Airhead
But you had Slippy G ruling the midfield. While he could stay on his feet.

So Liverpool are a top European team as long as the definition of top means in the top 50. You are about as top european a club as Leverkusen. Do Liverpool players even need a valid passport these days?

Sorry what are you talking about?

There is a trend that top teams in Europe employ. I simply pointed out that the last guy was the only one to go against that grain. His aim was to make us one of those top teams. Is that too much for you to follow?

^sorry I just saw your forum name.

Couldn't resist, too easy. I did point out that you had a midfield legend in his twilight years playing as a defensive midfielder, in contrast to your theory about BR.

Doesn't matter how you try to justify the comment about top european clubs, it's ingrained in Liverpool supporters that they belong at the top table of european football when clearly it's been a while since that was true.

You're wrong. I'm not.
I'm saying, and I know this is difficult it is early, this:
I don't think he'll get enough time from the media, once it becomes apparent he won't lead them to the promised land this season.
That right now, Liverpool are competing to be Spurs.
That right now, Players who are in your price bracket look firmly at the options (Arsenal, Spurs, Liverpool) and probably evaluate on "4th, possible 4th, Europa but chance to be part of something BIG if it works".

Liverpool do not have a bottomless pit to impose the infrastructure required for a massive ground up coaching revolution from top to bottom. Especially with the gamble that it might not actually work in the 3 years he has.

Liverpool do not have a bottomless pit to acquire players from all over the world at the price points they can afford. Also, no marquee signing will come to Liverpool.

Klopp will have problems integrating players from the bundesliga (if that's where he targets) into the EPL BLOOD AND CRASH football (see Shinji Kagawa).

From below the line at teh guardian:

I'm the pioneer for a new style of football, which I've modestly named Egongengenpress. The principles are similar to gengenpress, but taken to a further extreme. Everyone must close down space everywhere on the pitch, regardless of logic or damage limitation; if the goalkeeper has to rush 50 yards out of goal just to prevent a harmless sidewards pass, then by god he'd better do it or else I'll field somebody who will. Even when my team have the ball they should be pressing the man in possession, cutting off his avenues of passing while at the same time screaming at him to pass the ball.

Once the team are comfortable with this style of play, we'll then expand it to all areas of the stadium. The manager (myself) will need a male display of dominance and aggression to press the opposition manager back onto the bench, make him fearful of entering his technical area to issue instructions by marking my territory. At half time, the team should press the opposition back into their changing room, and, yes, even the fans need to constantly press the opposition. If there's a queue for a pie vendor, then our fans should be looking to cut off their supply lines by forming into two banks of four at the front of the queue, and constantly interchanging with fresh fans to ensure that the opposing fans don't get so much as a sniff of gravy.

I would tell you my plans for my Sweeper-Tea Lady and False Groundsmen, but I don't want to give my entire game plan away just yet.

*Gegenpress

Is that the new single from k-pop legend, Psy?

I miss the utterly pointless weekend predictions.
I'm contemplating predicting a Liverpool win

Spurs 1 v 5 Liverpool
Chelsea 4 v 0 Aston Villa
Crystal Palace 1 v 1 West Ham
Everton 8 v 9 Man Utd
Man City 62 v 0 Bournemouth
Southampton 1 v 3 Leicester
West Brom 0 v 0 Sunderland
Watford 0 v 3 Arsenal
Newcastle 0 v 1 Norwich
Swansea 2 v 1 Stoke

Everyone will be at everyone else.
Unless you're Derby. And then we'll lose.

Airhead
Couldn't resist, too easy. I did point out that you had a midfield legend in his twilight years playing as a defensive midfielder, in contrast to your theory about BR.

Doesn't matter how you try to justify the comment about top european clubs, it's ingrained in Liverpool supporters that they belong at the top table of european football when clearly it's been a while since that was true.

It's not just the fans, every other piece of commentary is of the famous Euro Anfield nights. You can't really be surprised.
You haven't proved your point because Gerrard being bypassed for fun was clear for all to see. If he had an athletic person alongside him maybe we wouldn't have conceded 50+ goals that season.

Ah the meedija...Well it's up to the fans whom they want to go with.

Spurs has consistently finished above us for about half a decade bar one ( what has to be called an anomaly), so yeah next step is getting above them.

Where I still disagree with you is in the finances: The team 4th from bottom in the EPL can easily outspend Atletico/Porto/Sevilla etc with the new contract. There are teams all over Europe that do not spend huge amounts but do buy players to fit a system at > €10M. Why can't LFC operate in this bracket? We did it with Rafa to great success.

Why the problem integrating German players (who we've done well with historically) from what is regarded as the closest to our league?
(I know Klopp was mystified by the way BR used Sahin who went back to do well again ditto Kagawa).