Holmes_and_Watson

A football ground covered by ectoplasm, rising into a devil's trident? Who you gonna call?

I'd have thought more egg-shell? 🙂

Carpentry and taxidermy. Multi-talented. 🙂

Paul and Aribo to hold down their goalkeeper, and Archer to score (eventually). Don't worry. All 3 will wear Liverpool shirts, so the ref won't mind.

You all probably think doing Pinochet as manager jokes is something of a coup, but mine was first.

Could you put up a pic of Donald Trump, so we can compare it to the puppet?

Like a lot of pundits and football gurus, it's much easier to take a situation in isolation and "fix" it, rather than set up, and train, a side to minimse it happening across a game, and get results. Martin will passionately talk and excellent game full of the things he wants to see. Getting his side to actually do it was mixed at Championship level, and non existent at PL level. He has always said he'd rather lose playing to what he believed in, than change. He did make changes, but within his core beliefs...right up until McCarthy came in. Our winning goal was a RussBall one, but in a game where we were less likely to muck up defensively because of the change. SR brought him in knowing how tied he was to that approach. So, their knowledge of what would be competitive tactically was as flawed as their recruitment. I remember reading posts from , I think, @Maggie Mayr where the penny dropped on just how much the PL had progressed in the last few seasons. As we were stuck at the bottom of it. I'd not been seeing too many other games. So, some players I thought would step up, clearly weren't going to do so as well as I thought they might. Watching more recently really brought that home. Teams have caught up with it, as happens to all tactics, countered it and are doing something else. As much as I'm not a fan of Morrison, everyone he works with seems to love him to bits. Once in a blue moon there's the hint of something coherent. I wonder if he's much more astute off air, which you'd think would be an issue for a commentator. SR, coaches, recruitment, data analysts, their own eyes all the way to highlights or you tube videos. But it does seem to have passed them by, as they focused on The Philosophy. And incredibly unprepared. I get the feeling that a number of our managers aren't interested in anyone not completely on board with their tactic of choice. Then, when we have a squad of samey, unthinking drones they talk about there being no leaders.

https://www.skysports.com/football/video/36396/13325975/tottenham-hotspur-vs-bournemouth-jamie-carragher-and-russell-martin-break-down-how-cherries-press-caused-chaos-for-spurs There's a massive gulf between what Russ sees as he breaks down the plays on his tactics board and the reality of a team all doing it on the pitch. That's not to say the theory is wrong. Only how hard it is to implement. We're an abject lesson in that failing. With his way being so single minded, there was no way back when even the basics didn't work. Russ is the perfect person to analyse playing it out. He's had to go over the failings of it and players implementing it to the perfection needed every game of his career. In this clip, Spurs try to implement their manager's idea. They don't all do it, and it falls flat on it's face. Russ worked and worked at getting the ideas in place, and either gave nothing or didn't have the players capable of dealing with it, when it didn't work. In the clip, you can see how the auto passes Russ put in place allowed for the breaking of presses (not as good as Bournemouth's) in the Championship. He'd have Will be mobile in constantly looking to receive the ball from under pressure defenders. Putting themselves under needless pressure in the first place frustrated him. But that was them trying to do what they thought he was asking. Had our defender received the ball, as the Spurs defender did, and just hoofed it, Russ would have had a moan.

Lost

Chris Nicholl? 🙂

Water

He has people. Despite having people, he's had a go at them. Successfully. As he's got to them. As well as having people, he's also got an (or possibly the only) otherwise. Unlike the people he has, he wants to make it known that his possession of an otherwise is something of a mystery. Seemed clear to me.

I'd look at fitness after I looked at cluelessness. As CaM says, we don;t press as a unit. Extending that, we do nothing as a unit. Balls forward happen at random, as if blessed fro the heavens, and we try to stumble forward with it. There's no idea of how to impose ourselves on a game. No idea of moving into attacking shapes. We had instances from Sule, Dibling and Fernandes when they had space in front of them to run into. But no one to pass it to ahead of them, no nearby support and no plan of where anyone should be. So, back it went. Sule was there to be our outlet. Just like the Selles tactic. But under Selles, Alcaraz roamed a certain area where people knew he'd be to receive it. Sule did what he could when he could get it. TP and especially Archer should have been on the end of at least one of his efforts. Lack of direction and planning means that no one was near any of them. We had a few glimpses in the first half when you could see Will receive, look forward and pass. But that's us occasionally doing it right in at a slower pace, with a compact set up. We fall apart in attack, when that's tested. A good 45 minutes, to do some defensive basics. Will did well for the goal. But miles off being an effective unit across the team.

Post match interview on 5 live did just that 🙂 "Did the exertions of midweek result in the first half performance we saw today?"

Liverpool brought on their subs and tweaked their approach. To our credit, we had tried to get a few things forward before their goals. The second one took the stuffing out of us. We got ahead using Selles' tactic. When we were behind, we had nothing. We've had no real answer to that for years. Some positives in the first half. Mainly Juric picking a formation that actually suits his players. Having a plan and also for giving some of the many weaknesses, some cover. Good to see Will have a good first half. In the second, and all game we could have made more form Sule. We had a few passes we should have had people on the end of. But we lack someone like that, or rather don;t seem to train to really take advantage of it. Repeated self inflicted penalty for the third. We didn't cause them too many problems today, and our goal caused some shock. But we did a lot of the basics decently. We just don;t have the planning or strength to impose ourselves.

TP and Archer on there to put just that pass in the net. Yet...

Not in this squad.

Outside our transfer budget I'm afraid. 🙂

Crumbs! Steamy stuff.

Foo

Well, that was daft.

You've not been in his presence. You can;t help but get carried away . 🙂

True. But when you consider that happened when he had to put on his shirt today, he's not done that badly. 🙂

Ah. Surprised he could see the arms past the blinding, annoying smile.

No. It was just a blatant push in the back. Not the major thing like the tiny tap that gave them a penalty.