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Defences Win Championships


spakes
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I don't want to have a go at Nige, I love the guy and I love the attacking football we play. We are such an attacking side now that the gameplan is basically "if you score one, we'll score two", I just wonder what happened to the "defences win championships" philosophy?

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We need a manager like Gordon Strachan who understands the importance of defending. I know we lost by about the same scoreline in the Premiership just before the Cup Final, but he learned from that and on the day we weren't far off beating Arsenal at The Millenium Stadium.

We also need a new keeper and a very strong CB - on loan fast!

 

Alternatively Gordon would make a good assistant manager. I like Nigel too, and we owe him a lot, but he needs help.

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We need a manager like Gordon Strachan who understands the importance of defending. I know we lost by about the same scoreline in the Premiership just before the Cup Final, but he learned from that and on the day we weren't far off beating Arsenal at The Millenium Stadium.

We also need a new keeper and a very strong CB - on loan fast!

 

Alternatively Gordon would make a good assistant manager. I like Nigel too, and we owe him a lot, but he needs help.

 

How do you know that it wouldnt be close if we got to have another go at Arsenal next week?

 

It you told Nigel directy that he needs help after 4 games in he'd rightly tell you to **** off

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I don't want to have a go at Nige, I love the guy and I love the attacking football we play. We are such an attacking side now that the gameplan is basically "if you score one, we'll score two", I just wonder what happened to the "defences win championships" philosophy?

 

He used to say that. Suggests to me he may not have got in the transfer window the defenders he wanted.

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We need a manager like Gordon Strachan who understands the importance of defending. I know we lost by about the same scoreline in the Premiership just before the Cup Final, but he learned from that and on the day we weren't far off beating Arsenal at The Millenium Stadium.

We also need a new keeper and a very strong CB - on loan fast!

 

Alternatively Gordon would make a good assistant manager. I like Nigel too, and we owe him a lot, but he needs help.

 

What cup final were you watching? We were came nowhere near to beating Arsenal.

 

Your assistant manager suggestion is ridiculous as well.

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Bill Shankly used to say you build a team by starting with the GK and then working your way up.

 

In the early days Liverpool were well known for grinding out 1-0 wins and very rarely lost by more than one goal.

 

We did not strengthen well enough but it was right for SFC not to be held to ransom over players that would be a short term fix.

 

The 'YOYO' plan is the right way forward.

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Bill Shankly used to say you build a team by starting with the GK and then working your way up.

 

In the early days Liverpool were well known for grinding out 1-0 wins and very rarely lost by more than one goal.

 

We did not strengthen well enough but it was right for SFC not to be held to ransom over players that would be a short term fix.

 

The 'YOYO' plan is the right way forward.

 

is this YOYO plan this years equivalent of the plan to be 17th last year?

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We need a manager like Gordon Strachan who understands the importance of defending. I know we lost by about the same scoreline in the Premiership just before the Cup Final, but he learned from that and on the day we weren't far off beating Arsenal at The Millenium Stadium.

We also need a new keeper and a very strong CB - on loan fast!

 

Alternatively Gordon would make a good assistant manager. I like Nigel too, and we owe him a lot, but he needs help.

 

Good God no. The football under Strachan was so depressing, had he stayed on another year I would probably have given up my season ticket. Football is about entertainment as well as tribal loyalty.

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Good God no. The football under Strachan was so depressing, had he stayed on another year I would probably have given up my season ticket. Football is about entertainment as well as tribal loyalty.

don't know about you..but I was entertained beating Man U, arsenal, and other top clubs at SMS..fisnihing 8th and getting to a duo final and watching us have one of the best left backs and strikers...and keepers in the league...

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Bill Shankly used to say you build a team by starting with the GK and then working your way up.

 

In the early days Liverpool were well known for grinding out 1-0 wins and very rarely lost by more than one goal.

 

We did not strengthen well enough but it was right for SFC not to be held to ransom over players that would be a short term fix.

 

The 'YOYO' plan is the right way forward.

 

 

it really winds me up when you go on about the yo yo strategy in every thread. other than that you talk a fair bot of sense.

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Warning signs at times last season, especially the last quarter.

 

At the top level, the writing has been on the wall since the udinese game.

 

I keep hearing how we will learn from these games, but same **** is happening every week.

 

Imo we need to pray we stay in touch till January and will then have to do some serious business at the back.

 

My fear is it will be too late. Yes its only 4 games but 14 goals against is a huge warning sign and it's difficult to see this improving dramatically.

Edited by doggface
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Warning signs at times last season, especially the last quarter.

 

At the top level, the writing has been on the wall since the udinese game.

 

I keep hearing how we will learn from these games, but same **** is happening every week.

 

Imo we need to pray we stay in touch till January and will then have to do some serious business at the back.

 

My fear is it will be too late. Yes its only 4 games but 14 goals against is a huge warning sign and it's difficult to see this improving dramatically.

 

This is the problem. We can't learn from these mistakes because the players we have at the back simply are NOT good enough at this level. I can't see us keeping a clean sheet against anyone this season (seriously).

 

Warning signs have been there since last season, Reading came and tore us a new one at our place (our defence was shocking then) and they are going to be down there this season.

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To think that leaking goals = crap back4 + goalkeeper is naive to the extreme. Yesterday, our midfield laid off Arsenals playmakers allowing them acres of room and that is our main issue.

In fact, Our CBs played OK, there was no cover for either full back apparent, Puncheon and lallana were way off the pace.

NA was constantly trying to get the midfield/defence further up the pitch, but the players mentally were afraid of their pace.

 

WE did the same v Man C/Man U but they don't play at Arsenals tempo.

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To think that leaking goals = crap back4 + goalkeeper is naive to the extreme. Yesterday, our midfield laid off Arsenals playmakers allowing them acres of room and that is our main issue.

In fact, Our CBs played OK, there was no cover for either full back apparent, Puncheon and lallana were way off the pace.

NA was constantly trying to get the midfield/defence further up the pitch, but the players mentally were afraid of their pace.

 

WE did the same v Man C/Man U but they don't play at Arsenals tempo.

 

This is how it was.

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I am convinced that we followed this philosophy during our last Prem years.

 

And it was the demise through injury of our two central defenders that directly led to relegation

 

Crikey me. The over simplification of the century!

 

Defences win championships.

Games are won in midfield

Goals win games

 

 

You can't read one without the two. Otherwise it would be 'defences get you lots of 0-0 draws and leaves you very close to the relegation zone'.

 

The season starts next week.

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I've never heard that phrase before.

I have constantly heard the "goals win games" one though - so which are we to believe?

 

No I have not either but I have definitely heard the phrase 'all the best teams are built from the back'. We had scored 2 goals against both City and United without our new expensive signings. Whilst these signings are very welcome and the two who played yesterday both show promise there can be no doubt that we have failed to recruit a decent left back, goalkeeper and a commanding centre back which most people think are essential. It appears Nigel, Les and Nicola have neglected our biggest weakness from last season and strengthened the area of the team where we actually looked like we were coping with the Premier league. It appears someone has ****ed up big time and I have to wonder who is to blame.

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NA said time and again that we were looking at bringing in defenders. Same as last season - yet we have gone for the more flash and marketable type of player so that now we look top heavy with forward players.

 

Is this NAs doing or more the influence of others ?

 

We haven't had a big problem scoring and creating chances over last couple of seasons but the back line has always looked a bit suspect. I like NA as a manager and i would be very surprised if he didn't highlight the need to strengthen the defence to the transfer 'team' (or whatever its called). I just wonder if some of our transfers were not wholly based on footballing reasons.

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don't know about you..but I was entertained beating Man U, arsenal, and other top clubs at SMS..fisnihing 8th and getting to a duo final and watching us have one of the best left backs and strikers...and keepers in the league...

 

This.

 

Strachan arrived when we were heading for relegation (in not dissimilar circumstances) and he revived a small but better balanced and effective squad and clearly inspired the best from them. He always said 'defend from the front' and we played with good shape with talented strikers (as we have now). Sure we were often out of our depth even then, but his strength was mixing talent with effective journeymen players which achieved some stirling results.

 

He was not perfect but we could learn some lessons from him.

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This.

 

Strachan arrived when we were heading for relegation (in not dissimilar circumstances) and he revived a small but better balanced and effective squad and clearly inspired the best from them. He always said 'defend from the front' and we played with good shape with talented strikers (as we have now). Sure we were often out of our depth even then, but his strength was mixing talent with effective journeymen players which achieved some stirling results.

 

He was not perfect but we could learn some lessons from him.

 

May be my memory, but didn't we finish 8th just before this under hoddle. Don't know what u call heading for relegation

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