Post Match EPL Newcastle (H) 4-1 January 31st 20:00

[peterhague]

Good to see Konate almost back to his best again (and grab a goal). RE VVD, one thing we'll really miss is his distribution. The midfielders hand off to him quite a lot.

Our midfield is still non-existant a lot of the times. We can put Wirtz in the 10 position but it leaves us with difficult decisions. We don't defend very well as a team at all and there is a lack of balance in midfield. A Kante-esque player would be transformative.

Ekitike's energy (and I don't just mean in a footballing sense). I said it in the other thread too, but can you imagine if Klopp had've gotten instead of Nunez? Ah... shame.

Towards the end of the game, camera kept panning to Slot who appeared to be gesturing 'calm', which the team obviously weren't heeding. Was I misreading?

Anyways, it's been a fairly miserable season so far. Hopefully we get more 'fun' games like this.

This is why I've just stopped engaging with all the criticism. It's almost all moronic.

Yeah there are problems but any idiot can see - if they wanted to - that a lot of them are just a combination of things that were kind of hard to avoid and generally forgivable.

Salah is shit, but the overwhelming consensus was to sign him up for 2 years. If he'd have gone a lot of fans and pundits would've had a meltdown.

Salah being hard to drop (which isn't a total excuse but a mitigation) has meant that fitting Wirtz in has totally exposed our lack of steel in Grav and Mac. But pretty much nobody was talking about replacing either of them last summer.

Ibou playing like a fucking cunt seems to mostly be on him and his delusions of Real Madrid more than anything else. We should've had Guehi to mitigate that but the club got too clever by half and fucked that up. Hardly Slot's fault. To compound that Leoni got injured for the whole fucking season in literally his first appearance.

Bradley being a crock isn't news but Frimpong being even worse wasn't really foreseeable.

Sometimes shit just happens. Get over it, be adults, and wait to see how we things recover over the next few months. There's no rush. Calling it now and demanding the guy is sacked etc just makes you all look like contemptible bellends.

 

[Woland]

Sounds mad with the scoreline but Newcastle were much better organised and much higher tempo than us. Thank fuck for Wirtz and Ekitike cos you know what everyone else on the pitch is gonna do before they do.

 

[dee]

Did you think yesterday was boring and shit? I enjoyed it.

With all due respect parts of the last two games doesn't erase the last x months (where x is a considerable number)

 

[rubans]

Yesterday was good, and so was some of Bournmouth and the last few CL games but the so called unbeaten run of 13 games or whatever against mostly really crappy low end PL opposition was boring and hated watching it personally.

 

[keniget]

This is why I've just stopped engaging with all the criticism. It's almost all moronic.

Yeah there are problems but any idiot can see - if they wanted to - that a lot of them are just a combination of things that were kind of hard to avoid and generally forgivable.

Salah is shit, but the overwhelming consensus was to sign him up for 2 years. If he'd have gone a lot of fans and pundits would've had a meltdown.

Salah being hard to drop (which isn't a total excuse but a mitigation) has meant that fitting Wirtz in has totally exposed our lack of steel in Grav and Mac. But pretty much nobody was talking about replacing either of them last summer.

Ibou playing like a fucking cunt seems to mostly be on him and his delusions of Real Madrid more than anything else. We should've had Guehi to mitigate that but the club got too clever by half and fucked that up. Hardly Slot's fault. To compound that Leoni got injured for the whole fucking season in literally his first appearance.

Bradley being a crock isn't news but Frimpong being even worse wasn't really foreseeable.

Sometimes shit just happens. Get over it, be adults, and wait to see how we things recover over the next few months. There's no rush. Calling it now and demanding the guy is sacked etc just makes you all look like contemptible bellends.

I can't quite work out whether you're reacting to my post or general atmosphere on the board but I'll assume it's the former since you've quoted me even though it's weird because I'm not being particularly critical here.

Anyways, what's moronic is focusing entirely on the fans perspective and ignoring the fact that there are teams of people are being paid huge sums of money to figure this shit out in advance before it becomes a catastrophic set of problems.

Nothing was forseeable. It was all just happenstance and we are entirely the victims of fortune and fate out of our control. Shut the fuck up.

 

[Gerry_A_Trick]

With all due respect parts of the last two games doesn't erase the last x months (where x is a considerable number)

I suppose that's my point, you're not actually looking at the game yesterday in isolation, and judging it if it was good to watch(which is fair enough if you don't want to!) . We were pretty good yesterday, some lovely football, we've gotten better to watch recently, even if results aren't quite where we want them.

 

[Frogfish]

We ALREADY have 95% of the parts to make an exceptional team. THat's why I'm so fucked off with Slot that we are so boring and shit.

TBH we looked a real team when we actually attacked with pace yesterday. Still some weakness down our right when defending (for two obvious reasons) but without all the injuries we'd be pissing all over Top 4.

 

[Hansern]

For the first 35 mins we were awful and in the end we were lucky only to be 0-1 down. After that we played much better and in the second half it was only us. 9-2 in shots and Newcastle had none on target.

 

[rubans]

Thought we create more on the right than we do on the left often. Talk about tunnel vision, highlighting weakness down the right over left but we conceded more down our left against Bournmouth and Newcastle. Man alive.

 

[Frogfish]

Sounds mad with the scoreline but Newcastle were much better organised and much higher tempo than us. Thank fuck for Wirtz and Ekitike cos you know what everyone else on the pitch is gonna do before they do.

For the first 30 mins yes. However after that, bar an odd few mins here or there, we were the high tempo team dominating. I thought we looked great going forward and it seemed we had opportunities to score, or at least create danger, on most attacks.

 

[Frogfish]

With all due respect parts of the last two games doesn't erase the last x months (where x is a considerable number)

I thought we were looking for the team to show improvement? Not pointing fingers into the past? We're clearly seeing that.

 

[Hansern]

For the foist 30 mins yes. However after that, bar an odd few mins here or there, we were the high tempo team dominating. I thought we looked great going forward and it seemed we had opportunities to score, or at least create danger, on most attacks.

The commentators over here said it was like watching the "old" Liverpool for the first time in a loooong time. Our attacking play was very good.

 

[Dreambeliever]

The City game is the acid test. Full meltdown if they beat us.

 

[Woland]

Yeah it was better but Salah and Gakpo are so fucking predictable. Ekitike dancing round like prime Henry papered over the cracks, how disjointed and sideways we still are.

The comparisons with him and Wirtz to Gerrard and Torres makes sense, because in their side and the current one, you could have swapped the other nine players with any average premier league side and you'd get the same result.

 

[Gerry_A_Trick]

I actually think it's more important to get 7-9 points from the three games after that. Win or lose against City won't tell us if we're getting better or not. It's putting a run of good results against teams we should beat.

 

[Dreambeliever]

I actually think it's more important to get 7-9 points from the three games after that. Win or lose against City won't tell us if we're getting better or not. It's putting a run of good results against teams we should beat.

So it’s return of the low block after the Fume strikes back?

May the Wirtz be with us.

 

[dee]

The City game is the acid test. Full meltdown if they beat us.

Meltdown was end of November.

We want our team to be successful, or at least, be entertaining trying to be successful. We've had a turgid, shitty last couple of months and, finally, some tiny rays of sunshine. However, the good is coming from two/three players playing at peak rather than a structured team approach it feels to me.

We'll see what we get over the next month orson. Hopefully continued improvement but I simply don't have confidence in Slot that he can get a tune out of all the players at his disposal

 

[Gerry_A_Trick]

Was the ballboy assist for the second goal mentioned. Not sure I remember us taking advantage of that before?

 

[dee]

Yeah it was better but Salah and Gakpo are so fucking predictable. Ekitike dancing round like prime Henry papered over the cracks, how disjointed and sideways we still are.

The comparisons with him and Wirtz to Gerrard and Torres makes sense, because in their side and the current one, you could have swapped the other nine players with any average premier league side and you'd get the same result.

The difference is our current other 9 are way better. Just can't seem to be melded together into a proper team. At least not to my eyes*

*I too have a legal 4K contract before THAT'S brought up :-D

 

[Hansern]

Was the ballboy assist for the second goal mentioned. Not sure I remember us taking advantage of that before?

Yeah, Ekitike mentioned it in his interview after the game. Quick thinking from the ballboy and Alisson.

 

[rubans]

I thought Gakpo was fine too, he tried and showed some good skills on to get away with great feet. My expectations must be low but I thought despite the midfield being by passed, Wirtz and Hugo were both exceptional.

 

[KopRed]

When we win it's in spite of Salah / Gakpo. When we lose it's because of Salah / Gakpo.
If they ain't banging in 3 goals in every match they are shit.

Some people just see what they want to see at this stage.

 

[Woland]

I thought Salah might come back from afcon a changed man, snapped out of his bad form and resemble something of his past self. Watching him repeatedly kick the ball at their LBs legs last night was depressing. It's not just the pace in his legs that seems to have gone.

 

[dee]

I thought Salah might come back from afcon a changed man, snapped out of his bad form and resemble something of his past self. Watching him repeatedly kick the ball at their LBs legs last night was depressing. It's not just the pace in his legs that seems to have gone.

Yeah. I know he played a lot of minutes for Egypt but I was hoping for a revitalised, more purposeful Mo on his return.

 

[Hansern]

If he can contribute with some assists and hopefully some goals until the summer that would be great.
He broke two records last night though:

No player has ever scored and assisted double digit numbers against the same club. 10 goals and 10 assists against Newcastle.
No player has scored and assisted more goals in one ground before.

Still an absolute legend even though this has to be his last season.

 

[Tinto]

I thought Gakpo was fine too, he tried and showed some good skills on to get away with great feet. My expectations must be low but I thought despite the midfield being by passed, Wirtz and Hugo were both exceptional.

Yeah, I thought he was okay too. I especially liked that moment in the first half when he trapped a high ball in our own half and dribbled it to the half way line. He should have gotten a free kick when he was brought down.

That’s the kind of thing that Diaz did all the time and something Gakpo rarely does. If Gakpo can makes that a part of his regular game, he’ll be on his way to being a worthy successor to Diaz.