Liverpool ‘have staggeringly misplaced confidence they can control games’

The problem with Liverpool is being discussed by the Mailbox, while Man Utd fans still want Ten Hag out.

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Liverpool have misplaced confidence

Under the captaincy of Big Virj, there’s been a fair bit of… ‘right let’s just see this out from here’….. followed by quite a substantial list now of games where LFC have not in-fact been able to see things out. Two in fact, just from United.

The team have a staggeringly misplaced confidence they can control games (especially with a second-choice keeper, and still two kids in the back four); Maybe a return to rock’n’roll football would be better for the final 7 + Europa ties.

It’s more like the team currently responding to chaos, rather than the early days of Klopp where it was chaos the team orchestrated and caused.

What it looks like to this supporter is a team that is very slow to react; no reaction when United scored, nor again after their second. The penalty didn’t seem to quicken the pace. You’d expect getting 7 minutes added time, and United already subbing on defensive players in lieu of forwards, might also of warranted a bombardment. None came.

It’s not as strong as ‘sleepwalking’ because the team are still doing far better than most expected. There’s been some brilliant individual performances.

It’s not the slow and patient probing of Pep’s Barca, but a lot of what I see does resemble their game against Inter in 2010. What they do and always do, is working. They are winning 1:0. But they need a second goal. So they patiently probe and press for 90 minutes because what they do works. Only to realise far far far too late that there’s barely any time left, and they should have perhaps done something quite different to quicken the tempo.

The smile sand rueful shakes of the head at missing chance after chance, should be met by more than just the mild chuckle and confidence of players knowing it’ll come. It has repeatedly not come this year.

LFC are still ahead of City; They just now need to match their likely 7 out of 7 to be in contention. Only they are now relying on Arsenal to drop 2 points against one of Chelsea, United or Spurs. I would bloody love it if it was Everton on the last day though.

Tom G

READ: 16 Conclusions on Man Utd 2-2 Liverpool: Arrogance, Fernandes, Elliott, title race, Allardyce, Amad

Liverpool are losing it in defence

When dusts have settled and Jurgen Klopp has ridden off into his (likely temporary) sunset in two months’ time, I’ll probably reflect back on this see-sawing “what if” of a season and distil it down to three absolute calamities that clipped our collective wings.

I’ll always recall three excellent centre-halves manufacturing extremely out-of-character howlers to gift critical points to the opposition in key fixtures. Joel Matip’s stoppage time own-goal in North London, VVD’s failed clearance vs Arsenal away, and young Quansah’s latest, which will only serve to put his name in a bad spot of light for the next foreseeable.

No matter how we’ve come to define and quantify “greats” of the game, these are three truly sterling players; one a certifiable legend with a very worthy shout for greatest ever at his position, one possibly the single best free-transfer in the history of the club (not named Milner), and one inarguably amongst the most promising up-and-coming stars in the league with the brightest of futures still to come.

All of them have at least one winner’s medal to boot, which the majority of professionals in the league may never see. And yet, missteps occur and calamity can strike. You don’t always get what you deserve and all that.

Klopp himself was a centre-back in his day, though he probably couldn’t hold a candle then to these three now. Still, he’ll rue this I’m sure of it. They’ll each have smouldering holes in their boots where they shot themselves clean through… Matip, Virg and Quansah. Somehow though, I’m also pretty sure Klopp the bear-hugging human being will be more than happy with what he’s had in his time on Merseyside, and despite my oft doom gloomings I’ll treasure seeing his era with us the same way.

Eric, Los Angeles CA

Man Utd Conclusions

– ETH has to go

– The result is definitely not a fair reflection of the performance as has been the case for most of the games. We can’t perform for 90 mins consistently. We have not had one such performance all season.

– Onana once again was a POTM contender with some top class saves and showed great composure. Magnificent save to stop Szobo from scoring very early. He is steadily improving and showing what he is capable of. That said he went down a bit early for the penalty. Not a great penalty by Salah and had Onana been patient he could’ve saved it.

(Salah’s saving grace was the penalty in otherwise what was a poor performance from him. Hasn’t been at his best since returning from the Afcon. Him returning to his stride is vital for L’pool’ title push in these final weeks)

– Can any of our DMs actually defend. Looks like all of them are good from an attacking perspective and it seems we need a proper DM to play alongside Kobbie

– How Case lasted the entire game is beyond imagination, thought Amrabat was coming in for him but ETH decided to take Garnacho off. Any more talk of Case and Red cards will be irrelevant as he almost pushed the boundaries with that tackle on Diaz. Got away with one.

– Lovely finish from Bruno for the opening goal and a great assist from Quansah without which it would’ve been another Zero shots on target performance.

– And an even better team move and goal from Kobbie

– Rashford, the less we talk the better. Tracks back one time in what was an error from him and immediately makes gestures to the defender

– Brings me back to the first point. This was by no means our weakest XI. We missed only 2 players, one CB (Harry is a 85million CB by the way) and a LB. That’s why we have a squad and make changes in times of injuries. The six before our defence was our natural first choice XI. If you even consider that we missed our first choice CB pairing and LB respectively what was issue in the forward play. ETH can’t complain that he didn’t have the resources to at least have a shot in a massive home game against our fierce rivals. It is not working out. Consider our next 7 games, away against Bournemouth, Brighton and Palace. At home we play Arsenal, Newcastle and 2 teams in the relegation battle. Honestly I can foresee atleast 3 losses here. There is no way we can still continue to back ETH and think he is the right person to take us forward

– ETH has to go

Vasanthan, Coimbatore Tamilnadu India

Actually, you can conclude nothing

This may be a seventeenth conclusion for you but it’s the only one you’ll ever need after a Manchester United vs Liverpool game:

They can not be predicted and NOTHING can be learned from them.

Ok, the second part of that is probably less true but the point stands. The game has always defied logic, from Jimmy Greenhoff preventing a treble, them coming back from 3-0 to draw 3-3 in the nineties, through Paul Ince pegging back the treble winners, Danny Murphy’s penalties, Diego Forlan, the 1-4 at old Trafford and Torres getting in Vidic’s head and Gerrard’s heat map in his final game, to them beating us 7-0 from an xg under three and this seasons recent lunacy.

We hate them. But we love to hate them and the games always throw up something weird. I kind of want them to beat Arsenal to the title for old times sake.

But if they fall short by four points or less than that will also be pretty sweet.

Ash Metcalfe

…In advance of the next deeply, oddly, rabidly aggressive wrong and obsessive take on ten Hag from F365.

This result had no positive or negative effect on ten Hag’s prospects of remaining in charge of Manchester United.

As he will be their manager next season.

And has never at any point been at the slightest risk of not being their manager next season.

Why do United often look like they’re a team without cohesion and relying on individuals and moments?

Because for a decade they have been a club without cohesion relying on individuals and moments.

And how do you go about introducing cohesion while keeping the individuals and moments? By gradually building over multiple seasons under a manager who is put in place to create a cohesive squad by removing those who do not fit, and gradually improving and adding to those who do.

That’s ten Hags remit, that is what he’s doing, that is exactly what Ratcliffe and his team need doing, and that is why cynical story after story about ten Hag failing a job he is executing extremely competently and being replaced is so aggravating to those of your readers who use words rather than emojis and insults.

I know most of you at F365 Towers have to know this.

Maybe write more about Fulham and less clickbait cynical STUPID bullshit about United.

Love you bye

Tim Sutton (watch Leverkusen break Harry Kane’s heart and win the Bundesliga next Sunday)

Ten Hag loves chaos

Years ago I bought FIFA. Turns out I was sh*t at it.

I had no tactics, couldn’t control midfield. I played a back four as that gave me four chances to throw a defender at whatever attacker had the ball.

Nice to know there was at least one chap in Holland who appreciated my revolutionary tactic and has chosen to imitate it at Old Trafford.

Spencer Gooner (we all know Man C are gonna win but the journey’s fun)

An Arsenal fan writes…

That draw at City doesn’t look so stupid now, Stewie, huh?

Neill Ryan

A Man City fan writes…

Seriously, apart from Liverpool fans, who doesn’t love Manchester United tonight?

I know I do.

Lovely.

Mark (Was it catastrophic injuries, that no other PL team has suffered, that cost poor, penniless, Liverpool tonight? Asking for a friend) MCFC

Tickner love

Dave Tickner has managed to write an ENTIRE article without mentioning ‘The Barclays’.

Is he feeling alright?

TGWolf (it’s been 8 years dude, let it go) THFC

Simple

Poch out.

James Sargeant