Will Liverpool Stick or Twist
Article by Red Phil
Follow e-Liverpool on Twitter!
Another improving performance that hauled us above West Ham in the league but now we look up a bit and see Arsenal, Tottenham and Southampton who are all a different kettle of fish than West Ham, who were never going to last the pace. The sight of Sturridge returning, and scoring on this return, was just what we needed but we must be realistic and suggest that we are unlikely to clamber above the North London teams and Saints into a Champions League spot due to our inability to score and their ability to score a lot more than us.
So, what do we do? Do we more-or-less continue as we are – with, realistically, a relatively small chance of getting into the top four – or do we go for broke and improve our chances of making the big tournament next year?
To me, going for broke equates to getting Danny Ings or Saido Berahino NOW, even if it costs five, six or seven million (with their contracts running out in a few months, at which time we could have either of them for free) and seeing if the chosen one can add the few goals that just might perform the miracle we Reds fans want. With fifteen league matches still to play isn’t that a chance worth taking?
Who gives a damn about a few million now if it could just unlock the door to the untold riches of the Champions League a few months further down the track? Even at the worst-case scenario we’d be left with a very good prospect with a bright future ahead of him and all at a cost equal to what you’d expect to pay for an unproven kid from the lower leagues.
Two young players of proven quality in this league, as opposed to untold numbers of mooted foreigners who are totally unproven in the most physically demanding league in the world, are well worth a punt for about six or seven million.
Just because our keeper has had a couple of good, or decent games I somehow cannot understand the manager’s reticence about going for somebody new? Yes, a couple of good, more-or-less error-free games is an improvement but should it wipe away the evidence our eyes have seen in the last season and a half? There must have been twenty-plus games when he patently wasn’t good enough so are we to base our goalkeeping choices on a couple of good-ish games and hope the bad games are a thing of the past?
As I’ve said before, since Ray Clemence we’ve not had one decent keeper. David James and Bruce Grobbellar made more mistakes per season than any other keeper I’ve seen, Westerweld, Ogrizovic, Hooper, Kirkland, Dudek and – probably - several others have been completely average and even Reina didn’t look the business most of the time so what is it about this seeming obsession with putting mediocrity between the posts? Why do we continue to try playing with known weaknesses, of our own choosing, and when there are world-class keepers out there who would jump at the chance of joining the Reds?
United, City, Chelsea and Spurs have all got keepers much better than we can dream of at the moment so doesn’t that give them an obvious advantage on this last leg of the league? When did Courtois, Lloris, De Gea or Hart make a serious mistake????? Hart is slightly error prone but not at the same standard of cock-ups as our current custodian. We, LFC, should NEVER settle for second-best!
With the transfer window slamming shut in the next couple of days the club will either signal that we are still determined to qualify for the Champions League, with a couple of signings, or they will announce to their millions of fans that, in order to save money, we’ll carry on as we are with a ten-to-twenty per cent chance of ending the season in the top four. I know which approach our fans want and deserve . . . and it ain’t the latter one!
No transfer activity effectively signals that we’ll see what happens, but don’t get your hopes up! When we are talking about Liverpool FC, our mighty Reds, that is a shocking way to be thinking. With Berahino seemingly saying he might now sign another West Brom contract, as he’s a bit fed up of waiting for movement form LFC or Spurs, are we going to lose yet another potential target, as we did with Delph?
RED PHIL
© e-Football 2014 All rights reserved no part of this document or this website may be reproduced without consent of e-Football
Follow e-Liverpool on Twitter!
Another improving performance that hauled us above West Ham in the league but now we look up a bit and see Arsenal, Tottenham and Southampton who are all a different kettle of fish than West Ham, who were never going to last the pace. The sight of Sturridge returning, and scoring on this return, was just what we needed but we must be realistic and suggest that we are unlikely to clamber above the North London teams and Saints into a Champions League spot due to our inability to score and their ability to score a lot more than us.
So, what do we do? Do we more-or-less continue as we are – with, realistically, a relatively small chance of getting into the top four – or do we go for broke and improve our chances of making the big tournament next year?
To me, going for broke equates to getting Danny Ings or Saido Berahino NOW, even if it costs five, six or seven million (with their contracts running out in a few months, at which time we could have either of them for free) and seeing if the chosen one can add the few goals that just might perform the miracle we Reds fans want. With fifteen league matches still to play isn’t that a chance worth taking?
Who gives a damn about a few million now if it could just unlock the door to the untold riches of the Champions League a few months further down the track? Even at the worst-case scenario we’d be left with a very good prospect with a bright future ahead of him and all at a cost equal to what you’d expect to pay for an unproven kid from the lower leagues.
Two young players of proven quality in this league, as opposed to untold numbers of mooted foreigners who are totally unproven in the most physically demanding league in the world, are well worth a punt for about six or seven million.
Just because our keeper has had a couple of good, or decent games I somehow cannot understand the manager’s reticence about going for somebody new? Yes, a couple of good, more-or-less error-free games is an improvement but should it wipe away the evidence our eyes have seen in the last season and a half? There must have been twenty-plus games when he patently wasn’t good enough so are we to base our goalkeeping choices on a couple of good-ish games and hope the bad games are a thing of the past?
As I’ve said before, since Ray Clemence we’ve not had one decent keeper. David James and Bruce Grobbellar made more mistakes per season than any other keeper I’ve seen, Westerweld, Ogrizovic, Hooper, Kirkland, Dudek and – probably - several others have been completely average and even Reina didn’t look the business most of the time so what is it about this seeming obsession with putting mediocrity between the posts? Why do we continue to try playing with known weaknesses, of our own choosing, and when there are world-class keepers out there who would jump at the chance of joining the Reds?
United, City, Chelsea and Spurs have all got keepers much better than we can dream of at the moment so doesn’t that give them an obvious advantage on this last leg of the league? When did Courtois, Lloris, De Gea or Hart make a serious mistake????? Hart is slightly error prone but not at the same standard of cock-ups as our current custodian. We, LFC, should NEVER settle for second-best!
With the transfer window slamming shut in the next couple of days the club will either signal that we are still determined to qualify for the Champions League, with a couple of signings, or they will announce to their millions of fans that, in order to save money, we’ll carry on as we are with a ten-to-twenty per cent chance of ending the season in the top four. I know which approach our fans want and deserve . . . and it ain’t the latter one!
No transfer activity effectively signals that we’ll see what happens, but don’t get your hopes up! When we are talking about Liverpool FC, our mighty Reds, that is a shocking way to be thinking. With Berahino seemingly saying he might now sign another West Brom contract, as he’s a bit fed up of waiting for movement form LFC or Spurs, are we going to lose yet another potential target, as we did with Delph?
RED PHIL
© e-Football 2014 All rights reserved no part of this document or this website may be reproduced without consent of e-Football
No comments: