Looking to Liverpool's Future

Article by Red Phil

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I’ve gone from shouting about my love for LFC, a year ago, to all of the United and City fans I work with, to having a thumping great headache from banging my head against brick walls at what a mess the manager has made of the great start he made. The newspapers seem to be saying we don’t have to look any further than the 49 goals we haven’t scored this year that we scored last year to find our problem area but, surely, that is an over-simplification?

My well-documented frustration at seeing the likes of Kolo Toure wearing our shirt – and his must be an XXL by now – wasn’t helped by the news that he is about to sign another contract with the club. WHAT!!!!! I suppose it’s too much to hope that it is to serve Bovril and meat pies in one of the food areas behind the stands but, honestly, what does he bring to the party other than a lack of pace and movement and a turning circle similar to one of the Cunard ships that visited our great city this weekend?

Anyway, back to the causes of our problems . . .

Working from the back, forwards . . . our goalkeeper cannot be trusted. He can be brilliant but he is prone to mistakes, unlike the great Ray Clemence whose only mistake was joining Spurs! Defenders, and especially rather poor ones, need that confidence that the guy behind them won’t mess-up and, unfortunately, I don’t think our defenders have that confidence in Simon Mignolet. I certainly haven’t got much confidence in him, I know that! A few good saves followed by a mistake isn’t good enough for a club of our stature, we need and deserve the best. He’s got to go!

We used to have a settled pattern of play, and tactical set-up that lasted a mere fifty years, fifty very successful years, but for some very strange reason that I can’t fathom, the manager decides, sometimes several times a game, to change from three at the back to four and then back to three again. As if that wasn’t bad enough, we haven’t got players good enough, mobile enough or intelligent enough to cope with this constant chopping and changing and when we see the admirable Emre Can ripped apart by every winger that comes his way it tells the fans that this guy is going to make a very good midfield player but he hasn’t got a hope in Hell of being a full-back.

Sadly, it seems to tell the manager that he is struggling in that position so let’s leave him there!!!! How to destroy a promising career in one or two easy instalments . . .

Then we’ve got the nauseating general lack of a decent central defender to partner Skrtel. We chop and change but cannot find a solution. Could that be because if you have three or four useless central defenders and you keep using them you keep coming up with the same result . . . that they simply aren't good enough! Three or four useless players in any combination aren’t going to suddenly improve, are they? And when those useless central defenders are not dominant in the air, as we found out at Wimbledon when they lumped high ball after high ball into our area and we struggled, that is a recipe for disaster.

Moreno and Manquillo simply aren’t getting enough games and Moreno looks baffled by the number of roles he is playing. He must think he is playing all of the parts in Ben Hur, the remake . . . even including the crowd scenes and the nags pulling the chariots! He’s a full-back, for Heaven’s sake and a damned good one if given the chance to prove it! Another managerial goof, one of many!

Sakho is just atrocious but still gets picked. He cannot control a ball in less than nine touches and his judgment is poor. He is a joke figure who the United and City fans I work with (God, I hate them at the moment) take the you-know-what out of because of his inability to look comfortable with a ball at his feet or anywhere within ten yards of him! They WANT him to get the ball and THAT should not be happening! Would he get into the United and City squads, let alone the teams? Not a hope, so how can he be good enough for LFC?

In midfield can anybody remember the last time Allen or Lucas did anything that was memorable? as defensive midfielders they are NOT good enough but still get rotated more often than a much-used merry-go-round at a funfair. How many chances do people need at Anfield before the manager say “Sorry, bud, you ain’t good enough!” I have little confidence that either of them will be elsewhere at the start of next season even though Inter are supposedly after Lucas.

Then we’ve got the “new Gerrard”, Henderson, a guy who has done less with every passing game since Christmas. If he is a defensive midfielder, he is a poor one, and if he is an attacking midfielder I’d love to see the Opta stats as he makes as many chances as I get to date a Miss World, and they don’t come around often! Jordan Henderson is becoming the invisible man when on the pitch and that isn’t good enough when he is supposed to be our new captain! Anyway, I’d give that job to Martin Skrtel!

Coutinho and Ibe are the future of Liverpool FC . . . unless they get sick and tired of the rubbish we are playing and decide to move on! Markovic hasn’t done a lot but, and it isn’t his fault, he hasn’t had much of a chance as he’s been in and out of the team all season. Same with Lallana who looks good when he plays but he has been hit by injuries and the manager’s bizarre rotational policies more than most.

Sterling has had a poor season but that seems to be largely irrelevant as he wants to leave and I am quite happy for him to go as long as we get a lot of money for him and spend it wisely. I think I can see a problem there with the word ‘wisely’!!!! There’s not been much of that in recent years, has there? To his credit, Sterling tries, and is a bloody good player when on form, but seems to have largely given up in recent weeks. Mind you, who hasn’t???????

The tactic of playing diminutive lone strikers has NEVER worked in world football, as far as I can recall, but Mr Rodgers has now taken that a step further by playing a diminutive midfielder in the striking role and having no striker on the pitch at all. Just think, we could have got rid of people like Rush, Dalglish, Toshack, Keegan, Hunt, Owen, Fowler, Suarez and Torres and played lone dwarfs in their place . . . and we didn’t know it! How remiss of us was that?

I’ve always thought that good teams had strikers who hunted in pairs with Hunt and St John, Dalglish and Rush, Keegan and Toshack and Suarez and Sturridge proving it for Liverpool alone. Add Jones and Clarke of Leeds and Greaves and Gilzean for Spurs to that list and you get an idea that two up front is better than one, more often than not! To Hell with new-fangled tactical crap! This, remember, is the club who buys three strikers and then plays a miniscule midfielder as a lone striker in a 6-1 defeat! I’d love anybody to try to persuade me of the tactical merit of THAT modern tactical formation!!!!!!!

That brings us, more or less, to the strikers, and I use that word under duress. Balotelli, Lambert, Borini. Good grief! If any or all of them are at Anfield next year we are in a dire mess!

The above has been obvious to the fans all season but the manager is as likely to give Balotelli another season to “prove himself” as he is to get rid of him. He is as likely to have Sakho in the middle of the back three – or should that be a back four – as he is to move him on and he is as likely to demand that we keep a possibly disinterested, and increasingly angry and frustrated, Sterling as he is to sell him and use the money on a player, or players, who would love to be at Anfield.

I just don’t trust his judgment any more. Will we get a new keeper? Probably not. Will next season begin with Lucas and Allen on the pitch but doing very little and will our defensive unit look like a colander, yet again? Probably.

Should we be sticking our fingers in the power sockets at the rumours of Pirlo and Alves, both hopelessly over the hill, coming here? Very possibly.

A hundred million from the owners, fifty million from the sale of Sterling and twenty million from the sale of squad players such as Lucas, Allen, Balotelli, Borini and Lambert SHOULD give us a war chest capable of getting some decent players to go alongside Skrtel, Coutinho, Can, Lallana and Ibe . . . but would THIS manager spend it wisely? God knows! Rumour has it he’s after another winger, from Benfica again, but I’d suggest we need a couple of strikers, central midfielders and central defenders – not to mention a new keeper – BEFORE we need another winger.

Me? As I’m too old to play these days I’d plump for Sissoko from Newcastle, Vietto from Villarreal, Allaramandi (or whatever his name is) from Madrid, Khedira from Madrid, Roberts from Fulham, Begovic from Stoke, Ings and Milner both on free transfers and a huge, monstrous, dominating defender who can head a ball, name unknown but a new Tommy Smith would do!!!! £170m well spent! Bring on the Champion’s League with that lot . . . hopefully. Obviously, if Hazard, Messi and Ronaldo become available we could look at them to finish the squad.

We've got to ditch this three at the back lark until we get players happy to play it and who CAN play it, we’ve got to put Emre Can in his rightful place in midfield and we’ve got to use Moreno to his strengths. It ain’t rocket science!

Sadly, we aren’t going to tinker and spend a few million on a couple of players for it all to suddenly come good . . . and if the manager thinks it will he hasn’t been at the same games as me in the last few months!

Major, major reconstruction right through the spine of the team from back to front. THAT is what we need.

Will we get it, under this manager? You tell me . . .

Have a nice summer until we start again in a few month, hopefully with a new team!

RED PHIL

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