Liverpool 2-0 Wolves: Verdict Thread

[Jinky]

I don't want to see Raul starting for us. He is completely and utterly done at this level. Which is, of course, a massive shame. However, as we have no other options, if he has to start, it can only be alongside a player like Cunha where they can play close together. He is completely useless leading the line by himself.

I touched on it briefly in the matchday thread last night, but despite being the furthest player away from our goal, he was one of the biggest causes of Liverpool having wave after wave of attack. He couldn't hold the ball up. He didn't win headers. His control is appalling. He ducked out of tackles. He continually lost possession. Every time this happened they just came back at us. And all of this while offering zero goal threat going the other way.

Lop is no mug, and he will know all of this, but it says a lot that he left him on for 80 minutes while Costa was sat on the bench.

I think we have to have Neto on the left, with Sarabia playing off Cunha moving forward, until we get Hwang back. Raul and Costa are just not fit for purpose and are actively hurting us at this point.

 

[Dire Wolf]

I really don't think the solution to our goalscoring problems lies within the squad as it is. No matter how we play none of the forwards have shown that they are likely to score. We just have to do whatever it takes to claw our way to survival this season and hope we can do something with the squad in the summer to rebalance it in favour of more attacking threat. As it stands now we pose less threat than a convention of girl guides.

 

[sycophantia]

I understand why people are saying Raul shouldn't lead the line but just who else is there with Cunha out? (Not like its been an instant success playing him at '9').
You're left with a few square pegs, Traore, Podence, Sarabia, a kid to shoehorn in?
Suppose we could go all 'Matty Elliot' and chuck Collins up there

 

[Loki]

Sad to think the amount of money that has been spent in the last 12 months to serve up this level of entertainment. Players need to be sold in the summer to fund the purchase of, at least, one decent striker. Getting a bit fed up with the reliance on foreign players as well tbh.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I find the criticism of Lopetegui absolutely insane. He's trying to fix a team that had been in a death spiral for nearly an entire calendar year with the aid of one January window, where our league position severely impacted on who would sign for us.

You know, there are other things to watch on TV if it upsets you so much that we lose to Liverpool (where we've lost every single league game since 2011).

 

[Tony Towner]

He gets plenty of praise and rightly so, he's not above criticism though. When a manager sets a team up to get a draw and loses then he's going to get that. Comparing this Liverpool team to others over the last decade is disingenuous. They are in average form at best and low on confidence. There didn't seem a discernible plan offensively to take advantage of that like there was a few weeks ago

 

[Carsy]

We needed a player to shake up the forward line the way Dawson and Lemina have to the defence and midfield

By shake up, do you mean come in and do the job they’re needed to do? As yeah, that’s pretty obvious.

As much as we say we need a goalscorer, which we do, we still create bugger all in way of chances, and that’s with 2 forward line additions for roughly 50m.

 

[sycophantia]

It's too early to give JL a lot of criticism, nothing wrong with questioning his selections or tactics, personally thought the line up looked a bit negative last night, not sure it needed to be.
I have seen comments on other platforms questioning whether JL is the right man for the job which is absolutely crazy when you look at our performances and results as a whole.
We were rock bottom when he came, 4 points adrift? A few games later we're 15th, 3 points clear of the drop zone, that's an amazing turnaround even allowing for the money spent in January.

 

[Tredman]

It's too early to give JL a lot of criticism, nothing wrong with questioning his selections or tactics, personally thought the line up looked a bit negative last night, not sure it needed to be.
I have seen comments on other platforms questioning whether JL is the right man for the job which is absolutely crazy when you look at our performances and results as a whole.
We were rock bottom when he came, 4 points adrift? A few games later we're 15th, 3 points clear of the drop zone, that's an amazing turnaround even allowing for the money spent in January.

Spot on

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

He gets plenty of praise and rightly so, he's not above criticism though. When a manager sets a team up to get a draw and loses then he's going to get that. Comparing this Liverpool team to others over the last decade is disingenuous. They are in average form at best and low on confidence. There didn't seem a discernible plan offensively to take advantage of that like there was a few weeks ago

And yet they haven't conceded a goal in the league since we beat them a month ago, and are very much still in the hunt for top four. The juggernaut that they have been since around 2018, no, but still a team who you would expect to beat us (while we're missing several attacking players, notwithstanding that none of them have good records lately) at home most of the time.

This wasn't a crappy Lage performance where we'd go 1-0 down inside the first 25 minutes and it's game over. It was 0-0 on 73 minutes and there was very little in it. Granted, we didn't offer much going forward but nor did I expect us to.

At half time he brought on Adama to try to give us a threat on the break and replaced Sarabia who couldn't get in the game at all. Seems a reasonable enough theory? Adama then decides to have one of his Conference North days where he stands offside for no reason and can't do the simplest of things.

He does make mistakes, like all managers. Fine with that being called out. "Honeymoon over", pretending he had loads of alternative options last night that he just ignored, slating the selection of Raul who a) played well on Friday and b) was in nearly everyone's suggested team, especially with the caveat of Cunha being out, pretending we're doomed when nothing materially changed last night....not for me.

 

[Jinky]

I should make it clear that I'm delighted we've got Julen. I haven't seen anyone questioning whether he's the right man for the job etc, so can't comment on that, but he's not above having some of his decisions questioned.

I'm also not slating the selection of Raul, but the manager should not be leaving him on for 80 minutes when he was embarrassing himself & creating more problems than good, regardless of the alternative options available. He could have done something, but just left him on there stinking the place out.

You're right that he has to trust the players will perform when he puts them on, and Adama & Podence were both appalling. But quite a few people have said (correctly, IMO), that you either start Podence or don't bother at all. I'd have preferred Neto to come on - and if he wasn't ready, he shouldn't have been on the bench.

You're right, though. Anyone being OTT with their criticism of Lop to the extent they're wondering if he's the right man, need to give their head a wobble. It's ok to question certain decisions, though.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

And yet they haven't conceded a goal in the league since we beat them a month ago, and are very much still in the hunt for top four. The juggernaut that they have been since around 2018, no, but still a team who you would expect to beat us (while we're missing several attacking players, notwithstanding that none of them have good records lately) at home most of the time.

This wasn't a crappy Lage performance where we'd go 1-0 down inside the first 25 minutes and it's game over. It was 0-0 on 73 minutes and there was very little in it. Granted, we didn't offer much going forward but nor did I expect us to.

At half time he brought on Adama to try to give us a threat on the break and replaced Sarabia who couldn't get in the game at all. Seems a reasonable enough theory? Adama then decides to have one of his Conference North days where he stands offside for no reason and can't do the simplest of things.

He does make mistakes, like all managers. Fine with that being called out. "Honeymoon over", pretending he had loads of alternative options last night that he just ignored, slating the selection of Raul who a) played well on Friday and b) was in nearly everyone's suggested team, especially with the caveat of Cunha being out, pretending we're doomed when nothing materially changed last night....not for me.

I used the term honeymoon as it was clear a number of posters were beginning to view his selections and tactics a little more critically. That isn’t just down to last night. We were flat against Bournemouth and faded badly against Fulham.

Debating options that might see us score more is what forums are about. Raul deserved a start after Fulham but was it right he stayed on for 80 minutes? The options he has up front are extremely limited but given a CF hasn’t scored for a year it isn’t unreasonable to ask whether an alternative approach might be more productive.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

No issue at all with debating what he does. I said his very first team against Everton was wrong because he started Hodge, who is a million miles away from being a Premier League footballer.

With no Cunha or Hwang, and Neto clearly not deemed fit for anything more than a short cameo (ended up not even being that), it's Raul or Costa. Given that Costa has the mobility of a skip and looks like he's run an Iron Man after 20 minutes, there's only one option. No, we do not have anyone in the U21s who could play there either. If we'd played no recognised striker and lost to nil would he have been given a free pass on that one? I doubt it.

We are where we are because between August 2020 and November 2022, the club got nearly everything wrong, and at points got very lucky not to be more damaged as a consequence of those shit decisions. Julen Lopetegui is not a magician and can not fix all that completely in a few weeks. The direction of travel remains an encouraging one. For now, be better than at least three other teams, which I think we are, but we definitely weren't under Bruno Lage. Nothing else matters.

 

[Tony Towner]

It was the selections of Moutinho and Nunes in the positions they played which deserves questioning rather than Raul imo

 

[Jinky]

It was the selections of Moutinho and Nunes in the positions they played which deserves questioning rather than Raul imo

Yep. No issues with Raul starting (but he shouldn’t have stayed on as long as he did and he should have had someone playing a lot closer to him), but overloading the side with defensive minded midfielders didn’t work the other week, and it wasn’t going to work last night.

 

[Alan]

Sure, but if you ask someone to chop down a tree and then give them the choice of doing it with a stick or a rock, they’re gonna look dumb no matter which they choose.

We don’t have any sawblades in the cupboard just now.

 

[Carsy]

Sure, but if you ask someone to chop down a tree and then give them the choice of doing it with a stick or a rock, they’re gonna look dumb no matter which they choose.

We don’t have any sawblades in the cupboard just now.

I like that. Permission to use in the future?

 

[Dinowolf]

We have 2 sawblades at the moment. One's lost all its teeth and one was broken, plastered together but doesn't work properly any more.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

Just two more notes from last night:

1) Fabinho was slightly fortunate that his challenge on Lemina wasn't a straight red for me, right over the top of the ball. He's got form for this as well. Then definitely should have got a second yellow for cynically taking out Gomes when he was on the break.

2) Harvey Elliott is a cheating little wanker with the worst haircut in the league. Embarrassing on all counts.

 

[sycophantia]

I didn't see the game last night, I see Raul getting pelters a lot, but was it all on him or was half of it having little or no support?