Greenlizard0 PL & Championship Football Thread ** spoilers ** [16th - 24th Jan 2021]

Indeed the 'go again' last season wasn't supposed to happen, the hangover of the emotion of 18/19 was supposed to stop it.

Failure to prepare for the season with Lovren's departure has caused a massive drop in form, sacrificing your best midfielders to play CB was largely going to have only one result. (Granted not this bad but I didn't think the rest of the league would be this bad either, someone should be way further ahead)
I'm not sure we failed to prepare. If you presented me with the same question regarding the CB situation, Fab/Thiago again, I'd have made the same decision. You cannot bargain for VVD and Gomez picking up season ending injuries within 2 months of the season. That's just rotten luck. Had we spent £20m on an average CB instead of signing Thiago and then Fab & Henderson both done their knees we'd be in an equally bad situation as we are now.

Sometimes **** just happens. Unfortunately for us that **** has coincided with a lot of other rotten luck. I just saw this tweet regarding our lack of goals:
After nearly 90 shots you'd have thought that one would have taken a deflection and gone in, the keeper wouldn't have pulled off one of the great saves we've faced or maybe even made a mistake. Things just aren't going for us.
 
Sometimes **** just happens. Unfortunately for us that **** has coincided with a lot of other rotten luck. I just saw this tweet regarding our lack of goals:
After nearly 90 shots you'd have thought that one would have taken a deflection and gone in, the keeper wouldn't have pulled off one of the great saves we've faced or maybe even made a mistake. Things just aren't going for us.

If one of the things you describe above happened, would it be good luck?

If I play a season of football, take 90 shots and score zero goals and you’re my manager, am I unlucky or in a terrible run of form.
 
I think it's a bit of a stretch to say we had cracks showing before injuries to VVD etc. We'd just blew the League away and won the CL & picked up 97 points the season before. There was very few cracks in that side.

The side we were last season and the side we are now is totally different. We're not just without VVD and Gomez at the back but Fabinho in midfield too. We are/were a much more structured, mechanical side than a free flowing side like City and without that base at the back it's very difficult for the rest of the side to function as it did before. For 4 years people have said to play against us you need to sit deep and narrow but for 2 years prior we'd steam rolled almost every side that tried to do that. It wasn't through beautiful one touch football like a City would do but we just smothered them and broke them down - our midfield wouldn't let them out and our fullbacks were camped in the opposition half. We're not doing that any more. There's no sustained pressure.

Throw in the fact that we've suddenly forgot how to score and can't buy a decision and we're pretty ****ed right now. The finishing and our luck with decisions can only get better but until we can get some structure in the side again it's going to be an effort to win games.
i think the issue is liverpool may have been found out
 
If one of the things you describe above happened, would it be good luck?

If I play a season of football, take 90 shots and score zero goals and you’re my manager, am I unlucky or in a terrible run of form.

I think the main point of that is the xG which suggests that normally they would have scored 7 of them. The stats are not great however you look at it though. Thats a lot of shots that were essentially pot shots which is usually signs of a side that is desperate for any chance they can get.


Didn't we "go again" last season? In pretty much any other season in the history of the game we'd have won the League in 18/19 and after that season there were a lot of shouts about how we'd struggle to come back again. I'm not sure our issues this season are down to character, attitude etc - we're just stuck in a rut where everything that can go wrong has gone wrong.

I didn't think you would have any issues after 18/19. You had the same squad, manager and you saw that you would have won the league in any other season. Thats not hard to motivate a team under those conditions. You weren't punching and having an anomaly of a season like Spurs when they got to the CL final.

Once everyone else started having a **** season as well in 19/20 it all fell into place and there was no feeling of "its going to happen again".
 
Yes we won the league last season and blitzed it up the time it was cut short due to covid, however when it returned we were not great by any stretch. I personally think that's when the problems started.

Having no crowds will make a difference but it shouldn't be causing all our attackers to forget how to score a goal. I'm at a loss as to why its happening as the shots are there as figures show above, but hell just on last night every short besides salah and origi fluff was right at him, so if say 70 of them shots were right at a keeper id expect the keeper to save them in fairness
 
"That form"? What was Utd's highest points total under Fergie? I can't remember Utd ever getting into the high 90's points totals.

When we won the treble we only lost 4 games all season. High points totals is nice and all but you still get a medal at the end of it. Our champions league group was Barcelona and Bayern Munich, Inter in the quarters, Juventus in the Semi's, and Bayern in the final. I do not think you could have had a harder route to winning a champions league. This obviously meant making concessions in the league and we drew a lot more than we should.

Getting a high points total in the league when dropping out of all the cups is not the same as you arguably have more time to prepare for league games.
 
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If one of the things you describe above happened, would it be good luck?

If I play a season of football, take 90 shots and score zero goals and you’re my manager, am I unlucky or in a terrible run of form.
Not really, they're all fairly normal occurrences in a game of football. Keepers don't always make great saves and deflections & mistakes happen. Obviously if you're continuously scoring through deflections & mistakes it would be down to good luck.
I think the main point of that is the xG which suggests that normally they would have scored 7 of them. The stats are not great however you look at it though. Thats a lot of shots that were essentially pot shots which is usually signs of a side that is desperate for any chance they can get.

The xG was part of the point, not the main point. When you're averaging nearly 18 attempts per game, 10 from within the 18 yard box (hardly pot shots) and over 1.5 big chances per game, the law of averages would say you're going to score a few goals in that 5 game period no matter how poor your finishing has been.
I didn't think you would have any issues after 18/19. You had the same squad, manager and you saw that you would have won the league in any other season. Thats not hard to motivate a team under those conditions. You weren't punching and having an anomaly of a season like Spurs when they got to the CL final.

Once everyone else started having a **** season as well in 19/20 it all fell into place and there was no feeling of "its going to happen again".
I didn't suggest that you personally did however this "go again" thing had been raised in each of the previous two seasons. When we lost the CL final to Real and when we missed out on the League in 18/19, the general view was we wouldn't be able to go again and both times we did. I think this side has shown it's capable of going again and I don't see any of our issues right now being down to motivation etc.
When we won the treble we only lost 4 games all season. High points totals is nice and all but you still get a medal at the end of it.

Getting a high points total in the league when dropping out of all the cups is not the same as you arguably have more time to prepare for league games.
What's any of that got to do with my reply to Shami? He made a point about form. Liverpool's form was 99 points over the season (196 points over two seasons) - when did Utd ever get close to that, let alone over a prolonged period?
 
What's any of that got to do with my reply to Shami? He made a point about form. Liverpool's form was 99 points over the season (196 points over two seasons) - when did Utd ever get close to that, let alone over a prolonged period?

My point is if you concentrate on the league you can get a higher points total. You even said yourself that Klopp doesn't bother with cups as shown as Liverpool have been dumped out of most of them early on. Arguably when Leicester won the league they did so because they only had the league to worry. Same when Conte won with Chelsea they had no European football.

If I am going to build a house but try and do the kitchen, bathroom and living room all at one time it is going to take a lot more of my resources to achieve than concentrating on one. Quite simple really.

Cities domestic treble is a fantastic achievement considering the points total they got.
 
My point is if you concentrate on the league you can get a higher points total....
Our form wasn't a result of concentrating on the League though :confused:

Between a draw vs Everton on 3/3/19 and the defeat to Watford on 29/2/2020, we went on a run of 35 wins and 1 draw from 36 League games, won the CL 18/19, were still in the CL in 19/20, were still in the FA Cup and played and won both the Super Cup and World Club Cup. The only cup competition we were knocked out of in that period was when we played our kids vs Villa in the League Cup due to the fixture clash with the World Club Cup.

Our League form clearly had nothing to do with not competing in other competitions. Quite simple really :p
 
Our form wasn't a result of concentrating on the League though :confused:

Between a draw vs Everton on 3/3/19 and the defeat to Watford on 29/2/2020, we went on a run of 35 wins and 1 draw from 36 League games, won the CL 18/19, were still in the CL in 19/20, were still in the FA Cup and played and won both the Super Cup and World Club Cup. The only cup competition we were knocked out of in that period was when we played our kids vs Villa in the League Cup due to the fixture clash with the World Club Cup.

Our League form clearly had nothing to do with not competing in other competitions. Quite simple really :p

And yet, in both of those seasons, Liverpool's form included losing more games overall than United lost overall in the treble season. A season which you're claiming involved nowhere near as good form - which you're basing on the points total. Why does only performance in the league count towards form in your book?
 
And yet, in both of those seasons, Liverpool's form included losing more games overall than United lost overall in the treble season. A season which you're claiming involved nowhere near as good form - which you're basing on the points total. Why does only performance in the league count towards form in your book?
It would be really useful if you read the original post of Shami's that I replied to. Shami made the point about Utd replicating Liverpool's form over multiple seasons. What was Liverpool's form? 99 points over the season? 196 over the two seasons? The run of 35 wins and a draw from 36 games?

I made no specific comment about Utd's treble winning season, I asked when did Utd ever replicate form like that, let alone over multiple seasons. It's not a matter of opinion, they simply didn't do it. You can have a separate argument over what is a bigger or better achievement but that wasn't what Shami said or I replied to. Adam then tried to suggest that Liverpool's points total was a result of concentrating on the League which simply wasn't true - we were on our best run (one that might never be replicated again) while still competing on all fronts*. We equalled Utd's points total in their treble winning season in February, again while still being in all Cup competitions. Our points total had nothing to do with concetrating on the League.

*League Cup aside, which we had to play our kids in.
 
My argument wasn't over which was the better achievement. It was over whether what you describe is better form anyway. And your definition of form still seems to include only league games.

The point is that over a whole season Liverpool lost more games than that United team - so why do you consider their 'form' to have been considerably better?
 
It would be really useful if you read the original post of Shami's that I replied to. Shami made the point about Utd replicating Liverpool's form over multiple seasons. What was Liverpool's form? 99 points over the season? 196 over the two seasons? The run of 35 wins and a draw from 36 games?

I made no specific comment about Utd's treble winning season, I asked when did Utd ever replicate form like that, let alone over multiple seasons. It's not a matter of opinion, they simply didn't do it. You can have a separate argument over what is a bigger or better achievement but that wasn't what Shami said or I replied to. Adam then tried to suggest that Liverpool's points total was a result of concentrating on the League which simply wasn't true - we were on our best run (one that might never be replicated again) while still competing on all fronts*. We equalled Utd's points total in their treble winning season in February, again while still being in all Cup competitions. Our points total had nothing to do with concetrating on the League.

*League Cup aside, which we had to play our kids in.

We literally won the league three times in a row twice. If Liverpool have a poor season this year and end up on 70 points (If their form stays the same they will end up on 68 points) or less they will have ended up with less points than United did in their spell between 06-09. During that period we won the league three times, champions league, mickey mouse club world cup and league cup, champions league final and also hold the European record for consecutive clean sheets. I would say that is replicable form to Liverpool.
 
My argument wasn't over which was the better achievement. It was over whether what you describe is better form anyway. And your definition of form still seems to include only league games.

The point is that over a whole season Liverpool lost more games than that United team - so why do you consider their 'form' to have been considerably better?

I didn't define what Liverpool's form was. Shami made the point about the plaudits that Liverpool were getting for last season's form. Liverpool weren't getting praised for getting knocked out of the CL to Atletico or losing to Chelsea in the FA Cup. Liverpool were getting those plaudits because we went on a run of 35 wins and 1 draw from 36 games (26 wins and a draw from 27 in 19/20 alone). It was an unprecedented run and one we might not see again. And yes, we might not see another treble winning side from the PL too.

I even replied to Shami questioning exactly what he was referring to because Utd never replicated the form that Liverpool were being praised for, let alone over multiple seasons. But maybe Shami was referring to being knocked out of the Cups, it would be a pretty strange post though and he could have argued that Ole's replicated it in multiple seasons too :p
We literally won the league three times in a row twice.....

Jesus Christ Adam. Are you going to change your argument in every post? None of anything you've said, from your first reply to this has anything to do with my post you initially replied to.

I'm glad you've acknowledged that our League form wasn't a result of ignoring the Cups though.
 
I didn't define what Liverpool's form was. Shami made the point about the plaudits that Liverpool were getting for last season's form. Liverpool weren't getting praised for getting knocked out of the CL to Atletico or losing to Chelsea in the FA Cup. Liverpool were getting those plaudits because we went on a run of 35 wins and 1 draw from 36 games (26 wins and a draw from 27 in 19/20 alone). It was an unprecedented run and one we might not see again. And yes, we might not see another treble winning side from the PL too.

I even replied to Shami questioning exactly what he was referring to because Utd never replicated the form that Liverpool were being praised for, let alone over multiple seasons. But maybe Shami was referring to being knocked out of the Cups, it would be a pretty strange post though and he could have argued that Ole's replicated it in multiple seasons too :p


Jesus Christ Adam. Are you going to change your argument in every post? None of anything you've said, from your first reply to this has anything to do with my post you initially replied to.

I'm glad you've acknowledged that our League form wasn't a result of ignoring the Cups though.

But if Liverpool end up on 70 points or less this season which is highly probable they would have ended up with less points overall than United over three seasons. Going by your judgement our form would factually of been better than Liverpool over three seasons.
 
But if Liverpool end up on 70 points or less this season which is highly probable they would have ended up with less points overall than United over three seasons. Going by your judgement our form would factually of been better than Liverpool over three seasons.
Adam you've lost me now. What the **** does Liverpool's form this season have to do with whether Utd replicated what Liverpool done last season?

This is bringing back memories of trying to have a debate with Frank.
 
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