The FA CUP Fourth Round ** Spoilers ** [24th - 27th January 2020]

mmj_uk said:
The BBC are talking as if it's Liverpool's first team, half of these player will probably end up at Shrewsbury.
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Origi alone would probably buy you Shrewbury Town and all their players 5 times over. 6/11 of the players who started the game either have a significant amount of game time in the PL or the CL and 5 have had a decent amount of games in Liverpool's first team. Typical 'Big club getting embarrassed by a small club' post.
 
It was a tremendously sloppy performance, I can partially forgive Fabinho, Lovren and Matip as it was their first starts back after injury. Elliott was also poor but again, I can forgive that as he is 16 years old and what he is doing at 16 makes what I was doing at 16 look pathetic. Jones was good and tried to drive forward at all times but the rest of the team were just too side to side, slow play, not concentrating and so on. Didnt play at anywhere near the normal pace. Yes its a lower team but the way to deal with lower teams is not to take it easy, instead its to go hell for leather at them (bit like utd v tranmere) and not just beat them but slaughter them. Felt like Liverpool were trying to get through the match with minimum effort. Admittedly if it had been at Anfield with VAR then Liverpool would have had a penalty in the first half (for the clear moving arm to ball handball) and the Shrewsbury penalty wouldnt have been a penalty (foul outside the box) but irrespective of that you cant just use minimum effort and be as complacent as that. I'd imagine Klopp will have a few choice words for that performance
 
Enjoyed that.

Good old fashioned cup tie.

Well done to the Shrews, enjoy your day out at Anfield.
 
The replay should be interesting. Klopp's just confirmed that no senior players will be involved and neither will he, saying they will "respect the winter break". Although I don't doubt that he's going to pick the kids, the respect the winter break thing appears to be a dig at the PL/FA after sides were warned about heading off to god knows where, playing lucrative friendly games during their break.
 
Ffs, one of the very few times I want Liverpool to win and that happens.

Lovren is dog ****, always has been. That 2nd goal was genuinely woeful on his part.
 
He's making a point. The whole scheduling has been a mess this season and highlights the fact that there's too many games and not enough days. You can't on one hand schedule a winter break and warn clubs that they're not to fly off playing friendlies in the middle east and then schedule FA Cup replays for that week too. It's incredibly lucky that we did do what we did with the League Cup because the alternative was to reschedule the game for when the first leg of the semi would have been and then have the 1st leg of the semi in the FA Cup replay midweek, hoping that neither Liverpool or Villa had a replay.

My gut feeling is he'll probably end up playing a few senior players, similar to the team today but it would be a huge moment if he stuck to his word and could be a catalyst for change. If he ends up playing a u23 team and doesn't manage it himself, there has already and will be more calls from supporters for the game to be priced as if it were a u23 game too. If Liverpool end up pricing it at £10 per ticket, it's not only a kick in the nuts for Shrewsbury but it defeats the object of having FA Cup replays as the biggest and possibly only reason for them right now is the financial benefits to lower league sides as they get 45% of the gate.
 
Changing almost the entire first XI out is almost impossible to pull off well especially for a team like Pool. The first XI are very well coached and drilled and sticking 7 or more very fringe players on the pitch will always end up with a "suck it and see" sort of affair. They might play well or they might be beaten by a weaker team that plays together each week. If Shrewsbury had a decent striker it would have been a loss for Liverpool but I imagine that the return fixture will be a different affair.
 
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BaZ87 said:
He's making a point. The whole scheduling has been a mess this season and highlights the fact that there's too many games and not enough days. You can't on one hand schedule a winter break and warn clubs that they're not to fly off playing friendlies in the middle east and then schedule FA Cup replays for that week too. It's incredibly lucky that we did do what we did with the League Cup because the alternative was to reschedule the game for when the first leg of the semi would have been and then have the 1st leg of the semi in the FA Cup replay midweek, hoping that neither Liverpool or Villa had a replay.

My gut feeling is he'll probably end up playing a few senior players, similar to the team today but it would be a huge moment if he stuck to his word and could be a catalyst for change. If he ends up playing a u23 team and doesn't manage it himself, there has already and will be more calls from supporters for the game to be priced as if it were a u23 game too. If Liverpool end up pricing it at £10 per ticket, it's not only a kick in the nuts for Shrewsbury but it defeats the object of having FA Cup replays as the biggest and possibly only reason for them right now is the financial benefits to lower league sides as they get 45% of the gate.
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He seems pretty intent on just playing the youngsters.

First team has had this break and holiday planned for months, he’s not going to take it away from them now.
 
There's absolutely an argument that certain players need a game but as above, Klopp's making a point. He's saying that even he won't be there.
 
Generally the teams that have more games are the bigger ones with the bigger / better squads. The whole point of getting the squads bigger and better is to be able to compete on multiple fronts. All successful teams play more games and are rewarded with the money to help with improving the squad. Wolves have played 40 games this season, 2 more than Liverpool and have had none of the success or reward to assist with it and are doing it without complaining. I'm sure there are other teams throughout Europe with similar amounts of games played too, Barca / Real play a huge amount of games a season. As much as I dislike Liverpool I do like Klopp but him throwing his toys out the pram like this over it is pretty ridiculous.
 
He's throwing his toys out of the pram because they're scheduling games on dates that aren't or shouldn't be possible. As I said last night, had Liverpool gone ahead with the suggestion put forward from the Football League re the League Cup game vs Villa, it's very possible that we'd now be scheduled to play a FA Cup replay on the Tuesday and then a League Cup semi on the Thursday, all in what was meant to be our winter break. A winter break that PL clubs were directly warned about not playing any sort of games in.

Could he put out a stronger side in the replay? Of course but a point has got to come where people sit down and plan these schedules properly. And it's not simply a case of scheduling, there's simply too many games being played. I doubt it but maybe the FA will learn when Kane and Rashford both miss the Euros having picked up injuries directly linked to being over worked.

edit: and I wish people would stop with this Wolves comparison, it's complete nonsense. 6 of Wolves games were Europa qualifiers, most against nobody sides and played instead of pre-season friendlies.
 
I think the problem and the problem with replays on the whole nowadays is that the sports science is about getting players to peak at the right times and replays muck about with that. That week break has been factored into training schedules since the start of the season and will be part of getting the team to peak in March, April and May.

Even with playing players who could probably benefit from game time in their schedules, it becomes a man management issue, who gets that week off, who doesn't. Who has to not get the week off and sit on the bench etc. Klopp saying he won't pick the team absolves him and the first team from that whilst also putting pressure on the FA to reschedule and further pressure to scrap replays.

Who's paying for that? Liverpool somewhat with the perception that the club is disrespecting the FA Cup. Punters, both at the ground and on TV who are going to see a Liverpool U23s side and not the better players and Shrewsbury somewhat being denied an opportunity to play against a better side with a better atmosphere, and the gate receipts that entails (i'd be surprised if the ground sells out at full price for Critchley's U23s, FA Cup or not) and ultimately the FA Cup itself which is losing at least one game featuring the currently the best team around and probably for the rest of the tournament.

The FA need to get with the program. Scrap replays and don't expect teams to play in weeks they've been specifically told they'll have off and not to schedule any games in.
 
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