Can't wait to see what Allen can add to our already seemingly improving passing play.

Reina
Johnson Skrtel Agger Enrique
Gerrard Lucas Allen
Downing Borini Suarez

Would be odd to not see Allen start the game. He had competitive football in the olympics as preseason. He knows BR's system. He knows the Premiership. Why not?

http://www.thefirstrow.eu/watch/135903/4/w...verpool-fc.html
This is working fine for me

We might have more possession but WBA are definitely using the ball better on offense. We look so clueless with the ball. Static movement. Stray passes.

FAIL

Wow Swansea and Fulham

Exactly why we failed to score even one goal when we had more possession.

No quick fix. Will take months if not seasons.

Can certainly understand why BR wants Downing on the right. Let's not forget we are now playing 4-3-3, its not a winger position, its a wide forward role. You can think of him as Barcelona's Pedro. His role is to cut in from wide positions to make penetrating through balls or take a shot not make crosses. I believe the crossing and width job now belong to our full backs which Johnson particularly excels at. The problem was Enrique's last minute injury, Kelly isn't quite the adventurous type and the same goes to Robinson regardless of whether or not he is ready for the first team, they are certainly better at defensive duties than offense. Glen Johnson on the other hand does better a offensive job than any of our full backs even when playing on the left.

Saying BR not making any changes to our style of play is too extreme. If you look back at our first half I can see us trying to play how BR's Swansea played last season albeit not quite getting it. Too many stray passes even for our captain fantastic. It can be down to understanding and the team need to be given time to gel and learn, its only the first game after all. From what I've seen I think that the players are often standing too far away from each other instead of constantly moving which is needed to play this passing style. Barca's tiki-taka utilizes players' constant movement to form little triangles to make quick short passes and one-twos when moving the ball around while we were being too static and holding the ground looking and waiting for the ball. It would have worked if we were Barca but our players weren't good enough technically to thread accurate long on the ground passes which led to too many interceptions by Mulumbu and Yacob who were leading the counter attacks. When you play a possession game and a high defensive line, every counter attack opportunity by the opponent can be lethal. That, I believe was our downfall. Of course it doesn't help when Suarez is wasting chances left and right.

After a 3-0 trashing on our first day, I would be happy with a dull draw against the reigning champions.

First was legit I agree. Agger was the last man, there was a little nudge so a red card is reasonable.

The second I afraid is not. Skrtel did not see him coming. He tried to kick the ball, but Long came in from behind unexpectedly so the kick wasn't intentional. If an unintentional handball inside the box does not warrant a penalty, this shouldn't too.

Unfortunately Dawson lacks pace to play a high defensive line of AVB where he is now down to 5th in the pecking order. If we were to continue defending high like in the WBA game, Dawson I feel is not the one for us.

What do you guys think about Scott Sinclair? 1 year left on his contract, wants to leave, knows BR's system, only 22, seems City is gonna snap him up for 5m which seems like a good price considering he is British. Or do you think Adam Johnson is the better choice despite his selfishness and lack of work rate required for high pressure closing down opponents?

This post has been edited by Cloud0890: Aug 22 2012, 11:46 AM

What did he achieve? 11th place! We gonna end up 11th?!
Hehe I hope not...

From what I've seen Sinclair has much more pace and acceleration in him than Johnson. Him and Walcott are the more direct type while Johnson is one with more flair and dribbling skills.

Looking at price and potential ability, I rate Sinclair higher at the moment. Question is does he want to trophies on the bench or does he want to play? City can offer him championships, CL, playing alongside big name players bla bla but we can offer him a system and boss he is familiar with and first team football because looking at the way Downing and co are performing, its not difficult for him to get a starting 11 spot.

Arsenal’s move for Nuri Sahin has gone through after stalling over a £14m buy-out clause if they decide to make his loan deal permanent next summer.

Sportsmail revealed on Tuesday how the deal for the Real Madrid midfielder had hit a snag as Real wanted a fixed price of £14m attached to the deal if Arsenal decide to take up the option of signing the Turkey midfielder once his loan ends.

However, there seems to have been a compromise between the parties and the Gunners have finally got their man.

Oussama Assaidi is not eligible to play in Liverpool's Europa League play-off matches against Hearts.

The Morocco winger, who became the club's third summer signing on Friday, is cup tied having featured for Heerenveen in the qualifying rounds.

However, he will be available should Liverpool reach the group stages.

awww...

Oh no no no no. This is a flawed reward system there, something I learned studying in business.

Every individual will act to maximize their own utility. By giving them a min target in which failure to meet will impact their pay rise/bonus will only result in failure. I can only see one thing resulting from that, that is everyone bombing forward at every opportunity, not passing the ball, taking a shot whenever he sees fit, no care for defense since the objective now is to score goals and earn a pay rise.

It would make more sense to give defensive players bonuses for completing their defensive task and vice versa. Then you can add in extra bonus for goals scored for defenders but the main priority must still be defense for them. In addition to scoring assists should also be rewarded. To encourage them to score goals you can set a bonus rate for winning at a certain goal margin, example: winning by 1 goal gives each participating player $1, 2 goals for $2...

This post has been edited by Cloud0890: Aug 22 2012, 10:01 PM

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/...an-soon?cc=3436

He is a decent player with great acceleration and dribbling ability BUT too selfish in my opinion. Too many times I've seen him fluffing chances when there are much better options around him. He isn't exactly prolific as well, if BR intends to play Borini wide and with Suarez better than creating than finishing off chances, wouldn't it be better to get a goalscorer than a wide forward such as Sturridge. Also he reminds me a bit of Balotelli in the sense that they are sometimes too full of themselves.

He caught the Suarez syndrome.