Official 2012/13 Premier League thread

[Pesci]

Meanwhile this was published on a national newspaper's website, surprisingly not t' Daily Mail. What a joke of an article.

Luis Suarez did no better than Emile Heskey would have done when presented with chance after chance for Liverpool against West Brom and yet we are meant to believe t' Uruguayan is world class.

Off course, Suarez is incredibly skilled

:/

[Dingle]

Meanwhile this was published on a national newspaper's website, surprisingly not t' Daily Mail. What a joke of an article.

Luis Suarez did no better than Emile Heskey would have done when presented with chance after chance for Liverpool against West Brom and yet we are meant to believe t' Uruguayan is world class.

Off course, Suarez is incredibly skilled

:/

True that.

Still, if t' guy doesn't start scoring, all his class and talent will be a waste. Can't have your central striker getting less than 20 goals a season if you want to push up higher on t' table. Far, FAR too soon for anyone to be saying he won't get that under t' new Rodgers tactic, but yeah. I'd rather Carrol came in and started tearing it up so Suarez fucks off since he's so god damn horrible.

[therockbox]

Neville was spot on about Suarez last night, of all t' problems Liverpool have he's t' smallest one. t' majority of 'chances' (I wouldn't really call them chances, because they're generally not that clear cut) come from him taking on a number of defenders and, with nobody beside him in support, hitting a hopeful shot whilst off balance. He does miss some good chances, but all strikers do - one of t' headers against West Brom was no worse than Rooney's miss against Ukraine at t' Euros - but t' numbers are skewed by t' sheer amount of half chances he just manages to carve out completely off his own back.

t' other problem with him is that he's not a main striker. He was brought in to play off Torres, and then was misused completely by Dalglish who played him on t' shoulder of t' last defender whilst letting Carroll drop deep/out wide, and both players looked uncomfortable.

[Dingle]

Neville was spot on about Suarez last night, of all t' problems Liverpool have he's t' smallest one. t' majority of 'chances' (I wouldn't really call them chances, because they're generally not that clear cut) come from him taking on a number of defenders and, with nobody beside him in support, hitting a hopeful shot whilst off balance. He does miss some good chances, but all strikers do - one of t' headers against West Brom was no worse than Rooney's miss against Ukraine at t' Euros - but t' numbers are skewed by t' sheer amount of half chances he just manages to carve out completely off his own back.

t' other problem with him is that he's not a main striker. He was brought in to play off Torres, and then was misused completely by Dalglish who played him on t' shoulder of t' last defender whilst letting Carroll drop deep/out wide, and both players looked uncomfortable.

t' shot that should've just been a stab-in against WBA is what comes to mind. A world-class striker would put that away nine times out of ten and Suarez didn't. I don't subscribe to t' 'Suarez sucks' line of thought, but when I watch him he just doesn't seem to take t' chances you'd expect him to. But, to be fair, I thought he played well and 'pool's problems in that match were t' two centre backs being all over t' place, whether it's t' new philosophy or not, that needs sorting.

[therockbox]

Was that t' one where Foster dropped it? Was hardly a stab in, he had to stretch for it, caught it as it bounced up, was being challenged by a defender and knew he had to get it past t' players in between him and t' goal. It's not like he missed half a dozen open goals as some people are trying to suggest.

Our biggest problem on Saturday was Gerrard, t' elephant in t' room. Nobody wants to mention how shit he's been for three years now, apart from t' odd decent 45 minutes here and there. We averaged more points per game last season without Gerrard than we did with him, and that was regardless of whether Lucas - our most important player by a mile - was playing or not. He gave t' ball away loads of times against WBA and just doesn't have t' patience to play in t' way Rodgers wants to, and it was him giving t' ball away that directly led to Agger/Skrtel being caught out of position for t' sending off.

[Pesci]

Meanwhile this was published on a national newspaper's website, surprisingly not t' Daily Mail. What a joke of an article.

Luis Suarez did no better than Emile Heskey would have done when presented with chance after chance for Liverpool against West Brom and yet we are meant to believe t' Uruguayan is world class.

Off course, Suarez is incredibly skilled

:/

True that.

Still, if t' guy doesn't start scoring, all his class and talent will be a waste. Can't have your central striker getting less than 20 goals a season if you want to push up higher on t' table. Far, FAR too soon for anyone to be saying he won't get that under t' new Rodgers tactic, but yeah. I'd rather Carrol came in and started tearing it up so Suarez fucks off since he's so god damn horrible.

I did some research for my current FM game and for a Champions League finish it's sufficient for your main striker to score about 17 so long as your second and third highest scorers get about another 17 or 18 between them - hopefully Borini and Gerrard are up to t' challenge but I'm not holding my breath, especially after Gerrard's shocker on Saturday.

With Suarez it's all about getting him into t' right positions and providing him with t' right kind of support, which is why I'm surprised we haven't really sprung for a creative player this window. Borini's more of a goalscorer and Allen only got 2 assists last season... hopefully t' latter can be a bit more incisive now we're not expected to be on t' back-foot as much as Swansea were.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Pesci

[Dingle]

t' amount of times I've tried to explain that Gerrard can't cut it week in-week out is insane. Yet I just get told "we've watched footie for years, we know more" so, yeah, I gave up on that. Well, there are excuses for every miss from a striker, hell, even Torres could be all "Oh t' ball wobbled" when he rounded De Gea and missed a sitter. Point is, you look at it from a POV of him missing quite a few repeatedly and then I hear he didn't have a particularly great Olympics? I only caught t' one group game mind. He did look sharper and created chances for himself, but you win by getting goals, so he should just think about that and only that. Torres got a shit storm for t' fact he wasn't getting goals from almost everyone except Chelsea fans, but from fifty less shots last year, Torres got 5 less goals, and if we're talking build up play then Torres had 15 assists to Suarez's 11. I know stats are always biased, but I just wonder whether Suarez is t' guy to dig you out and get you moving back into t' top six. We can all say "it's just one game", and all we can really do is see what happens, but it's hard to excuse t' reality that you need goals, and you aren't gonna get too many from midfield.

[Summers]

Why is it a joke of an article to say he's skilled but not world class? And that his finishing was poor on a day it was..

Valid points.

[therockbox]

t' amount of times I've tried to explain that Gerrard can't cut it week in-week out is insane. Yet I just get told "we've watched footie for years, we know more" so, yeah, I gave up on that. Well, there are excuses for every miss from a striker, hell, even Torres could be all "Oh t' ball wobbled" when he rounded De Gea and missed a sitter. Point is, you look at it from a POV of him missing quite a few repeatedly and then I hear he didn't have a particularly great Olympics? I only caught t' one group game mind. He did look sharper and created chances for himself, but you win by getting goals, so he should just think about that and only that. Torres got a shit storm for t' fact he wasn't getting goals from almost everyone except Chelsea fans, but from fifty less shots last year, Torres got 5 less goals, and if we're talking build up play then Torres had 15 assists to Suarez's 11. I know stats are always biased, but I just wonder whether Suarez is t' guy to dig you out and get you moving back into t' top six. We can all say "it's just one game", and all we can really do is see what happens, but it's hard to excuse t' reality that you need goals, and you aren't gonna get too many from midfield.

It's not that stats like this are biased, it's more that they're pointless because they're entirely without context. Not all shots are t' same, not all assists are t' same. It doesn't take into account t' players they were playing alongside, or t' systems, or anything like that. They're just numbers.

Our entire attacking gameplan last season was 'get it to Suarez.' He was left completely isolated and outnumbered against defences and given no support. t' only player that looked anywhere remotely near Suarez's wavelength was Maxi, and he was largely ignored in favour of t' incredibly depressing combination of Kuyt and Downing. In midfield we had Adam sat in t' centre circle spraying lovely looking but ineffective Hollywood balls all over t' place, Spearing pointing but not doing a whole lot more, Gerrard doing his best headless chicken impersonation and, occasionally, Henderson being - if you wanted to be kind - 'tidy.'

He didn't have a great Olympics, but did Uruguay? In t' games I watched he was one of their only players that looked arsed.

We're not going to get many goals from anywhere else on t' pitch, but it's not fair that that is then dumped on t' shoulders of one player.

[Noah]

Even though it makes a fan of my club look bad, this facebook comment that was attached to a photo/article on t' new signing made me laugh.

Who is he? Why we need to sign an unknown player? Please sell Nani and Welback, Sir Alex ! They prefer really shit !! And please let R.v.P replace Welback in next match

Glorious.

[Pesci]

Why is it a joke of an article to say he's skilled but not world class? And that his finishing was poor on a day it was..

Valid points.

I was mainly quoting that bit for t' hyperbolic comparison to Heskey only then to say he's incredibly skilled in t' next line and t' mis-spelling of "of course" but I posted t' link because it's a terrible article in general. Stuff like putting Spurs' hiring of AVB over Moyes down to AVB's nationality and not his UEFA Cup win/dominance of t' Portuguese competitions/style of management and saying big clubs favour foreign strikers over Holt because Holt is English.

[Nerf]

I have no idea why Rodgers doesn't totally switch Borini and Suarez. Borini seems to be a natural poacher, judging by t' (admittedly little) I'd seen of him before, and Suarez' best quality is beating his man, which would make him ideal to play out wide and cut inside.

[therockbox]

I have no idea why Rodgers doesn't totally switch Borini and Suarez. Borini seems to be a natural poacher, judging by t' (admittedly little) I'd seen of him before, and Suarez' best quality is beating a man, which would make him ideal to play out wide and cut inside.

We played like that in t' second leg against Gomel and looked much better, they swapped positions so Suarez was sometimes up top and Borini out wide, but we were much more fluid and it worked quite well. I don't understand why we then reverted back to players sticking rigidly to their starting positions against West Brom.

[Dingle]

t' amount of times I've tried to explain that Gerrard can't cut it week in-week out is insane. Yet I just get told "we've watched footie for years, we know more" so, yeah, I gave up on that. Well, there are excuses for every miss from a striker, hell, even Torres could be all "Oh t' ball wobbled" when he rounded De Gea and missed a sitter. Point is, you look at it from a POV of him missing quite a few repeatedly and then I hear he didn't have a particularly great Olympics? I only caught t' one group game mind. He did look sharper and created chances for himself, but you win by getting goals, so he should just think about that and only that. Torres got a shit storm for t' fact he wasn't getting goals from almost everyone except Chelsea fans, but from fifty less shots last year, Torres got 5 less goals, and if we're talking build up play then Torres had 15 assists to Suarez's 11. I know stats are always biased, but I just wonder whether Suarez is t' guy to dig you out and get you moving back into t' top six. We can all say "it's just one game", and all we can really do is see what happens, but it's hard to excuse t' reality that you need goals, and you aren't gonna get too many from midfield.

It's not that stats like this are biased, it's more that they're pointless because they're entirely without context. Not all shots are t' same, not all assists are t' same. It doesn't take into account t' players they were playing alongside, or t' systems, or anything like that. They're just numbers.

Our entire attacking gameplan last season was 'get it to Suarez.' He was left completely isolated and outnumbered against defences and given no support. t' only player that looked anywhere remotely near Suarez's wavelength was Maxi, and he was largely ignored in favour of t' incredibly depressing combination of Kuyt and Downing. In midfield we had Adam sat in t' centre circle spraying lovely looking but ineffective Hollywood balls all over t' place, Spearing pointing but not doing a whole lot more, Gerrard doing his best headless chicken impersonation and, occasionally, Henderson being - if you wanted to be kind - 'tidy.'

He didn't have a great Olympics, but did Uruguay? In t' games I watched he was one of their only players that looked arsed.

We're not going to get many goals from anywhere else on t' pitch, but it's not fair that that is then dumped on t' shoulders of one player.

My point is that Suarez doesn't get you goals. Of his 158 shots last year, he converted just above 10%. Now, I don't know just how bad that is, but it isn't great. You can talk about t' players around you and whatever, and you can shoot down my next comparison because t' leagues are different and t' players are different or whatever, but Jay Rodriguez made 42 apps last season and got 21 goals. 1 every 2 games. I choose Burnley because they aren't t' most potent in attack, a decent defence (sometimes) but often struggle to convert chances. Or maybe that's just t' cynic in me. But my point remains that Suarez should score more, and definitely score more than a 23 year old lad that has spent t' last few years playing for a side that struggle to achieve anything consistent, well, except for staying in or returning to t' same league.

If you want to ignore all t' stats, fine, but Suarez did have chances, eight I think, in t' game against WBA and couldn't convert any.

[therockbox]

My point is that Suarez doesn't get you goals. Of his 158 shots last year, he converted just above 10%. Now, I don't know just how bad that is, but it isn't great. You can talk about t' players around you and whatever, and you can shoot down my next comparison because t' leagues are different and t' players are different or whatever, but Jay Rodriguez made 42 apps last season and got 21 goals. 1 every 2 games. I choose Burnley because they aren't t' most potent in attack, a decent defence (sometimes) but often struggle to convert chances. Or maybe that's just t' cynic in me. But my point remains that Suarez should score more, and definitely score more than a 23 year old lad that has spent t' last few years playing for a side that struggle to achieve anything consistent, well, except for staying in or returning to t' same league.

If you want to ignore all t' stats, fine, but Suarez did have chances, eight I think, in t' game against WBA and couldn't convert any.

Well, he had eight (you think) shots, not necessarily chances.

Again, saying he had 158 shots is pointless, it means nothing. For all we know they could all have been shots from inside his own half, and you wouldn't call them chances by any stretch of t' imagination. t' comparison with Burnley tells you nothing because it's a completely different league of a much lower standard. Suarez's scoring rate for Ajax (a goal every 1.3 games) and Uruguay (every 1.9) is better than it is for us (a goal every 3 games), but if I left it at that you would justifiably argue that t' quality of opposition for both of those teams is lower than those he'll face in t' Premier League, so it's difficult to judge. Same with Rodriguez for Burnley, and how that compares with strikers in t' PL.

Suarez is a gobshite, so I have no particular personal interest in defending him, but having watched him since he arrived I'm fairly confident that my assessment of him is correct. He's not a great finisher, he's an inconsistent one. Sometimes he misses chances that he should score, other times he scores when he really has no right to. He wasn't t' only player to fail in front of goal for us last season - just look at how many penalties we missed, even players who were normally reliable in that situation like Kuyt and Adam were letting us down - and from open play there were far worse culprits on t' missed chances front. It would be nice if he could become more consistent, but if he doesn't then he's still not to blame for our woes. It goes far deeper than screeching about how Suarez can't finish.

[Summers]

Why is it a joke of an article to say he's skilled but not world class? And that his finishing was poor on a day it was..

Valid points.

I was mainly quoting that bit for t' hyperbolic comparison to Heskey only then to say he's incredibly skilled in t' next line and t' mis-spelling of "of course" but I posted t' link because it's a terrible article in general. Stuff like putting Spurs' hiring of AVB over Moyes down to AVB's nationality and not his UEFA Cup win/dominance of t' Portuguese competitions/style of management and saying big clubs favour foreign strikers over Holt because Holt is English.

Okay, well that bit is insane.

[Hobo]

Suarez's needs a partner. I think he and Borini can have a great partnership. I thought he and Kuyt had a great one when Suarez first turned up.

What Liverpool need is to sort out t' full backs, based on Saturday. Kelly did not work at all. Enrique and Johnson are t' only two capable of being attacking fullbacks like BR seems to want.

[Nerf]

That's because Martin Kelly is a centre-half and I've no idea why they tried to make him anything else.

[DavidMarrio]

Doing t' Carragher route to being picked at centre-half. Start being played at fullback for t' team before gradually making your way back into t' middle.

[Pesci]

That's because Martin Kelly is a centre-half and I've no idea why they tried to make him anything else.

It's probably not bad for t' player. Got him some match experience and helped him break into t' squad faster - who was t' last academy player to actually break into t' first team squad as a centre back? And to be fair, I don't think Kelly's a terrible full back. He's not fantastic, but he can "do a job" - he's not your guy if you want him bombing down and contributing to attacking moves though, and he looked absolutely lost trying to play Rodgers' game t' other day, so it's definitely time for an upgrade it that regard. Sooner Carra retires and lets Kelly play in his natural position t' better.

Edited August 21, 2012 by Pesci