I can see Lamela on for NK actually as he's having a poor game all round

hhmm.. not my first choice but here's hoping lamela can have one of 'those' nights

****s sake .. that was coming

Game over. Their squad players are pissing all over ours. Could have been 5 (so far).

I'm not sure we are that bothered.

I dont believe it ! Boy did Janssen need that goal.

Harrison looking every bit a Spurs striker.

Lets face it, despite a late rally we were well and truely whipped tonight. They could have had 5 or 6 and were always in control. Our squad players were a let down and we looked totally outclassed despite playing a team with plenty of young inexperienced players too.

So that just one goal from open play in the last NINE halfs of football. And yet some people still dont think we have problems.

Davies, NK, Carrol and Lamela were extremely poor.
Still don't think much of Wimmer.
More impressed with Onomah tonight but think he needs to play through the middle.
Winks did some good things but gave the ball away too much. In fact as a team we gave the ball away too much.
Apart from the first goal, Vorm was excellent.
Feel sorry for Janssen. We are just not on his wavelength.
The rest were just "ok"

Nobody is saying we don't have problems, they likely just don't want to get in to the usual thread-emptying torrent of arguing that always happens.

Tonight's game should certainly highlight the problems we have creating chances and opening teams up because it was very evident. All very tidy going sideways and retaining possession but no cutting edge.

Liverpool had plenty of players willing to take the ball to the byline and get balls in to the box to cause us problems and i don't think we did that once tonight.

I'm pissed we're out because it's a tournament like this that we need to keep the squad players sharp and match ready for one thing, but also that it's a route to some silverware as well that I think we're long overdue for.

Does Sturridge thank god when he takes a dump in the morning too ?

I would'nt call it a "torrent of arguing", simply discussion.......on an internet discussion forum. Of course everyone has different views and are entitled to them. Agreed that its annoying to go out, but the manner of the defeat is what dismays me most. We made that mediocre Liverpool line up look like world beaters and at the same time we looked totally out of our depth.

Our forward play is frankly pathetic and its getting worse with each passing game.

pete would you do us all a favour and stop repeating the extremely f**king obvious like it's a revelation.

Frankly, you were more fun when you were telling us how the team is just like AVBs, or it must all be Wanyama's fault because it was only 1-0 when he went off and it ended 3-0.


Tonight doesn't matter - Poch chose carefully so we didn't win. He's now going to act in interviews like his mother died. Get over it. We have the top 4 and CL to worry about.

Think Souness just made the most valid point, to play at the highest level you need a quick brain. Unfortunately, too many of our squad simply don't have the speed of thought.

Not disappointed we lost tonight, more disappointed that we never looked like we could win the game.

As someone else said earlier, you REALLY do talk sh*t dont you.

I am not too disappointed, I thought the team didn't do too bad seeing the number of youngsters playing. We actually had more possession than Liverpool. Klopp used just enough decent experienced players to be able to dominate where it mattered for some spells. You wouldn't call Liverpool's Wijnaldum or Origi second string and Sturridge is a top striker who has no problem finishing.

As mentioned, Carroll was poor and he is 4 years older than the likes of Winks, I would of subbed him a lot earlier. I was expecting a lot more of NK, he had the speed to go past and cause Moreno lots of problems, but did nothing. I did feel sorry for Janssen, the rest of the team were just not on his wavelength and his runs were just wasted.

Still, we can now concentrate on the more important competitions!

I was slightly amused that he quickly grabbed the ball for the penalty thus out Lamela'ing Lamela!

I think making wholesale changes like we did last night as well doesn't help because players need time to get used to playing with each other. I know there's probably this expectation that you can just throw a random collection of people together and they'll know where certain players like to make their runs and whether or not they like the ball to feet e.t.c... but that takes time.

That's why we ideally need to be in competitions like this to give the squad players that chance to have competitive matches on a regular basis.

I was looking more at Janssen's background as well and his career to date and I do think it offers you some perspective. His season with AZ was his first season in top flight dutch football. He was with Almere City, a dutch first division side, for two seasons after joining them at 19 and scored 29 goals in 69 appearances.

At AZ, he didn't score for the first 8 games but then went on to score 20 times in the latter half of the season.

So, for me at least, at 22, even though he's got a very good goal scoring record in his career so far, I think you certainly have to give him more leeway because he's still developing as a player - we certainly haven't signed the finished article at all.

It just seems a shame that a lot of people in the media and some fans have taken against him already because he's not scoring.

Yes it is early days still for Janssen, his goal scoring record in the youths is a lot better than Kane's ever was. If we were giving him some decent service then perhaps we could make a proper assessment but he's living on scraps at the moment. My only worry is that I've seen a few comments saying that he lacks a bit of pace for a PL front man.

Saying all that, I think we still need more striking options. Compared to us all the other top teams have an embarrassment of riches. Its great to have the best defence in the Premier League but only goals win games.

Completely agree we are due some silverware and it really pees me off that Poch sees no value in these cup competitions . Let's face it they are our most realistic chance of winning something.
The main difference between the teams was the quality of the strikers last night. While Liverpool are willing to buy a striker who cost around £28m Levy is still trying to pick up
bargains for at least £10m less.
It is for this reason alone we are unlikely to win the bigger prizes.
Miracles like Leicester only come along once.

He doesn't have the pace. He's not slow by any means, but I don't think he was ever meant to be an Aguero-type player really. In a weird way, he's probably a far better compliment to Kane with the way he holds the ball up so well, but I doubt they'll ever play together for any length of time so we could find out.


Indeed. In a way though, with the current approach at the club, I don't think we can really blame Levy for Janssen's "bargain" arrival. I do get the feeling that Poch is the sort of manager who wants to work with players who aren't quite there yet and try to coach them to become better players and this is likely what he saw in Janssen.

Levy sanctioned Sissoko's arrival (still not sure why...) for £30 million so with that, I would at least like to think that he would have done the same for a striker had Poch expressed a strong desire for anyone in particular.

I think the excuse of making wholesale changes and players needing time to get to know each other does'nt really wash when the opposition did exactly the same. I agree that its competitive games like this that is our best chance to see what they can do. Unfortunately last night showed us that its not much. We may have to accept that a lot of our younger players are not as good as we thought (hoped). Carroll for example will never make the grade here, of that im certain.

As for Janssen, he is clearly a very limited player and all the "hard work" in the world is no substitute for the real quality that we needed. Its not his fault, I blame the person who signed him. He is every bit the type of striker we would sign when we were a 5th place Europa side. This year we were in the champions league and genuine title contenders and we failed to sign a striker befitting of that stature. Signing a "prospect" who "may end up being good" is fine if you nurture them as a squad player over time. But he is our main striker and was always going to be thrown in at the deep end as regardless of injury, Kane was never going to take being flogged to death week in and week out like the last 2 years. Janssen, to put it bluntly, is simply a zero threat to defenders at the moment.

Just to be clear, this isnt us arguing, its discussing.

Problem with Levy is he never spends before getting money from moving players on.
How we could have done with someone like Chadli last night!

As I understood it the first choice striker acquisition was Batshuayi but we wouldn't pay £30 million for him. Has he been markedly more successful than Janssen?

The thing that worries me about Janssen is whether he fits in with the way we play. He doesn't look like a player that is going to make his own chances. He seems more of a finisher and to prefer the ball played forward early while he is on the shoulder of the last defender. While we should have players that can do that, we definitely aren't playing that way this season. In fact there's rather too much fannying about in the last third of the pitch in general for me.

I know it is only one match but NK didn't show even a vague suggestion that he is going to be any better than N'Jie or Chadli and where was the electric pace that he is supposed to possess?

This kinda proves my point about Levy. Until he is prepared to use a bit of ENIC's vast profits we are always likely to fall short.
I think Batshuayi would have been a much better fit, despite his problems at Chelski, than Janssen. We were looking at him for ages but by the time Levy had removed the moths from his pockets he was snatched by Chelski (not for the first time).