Friendly v Woking 23 July

[Chippy Red]

Struggling to see what our first 11 actually is.  Other than poor.  Why will power not look for investment when he isn't up to it financially alone. Our full backs can't defend. We are short of a decent centre back. Kasim could be off.  And if Obika isn't fit we can't hold the ball up.

After January window Williams said we need another striker in Obika's mould.  We seem very amateurish in our recruitment.  We had all this talk of having more of our own players and yet we seem to be struggling to get any.  Young loans is a huge gamble. More sink than swim. 

I thought pre season was time to bed in new players and get them fit and get understanding between them. So is pre season not a total waste if players only come in the week the season begins.

Williams is beginning to sound a tad pathetic in his views. Views not shared by the fans I feel.  We start bad and fans will implode.

[Red Frog]

Just a reminder that everyone was in a similar mood last season until Power came in with a bunch of late signings, including Ajose and Wes Thomas, that suddenly had everyone jizzing themselves. Injuries stymied him last year, but Power has a history of doing what's required.

[DiV]

I thought pre season was time to bed in new players and get them fit and get understanding between them. So is pre season not a total waste if players only come in the week the season begins.

Pre-season hasn't been like that for years. Especially in the lower leagues. Teams in the lower leagues rely on Premiership youth loans to flesh out their squad. However, the Premiership teams want to keep all their 132 professional players around for their own preseason so when the actual Liverpool first XI are in Beijing playing a high profile money making friendly infornt of 160,000 people they can still send a Liverpool 'select' XI for a friendly against Tranmere.

Plus, young players closer to the first team aren't made available till the transfer window has SLAMMED shut, just in case teams then need them in their squad (....even if it's just to hit the home grown quota)

Now a days squads aren't usually complete till the end of August, then it takes till October to bed in and all of sudden you've wasted too much of the season.

[woolster]

Just a reminder that everyone was in a similar mood last season until Power came in with a bunch of late signings, including Ajose and Wes Thomas, that suddenly had everyone jizzing themselves. Injuries stymied him last year, but Power has a history of doing what's required.

true, but why do it late, as many have stated we need to assemble a team that can play the game of football as a team

[Red Frog]

true, but why do it late, as many have stated we need to assemble a team that can play the game of football as a team

See DV's post above. We're not that high in the food-chain. And if you are clever with your money like Power, you know that you get more bargains later on, when selling teams are running short of options. We're just not in the "buy early, pay a premium" set.

[Sippo]

It's the same every single year. Power or no power, some fans expect us to make 12 new signings before July.

We have signed some, sold some and let some go. We have had trialists.

I would say this year is the same as any other.

[A Gent Orange]

See DV's post above. We're not that high in the food-chain. And if you are clever with your money like Power, you know that you get more bargains later on, when selling teams are running short of options. We're just not in the "buy early, pay a premium" set.

Matt Jackson of Wigan put an interesting spin on that in something I read: players who are released from higher up the pyramid take a longer time to become available to lower clubs because their agents tout them around other PL clubs, then wait. Then put out names at Championship, then trials at Championship, then at L1 etc.

It is the agents interest to place them as high up as possible make sure the player waits on clubs as high as possible as once they go lower, it gets harder to get back up. 

[DiV]

The same principle could also be applied to youngsters going out on loan...

[Tails]

Struggling to see what our first 11 actually is.  Other than poor.  Why will power not look for investment when he isn't up to it financially alone. Our full backs can't defend. We are short of a decent centre back. Kasim could be off.  And if Obika isn't fit we can't hold the ball up.

After January window Williams said we need another striker in Obika's mould.  We seem very amateurish in our recruitment.  We had all this talk of having more of our own players and yet we seem to be struggling to get any.  Young loans is a huge gamble. More sink than swim. 

I thought pre season was time to bed in new players and get them fit and get understanding between them. So is pre season not a total waste if players only come in the week the season begins.

Williams is beginning to sound a tad pathetic in his views. Views not shared by the fans I feel.  We start bad and fans will implode.

They've already imploded.

[RobertT]

I remember a bbc phone were certain mr power said we would have a squad capable to compete in this league next season after things were learned from this season Just gone well im still waiting.no wonder fans are starting to disapear.

You can't mean "fans are starting to disappear" in relation to attendances because we haven't played any league games yet, and last season ended with attendances bang on average.

So, you must literally mean that our fans are vanishing, which sounds worrying to say the least.  Have the police been informed?

Why do people insist that a few people chatting on the internet, or a small group of friends, is somehow an accurate barometer of the entire fan base?

[Flashheart]

We get the same old impatient, petulant whining year in, year out.

For anybody that saw that game, did anything of interest happen? Any interesting A. Trialists and the like?

Cheers

[THE FLASH]

You can't mean "fans are starting to disappear" in relation to attendances because we haven't played any league games yet, and last season ended with attendances bang on average.

So, you must literally mean that our fans are vanishing, which sounds worrying to say the least.  Have the police been informed?

Why do people insist that a few people chatting on the internet, or a small group of friends, is somehow an accurate barometer of the entire fan base?

Have the club released a number of sold STs?!

No....silence speaks volumes.

He's probably referring at the 'meh' fans who were ST holders and now can't be fucked.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Audrey]

The ST issue is really only a short term problem if, indeed, they have actually decreased substantially.

I can't imagine all the ex-ST holders don't intend to go to any games at all. But when they do they pay full whack. So a semi decent performance on the pitch will actually increase revenue.

It is, however, a good barometer of fans' satisfaction or otherwise. Obviously Power knows what the number sold is so if he is genuine about assembling a squad capable of challenging he will address this.

As regards our present first XI, the first 70 minutes against Reading wasn't too shabby.

We're not shit. We are just terribly thin on numbers at the moment

[Tails]

We're not shit. We are just terribly thin on numbers at the moment

Agree with this. I'm not really one to get antsy, I fully accept that most of the time squads aren't really finished until January in some cases (Di Canio's championship winning season a good example) but our biggest problem last season was that we had nothing in reserve and absences hit us hard. I know it's hard to account for injuries, and with any luck we won't have as many injuries as last season, but I really hope we learn from our mistakes.

[Abrahammer]

It seems like some fans genuinely think that Power just can't be bothered to get off his arse and make the effort to bring in players.

It's a complicated business bring in players, would he have liked to have a full squad assembled by now? Of course but that's not the real world of football