MFletcher

Excellent result and performance, vital we build on it.

What's the point of Joe Allen? Have to win this.

Signing mature players is fine if they're good. Signing them if they're s*** is the problem.

It's abundantly clear that we have been incapable of defending well against good teams on an even semi-consistent basis. There's really no way this point can be argued against.

Rodgers' system isn't the reinvention of the wheel. It's a 4-3-3 which lacks midfield cover and exposes the centre backs. The full backs push on, and there aren't enough bodies to cover the gaps if they get caught. We're just poorly setup, and short of bringing in world class defenders with serious pace to compensate there's really not a great deal we can do about it until the system is amended.

I've thought about it a bit more. If it happens, it's a Hodgson-esque move where you're buying mid-table s*** and expecting them to suddenly be better than that. It won't happen.

All a bit Harry Redknapp, this.

Until we can defend properly against good teams for whole games, we're going nowhere. It's fundamental and we're s*** at it.

We've Gerrard and Suarez. The latter especially is better than almost every other player in the league. Yet we're still s***.

Too many variables. Too many young players with "potential" and nothing more. No surefire bets. No experienced heads coming in to help them through. No manager with a credible track record for blooding and improving young players to the extent they're going to get better. No discernible evidence of a winning mentality being built. It's alright saying "but next year". Arsenal have been saying this since about 2006, but I suppose they'll still managed to maintain a top four finish the whole time.

The biggest problem is the team's fundamental inability to defend properly on a consistent basis. Yes, we could have scored two ourselves through Suarez, but we could also have conceded about seven. We're not solid enough, our midfield is porous, our defence all over the show and we're easy to beat. It's half a year in here, this shouldn't be happening. We've won one of the last seven (Norwich, H) and thrown away leads left, right and centre all year. I've thought it for a while, and haven't been shy about saying it, but I really do think the manager's is a bit of a chancer. He talks a great game, but there's almost nothing to back it up apart from a good win against a not very good team every so often. Our failure to beat a genuinely good team all year is the most galling thing about our league campaign, whilst the less said about our cup performances this year the better. We've spent £30M-odd in the summer, and another £20M in January. He's had about £45M-odd net (I accept this excludes wages) on new players to build on eighth and two cup finals. We're set to do a lot worse. It's massively depressing.

We've only got 12 games left to beat a team in the top half.

Gutted not to close it out, but a very good performance overall.

Good result and a positive performance for the first hour. Think we lost it a bit in the last third of the game, but it's a good point to get on the board. I don't want to see Suarez on the wing in the medium-term. He's too good to be winding up 70 yards from their goal covering the full back.

The three away games against United/Arsenal/City were the barometer for progress, I think. Lose the remaining two over the next few days and things are looking a bit grim.

I think the cup competitions took priority. We couldn't put a run of results together in the league from New Year onwards.

He should have been playing in the league in the second half of last season whenever Kenny was persisting with Carragher for reasons best known to himself. A great servant certainly, but there was no long-term benefit whatsoever to be derived from playing Carragher in a league we'd pretty much given up on by about March.

He comes from the Uruguayan league, gets one game every six weeks, with no consistent team about him, and then gets hammered for not playing like Baresi. He hasn't been great, but then if you're playing once every few weeks, thrown into what is usually a makeshift team, you have to wonder why you're bothering. He probably regrets the move himself. He needs a loan, at least until the end of the season, and we can see how he does with a proper run of games. From his perspective, the last year and a half must feel like a bit of a waste of time.

He's been here a year and a half and has barely had a run of games. We'd be better sending him on loan for a year and a half and then seeing what he's like.

Blaming the young players generates a rather unwelcome comparison with Hodgson doing exactly the same after Northampton. The team selected was, by and large, good enough to beat Oldham even with the s*** pitch and dire conditions. Generally not too worried about how we play in the cups giving there's usually a few reserves/second choices thrown in, it's all about getting through. Blaming young players does no-one any favours whatever.

Joe Allen isn't very good at football.

18. It was mostly a torrent of abuse directed at the Beeb's facile England-centric coverage. That and Alan Hansen deciding Luca Toni was a nobody despite scoring 31-odd goals in Serie A the season before.

Might e-mail a complaint as well. Haven't bothered since 2006, but I'm sufficiently annoyed to write a few lines.

Re: midfield. Allen continues to look incapable of imposing himself on a game.

Even if he'd tried to deliberate handball it, which he didn't, it would have taken a fair bit of luck for it to rebound perfectly for him to boot into the net. It was hit at him from about a yard and a half - there's not much he could do. Champion deserves the sack for his commentary, the odious f***. In the hat for the next round, all that really matters with cup football.