By all means criticise Liverpool when it’s deserved. That’s part of supporting a club properly, not just clapping along through everything. But the way some lads talk, you’d think we’re watching the worst coached side in the league, hanging on by our fingernails every week, and getting bullied from first whistle to last.
The claims come thick and fast: no variety in attack, only one kind of tempo, only win by flukes, other teams “tear us apart repeatedly”, we can’t break a low block, we only score from moments of individual brilliance that have nothing to do with the coach. Then it gets personal: Curtis Jones written off as useless, and even Kerkez getting pelters as though he’s the root of all evil. It’s a lot, and it’s miles stronger than the football actually justifies.
Criticism isn’t the issue, the extremes are
There’s a difference between saying “that move was too slow” and saying “we only ever play slow”. A difference between “we were loose in transition there” and “everyone tears us apart”. Football’s a messy sport. Even good sides have ropey spells in matches, even well-coached teams sometimes look blunt when the opponent sits in and makes it ugly.
What jars is how absolute some of the online verdicts are. One scruffy half and suddenly it’s a coaching crisis. One game where it’s a bit stop-start and now we’ve got “no tempo”. It’s like people are reviewing a 90-second highlight reel, not a full match with all the off-the-ball work and little adjustments that actually decide things.
You can see structure if you’re looking for it
When Liverpool are at it, you can spot the plan: how we try to move sides around, how we look to create space for runners, how the press triggers and the counter-press stops teams settling. That isn’t random. That’s coaching, repetition, and players buying into it.
And yes, moments of quality matter. They always have. But “moments” don’t appear in a vacuum. They usually come because a team has built pressure, forced the opponent deeper, or created the right kind of chaos in the final third.
Why do we all see the same game so differently?
Truth is, we all watch with our own baggage. Some people go in expecting it to go wrong, so every loose touch becomes proof. Others watch for patterns and accept there’ll be imperfections. If you’ve read a thread calling us dreadful, you’re almost primed to find evidence for it.
I’m not saying Liverpool can’t improve. We can. But if you watched the last couple of games and came away thinking we’re clueless, I honestly don’t know what match you were watching. There’s plenty to debate. “Hopeless” isn’t one of them.
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