The most worrying thing at the moment is - despite how awful our tactics have been, the questionable substitutions and poor team selections, the transfer spending that currently looks dreadful and the committee's role more generally, and much much more - actually our complete lack of identity, gameplan or team cohesion.
I don't know how we're supposed to be playing and I haven't all season. The players don't look any more in-the-know either. The problem is much deeper than simply 'x' playing over 'y', although like many others I do think we would take baby steps towards recovery by dropping certain individuals. But whether it's Gerrard or not, our centre back pairing, Lambert or Ballotelli or two up top, etc etc, the same problems remain.
No creativity. No chances. No goals. No defence. No midfield possession or pressure. A lack of confidence might explain a dip in quality of form by 10%, but not this dramatic downturn that we've seen. We are absolutely awful at the moment and aside from the 3-0 v Spurs and 30 mins v Man City, we have been all season. That's not coincidence and it's a huge worry for us.
We were 1-0 up today and should have gone on to play our natural game against arguably the worst team in the league. But we looked like we were playing the clock (again) instead of the game, passing the ball around and waiting for inevitable mistakes and expecting to concede, which of course we did. We didn't attempt to keep possession or pressure them or counter or defend deep. It was aimless, pointless and ultimately fruitless.
Worst run of form for five years. We're in serious crisis and we require drastic action. The buck stops with the manager and despite being superb last season, he's been catastrophic so far this year. Sturridge will solve nothing if and when he comes back. Brendan's got a big, big challenge ahead of him.
