My thoughts on AVB are well documented, you know I'm not too keen on him and think him playing such a boring style hasn't worked for us. We keep grinding out wins, 1-0s against Hull, Palace, Cardiff, Swansea and 2-1s against Fulham and Sunderland this week, all games that we have had to grind wins out having not played particularly well. Most of our players play better with space but due to the tactic employed by AVB they rarely get it, hence why I think we've had to rely on penalties and long shots to edge poor teams this season.
Which is why I give credit to Rodgers and Martinez at their respective scouse clubs. Both have their sides above us playing football far easier on the eye. I think Liverpool have overtaken us this calendar year, they have a very good team now and if we don't admit that then we're being silly. Same goes for Everton to a lesser extent, whom I don't think are better than us yet but could conceivably finish above us if they keep improving.
Is it wrong to say that two good teams are as good if not better than us? The evidence this season suggests they are. Liverpool have had winnable home games but that shouldn't be used as a stick to beat them with - you wouldn't see us beat teams while scoring four or five in the process. Also people here and the press in general aren't giving Everton enough plaudits, and do we really think our team is much better than theirs? I'd take our centre back options but think they have superior full backs, the midfields are similar in quality, we edge them on the wings but they have a better striker than ours.
I haven't worded it great but I think if we had either of the Liverpool based managers with our current team we would be doing better than we currently are, and looking alot better doing it.