Match Day Thread Liverpool vs Stoke city

It was just a negotiating tactic to lower the price of our #legit target

LFC fans always ruin it by giving the bluff away

 

Anyway, my ratings:

Karius: 5 Not much to do, but wouldn't have stood an earthly if Shawcross could roll a simple ball over the line.

Gomez: 5 Struggled in first half, better in second

VVD; 6 Solid aerially, so-so on the ground.

Klavan: 6 defensively sound, nothing else though.

TAA: 5 have been looking forward to seeing him in midfield, and wing-back was probably as close as he'll get this season. Bit mediocre today though, and faded bad in the second half.

Moreno: 5 Looked iffy against Shaqiri at first, but improved later. Cracking cross towards the end was Robbo-like.

Hendo: 6 Competent if not inspiring.

Windy: 6 Covered a lot of ground, but still has that tendency to turn backwards in promising situations.

Bobby: 5 Mediocre today.

Salah: 6 Constant danger - fouled by his marker and anyone else who could take a bite. dreadful miss.

Ings: 5 Workmanlike, took his chance well, but was offside.

Subs:

Milner 7 Missed him

Clyne: 6 Proper full back, still short of match fitness, snatched at a half chance.

Jurgen: 6 Can't complain about the team selection, but the team was flat. Play like this on Wednesday and Roma will get 6, never mind 3. Must win today - now we're fighting till the last day of the season when we could have put the deckchairs out.

 

I agree, it was a poor performance that lacked a cutting edge, it wasn't as though Stoke defended for their lives. Just the one pen for me the others were nothing. Good news is that in years gone by this was a 0-1 loss for us but we are much better now at managing the game.
Take the point move on and get to the CL final. Once done beat Chelsea, if that doesn't happen beat BHA on the last day.

 

don't agree as the 0-0 v 0-1 is entirely down to how useless stoke were. we lost 0-1 to swansea

 

But in general those results are a lot less often.

 

Are they?

Last year 22-10-6 in league. Lost fa cup to wolves, st in league cu

Lost to bournemouth 4-3
Lost 2-3 at home to swansea
Drew 0-0 with Utd at home
Lost to hull at home.2-0

This year

20-12-4 out of fa cup to west Brom and league cup to west Brom.
Lost 0-1 to Swansea
Drew newkie
Drew Utd
Drew stoke
Drew west Brom


So if you wanna claim 2 losses say to hull and I dunno leicester Last year are now draws ok.

 

Cups are different but yes the league games show what I mean we have turned some losses into draws.

 

Very few.

We lose to Chelsea and it might as well be called noise

 

If.

 

Spurs have got a cheek after Alli's punch on Yacub, and if you want to see a punch on a player, check out West Brom on Ings last week.

 

Oops - wrong thread!

 

If we look at the seasons progress thread, we are exactly the same as last season. No better or worse. In fact we are on schedule to finish with the same number of points and possibly in the same position. Yes we may have lost fewer games, but we have also won fewer and drawn a lot. In fact we have turned into the mancs of last season. They had record number of draws and we have the highest number of draws of any top 6 team by a long distance.

 

It’s funny how some people gave it large that the semi final was so important that it should be our primary focus.

I really don’t Understand given that we haven’t secured top 4 yet. Some people look at the short term without looking at the bigger picture

 

I suppose I'm just looking at the last 2 seasons and feel that it's definite progress, we don't lose as many silly games as we have in recent years. I could be wrong as I don't look at stats.

 

I suppose it's just a differing view. The CL is my priority as it's a pot, finishing 4th is important and we should be able to arrive this by rotating, nothing is broken yet and 4th is still in our own hands.

 

I cant speak for anyone else but my viewpoint is that they are both important, but we have two more attempts to secure top four. The Roma game doesnt come round to often (cl semi last in around a decade ago).
Yes we need to be getting in top four regularly but i have complete faith we will do that.
This scenario was the same earlier in the season with cl games, arsenal get lambasted for not trying in the cl and just concentrating on the league and look where that model has got them.
If we only qualified every five years but got to semi or final every time would we be happy?
Even if we werent in the cl those two games are the kind we drop points in anyway.
For once i am having a little bit of faith in the team to get the job done, and we will get it done at the bridge (draw)
Nb - just dont ask me for my prediction for wed

 

We have made significant progress this season, unbeaten at home in the league and a remarkable run in the CL which is likely to take us
to the final. There is a feel good factor surrounding the club and we are on the up, big style.

 

I think you are missing the even bigger picture.

We have a top 6 in the PL (assuming Arsenal don't completely collapse) and only 4 CL places. If you only prioritise the CL semis if top 4 is already #confirmed by that stage of the season (~4-5 games left to play) then how often is that likely to happen? And if top 4 is #confirmed but that's because we're still in a title race then you'd want to focus on going for that wouldn't you?

So are you proposing we only prioritise the CL in the rare occurrence that we make the semis in the first place AND top 4 is #confirmed AND first place is wrapped up?

We won't always get draws against European minnows like Man City and Roma, we need to take the opportunities we actually have rather than worry every condition wasn't perfectly met. We need to learn to cope with lots of high pressure games at the end of a season not hope that circumstances will help take some of that pressure away from us.

 

Equally last season could be seen as an improvement since we didn't have European football last year