that is foul and a booking for me however that will not cause a broken neck unlike tipping someone so they "somersault" can .
we scored a freak goal? our goal was superb. They scored the freak goal and then one from our Achilles heel, from a dead ball. We had two great chances...they were opened up just fell to the weakest of our front 3. If we score then this is another masterclass...can’t compare Pool’s pressure to Palace. It’s never going to be pretty at Anfield but we had everything to win it. You can’t ignore the aim of the game and that’s to take your chances. Kane missed a sitter too...I’m not up for expansive football against Pool away unless you fancy an absolute mauling. 1 individual here and there in a line up shouldn’t make a difference to the system but it’s the quality of the individuals mentality that costs us. It was frustrating but we are 3 points off the top...it’s a 1 game swing with 25 to go. Jose’s tactics work...the players must step up when required. You look at teams who win the league...their bit part players make massive contributions when called upon as oppose to hiding behind the ‘not played enough games’ lark. I’m optimistic about the next few games and coupled with the fact that Pool are terrible on the road I am not throwing in the towel after one defeat...we didnt win or lose the league last night.
It wouldn’t have been a masterclass though because we were under pressure and not dealing with it well enough. This wasn’t a sound defensive display like that of some our good wins. We were being cut open too easily - likely because we had Sissoko playing as a RM - and it was only because Pool didn’t have their finishing boots for the most part that the scoreline kept us in the game. Bergwijn definitely should’ve scored one of his chances and that’s why he’s as much to blame as Jose but our set up last night was terrible. I hope to never see that formation again, honestly it was that bad. It didn’t work and it’s only because Liverpool weren’t great either that the match didn’t end with more goals for them. It’s not about winning or losing the league in one night. It’s about approaching the game wrong and it’s another match that we’ll look back on saying “what if”. We didn’t capitalise on a Pool team that have looked vulnerable at the back and not as overly threatening on attack as they usually are. Losing to Pool isn’t a major issue for me but the manner in which we lost is.
Hear Hear, It was ugly but due to poor finishing we didn't win a game that we should have won, or at least got a point. We doubled up on their wingers because that is where their threats come from. That meant playing a 622 although a 631 might be a fairer description. If anything we have shown the rest of the world that with luck on your side, together with taking one's chances, this Liverpool side are beatable if you neutralise their flanks.
It may not have looked pretty but the facts would suggest that your analysis is harsh. We were inches from scoring 4 times so the tactics cannot have been as wrong as you suggest. Pool looked impressive in the first half but there are no points in football for style. We could easily have had 3 goals in second half and finished with a scoreline of 4 - 2 to Spurs. It's very disappointing to lose in the last minutes and I won't argue with the result, Liverpool worked until the end, but it could have very easily gone the other way and the conversations would be quite different. There are many bridges between now and the end of the season and we are still very much in the fight. I was more disappointed about losing 2 points at Palace than 3 at Anfield. There are still 8 teams in this fight and a long way to go.
As I said yesterday, this style of play is not sustainable over an entire season for a squad, physically or mentally. I live in hope that Jose is currently using this plan A just to cope with the unique fixture grief that Spurs face this season, and that the team will cut loose in attack once the normal season fixture tempo arrives (mid-late january by my reckoning) .
Liverpool could’ve had more goals too though. In the first couple minutes Lloris had to make a decent save. They also had 11 shots on target, that’s probably more than what we allowed City, Utd and Arsenal combined. I enjoy counter attacking style football just as much as a high press but my gripe is that we didn’t do neither last night. There was no cohesion in our team and style of play. When we were getting the ball it was generally going straight back to Liverpool. We were also so imbalanced. We had one DM, one CAM, one RM and one LW dropping deep. By having Davies on the left too we had no real outlet down the left wing and Sissoko as a RM doesn’t offer an out ball either. Our counter attack was then non-existent because of that and our defensive structure was also relatively easy to get through too. It was a poor performance last night, backed up by a poor formation and poor finishing from Bergwijn. The Palace result was definitely disappointing but both performances haven’t been up to scratch either. Losing to Pool isn’t really the huge issue, it’s just the manner in which we lost it annoys me. If we set up like we did against City and co I think we could’ve done more damage and looked less vulnerable at the back.
I think the imbalance was due to positioning players to deal with situations from Liverpool. I think Liverpool are stronger than City right now, and were far more committed as they always seem to be against us at Anfield Our tactics are far more complex than Liverpool's or City's, they simply produce their balanced teams and set out to outplay the opposition using their 'better' players. We are on a par with those two only in certain areas of our team, obviously Son, Kane, Hojbjerg, Alderweireld, Loris, and potentially Bale and Ndombele so we need more devious ways to win which mean 'unbalanced' play and contriving openings for Kane and Son.
And this is why our first half formation made no sense: Son is most effective coming in off the wing into the space between the FB and CB so starting him up front means we removed the ability to contrive openings for him, and Sissoko starting on the right meant we didn't have anyone who could slip a pass between their LB and CB due to the minor issue of Sissoko having a couple of saucepans grafted to his feet if he's required to do anything other than prod the ball a couple of yards sideways Similar can be said for our effectively deciding "Nah, you can have the midfield, we don't need it" after we brought on Lucas, because we weren't going to contrive any openings as we were aimlessly hoofing the ball down the pitch from that point that meant the only likely way we'd actually create an opportunity was if one of their players misjudged the ball or misplaced a pass after they inevitably got it
Le Saux mentioned it last night but not for some reason there were no replays shown of the incident. How strange!
We’ve created plenty of openings from how we’ve been usually set up though so we didn’t need to go all imbalanced to try something new. Plus, Liverpool from a defensive standpoint without van Dijk and Matip would essentially be easier to carve open had we gone our usual counter attacking style. We also took Lo Celso off for Lucas, meaning we went even more lopsided and further reducing creativity levels, Lucas unsurprisingly done nothing as he often does in the league. Plus from a squad perspective we had three midfielders and no striker on the bench - the second successive game Vinicius hasn’t been in the squad yet ****ter players are getting in... For me it was just one disaster after another with regards to formation and selection. Bergwijn also deserves hefty criticism because despite the **** show from the team and manager we still could’ve gotten something out of the game but ultimately that formation should never be seen again. That’s up there with Poch playing five defenders and two DMs against Colchester.
On the subject of contriving openings, a pattern is certainly emerging in that regard... please log in to view this image
Our overall play on set-pieces is **** and each of those was also bad refereeing, unsurprisingly. Not a foul and taken from the wrong place, not a foul and not a penalty, a really obvious dive and a foul on a defender, respectively. That's a lot of points and two things that we need to address. The set-pieces are just down to practice. ****ing awful officials is not something that I can suggest a solution to, though. They should've included the Palace one too, which was just down to us completely. Bad defending for the foul and bad goalkeeping for the goal.
A while ago, I suggested to you that officials need to be more accountable for their actions and they should be allowed to be criticised by managers (without being fined by the FA) if they're responsible for bad decisions. I felt they had too much protection. You didn't agree. Have you changed your mind or do you still feel the same?
What's the point? I wouldn't expect Taylor to notice the foul on Dier yesterday, so he shouldn't be criticised for it. Chris Kavanagh watched it for two minutes from every angle in the world and then decided that it was fine. You can see what criticising them would result in by listening to the ex-refs that they have with the pundits now. They'd make some bullshit excuse, say that they were right and everybody would be in exactly the same position. We need better officials and we're not going to get them by letting managers publicly haul them over the coals. Klopp, for example, went absolutely mental about our goal yesterday and it was a correct decision. Imagine what he'd have done if they'd have correctly chalked off the Firmino goal. Who'd want to put up with that ****?
I think that's fair, but my question is: how are we going to get better officials? If they get criticised, they receive protection from their mates. If people say nothing, they're going to assume everything is fine. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
The thing is that those expose a further problem: not only are our players sulking about the bad call instead of clearing their lines from the resulting set piece and thinking of how to blast the ball into the ref's bollocks from point blank range a minute or two later while making it look unintentional, but the fact is these bad calls always seem to happen on a specific part of the pitch The easy thing to do is point the finger as those bad calls always happen in the same area, but that doesn't work for an obvious reason Doherty played RB vs Everton and Newcastle Aurier played RB vs West Scam and Saltypool So instead what this indicates is there is an issue with our system if it keeps leaving our RB exposed no matter which one it is, as it's leading to one of the following scenarios i.) The RB commits a foul or a challenge the ref deems a foul ii.) The player covering the space commits a foul or a challenge the ref deems a foul, as the RB is nowhere near that part of the pitch It's also worth noting that Dier does get bullied in these situations, being shoved against Newcastle that led to the bullshit penalty call and taken out by Henderson last night that just so happened to give Firmino the space to get a free header, and that's certainly something that is concerning given he's a 6'2" tank yet he gets bullied at set pieces like he was the waiflike Jack Clarke
