Liverpool - not the team I expected.

I expected we wouldn't get anything from tonight prior to kick off. Alas, my assumption was correct - sort of. Liverpool are not even close to being as good as I thought they were!

Because of this, I am so frustrated that we gave them so much respect! If we had kept the ball on the deck and played to our strengths we could have beaten this Liverpool team tonight. Before Bellamy's second Liverpool gave our midfield bags of space, their attacks were fairly simple to defend against and with the right tactics (best instead of Vuckic personally) we could have sealed more than just the one goal.

As it happened, Pardew set the team out far too negatively and it sent the wrong message out onto the field. Once Simpson had head-butted Krul out of the way of Bellamy's free kick; we seemed to have lost all hope and fight completely. I think for the first time this season we missed the injection Nolan & Barton gave on winter nights such as these.

So thats my late-night two cents, and as frustrating as tonight was, the game is done and that is that. Also, bring on the return fixture as I am far than impressed by Kenny's Liverpool and am a lot more confident of doing a job against them at SJP in March.

HTL.

 

I personally thought Liverpool were very good but I agree that we went into the game too negatively.

 

This. Thought they were better than I expected them to be (no offence intended at all.. just their record wasn't too great)

We clearly went in for the draw, even though Pardew said we'd go in attacking and try to give a win, which is what annoyed me.

 

I thought liverpool were quite poor but we were even worse, I agree with the OP if we had played a bit more positively, with less hoofball, we could have got at least a point.

 

The hoofball tactics, especially when we are playing 4-4-1-1 which sort of demands short ground passes, are starting to get on my nerves. That period when we kept the ball in Liverpool's half for about 5 minutes showed how easily we can pass the ball around but we just reverted to passing the ball around the back 4 then someone either hoofed it or gave it away.

 

If you look back at the game you can see why their conversion rate this season is something like 9%. They had us on the back foot a lot - but we seemed to be actively leaning back anyway! I thought their attacks were pretty simple stuff for our back line - we've had it harder against 'lesser' sides. The loss tonight could have been prevented had we gone about the game differently. We can blame out championship right side all we want but with the sort of football we have been capable of so far this season we should have gone for 3 points here, we clearly didn't.

 

This! That 5 min spell showed how much room Liverpool allowed us in the middle of the park.

 

Liverpool seem weak attacking wise but solid defensively.

 

Still not completely convinced. Ba on his own has rarely threatened previously. He needs to work with a partner, poor tactics flattered liverpool defensively.