Don't agree Allen was solid throughout and made some important passes and tackles. Sahin for Shelvey would have worked for me as he seemed to fade towards the end.
How the hell did we end up losing that game? First half, we were awesome at keeping the ball (73% possession) and they only created one chance from a free kick. First 30second set the tone for the 2nd half, just sloppy football. We gave the ball away and seem to think the game was over already. Positives - Suarez scoring yet again, think that's 7 for the season now already? Let's hope he can keep that up. Passing was excellent in the most part and I'm loving the way we are working the ball out of defence rather than kicking it long. Negatives - Still being sloppy at the back, although 3 of that back 4 won't play at the weekend so hard to be too critical. The thing that strikes me is at the moment, opposition are having 4 chances and scoring 3 goals, or having 3 chances and scoring 2 goals. It seems that we havent come up against a team that have struggled to take their chances yet and we are being punished for it.
If I'm honest: hate us losing anything but we've already used this comp for what Rodgers needs. He's found out which youngsters can cut it, which old ****ers are past it & which "big" buys won't hack it. When I heard it takes 18 games to win this with the squad size we have? Not saying feck it, just feel its a tool more than a comp this year. Saw some good stuff tonight; some poor. As M says, individual errors; but individual errors come from a player not trusting themselves & those around. Our back 4 is in transition & keeper in flux. (Our main two? Injured a lot. Need 2 main two's; heading that way but mistakes will happen until then.) Midfield coming together very quickly.Think BR has what he needs as a base. Youth, Experience & fear for position now. Up front Suarez looking back to best but still need one more STRIKER! Weirdly, not happy with defeat but still happy with bits of progress. Still think the rugby tackle should have been a red. BR: "Lazy" 20 minutes. Stopped defending. Good.
Stop defending your fellow sheep shagger, he was fooking awful in the second half, his pass completion rate will be lower than an old man's ball bag.
I really thought he was good throughout, good pass to Johnson in the box and stopped a few attacks kept the ball moving, Shelvey went missing at the end seemed tired and I thought Sahin would have given us an edge.
And yet, it yet again took Stevie one bad pass to cost us. Allen is young enough to make a mistake & tear back to try (maybe succeed maybe fail) to rectify it. Stevie? Someone less important will do it apparently. Hendo was anonymous in the 2nd half so going on last 5 games performances? I'd keep Allen on before Hendo (I like Hendo). It's not the end of the world but a usual defend to hilt Brendan blamed laziness on this defeat so: name your lazy players lads..... Already named mine tonight.
Got to say Johnston got very slow at the end, looks like his Duracell was running out there. Would have prefered Şahin to Gerrard.
Johnson gives himself too much to do when at RB and doesn't see the danger until it is too late. Needs to work harder getting back. As I have said play him LB and he's fine we should have given Wisdom another game tonight but I think he was leaving him for the weekend.
The problem with Johnson today was he knew he was more of an attacking threat then downing so was ahead of him a lot of the time. The thing I have noticed is that most players are wanting the ball more and are getting better at finding the space where they can be easily passed to. The exception being Downing who on numerous occassions just stood behind the opposition so he couldnt be passed to he never really looked like he wanted the ball.
No he didn't. It was his worst LFC performance by a mile. Misplacing passes, outmuscled a number of times. Just looked tired. I don't blame him though.
Think that's a bit over the top. He was in no way bad, and certainly wasn't the worst player on the pitch. Made a lot of passes - indeed was over-relied upon to play out from the back. He misplaced ONE pass badly. He made quite a few very crucial tackles (particularly at the end) and surged forward well a couple of times. We shouldn't criticise him for tonight's loss.
Interesting stats from Opta Twitter : 691 - Liverpool completed 691 passes tonight, nearly four times as many as Udinese (173). Snatch. Seems rather excessive to have so much and not finish teams off.
The machine is starting to get going. There will be coughs and splutters but soon it'll purr. Hopefully, anyway.
