Toure may not have played in our derby before but do you really think he would have been phased? He's done the lot mate
Why take the chance of playing 2 débutantes in such a match when you could field an experienced pairing?
Apologies - here's me thinking Toure was a novice in such games. He's not been involved in any big matches before in his small/limited career(!) My logic for wanting Sakho/Toure to start was to handle Lukaku - you know, the big physical striker who bullied Skrtel/Agger twice last season?? So that make that 3 games where Lukuku has had a field day against us. But that probably didn't occur to you? To be fair to Skrtel and Agger - they managed to keep him quiet for 70 mins, however he still scored 2 goals.
I just want to say this; the mersey tide is rising! Credit to everton they have 5/6 players who could walk into LFC side. Coleman, Baines, Barkely, lukaku (loan admittedly) and jagielka are top players. Barkley IS the next steven gerrard its so obvious on the pitch. ................................... Now: CBs, frankly lukaku was out fo the game until lfc starting giving it away, and giving him space. The formation change killed us off. Toure in? maybe so maybe no... what we can say is for one goal mingolet should be slapped cos while he saved the free he then bottled diving on the ball and toe poked it out like a puss. All day we put johnson on lukaku form corners and ALL day he got free from him and it was simply one of those times that everton finally found him, that was a disastrous decision by rodgers in the tactics. johnson is hopeless at set piece time and is a wall filler/ post marker. We scored 3 off set peices.. think about it..... same v fulham so unless we got lucky really or fixed all our issues i think we need to examine why they could cut us up but we didn't really trouble them all that much form free play. Next is the amazing glaring error mae by lukaku and allen. Lukaku on a 4 on 2... again well done formation change there rodgers, full backs awol and gerrard trotting... then allen missed a sitter a granny would score... either one would and should have won the game. then finally the tackle. it was reckless it was off the ground and it was obvious that the ref wanted to let him off given the time he took. if that had been another side the ref would have been surrounded for the time and berated and barracked, no question. everton actually got a man booked cos the only guy not a puss for lfc was our physio. where was gerrard to abuse the ref and fight our corner... standing round chatting about the weather with him! ...................... great game...
Glad you mentioned Barkley, MITO - what a player he will and he's the type of player we're missing from midfield currently. And going back to Johnson - he seems to be quite lucky because not many have mentioned his shocking performance. Not only that, he gave away possession for their second goal which led to Lucas committing the foul.
Spoke to my mate yesterday, dave. He spoke to several people after the game (obviously). Ex-ref Halsey said it was defo red, but it was a very difficult angle for Dowd to see the severity of the foul (it really didn't look that bad from one of the angles). Interestingly, Gerrard came out and said exactly the same. Mirallas said it was a red
Well there's you not really thinking again!! So you KNOW exactly how fit Toure is? and how his performance in training had been. You know better than Rodgers and the rest of the training staff? Could it also be that Rodgers did not want to take the risk of playing Sakho who loves a tackle in this particular game? So whilst you go spouting before thinking don't tar me with the same brush!
So Toure and Sakho weren't fully fit? Do you have that knowledge? I'm sure Rodgers has his reasons for starting Agger and Skrtel, but I don;t think it's unreasonable to at least start with Sakho who is probably the best equipped to handle Lukaku? You bang on about derby experience but then you conveniently forget the 2 games prior to Saturday where Lukaku enjoyed success against the pair? But then again, you're absolutely right - after all, we only conceded goals in the game(!)
You're right. Lukaku actually had a relatively poor game imo, despite his goals. But on top of the 2 he put away, he had 2 or 3 great chances, not least when he left Agger for dead & Mignolet came out & did brilliantly to challenge him at his feet, when it was 1-1. I was chuffed when I saw the pairing of Agger & Skrtel on the teamsheet.
The games played by Lukaku were for the Baggies and were completely different games to a Derby - or is that too much of an inconvenient truth for you Both of the games Lukaku played against us were different style of games to the one on Saturday but don't let that worry you! As for the goals that he did score. Well I've seen Toure watch opposition players as they have taken free headers in our box before. The ping-pong that occurred before his shot would probably have happened irrespective of who the CB pairing was. So think again!
Yep I agree - Lukaku came into his element in the last 20 mins. It's a shame because we did a decent enough job on him until then but if we want to seriously be competing with the best and winning trophies, then this isn't good enough. Full concentration, focus and performance for the full 90.
Fair point - but it would be very naive to completely ignore Lukaku's performances against us, irrespective of the team he played in, situation ...
The fact that he's built like an Ox, has pace & strength & is great in the air remain the same whatever shirt he's got on his back. I remember him leaving Carragher sat on his arse while sprinting through to score at The Hawthorns, in a similar way to how he left Agger in his wake on Saturday - the only difference was the lack of a quality finish & some great goalkeeping. Only you would argue that the CB pairing chosen was the right call, given that you shipped 3 goals & your keeper was MOTM as we had 18 attempts at goal, 12 of which were on target.
He's tall and powerful about 6'3" our defenders are unable to cope with him.We should be careful when we meet at Anfield.
