Yup. I'm not going to demonize players for doing what is now a culture reinforced by referees. It became pointless to debate it the moment it became the accepted reality that all contact no matter how minimal is now a foul. Except if it's elbows or keepers fists...or if you wrestle your opponent Greco style to the ground. Apparently breathing on a striker is a penalty, getting him in a headlock and dry humping him at set pieces is good contact...
It's a massive problem at the other side of the game as well - defenders who are facing their own goal near the corner flag or something who just flop when a finger touches their back or shoulder is doing my head in now too! Would love to see just ONCE the ref not buy into these bullshit free kicks and let the striker take the ball and run at goal with the defender looking like an absolute prick
So, if a defender (let's call him O'Shea, for arguments sake) knowingly fouls an attacker in the box and turns to the referee claiming the forward dived, and thus gets him booked, is that not cheating? Does that itself not deserve condemnation? The Norwich non-penalty last season that I referred to further up the post also contained a defender who damn well knew what they did, but 'conned' the referee and tried to get Luis booked. As for the 'beachball'.... not Sunderland's fault: that was an incompetent referee; but I was pissed off when Bruce claimed that only a 'saddo' ref would have known the rule. £100k a year, and they don't know their own rule book? If a nurse, an airline pilot, a train driver or fireman was that inept they'd be sacked.
right... I'm going to say my piece anyway. LFC.. got COCKY simple as. We also proved a few salient points for ourselves that we need to address. So what was wrong: 1. formation. I actually predicted the formation last week as 4-4-2 and frankly I was hoping coutinho was rested. Realistically i thought the best i could hope for was him coming off after 60mins but my worst fears came true. Villa over ran us in midfield and no change was asked for until they scored which was frankly amazing. 2. Tactics. We got it badly wrong first half and ok second. villa had the run of our midfield. we were playing 4-4-2 effectively but trying to play with split CBS and full backs far advanced like as if we had 3 in the middle. bad mistake. second half johnson never left his own half hardly. 3. Gerrard, god loves a trier.. he did try. he struggled back on villas goal there and like a true attacker once he got there he switched off and ball watched let the guy two yards in front and have a tap in. a CB would have got across in front of the man where the danger was. Sadly though this is not the issue. Its how over run we were. if you stick two men in v 3 they have to outwork the 3. he couldn't , he was over run and his legs look shot. What on earth do you do with steven gerrard now... I don't know. where do you play him? What I found out IMO: 1. Coutinho cannot play in a midfield 3. earlier in the season i put forth the concept of a 3 with coutinho in it. On the evidence of the first half he's not got a clue so thats one for the bin until the coaches can spend a long time schooling him. 2. I was right about coutinho needing a rest. earlier in the year there would have been no question who was coming off and coutinho would have played 10 in that second half. he looked tired and should not play in the FA cup. 3. Gerrard... he cannot play holding. he just doesn't have the legs. He can play regista on the ball but he can't get around closing down when we don't have it. 4. That ref needs watching. He's got a thing for suarez cos frankly 2 or 3 things he waved off were cards and then when the pen happened he never book ed the keeper even when thats common place... on an away day i reckon he could do for us. I really think LFC sauntered out looking forward to another LFC home day where they just could do what they liked. We tried 4-2-3-1 after the horse was bolted... henderson made a lovely flick for sturridge and fair play to him... if we'd match villa i don't think they'd have scored 2. we didn't front up and match them in midfield... so one must wonder why on earth we are looking at a winger of all things when its patently obvious where our problem lies.
Some good points there MITO - there was certainly a degree of arrogance with the line up, like a 'lets just win this 4-0 shall we?' Fair play to Villa for outplaying us 1st half in every department. I wouldn't worry too much about the transfer rumours though - I genuinely trust BR and he will not be oblivious to the fact we need CM's and even more so now Lucas is back out for god knows how long. I wouldn't be surprised if we got some stop gap player in his twilight years if we can't get our actual target (bit like a Kolo)
Was gonna take hours to come up with my own post match analysis but this'll do.. Agree with MITO here.. we were too cocky/arrogant with our formation. Way before the match kicked off, told my boy that with Gerrard in a midfield of "two" and with Villa's youth and pace, we'd be over-run and.. we were! Villa were as good in the first half as we were bad, but credit to them for making us look bad! Glad we had enough about us to get back into the game, a year ago we'd have lost. I'd play Ford in the FA Cup game and give the likes of Suarez, Sturridge, Hendo a rest before the Everton game. If we play like that against Everton, they'll kill us!
What pisses me off more than anything is that it was so obvious. Rodgers even said before the match that Villa were a good counter attacking team, so we put 2 in the middle, one who is 33 and the other who likes to follow the ball. Recipe for disaster, Coutinho and Sterling tried to track back but let's be honest, they were chasing shadows the whole game.
------------------migs------------- mclaughlin---Sakho---Toure--- smith? -----------------Allen------------------- ---------Alberto------Coutinho--------- -----------------Gerrard------------------- ---------Sinclair--------Aspas--------- subs Luis,Hendo,Agger,Skrtel,Jones,Sturridge,Moses
Not having a go a Rodgers (OK, maybe a little bit), but its not the first time a "Formation" change as cost us points.. People tinker with players, he seems to tinker with formations too much, I know he wants to accommodate both Suarez and Sturridge but I wouldn't sacrifice one of a midfield three to do so, he needs to learn that and fast! Give the SAS a free role up front let them wonder.. play one of Ford or Sterling as part of the front three and then have a solid 3 in midfield. Also, I wish they'd stop showing re-runs of the keystone cops to our defence, they were truly shambolic.
Is that the same Smith that had a twenty minute cameo not so long ago and got absolutely slaughtered...?
We were ****ing dog **** in the first half. I couldn't believe what I was watching. Lucas made a difference second half, until he got injured - AGAIN Does anyone know how long he's out for?
against Chelsea away from home yes, Bournemouth are a good team but they are not ruddy barca, if he is one for the future for us he has to stand up against a championship team surely or get rid, but he deserves a chance to remedy that ****e first showing.
I'm not getting at the lad, I'm saying he got slaughtered despite being played for his debut in a very tough game where we were chasing a result and he was out of position. Social media mean that players, managers or even clubs never get 100% backing, it gives the idiots a license to moan and the lad got slaughtered.
ok, so i've said my peice on the game but i do agree with gerrez that at least we did get back into it though i also felt the game was there to be won and we really didn't have much to kick on with in the last 15. at least we didn't lose. for sure our fullbacks were reigned in v villa and johnson played much deeper. we borke the prime rule.. get it to f'n suarez.. we took our midfield away so we could not get it to him... oops! Now: FA cup. seriously.... RHC needs to say there's a thread for this.... BUT. smith is not ready. I was aghast to see a boy sent on v chavski to run about up the pitch nowhere near his won position cos he was not trusted in it. He's not ready nor deserving of a cup game run at LB.. again IMO. Mclaughlin.. maybe.. smith nope. V bournemouth i'd hope that kelly comes in .. flanno is seen perhaps.. I'd expect to see allen come in, perhaps alberto but for sure we need to protect a couple of assets. Sturridge should not play again. that 90 v villa won't exactly kill him but it was early in his return to throw it at him.
To be fair to Smith, he was playing as LW against Chelsea. His natural position is LB. And Lucas is expected to be out for 4-6 weeks (From what I've heard).
I have said that and many of us recognise that. I was just pointing out that he is a young lad that's already taken an unjustified pasting from some fans who will be ready with the daggers if he plays again so shortly afterwards. Of course, if he played and had a stormer then it would go the opposite way.
Yes thats fair and all that. stuck out of position but the point simply has to come back to the reality. is he ready to play first team. what did we do when cissohko went off? why... and think about it like that... his inclusion on the bench smelt to me like we had a gap and ah well lets reward a kid for working hard. In short brannagan and rossiter are not ready either, smith is nowhere near ready IMO for a first team game. Noting personal, but there you go. as a reserve watcher i can't see him being ready to start inan FA cup game at LB.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Smith is ready for the first team. Cissokho and Flannagan are not good enough. Rodgers needs to bring in a left back ASAP because we can't afford to wait for Jose to come back.
Smith didn't look ready for me against Chelsea either; however, it was: Chelsea Away A Debut We were chasing the lead He was played out of position Given all the above and considering how bad Cissoko really is; I'd at least consider playing him if I were Rodgers. I've not watched Rossiter yet is he better? Smith could have got debut nod ahead of Rossiter because he was more suited to LW. Smiths debut wasn't great, but was he any worse than Cissoko has been? I'd rank them about equal... given the circumstances that puts Smith ahead to me. As to Smith bring too young... he's older than Raheem isn't he?
not good enough for top 4 no question... but bournemouth? I don't think smith is even ready for that let alone any sort of prem game. at least flanno as limited as he is has some sort of experience... kenny would i guess say if he didn't trust him per rodgers letting smith on he'd never get a sniff but there you go. I agree that if we had an option we should go for that player cos cissohko is gash but hey.. we'll not till summer
