Petered out a bit in the end didn't it. Dembele was better than I expected but I'd reinstate Dier straight away. We were sloppy around their box and Kane is still not quite there. Good in a way to stop the recent awful results against Liverpool, we had a few good chances but nothing to shout about too loudly. Son and Dier returning will make us a more balanced team going forward and defensively so I'm not unduly worried by a slightly sub-par performance.
Draw seems fair, and yep, good to stop the rot. Given our missing players would have taken that before the game.
Well that looked like two teams, one of which's best asset is that they run around a lot and the other one's was that they had a new manager and so ran around a lot. Every player short on time, space and a bit of class today, I thought. In a way the perfect game for Dembele - always in tight corners and surrounded by opponents though also his defensive work was very good today. I thought Kane looked strong and confident and sharp as well today but the poor sod's getting about as much service as Soldado was a couple of years ago. Overall not too great a performance but Liverpool made it hard for us and despite a bit of a lull from them late in the first half they managed to keep the intensity high and make it difficult for us all game. I think the main aspect of this game is that their injuries took a hell of a lot of the sting out of them to start with which made it hard for them to be a threat but on the other hand had the fight and effort due to the new boss to make it very difficult for us to really penetrate or play good football.. All in all an OK point, TBH but a little bit disappointed that we couldn't find that little bit of quality that would've been all we needed to win this considering we played them when their three best strikers are all out.
1) We didn't give in and stood our ground against physical players (something that never used to be the case with us) 2) got our first point against them after 5 losses... 2-3; 0-5; 0-4; 0-3; 2-3 3) it was there first game under a new manager 4) regardless what the commentators think, we were without Mason, Bentaleb, Son, Dier and lost Chadli after 4 or 5 mins today 5) we kept yet another clean sheet but not cos our keeper was great, but cos we were defensively solid. All very good points The negatives were : 1) a poor first 20 mins 2) waiting so long to swap Lamela after his booking and him tiring. All in all not a bad point
Decent, if uninspired game. After 20 mins we got going. Liverpool were average, but worked hard so a draw was probably a fair result. Thought Dembele was excellent and Walker was better than for ages. Defence looked generally sound despite occasionally fannying about in dangerous areas, although Rose did absolutely nothing to suggest he should be ahead of Davies at LB and as usual got caught out of position or in possession. Lamela was ok til the booking and N'Jie worked hard with some decent touches. Alli needs to learn fast as his confidence could easy become over-confidence and he dropped the team in the **** a few times today. Kanes lack of goals and, more importantly, his loss of last years instinct to make the right decisions, is a big concern.....
I think Lenny hit the nail with his comment about two teams racing about, but achieving very little. Yes, the pressing game is our tactic, but it's not much use if you just give the ball away as soon as you've pressed and won it. Having said this, Pool were just as bad.
I thought he made the right decision early on to find N'Jie for his shot and the couple of shots he had on goal were the right choice and on target from what I recall. You can still see his strength on the ball and ability to keep good possession (for the most part) and I think the main sign of his possible dip in confidence was his hesitation in front of goal that had been creeping in, not his propensity to try shots in difficult positions or from range and I don't mind that - he's got the quality that we'll have a decent chance of getting something from it. Whilst he was on fire last year and made a lot out of not too much in the way of chances I do get the feeling that he did actually see more of the ball too but have no idea if that's true or not. We certainly need at least two of Son, Eriksen and Kane to be really playing near their top levels to have a real go this season. If all three do at once then it could be very good indeed but if one or two of them are injured and/or one or two of them doesn't deliver or is suspended then we will look short of ideas and I just don't feel like we can rely on players like Chadli and Lamela to definitely give other teams problems.
I agree Lenny's first sentence summed it up. There was a lot more perspiration than inspiration. Liverpool may have worked even harder. We had the better chances. Not a bad result, but we have too many draws and too few points for how hard we're working. The injuries mounting up are likely to be a cause and symptom of running ourselves into the ground. If you ask me, it's time to pick a lower energy style carefully and start mixing it in judiciously. Somebody has got to start scoring from open play. The funny thing is, as poor as we've been from open play, we've been even better preventing open play goals from the other team. I think we have six and have given up four. Not all gloom and doom, though. We broke the Liverpool, manager of the month and new manager hoodoo. Our fixture list is remarkably top heavy, so we should start to improve, We'll have the longest unbeaten run in the the PL for another week. We now clearly have a good backup to Dier at DM. Dembele was probably MoM.
That's a good point. Why not give Alderweireld a needed break by playing Dier at CB? On the other hand, Dembele has a history of playing really well in big games, then tailing off against weaker teams. Plus Dier's goals are very valuable. Incidentally, I thought the officiating was shocking. Every time we won the ball it was a foul and whenever Liverpool won the ball it wasn't. The ice hockey body check Milner threw on Rose could have been a straight red and surely deserved a yellow.
Equally, I would be fuming if I was Dier, having put everything into the first 8 games of the season to great effect, only to be kept out by Dembele after his first decent performance in 2 years! Difficult to decide as there are arguments on both side. Anderlecht and Bournemouth away followed by Villa at the Lane the next 3 games. Maybe Dier midweek and against Villa and Dembele next Sunday?
Dembele is useful against teams like Liverpool today who press very hard and make it a narrow, congested game, and when you want to close games out. But not all games and situations are like that. Dier makes everyone else play better by providing a solid platform for others to perform going forwards. In 80-90% of situations I'd rather see a balanced team with Dier in there. And as others have said, Dier would have just as much of a right to be annoyed if he was dropped after missing one game, when he has been one of our strongest performers up until now, and losing his place to an inconsistently effective Dembele after one reasonable performance would be galling I feel. Ultimately we have lots of games coming up so all the fit players will get gametime. Dembele on Thursday would be a good compromise to me as it could be a banana skin game away at Anderlecht.
A bit flat and uninspired. I'd echo what many have said here already - lots of running but towards what? Without one of our higher quality players setting a tempo and a focus, we do seem to resemble exceptionally fit headless chickens for large portions of games. For this reason, I'd reinstate Mason as soon as he's back. I know Alli has looked mightily impressive for a 19 year old in his first PL season, but Mason really can and does set the tempo of that entire midfield 5 when he's on form. What I'd love to see is a fully fit Mason and Eriksen pulling the strings from their respective positions as I feel we could be a real handful if and when that happens (we just need them to be fit at the same bloody time!). Taken a bit of consolation from the fact that we've broken two hoodoos today: our tradition of losing to a new manager, and the second one of losing after our own manager picks up MOTM. Also worth noting that having so many midfielders out and then losing Chadli more or less immediately made this more of an uphill struggle than it needed to be. Unbeaten in 8 now and 4 of those were clean sheets, so there are definitely signs of improvement. I think with Son out and Kane still not striking oil, we are starting to see the effects of the lunacy behind the transfer window. Tricky EL tie up next followed by 2 can and must wins against B'mouth and Villa respectively. We need to be going into the away game against the Scum with 6 from 6 as they seem to have remembered how to play football. Does anyone - anyone - know when Mason and Son are back? Or is it a state secret still?
Thought we played well, created enough chances to score but didn't take them, although we should still be creating more and lack a bit of spark in the final third. Good to stop the run of poor losses against Liverpool but like the Everton match, it's a game we should've won so ultimately 2 points dropped. 3 wins from 9 isn't a good start, even if we have only lost 1. We've got Anderlecht twice and Villa and Bournemouth in the league ahead of the NLD, we really should be winning at least 3 of those games if we want to be competitive this season. Kane should be playing on the left for us, he makes a lot of useful contributions when he drifts out to that side and his finishing's not been good enough this season to be our striker. Unfortunately we don't have anyone else to play up front. Levy
As others have said, Liverpool started well and then basically burned themselves out after 20 minutes, which must be a bit worrying. What sort of condition did Rodgers leave the squad in, if that's the case? They adapted fairly well to Klopp's tactics though, all things considered and will be happier with the point than we are. We seemed to have early kick-off syndrome and struggled to get out of the blocks. Some sloppy passing by both sides was quite costly, but I think that a lot of that can be put down to the pressing. Even when players had time on the ball, they were reacting to the general rule that they weren't going to get any and rushed things. The injury to Chadli and the later question about Walker seemed to put Pochettino off his game with the subs, to me. He waited too long to change things and we lost the chance to nick it late on. I can sort of understand it, but it's something that he's improved on recently, so it's a bit disappointing. Dembele's performance will give the manager something to think about and I think that pushing Alli forward might be the answer. If Chadli's out for any stretch, then using Dier and Dembele deep with Eriksen and Lamela either side of the youngster might work. His pace and trickery might help us to unlock some of the more stubborn resistance that we've been meeting. Another solution might be dropping Kane into the three and playing N'Jie as the striker. We need more goals and some pace wouldn't hurt.
I think for most of his time with us, Dembele has been a poser but I have to say he was probably our best player yesterday although I thought Kyle Walkwr also has an excellent game. I am of the same view as YV and also think we played well. Some disappointing aspects of our play as we have the ball away too much for my liking, especially Clinton when he came on, but overall I took some positives out of yesterday.