familair feeling? reminds me of a season under souness waiting for him to go and having breaks between games etc... at least the FA with thier destruction fo the FA cup have meant us also rans can see weekly football i suppose. Reminds me of last season under evans/ houlllier coming in. In short no cups runs and upper mid table = boring fare. anyway.... west ham set up for a point and got it. We needed more width but not in the way that we went about it in the end. Johnson wouldn't go forward, or there was massive gap between him and the midfield who insisted on congregating round enrique until he finally passed it. sturridge would not go or stay wide. I thought we set up fine before the game but played west hams game, long shots and hopeful crosses... we put 3 incredibly dangerous ball low across west hams 6 yards area and nobody ever got in there. we did get in behind a ew times but no-one got in the box.
Replay that game 10 times with the same tactics employed by both teams and we would win the majority. All it needed was one spark of creativity... one moment lapse from Ham in defence. It never came but we were in no danger of losing. Ham came away with a point because they stifled Suarez. Playing so deep and compact against him is dangerous but it worked this time... wouldn't normally. He could find space in a mining communities thatcher death party. Their attack... low passes through the centre was never going to beat us. We can defend against those. High wide passes is what beats us usually. Thing that baffles me: WHAT POSITION WAS STURRIDGE PLAYING? At first it looked like attacking right winger... but as the game progressed he moved further and further back... he seemed to be sharing the role of right back with Johnson but occasionally getting forwards. Was that his ineptitude to play as a non striker or is that Brendans fault for giving him some baffling orders to be a wing back? We needed a striker not a defender.
This was surpirising me a lot, when he plays on the last defenders shoulder and exploits sapce he is terrific but he was coming and collecting the ball off of our CB at times. It was strange.
With their back line so deep there was no opportunity for playing like that- there wasn't any space to exploit. I think he just had to come deep to try and contribute. The problem then is that he's not far enough forward to get on the end of those low driven crosses. Ian Rush would have bagged a couple in that game.
That is what stuck out for me as well. I understand there was not space behind to exploit but as a forward, just hang around the box and look to pick up any of the number of balls we were putting in.
Crazy thing is... the more Ham opened up... and they did get more daring stretching out on a counter attack at times as game progressed... the further back Sturridge played. Question is though... do you think Rodgers gave him instruction to play deep... or do you think that was down to Sturridge deciding he needed to play deep? Other question: Suarez. Bad day for him? Or good day for hammer defenders? Body language of Suarez looked better this week than last. Last week he had a "I don't give a damn" look about him. Against Villa what stood out for me was one pass from Coutinho that instead of running to he kicked his leg out expecting his leg to reach a ball 6ft away. Suarez wasn't like that yesterday... he was chasing the ball and being less flippant... just kept getting beat. I think Ham deserves credit for a good job done keeping Luis quiet. I don't personally think it was a case of him just having a bad day. Collins is the reason for his bad day. Sign Collins now!
Credit where it's due, I think Collins did as good a job on him as anyone has this season. I agree with your earlier point that if we played that game again it would be entirely different- as so often happens, an early goal would have opened the flood-gates.
The familiar feeling was that I was looking at a collection of very expensive headless chickens. WHU sat with a backline of never less than 5 players. We never looked to get round the back and turn them. We played the same old game of looking for space where the just wasn't any. To that degree it was no different. We needed to slow things down. Gerrard needed to put his foot on the ball. Henderson needed to take time. ALL OF THEM needed to ensure that they passed to somebody and not just in their general direction.
The general play in the final 3rd was terrible. Either the midfield and attackers were trying to be too quick and ultimately rushed the chance, or they simply took too long. Overall - the game intelligence and decision making of the players (including Suarez) was very poor.
I just think that when the early goal doesn't come the confidence drains away. We need to regain the habit of winning, but we're still a long way off that.
Normally I would agree but I think in this particular game, we struggled to create to any clear cut chances from start to finish - the closest chances I can think of was Gerrard's which was cleared off the line, and Suarez's after a quick one-two with Coutinho (all though I would class that as a half chance).
I don't see anyone making the point that we DID break them down. We did have enough - we scored a valid goal that the linesman adjudged incorrectly off side. I'm not whining about the decision - you get some and not others but my point is its such small margins y'know?
Fair point Denny. When I first saw the goal, my gut feel was marginally offside. Having seen it a couple more times, it was indeed onside.
I had forgot about that goal. Didn't realise it was onside... looked off to me as it happened... Russian commentators so didn't have advantage of commentary help/hindrance.
