Johnson hasn't been that terrible defensively today or the last year. It's more his attacking ability which has nose dived and he's giving the ball away a lot more. A such, it makes him now an average full back who doesn't offer much offensively and is just ok defensively where as before he was good offensively which made up for his ok defensive abilities a bit.
but he also sent out the message to a few who thought they might be automatically picked its not the case, however big the game you don't deserve it type thing, not that i am disagreeing with your point, as sadly i think its true, just hoping there may be some truth in my one lol.
Or, he saw the bigger picture and thought, we need a team that will hassle Madrid who will dominate possession so I'll drop the players who don't offer that (Gerrard, Balotelli) and bring in players that do (Borini, Allen, Can, Lallana) and drop the players whose form has dipped recently (Sterling, Henderson, Lovren) to give them a kick up the ass with the idea that they'll be fired up for a more important game.
Such a positive start and then Chelsea started to dominate because of stupid mistakes at the back - Lovren puts under so much pressure and how Rodgers can persist with him is beyond me. Johnson is still sh*t but he's made a couple of important blocks. But his stupid pass to Gerrard under pressure is what gave away the corner which led to the goal. Gerrard has done nothing, and he's easily beaten by pretty much everyone. Been very impressed with Mario - you can he;s starting to make a few runs and adapt his runs, but some of his takedowns are brilliant, such great control. Need to get coutinho and sterling involved more because Chelsea defence are struggling a bit to contain them. Henderson, for all of his passion, work rate, he's still lacking technically. Needs to add more to his game.
Good game for any neutral watching! Not too great on the ticker being a Liverpool Fan I actually have a gut feeling we'll win this!!! Oh and I thought Can had a good half........even Balotelli had a good 15-20mins
What message has he sent out though? As the second string arguably put in a much better performance than his first choice XI had done in weeks, and yet he wheels them all back in today?
Could do with Lucas on, Chelsea have started to control the midfield, Gerrard started well but has faded. Borini for Balotelli would also make sense, Balotelli is trying but we could do with more energy up there.
Disagree - his defending is atrocious. Failure to stop crosses, bottles challenges, poor marking, poor positioning.
A lot agreed with you earlier in the thread, Manquillo, Lucas and Toure should all have started after their performance. We have to just suck it up for now and hope Rodgers makes the right changes when needed today.
That's the frustrating thing about Balotelli. He has the attributes to be a top class CF. He's big, strong, quick, good control, bit of pace. he just needs to put all those things together. Against England he did that playing as the central striker, he used his strength to cause Cahill & Jag problems
I agree on Lucas he'd give you a more competitive edge in the middle and would dominate Fabregas in the challenge. I'd give Lambert half an hour me like
Agreed - hopefully we can help him redefine his style to become more dynamic and mobile then he really could be top class.
Out of the 2 of them, I'd trust Mario to put a chance away if he's given one though. He's playing well and is likely to cause Cahill & Terry more problems with his pace and strength than Borini. He took his goal well from the offside chance so fancy him to put one away in the 2nd half if given the opportunity.
Too many unforced errors, misplaced passes especially at the back. Chelsea have had quite a few scoring chances. We need to cut them down otherwise we'll be in trouble.
