3 new defenders added to the team. That wasn't the lovern we say last year. It was his brother... the good one. @JimmySquarefoot Think we've ignored the defence now. ..
Too early to say - Lovren was good to be fair, but he wasn't tested. That said, he dealt with pretty much everything that came his way. Gomez is still raw and easily beaten on a couple of occasions. Clyne is the only real upgrade IMO - big fan of him. Stoke didn't really create anything if I'm being honest and there were some nervy moments. I think the worrying thing with today's back 4 is the lack of ball players - Lovren and Skrtel are poor at playing from the back, Gomez is pretty good - Clyne was disappointing though. Was expecting more quick passing from him. But we still need to improve IMO - get a replacement for Skrtel and put Can in front of them, then I think we have a solid unit.
Clyne and Gomez give our defence balance, so the CBs aren't so overly exposed - you could have stuck ivanovic and cahill in between moreno and manquillo/johnson last year and they would have looked average at best. But, more than that, in Hendo and Milner I think we've found a Plan B that we can use when we want to keep things tight and hold onto a lead.
dunno about that.... i thought we looked a bit suspect until can came on... skertl was too inclined to drop off... an awful long way. We needed more out of lallana on the elft for real balance. god bless the lad he tried to get back a few times but when you are moving from a bad position thats no where near your correct position... well .....hard to get back
Must be a reason they failed to create much though Personally, I thought they created more chances than us but a draw would have been fair. We got lucky via a bit of Coutinho genius.
Funny. This is probably the first match Lovren has played where nobody on here is ripping him to total **** (rightfully so usually)
We got lucky yes. It wasn't a controlled 1-0 that we were looking good for. They were in the main threatening of set piece. I hate this let's all focus on linking hands ****e as they then let 2/3 get the run and header in. So... don't think we were that solid. We were much better after can came on as we got more possession. As I said the best two chances of the first half fell to Stoke not us and they missed them and in the second half barring coutinho is was pretty even. We won the card count though which is positive in my view... manned up a hit.
Because they're Stoke and not that great... They did trouble us at times from wide positions down to poor positioning from some of our players. And for a team that didn't create all that much, they still troubled us which is still a worry. Was a funny moment when Skrtel was the deepest and he was claiming offside even though he didn't have a clue what was going on behind him.
Moreno will get his chances. There was absolutely no width on the left and Benteke would have preferred service from both sides. Against smaller teams Moreno is the best bet.
You should try being a little more disrespectful Put Stoke against Stags, Derby or a pub team and they create loads. Our defence did its job in stopping them (I don't agree as I think they created more than us!), its not the hardest test they will face but FFS, show credit when its due! If you think Stoke didn't create anything then our defence obviously stopped them, whether that is by actually stopping a move or simply being in the right positions to form a hard structure to break down, who cares.
yes stoke are going to be one of the top half this year.. stoke, palace and southampton are all quite tasty teams..... we've no divine right to turn them over even though we really wanted to... we got the luck yesterday.. roll on bournemouth and finally our first sight of anfield this season. lamborini is not wrong about moreno playing v smaller teams but lallana was a huge reason why the elft side was absent... he was useless
I thought a draw would have been a fair result. As for them not having created any chances i think that was down to their new look team and like yourselves both teams were gelling (it was a pretty bad game and a lot of long balls). Normally Stoke have a bit more creativity about them but i think with Johnson on the right who had a decent game, we all know in the past few years he's not really had that end product about him (more of the same yesterday). Van Ginkel is new to the team and league and doesn't look like he's that creative (just a solid player ala hendo). Walters was his usual combative self and surprisingly i felt had the better of Gomez who looked weak with the long balls but Walters is hardly a live wire. Whilst Clyne is decent, Affelay made his job super easy. Looks like the journeyman he is, lightweight but i guess he's new again. Also Glenn Whelan is their version of Lucas, protects the defence but no creativity.
I agree with others that say it was frustrating that we didn't target Glen more but he does usually play better against his former teams too, I'm just surprised he didn't score (especially the sitter he missed) I agree that both teams were finding their feet. We've had a shocking pre-season in terms of preparation, the best team we faced were Swindon (no disrespect to them) so its going to take us four or five games to get going. Not looking forward to the Arsenal game and I'm one that looks forward to the big games, I couldn't wait for the Real Madrid games last year despite knowing we'd lose and I actually wanted us to draw them or Barca beforehand too
Arsenal game is one of those LFC rarely go and do well in. We cannot play 4231 there and not expect a beating.
