Nice to see the Spurs fans are a lot more gracious, fair minded and rational on this site than on SC (on another Spurs site I like to read). just gotta take the rough with the smooth like you lot are saying. I think a draw would of been the fairest result all things considered. Like the last game at the lane were we felt we deserved a point but came away empty handed so, I suppose this evens it out.
If we are going to start getting rid of full backs then maybe we should get rid of Walker as well a he has made more mistakes this season than anyone else? I don't want us to do that but I'm making the point that it's a knee jerk reaction to say get rid of players after today's game. Bearing in mind we played on Thursday night and they had the whole week to prepare, we more than held our own today. We could have won, a lot of the Liverpool fans are saying that and they are a good team on a good run. A win against Fulham next Sunday and things will look a lot more positive again.
Gerrard is in his best run of form since 08-09 so think you're being a bit unfair on him now. He has more assists than anyone in the league last I checked and he's very effective pinging 40 yard passes to the opposite side of the pitch where a player is unmarked and has space. He still needs someone on him in the middle closing him down, making sure he doesn't loads of time to look and pick out a killer pass.
Tell you what though, if you add a forward who consistently gets goals like RVP/Suarez and another top player who can play LWF and AMC, you'll have some team and if AVB is as good as he is looking, you could be fighting for 2nd next season, never mind 4th. (If you keep Bale that is but I think you will, it seems he's staying).
Sorry Jack, I logged out immediately following my last post. Just seen yours (above) and you are right the price varies around 7 pounds / litre here.
A lot of analysis of the result going on here, not the performance. Apart from giving them two goals, how many others did they look like scoring? Fact is that even accepting the criticism of various players / formations here, we still would have beaten an improving and top-6 Pool team at their place. This without some first team players and arguably without a really top quality striker.
You havent been watching Gerrard much recently have you? He's been quality since Lucas came back meaing he doesnt now have to attack, defend and track back which he's too old to do. He has got more assists this season than anyone in the league, and more than he's ever had, and he's scoring goals. We aren't brillaint but I woudn't call us bang average. Again it seems you're basing your comments from the first half of the season. We've scored more goals than anyone since the turn of the year and are 2/3rd in the form guide. As for the game it could have indeed gone either way. Think you played well and are clearly buzzing. Think we're are too though, things are looking up.
Strangely Liverpool were much better at WHL and lost, guess they got their revenge in the end. Far from bang average though, last year and the year before I agree they were poor but not now. Apart from Chelsea in the first half I can't think of many (if any) times I've seen Liverpool played off the park.
We most certainly outplayed them at Anfield this season. Diaby and Cazorla ran rings around them. One of the few very good performances we have put in this season.
I think that was more to do with when you played us moreso than Arsenal being much better than us. The game at the Emirates was much more realistic yard stick to measure both teams. If you were to play us post-Xmas it be a completely different game because were a completely different team now. You may still win, very much so, but it wouldn't be as abject from us, we'd make you work a lot harder for it. That was one of the worst performances I've seen that day from any Liverpool team post-Benitez. WBA away, Stoke Away and Villa at home were the only games we, hands down, deserved to lose. Funny its those games we should expect to win and not be played off the park and the games against the top 4 is where should be getting dominated against but its been vice-versa. Besides Arsenal at home weve been unlucky in all our games against the teams above us getting draws or loses, but even in the loses we had a good argument to have least came away with a point. Brining in Sturridge is whats made us start scoring goals and winning now, as good as Suarez is he can still miss lots of chances so having Sturridge now means were not just reliant on Luis anymore.
Vexing result yesterday, as we had the upper hand and could have easily come away from Anfield with all three points if it wasn't for some truly horrendous defensive errors. No need to apportion blame - those who made the mistakes will be well aware of them and they will hopefully learn their lessons. Big week ahead of us with a trip to the San Siro on Thursday followed by Fulham at the Lane on Sunday.
We MUST put the chances away,only ourselves to blame ie Sig yesterday. 1-3? No chance of Liverpool coming back. I also think a draw would have been a fair result but it wasn't and we move on roll on Thursday and Sunday. We showed enough yesterday to know that we are still on form. They beat Swansea by five and Wigan by four,they only beat us by a penalty.
Relayer, I'm struggling to work out where our 9 shots on target came from? Or where our total if 15 came from, for that matter! All I can remember is the two goals, sigs shot that hit the post and the one that went wide, and bales header that also went wide. Those stats might suggest we had a lot if opportunities, but there were very little that were clear cut for me. 56% of possession? - I expect we got a fair amount of that from knocking it round the back 4, due to liverpool closing us down. Sorry mate, I just don't agree with the comments about us playing well. We had no one hugging the touch line and an awful central midfield set up. Therefore we had no space to play our game and a lack of understanding/ideas between defensive-mid and attack. Our passing game went out the window and we rushed. Patience has been key for us this season. We've rarely panicked. But yesterday we weren't suited to how we were set up and it cost us.
This point has come up before when both myself and I think it was Spurs or Sex, said we couldn't believe how many shots we were supposed to have had after a game at the Lane. I have since learned that shots statistics do include blocked shots like those Defoe is fond of doing, which just rebound back off a defenders shins who was a yard away from him. There were a couple of those at least yesterday, although like you, I still remain sceptical about us supposedly having 15 shots. I am not one to take too much notice of our possession stats because as you say, there are games when we take 27 short passes to get out of our 18 yard box. Having said that I wouldn't dispute we had more possession yesterday than Liverpool, but it counts for little when we scored one less goal than them.
That makes sense now then spurcat! well summed up. I've been struggling to, but this is exactly what I was getting at! Arsenal did it against us. Lots of possession, but only managed 2 shots on target. It means nothing if you don't make use of it. I know i go on and on about it, but this is why I have such beef about Livermore and Parker as a partnership. We just pass it about and don't penetrate the opposition or manage to intelligently find the pockets of space. Parker tries his best and goes on little runs forward before running into a brick wall of players, but it's not his fault. He shouldn't be the one having to do that, as it's not what he's good at. It was a crime yesterday that we set up like this, especially with Lennon out and the creativity Liverpool can produce. I'll shut up about it now, but it's something I have very strong view on, as I'm sure you're all aware and it's probably very annoying. Thank you for listening to me rant!
No in depth tactical analysis from me today (sorry chaps ) but maybe a philosophical thought: You can't win them all.
It was difficult to see us scoring in open play I thought, I know the 1st one was technically, but it was still a 2nd phase of play from a corner. Our absence of wide men made things worse and more congested for Bale to operate in his new role, Dembele for Lennon should not be an option. It would have been nice to have Townsend around, but truth there is, although needed yesterday, he wouldn't get the amount of starts with us as he will where he is. When the headless chicken Parker goes on one of his blinkered surges, as a teammate its anybodys guess where to make a run to, you're unlikely to get passed to anyway! so I hope to not see him left with that again. Also, too much expected from JD too soon imo, he's always slow to get going again after injury, we've seen it time and time again so should not be surprised. For all the little things that weren't right, two daft errors were our undoing, Walker and BAE shouldering the blame, but Lloris has escaped criticism for not imo clearing the dodgy backpass from Walker...I thought he'd come out to put it in row Z!, not lay it into Downings path! I'm not sure its worth a whole pile of doom and gloom, these games happen, but our reaction to this is what everyone will be watching now.
Well we threw that away, didn't we? Utter nonsense play from Walker, Defoe and Benny for the last two goals just when we were looking like sneaking another win. I thought Suarez took his first goal very well and was a threat all game. It was definitely a foul by Ekotto for the penalty but it was a little furstrating to see Suarez go down the same way Bale does when he gets booked and the "unnatural" falling that we're told refs are on the look out for. Not sure why Oliver didn't book Sturridge either for that matter. Oh well it doesn't really matter I guess as I wouldn't have been much happier with a point and it was our errors that cost us the goals. Anyone know when Lennon's back? We missed him big time yesterday.
