IT’S the easiest thing in the world, accusing players or a team of not trying. It appeals to our basic mindset as humans. It’s not going well? Run harder. There is plenty of debate about how much Liverpool tried — or indeed should have tried — in this tie already. And many of the people who were saying Liverpool shouldn’t have bothered with the UEFA Cup, were also moaning at the players once the game kicked off for not putting in more. That’s football fans for you.
Liverpool turned up in Turkey with a weakened team and nothing on the bench. How much does this say about Brendan Rodgers’ appetite for this competition? Was he trying to win it? Did it send a message to the players who played about how much focus they should put on it? Especially given how little the manager has rotated recently. Or did he simply have to rest certain players at some point, and decided tonight was the night? Did those selected go through the motions in parts, reflecting the clubs apparent priorities, or put in everything they could, but ultimately fall short?
It’s a tough balancing act for a manager and a squad who have so much to play for this season in a relatively short space of time. Despite Liverpool being favourites for the competition, rather ludicrously really given this side’s pedigree in European football, the FA Cup looked a more likely win. Between that and the race for the most lucrative — and depressing — prize in English football, the manager decided he had to leave a few at home. Ahead of a big game so early on Sunday (it’s practically Saturday night) the question then becomes how many, and who you can get away with.
What we’ve ended up with feels like the worst scenario. A hideous middle ground. 120 minutes on a tough pitch less than three days before a key league game, and nothing to show for it. Key players down with cramp and others hobbling off. Unbeaten runs lost. Players dejected and one in particular rock bottom. The manager gets it right if he leaves a couple on the bench and you get the result. He’s proven right if he rests a load, gets beat but ultimately achieves great things (think Burnley 2005). If you leave a few at home, end up having to play 120, and then lose on penalties with casualties on the way….
It all should have been so different. Liverpool played well first half and Besiktas looked rubbish. Can and Allen looked great in midfield, controlling the game and complimenting each other perfectly. The defence looked solid, any small mistake by one covered by another. Up front, Balotelli was holding it up and frustrating the opposition, fouled by five different Besiktas players in the first half. Good chances were created for Sterling and Sturridge but spurned. The former still not confident enough with time and decisions to make in front of goal. The latter over-thinking everything currently: not sharp enough to trust his instincts, or seemingly his right foot.
We went in 0-0. Annoying, but largely fine. See it out and we’re through. Maybe even find more space on the break as they push forward and win it. They hadn’t shown anything. Only Ba likely to score and he looked the least fit player we’ve faced since Ross Barkley at Anfield last season. We’ll be sound.
But second half they showed more. A mixture of tactical improvements and some more of that good old fashioned running round we talked about earlier. They realised our three centre halves weren’t willing to bring the ball out and stepped off them, instead covering the available passes.
If Can had been at the back, or even Johnson or Sakho, they wouldn’t have been able to do that, and a man would have had to go to them. But our three centre halves, although comfortable enough passing, weren’t willing to carry the ball and so things became much tougher for the midfieders and wing backs. They were receiving the ball under the pressure and were quickly crowded out. To confound the problem Balotelli’s touch went and Sterling and Sturridge couldn’t find theirs. As a result the ball kept coming back. And back. And back.
But still we held relatively firm. We’re much better at the back now. It takes something pretty good to beat us, and I didn’t think they had it in them.
Until they did.
Balls.
What have we got to go back at them now? Seemingly nothing.
You can analyse a manager’s selection. You can analyse the most bizarre fifth-choice penalty selection of all time. You can analyse what he does during the game. But there always has to be context. I saw plenty crying out for substitutions but couldn’t see an obvious change. Lallana was one option, but he’s hardly proven himself to be reliable in pressure situations. In the end he comes on for Balotelli, who hasn’t started in four months and had perhaps punched himself out. Manquillo comes on for Ibe and can’t get in the game. Rickie Lambert comes on late and, well, yeah. Then we lose on penalties. Not a man in the world thinking the Liverpool fifth would go in.
I’ve seen it said already. “We’re better out of it.” Is this true? Like 2005 only time will tell. Me? I’d rather just win football games and let everything else sort itself out. This could have been a big win for a team low on experience in those sort of situations. Another example that we don’t lose football games easily, even in the most hostile environments. Instead we’re out, beaten, and with possible injuries to boot.
City on Sunday. Set your alarm clocks
– Read how Neil Atkinson rated the players
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Nearly agree with you, nearly. Sterling has stopped playing for us since the money nonsense and hid when needed. Rodgers went back to his can’t make a decision mode when he needed to and Sturridge went to his little boy on the playground role. And you’re better than your mate Neil when it comes to ratings. He is upsetting me loads and needs a clip. Front two were a generous 2 at most.
Excellent report.
Was screaming at Sturridge to pull the trigger at least 3 times in the 1st half.
Since his return he has really tended to over elaborate in front of goal. Refusal to pass to a better placed teammate. Infuriating refusal to use his right foot. Hopefully Rodgers will have a word and sort this out pronto.
Sterling just had an off night.
Allen was excellent first half but, like so many others, ran out of steam.
Encouragingly,Mignolet has vastly improved over past 2 months.Moreno gets mom for me.
Manquillo won’t make it.
Balo tried hard but the lack of any kind of understanding/partnership with Sturridge was glaring.
Hope I’m wrong but to me there seems to be a concerted effort by some senior players [Gerrard/Sturridge] to get Balo out the door at season end.
Finally, what an atmosphere!!!
Obviously, I was desperate for us to win but when the tie was over I knew, though disappointed, it was for the best. Who’s confident for Sunday lunch time? If we’d won we may have been facing another 8 Sunday’s like the one coming up. Imagine you go through that and get knocked out on the 8th game, in the semi’s. We’ve got a good chance of getting 4th. We’re better than Utd. Had we reached the semi’s of the Europa I don’t think we could have got 4th. Its too gruelling. We’ve seen that tonight. So, very disappointed but it’s not all bad.
Rodgers plan was to win it at Anfield. I knew before tonight that 2-0 at Anfield would have won it. I was preying for the second goal after Mario got the pen. I knew getting it was the deciding factor and so did Rodgers. I think despite only winning 1-0 at Anfield he stuck to his plan for rotation. I don’t think he undervalued it at all. He was realistic and I’d guess thought that side could go through.
I know all the clichés about match fitness, sharpness etc and completely understand them and so I can see why Sturridge is not at his best but is their a football equivalent of dartitis? He can’t seem to let the effing thing go. I feel as though I can almost see his brain freezing when he gets the ball. Like you point out with the double standards, I can’t think Sturridge is unbelievable because of some of the angles he finishes from then criticise him for trying to go on his own too much but I wonder if we’re seeing the effects of the pressure we as fans placed on him in his absence.
*Apologies, another 6 games. Tried to work it out from 16 and thought the last 4 was the quarter final. Need to stay off the cheese.
Nothing wrong with a bit of the aul cheese!
Imagine if Sturridge hadn’t played tonight. We’d all be saying we’d have won that easy with Sturridge there. But why the fuck did he leave him on as long as he did? I was just waiting for him to go down holding his groin. Really hope that doesn’t happen at the weekend.
How shit was that pitch though? It doesn’t explain or excuse the misses but you just feel that could’ve contributed to him not pulling the trigger. The ball just holds up a bit and you have to adjust in that split second.
All’so forgotten if we beat City though.
Yeah mate, pitch was atrocious. I not getting on Sturridges back, he had a poor game regardless of circumstances. Pointless saying anything different but that’s all it was, a poor game. I just feel I’ve seen something in the last few he’s played. On the one hand I think he’s trying too hard to be on the score sheet, there have been better options but then on the other hand I thought that against West Ham when he smashed it home. I suppose that’s the job of a striker. It’s just a niggling concern I have. I like team players and I’m concerned about these little clues to what he thinks of Mario. Saying that, he didn’t get on with Suarez so well and that worked out ok. Who knows! Just seems a bit tense to me.
You know, took me a while, but I’ve finally realized Sturridge isn’t this smiley nice guy team player that some mistake him for.. Not many top strikers are, I guess. Talks a good game about the team coming first and posts dressing room and training pitch pics on Twitter with #readordead and all that, but in the end it’s all about him. The selfish image he used to have was there for a reason. It’s just OK to be selfish when you’re constantly banging them in.
The moment I started to even dislike the Daniel we see on the pitch was the Balotelli penalty incident thing. The jumping up and down and screaming at Hendo and Mario bollocks. Then he never even acknowledges Mario’s goal never mind celebrating it, sulks the last five and walks down the tunnel like a proper petulant whiny six-year-old pain in the arse.
Often feel like give him the back of my hand. Huge ego this boy has, and when it’s not going his way, it really shows.
ANYHOW, that’s not to say I’m not glad he plays for LFC. And this rant might be uncalled for.. Tricky and brilliant when he’s on his game, which he usually is.
A really excellent summation of a strange, curate’s egg of a match. The 120 minutes was the last thing we needed ahead of City, what with every league game now a cup final, until we reach an actual cup final, which may happen. While I’d have the regular back three in situ from Sunday onwards, I do feel for Lovren. He’s a £20m defender, an international footballer, a decent player, and it’s just… everything the lad touches turns to ash at the moment. Hopefully he can put it behind him because if he actually started playing to his potential, it’d be ace.
As much a game of two halves as any I have ever seen. Solid first, Shocking second, knackered and poor extra time. I can’t understand why we played at such a walking pace. We should have got at them first 45 and put the tie to bed. In the second half especially, they were all slow but Sterling and Studge were being lazy. They made Balo’s work rate look good. I suppose less games between now and May makes 4th a bit more possible, but not if we have any more halves of footy like that one.
You’e got to marvel at Rodgers’ ability to cock up in Europe. He has had an indifferent third season. Despite a recent good run of results we are 6th and out of both European competitions – dumped out ignominiously and undeserving of the Club’s European credentials. I don’t see that he has learnt anything during his European campaigns, we just seem unable to cope tactically and look like totally disorganised and limited in flexibility. If we get fourth I doubt it will lead to any European success unless he re-assesses how he approaches these games. FSG made noises today that Champions League is not a necessity for economic success. For me European success is what made Liverpool FC the global phenomenon it is and it’s so dispiriting to see us naive and pitiful when playing even average European sides.
I was in Rome in 1977 and my last European away game was Rafa’s master class against Inter – happy days.
The fact that you were there through the good times doesn’t mean you have to hate every aspect of the club nowadays.
I disagree Frankie. Rodgers has looked out of his depth before tonight, but I saw enough positive signs over the two legs to conclude that he’s learning on the job. Compare this performance to that against Basel or Zenit a couple of years ago. There’s a world of difference. One goal conceded over two legs tells you all you need to know. I think John’s report is spot on; we played well in the first half but ran out of steam and ideas and didn’t have enough on the bench.
Not knowing all that happened in the penalty takers selection, I can understand why BR may have left Sterling out. He missed his pen against Middlesbrough, and his form dropped for the next couple of matches. I’m not defending the Lovren selection (Surprised Kolo’s number didn’t get called to be honest), but I can see the reasoning that lead to it. Maybe his BR’s way of challenging Sterling after he had a pretty poor game. I don’t know. Sunday is all that matters now…
Guys miss penalties, I get that, these things happen but why was the guy with probably the lowest confidence in the squad at the min taking the peno?
Fair play to him for stepping up to take it, just think someone else should have been taking it.
I agree with this actually. Fair fucks to poor old Dejan for putting his name in the hat to step up and I suppose if Rodgers has asked “who fancies it?” and Lovren’s put his hand up he can’t go “nah, but not you though. Anyone but you.” Although I remember stories of Di Matteo just rejecting Torres when he said he’d take a pen in Chelsea’s champion’s league win.
Bizarre choice for final penalty to say the least. It is a well known fact that the first and the last spot kicks should be taken by penalty specialists.
“A smooth sea never made a skilful mariner.”
It’s a crap competition for second-rate teams. I’m not fussed. Looks like BR is focusing on the City game as one that we can and must win.
It will be interesting to see which of the four teams have something left in the tank on Sunday. A win for us and a draw for Arsenal would be huge. This game will be quickly forgotten. Any team that gets to the last 4 in the Europa League will probably pay a heavy price domestically.
Getting ahead of yourself a bit there, lad.
The team leaves Turkey at 4am with a few guys who’ve taken knocks and suffered cramps nevermind the 120mins of chasing the ball about. Can’t see much training being done tomorrow.
Also injury doubts over Sakho and Hendo who were left behind.
Not the best prep for playing away to the Champions.
Soz….obviously not away
See username
Why give the most important pen in the whole set to the most restless and insecure player in the squad?
Because Sterling didn’t want to hit one. We need to sort his contract out soon because he hasnt been the same player since negotiations ran into difficulties. It was strange Lovren taking the 5th. But it was just another in a long line of strange decisions from the manager. I don’t have an issue with him hitting one if he put his hand up and was confident. But 5th? Really Brendan?
We had an okay first half. From there though it was awful and we became worse with every passing minute. We lost the game because we tried to carry three men, all in central positions. We could all see it from the 50th minute to the 72nd minute. We were overrun in centre mid because Can was awful, tired and we couldn’t make the ball stick with Sturridge and Sterling offering sweet fuck all. Rodgers stood there and done nothing. Simply watched and prayed. After the miracle at home to Spurs it was back to the same old sub standard in game management from Rodgers. Only when they score does he give himself a shake and do something. And what does he do to stem a merciless tide of centre field domination and try to get us an away goal to put us through? Takes off an attacking right wing back and puts in place a defensive right wing back. Super.
Taking Balo off instead of Studge again puts on display both the managers favouritism and his stubborness. Mario was vastly superior to Daniel. And once again Lallana offered nothing.
Not only was this a defeat but it was a defeat without us having a go and a defeat after extra time with the champions to come on Sunday. With next to no rotation all season. Very deflating.
One or both of the following will now be the focus of attention: Lovren missing a penalty (so what? Given his form and our decision to buy him that’s the least of our concerns regarding him) and whatever Brendan says about Balotelli to the press either today or tomorrow. Because thats what Rodgers does when we play like shit (happened quite a few times this season) As long as no one talks about or questions the role of Brendan, right?
He has an embarrassing record in Europe. Rodgers has taken us away from home 8 times in Europe (excluding qualifiers) and 5 times we’ve scored 0. He has also lost more games (7) in Europe than he has won (6) and conceded more (22) than we’ve scored (20). Given that we’ve only played one top team (Madrid) in three years, that record, quite frankly, is a disgrace. He is out of his depth tactically. How much more evidence do you need to believe that? You reckon Rafa has that record with our squad in those fixtures?
We’re in February, we have a tired squad having spent £120m in the summer, we are out of two European competitions against the likes of Basle and Besiktas, out of the League Cup and sitting in 6th in the league with the most difficult run in of our rivals left. But of course the manager is ace, he’s the man, doing a great job, blah blah blah. Ive said all year we’ll win fuck all and not come top four. Lets see.
Will you be happy if we make top four Chris?
He wouldn’t be happy if we won the Premier League…
We would only ever win the prem in spite of the manger according to him.
Miserable sod
Surprised Kolo didn’t take one, he was totally smooth last time around.
So, in summary, you are not a fan of Rodgers.
I thought it was a consummate away performance in the first half. Shame our attackers were dicking about in front of goal.
They scored a cracker to get them to pens, we scored 4 out of 5.
Not to be, I guess, but of course it is all Rodgers’ fault. Not like he had to rest injured or tired players for a big game a few days later.
Honestly, some of the ‘support’ our manager gets from titwank fans is pissing me off.
He gets no credit for the formation change or recent form but gets shit for losing to a team on pens who had clean sheets against both Arsenal and Spurs.
Mad how we let the lad having the unmitigated ‘mare of a season take the last one. Once we went shite in the 2nd half that was always destined to go to pens (how did it stay out late from Ba?) in that city and stadium. All in hindsight of course but Sturridge was looking as out of sorts as Balotelli and although the forward who went off was on a booking he’s a penalty taker and who’s more vital for City? As a starter probably Sturridge, who went on to knacker himself out further before getting taken off in extra time anyway. Should have took his opening on his right like his return against West Ham.
Sterling having a 120 minutes in an ultimately losing effort was a shame as well. For City at home he’d be the second name on the team sheet after Coutinho with his world class performance in last season’s title decider (Ha!) still vivid in the memory – just let him kip till about 10 on Sunday morning for the rest of the week. Feels a bit gutting going out in the first knockout stage of the UEFA under Brendan again like against Zenit the other year too.
Our front 3 all did me head in 2nd half to be honest – they were just nowhere from being everywhere in the 1st. Like they were fuming with themselves that they didn’t get the away goal between them to kill the tie when we were on top, so just stopped doing the basics of being in the right spaces or holding it up to help get us get out. Ba never got a goal over the 210 minutes of the tie either but kept doing the bare minimum of his job, lads.
Let’s keep it in the context of taking a weakened side to a hostile environment against a side who have proved themselves to be half decent.
This wasn’t a third tier opponent, Besiktas will go far in this competition.
Whether you should put a weaker XI out under those conditions is another question.
You can only assume that it was decided (at least) 4th in the Prem is achievable and LFC weren’t overly fussed about the E.L
Bravo.
They’re no mugs, Besiktas, and given they’ve drawn Club Brugge in the next round they are good bet for the 1/4s, but I doubt they’ll go beyond that.
I’m not saying it was right or wrong to field a weakened side, but it’s worth remembering that there’s a CL spot for the winner of the Europa. If that’s us drawn against Bruges (as we call them) then I strongly fancy us for the 1/4s and then you really do have a difficult decision about prioritization.
I see the Italians have 5 clubs in the last 16. The return of Serie A?
What’s happened to Raheem? He looked a world beater last season. I’d really like to see him given a run in the same position.
“They stitched me up in Everton
Then they took me to a surgeon
Lost on penalties
Mario man
Mario man
Mario man
Mario man”
Mario Man, SFA
Great match review!
With several players out, I think BR still picked the right team for the night (once Coutinho were left at home). Substitutions can be discussed – but I basically never agree with BR on that point, and more often then not, he’s right. Maybe there is still a reason for why he’s our coach and not me…
Most missed player for the night was clearly Hendo. Can, for me, has still got to prove his ground when it comes to playing 90 min in midfield. I’ve no doubt that will come though.
It was always gonna be a really tough evening in Istanbul. Our boys put it a hard working shift. And we lost out on penalties. Simple as… If anything, we didn’t loose out in the Istanbul game. We lost out in not making more of the game at home.
I’m surprised it got to extra time, two strikers wasn’t going to work when you merely need stifle the game and not lose. Rodgers clearly should have stuck to what he’d been doing over the last couple of months, but no, he started to get cocky (“defensive coach” crap), and it’s cost him one route to the CL. He now needs to overtake two of Man Utd, Arsenal, Soton and hope there are no slips to let Spurs in. Not very likely, but achievable if the others slip. I suspect he’ll come up short which will cost him his job.
I can see the logic in playing two up top; if Sturridge scores from Mario’s through ball (and let’s face it, he should have) we’re in the next round. He can give him a rest.
If he wasn’t interested in winning he should have told his keeper and back line to contrive one or og’s. 120 minutes was the last thing we needed . stumbling and bumbling to soft defeats suggest the world is returning to normal
For me the problems are not actually how to play the game in these conditions, rather more related to managing a team of ego’s and last night it showed.
Lets start with the attacking line up , as you look at it on paper and on the form the players have shown it shouldn’t raise any eyebrows.
What we saw in reality, was some of the worst BODY LANGUAGE I have seen in a long time.
Sturridge and Balotelli hardly said a word to each other in the entire game which was clearly noticeable when they swapped positions and when they were trying to play one two’s.
Sterling is also included in this as he wasted opportunities to pass to Balotelli and Emre Can and when he didn’t pass to Can who had a open goal Can was visibly and rightly enraged.
Add to that the fact that Sturridge was drummed out of Man City and Chelsea for this kind of play and you’ll see why this cancer needs to be stamped out immediately.
Sterling seems to have started doing this as well no doubt a reaction to what he sees Sturridge do , don’t forget Sturridge stated that he sees himself as a bigger brother and mentor to Streling and Ibe.
Add into that his interference of Hendersons decision in the last Europa game to hand the penalty (rightly) to Balotelli.
Sturridge’s questioning Henderson decision was not one of protocol, rather more about his won EGO.
Sturridge wants to be Number 1 Striker and goal scorer , he’s proven in the past not to be a team player.
Balotelli is starting to look more of the player we thought we bought and is starting to show what we know he’s capable of.
I don’t think Brendan should sell Balotelli in the summer , however he should make clear to Sturridge, Sterling and Balotelli that if they can’t /wont play or pass to each other, he’ll drop them for players that do.
Surprisingly, I thought Joe Allen did really well last night I was actually surprised by his play.
Can’s FIRST game in his preferred position clearly made a lot of mistakes but I can see him settling in nicely and growing in confidence.
Lucas and Can will be a very effective defensive midfield unit once fit and practiced.
I can’t say I’m surprised by Lovren, it’s easy to put the boot in after what happened, however the roots of his issues lay in his overconfidence.
He’s primary job is to defend, that being said when we look at his defensive abilities, it simply isn’t good enough when compared to Sakho.
Sakho has delivered some splitting passes to Moreno which are turned into attacking play.
Lovren tries to be far too spectacular with raking 60 yard passes which look pretty but ultimately achieve nothing.
Missing Markovic, Lucas,Gerrard,Sakho,Coutinho,Henderson is going to affect your performance.
The squad depth is there BUT because we are getting used to playing twice a week with a new squad this result was always going to happen at this stage of the season.
Finally, although we can make excuses about players and coaches etc the cold facts are that Bestikas ran more, chased more, harried more, passed more, possessed the ball more and frankly deserved there victory.
Lets look forward to Sunday.
I’d like to think we could be a bit more patient with Sturridge. He’s been tremendous for us thus far, and this ‘selfish’ Sturridge argument is developing into a meme, a meme, moreover, informed and determined by rival supporters. Yes he’s had a couple of poor games following 5 months out injured, yes his body language isn’t the best (nor is Mario’s btw), but it never was, and we weren’t complaining when he was banging ’em in. Let’s cut him some slack, he’s just a frustrated striker at the moment. I’m sure Brendan will sort him out.
As for Can, whilst he didn’t have a great game, he has the body language of a natural leader. He got into some great positions last night only to be ignored by the strikers. And boy did he show his frustration. I like that in a young midfielder: shows a lot of confidence.
I did talk about this last season. All strikers are selfish but Sturridge is borderline self-indulgent at times. FWIW, I say the same about Sterling.
Thing is, a good side can well accommodate a player like this – so long as they do the business in terms of goal return – but if both your main goal threats operate in this manner it will come back to bite you at some point. I think it already has.
But no, that does not mean we either ditch or give up on one or both of them. Of course we odn’t, but they do both display this trait, imo.
Players miss pens, even the best in the world miss them. At least Dejan Lovren can take comfort in the fact that he missed a penalty in the same week that Lionel Messi did…..
Would have been nice to win but ultimately I’m not THAT bothered. We would only have gotten beaten in the latter stages by Napoli any way.
We’re all forgetting the big story: Blues caught on camera beating young boys……….
They are the Catholic side.
(I’m a left-footer so I’m allowed to say that.)
Bit gutted but always am when we lose.Seems to me that we were stretched player and fatigue wise.Not ideal for Sunday still wouldnt write that off just yet though.Common theme is that Sterling and Sturridge were pants and Id agree to a point.Strange watching us try to just play out a 0-0 away (2nd half) from home.To me that shows just how much we have changed over 12mths and to just agree with other posters IF those two had took their chances we’d all be laughing.
We can go full throttle now for the 4th place trophy and the F.A. cup. My mate was screaming for another midfielder to come on 2nd half as we were getting compressed and out worked..Who like? Colin Pascoe maybe …
PoP on Rawk made some interesting comments last night after the game, particularly in comparing Rafa & Rodgers…
Rafa sees the game as one of space, and he seeks to control that space. He doesn’t deviate from that, whether that’s a league, cup, or European game.
Rodgers almost looks like he has two plans – one for English league, one for Europe and cups. But the one for Europe and Cups is markedly different from the one in the league. And it doesn’t feel like he has any affinity for that game. If Rafa was all about dominating space, then Rodgers is all about dominating the ball. And in some cup games, and in Europe, it’s almost like he forgets about dominating the ball, and focuses instead on dominating space. But I don’t think he understands that game as well as he needs to – which is why our defence has taken such a long time to settle. And even then, it settled by default of numbers, rather than because of learning how to function as a unit that controls the spaces.
AND ANOTHER:
The thing is, we had two attacking wingbacks. But I don’t recall Ibe getting involved in the game much. It’s like he was instructed to sit off and help Toure against Gohkah Tore, and completely abandoned his attacking game. Can and Allen were outnumbered, so Balotelli dropped in with Sterling to create the box, which left Sturridge stranded. Then we took off the hard-working Balotelli (and everyone knows my ambivalence towards his work-rate in general), and left the underperforming and isolated Sturridge on, put Lambert on the pitch, and then passed the ball around midfield and forced our best target option at the time into midfield to collect the ball, rather than pushing him onto the central defenders, using him as an outball, and having Lallana running off him. We played a sucker’s game, to be honest. Rodgers over-thought it again. If we played the first 60 minutes in full press, pushing the ball into their half of the field, I daresay we’d have got the goal we needed long before extra time was coming into play.
AND (Relating to our style of play):
Our best game in Europe so far under Rodgers is still the Zenit second leg, when we played the attacking game and were one goal away from going through – but we went for it, and he got a lot of plaudits for it too, if I remember. But this whole European campaign is a write-off, and we went out meekly, trying to be “tactical”. I’ve said it before, but coaches either view the game as a 2v1 game (tactical) or a 1v1 game (technical). Rodgers is a 1v1 coach. He should trust his coaching against the opposition, and put his best 1v1 players up against the other team’s defenders, and see how they cope. We didn’t do that tonight. only 19% of the game was played in the Beşiktaş defensive third. We gave them the initiative, and we couldn’t wrest it back when we needed to. That’s what happens when you play that kind of game and it’s not your forte.
That’s my only issue with Rodgers here. He changes what he’s good at coaching possession attacking football. Maybe it’s enough, maybe it’s not. But we won’t know, until he commits as fully to his ideas in Europe as he does to his ideas in the league.
AND (Relating to abandoning his principles):
Abandoning the pressing game in key away matches in favour of a more-energy-saving passive defence. Abandoning verticality for width and possession, again, to save energy. The whole point of our periodisation is that we’re supposed to be fresher to defend harder in the second half of the season. If we’re not fit enough to do that, or if we’re managing games to save energy, then we either need a number of tweaks to our fitness plan, or we need to abandon periodisation altogether. But trying to manage games in this fashion hasn’t worked for Rodgers. He changes his mindset when confronted by these games, relying on single or double-player counter-attacks to snatch goals. I’ve yet to see it work. Our league form, though, playing a pressing, aggressive possession game, is highly successful. We need to be bringing that into the cup games, not just the league games.
SAME AGAIN:
Poor tactical approach, consistently, in big away games. Whenever Rodgers sends teams out to play backs to the wall football, especially in knockout competitions, it bites him in the arse. He’s a great coach and a very good manager, but he doesn’t stick to his ideas in these games. Gerard Houllier once said, correctly, that a manager should live and die by his ideas. Rafa does this. Mourinho, for all the stick he gets, doesn’t change his gameplan from one competition to the other. He doesn’t care what anyone says, he stays true to his ideals, whether anyone likes it or not. Rodgers’ whole approach is about having the ball, aggressively pressing to get it back, and attacking in waves. We do none of those things when faced with a big away game. We sit off, let the other team have the ball, and hope for the best. It doesn’t work for us, more often than not. If Rodgers has ANY lesson he should be looking to learn, it’s that from now on, he should just play every game all guns blazing. If we lose playing that way, at least we’ve given it a good go. Losing the way we did today, though, is just bad coaching. Play to your strengths, not your weaknesses.
AND ANOTHER (Relating to winning in Europe):
The thing is, though, people are focusing on Ferguson’s Man United record – but he won a European trophy at the first time of asking. And he won even earlier with Aberdeen, again at the first time of asking (or the second, I may be mis-remembering it). he didn’t need someone with massive experience of European management with him to do those things. Nor did Clough, either, when he won two European Cups in a row, at the first time of asking. Nor did Mourinho, when he won the UEFA Cup with Porto. Nor did Rafa at Valencia. The difference with those managers is that they had clear ideas on the game, and never really wavered from those ideas. Rodgers does. He second guesses himself. He doesn’t need to.
AND ANOTHER (Re: Sterling):
Sterling is kind of annoying me these days. He keeps trying the same one-touch-and-turn move when he has his back to a defender, and it almost always fails, especially as there’s usually a supporting attacker facing him who could play the ball behind better. I hope he gets his arse in gear and starts to play it simple again, because he’s devastating when he plays simple football
Can’t say that I’m that devastated about being out of the UEFA Cup, I’m more disappointed about the performance.
We had guys out but they had guys out too.
Personally I think we should have went all out, full court press in basketball parlance, to go and get that away goal and then take it from there.
An away goal meant they needed 3, if we had got it in the first 20/30mins then we could have shut up shop and rested several players for Sunday; game over in 90mins.
As I say I’m not that fussed we’re out. Utd have no European football to contend with, Spurs are out and Arsenal are all but out so they can all concentrate on the league. I think we have a fantastic opportunity now to oust Utd from the top 4 and win the FA Cup. It’s game on!!
Sorry mate I have no idea what you mean. I love loads of “aspect(s) of the club” otherwise I would’t go every week and to a few aways. Still, not having much faith in the manager seems to be a criminal act to some. I didn’t have much faith in Souness and Hodgson either, I hope I’m wrong with Rodgers, but it’s only my opinion.