AS a contest it was hard to know to expect from Liverpool vs Newcastle. One side which has been inconsistent and a little impotent against poorer opposition at home and the other side one which appears to have downed tools for the campaign insofar as they ever had bothered upping them. It wasn’t one which was easy to call other than the fact Liverpool should win. Shoulds have been broadly speaking meaningless both this and last season for Liverpool. So much they should have done. So much they shouldn’t have been able to do. Oh when the shoulds go marching in.
After 30 minutes of Liverpool versus Newcastle there is such a level superiority from The Reds it is frightening. In every department, their set up, their technical ability, their adventure, their workrate, in every department that makes a football team a football team Liverpool are oceans ahead of Newcastle United. They should be three or four goals ahead. They are one.
After 40 minutes the football match is a contest. From nowhere there are two sides on the pitch and Newcastle are able to put Liverpool under real pressure. Having only been one ahead on 20 there is a coherent argument that Liverpool should find themselves level going in at half time. Not least because they should have conceded a penalty. It’s a wild swing from Lovren, summing up a wild period of play from Liverpool. From domination to this; a bunch of lads determined to make it miserable through carelessness and anxiety. They should be further ahead than they are but they shouldn’t defend like fifth columnists either.
https://twitter.com/OptaJoe/status/587695856079544320
Liverpool reach 80 minutes two up and are by far the better side, Newcastle vanquished to all intents and purposes. They built through the half, earning the right to play again as Newcastle flurried and looked to block Liverpool in for the first 15 minutes of the second period. It’s odd that Newcastle’s best period coincides with Liverpool’s best chance, Sterling spurning the opportunity. This is a side which creates its best chances being quick and direct but which too often gets itself bogged down in combining the worst of the direct with the most self-indulgent of the subtle at times. To then spurn opportunities forced by shifting too quickly to let opposition players settle is incredibly frustrating.
There was a lot to get through in the end, Liverpool built the pressure, Allen got the goal he has perhaps deserved and Sissoko got a red card he undoubtedly deserved for a wild challenge on Lucas Leiva. Borini should do better when in on goal, the Italian repacing Jordon Ibe who looked like he was struggling on his return from injury and ahead of a Glen Johnson whose performance was fractured like a dream sequence in an avant-garde film. Kicking the ball into touch one second, sumptuously controlling it smoothly into the path of a teammate the next, it was classic Johnson. It was too easy for him so he decided to make it remarkably difficult. Like Liverpool but in one corner of the pitch — fundamentally frustrating and needs to stop.
https://twitter.com/OptaJoe/status/587694524408930304
During the second half Newcastle had penned Liverpool in while punching themselves out. Liverpool, you suspected, always had another gear. Liverpool, you suspected, could find themselves with a flat battery at any given moment. There isn’t the credit in the bank for a side which has tonight registered its third victory from eight against the current bottom 10 at home.
Football is an aesthetic pursuit, the gasps and cheers directed towards Coutinho’s staggering skill tell you that, but it is one which simultaneously in its essence is nothing but a cold measurement of one specific achievement — the round thing between the wooden things. It is defined by those outcomes. Tonight Liverpool are successful as per those outcomes. They haven’t been often enough this season. Given how exceptionally good Liverpool were in patches, how few victories we’ve seen in games like this this season, all this may sound churlish, but even in victory tonight, Liverpool’s primary shortcoming shone through.
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Listen: The Pink: Immediate post-match reaction after Newcastle
Read: Rodgers’ race isn’t run yet
Read: Monday column: What’s the deal with the contracts, Liverpool?
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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda-Photo
For how much TAW and Reds supports everywhere crave goals, something funny happens when it comes time to vote for MOTM. Almost like it’s out of mode to vote for a goalscorer.
Allen played really well throughout the game, I thought, and took his chance well. Coutinho was magic dust but if we’re going to scream for goalsgoalsgoals and someone to stick the thing in the back of the net, why not give at least some bump in MOTM voting for a player who actually does the thing? I pleace looking past goalscorers for MOTM voting with pencil mustaches and skinny jeans—and I don’t like any of them.
*place (dammit)
I considered voting for Sterling for that reason, so I take your point. Also, I thought Sterling was generally good, the one terrible miss aside. I’d say I hope the Kop screamed the song he allegedly has over and over, but Anfield sounded like it’s library-esque worst tonight on TV, so I’d imagine my hope would be disappointed.
On the other hand, Coutinho’s “magic dust” was magic, and how do you resist that? Yes, I cheered louder for Sterling’s goal than I did any particular moment of Phil’s, but Phil made me laugh and talk to no one about how good he is the same way Suarez used to do. He made Sterling’s goal inevitable by pulling the defenders’ pants down.
Having said that, I’m wearing skinny jeans–not girl-jeans, mind, not that tight, just jeans that give support. “Slim-fit Levi’s 511s.” Our differences may be irreconcilable.
Agreed about the crowd atmosphere – seemed really poor tonight and YNWA lacklustre. A real shame considering the occasion. Lots more camera – phone wakes than usual being picked up by the TV cameras too. I don’t know if I’m just more sensitive to it after all I’ve read on here nowadays though.
As for Raheem – I just wish we could sing him a fucking song. Heard Phil ‘ s song loud and clear (rightly so) and the applause when subbed wasn’t exactly total adulation. The Gutierez applause was a proud moment though.
I just sit in awe of what Coutinho can do. I wish some of his final balls were better and his shots more accurate but I can’t think of anyone in football at the moment who can slip himself and the ball so effortlessly through 2, 3, 4 players like he does. Love him.
* camera-phone wankers
The avant-garde film metaphor for Johnson is a really good one. Just wanted to say that.
Think Glen’s head’s been in Club Silencio for the better part of two years, bless him.
I get Neil’s just buy goals argument and we needed to be much more clinical tonight but if we’re going for the title this time next year and Sakho, Skrtel and Can happen to be out like they are now, Lovren frightens the life out of me. Imagine playing an actual good team with it all on the line and centre halves are doing stupid shit like heading it directly to opposition forwards under no pressure and volleying people up in the air in the box. Good job Mason’s awful.
Maddest thing about the game for me was that about 8 out of 11 Newcastle players in that first half had a frankly embarrassing first touch. How are they even getting to the point were they can relax halfway through a season and still be safe? Struggling to comprehend how we allowed them to beat us earlier this season so maybe we do just deserve Europa.
Sorry, you’re suggesting that if 3 of our players in a single position are out, we might struggle a bit? You can pretty much apply that logic anywhere on the pitch, and to any club with less money than Chelsea/City. Rely on Borini up front? And I don’t even know who our 4th choice full back is at the moment?
Ha! Essentially, yeah. A touch hysterical last night (and that was after a win!) Basically and without jinxing it, I really believe these players with the odd addition can compete all the way sooner rather than later, but when poor Dejan’s head goes mine goes with it.
I felt we pretty well dominated the game, but that Newcastle side was really CRAP. We should have had 3 more goals. We need to be tighter, more clinical, while making fewer dumb mistakes and lapses in judgement on the pitch.
Still…nice to win, nice to dominate the game. Only 4 points behind City!
I look forward to the Glen Johnson dream montage. He’s the Jacques Tati of modern football.
an extra point for Mignolet for not being the miserable, pessimistic Main Stand and being louder and more into the game than the entire Kop!
Sterling (once again) ran his fucking ass off for the team and I think for the fans. He scored a world class goal. He was a constant threat and created most red chances. However EVERYTIME he received the ball you feel an atmosphere of “what the fuck did you give it to him for?” People waved hands in the hair in frustration whenever only he didn’t pull off a second world beating goal. People around me groaning at him for 90. One man shouts after the easy miss “fuck off to Arsenal”.
I think this atmosphere clearly affects Raheem. You’re naive to ignore this. I was constantly on edge and eager for him to score a second purely to rub it in the faces of the idiots around me. He must feel the same. So many times I thought, ‘do you know what, he might as well leave this lot of miserable fucks’.
Negative atmosphere. Negative podcast. Negative performance. 2 months ago you’d all be extatic about the goal, Coutinho’s performance, Mignolet, Can and two goals!!
one last thing as I’m angry and in mood to rant. By all means sing Steve Highway’s with a sense of history and passion, but do the same for the fucking lad who doing the same thing in front of you!!! Or lose him.
Absolutely spot on, Simon. Those at the game need to get behind that kid. It’s almost like some want him to go so they can be proved right. I can’t help but feel for him a bit.
Don’t worry about Sterling. The second he feels down, he’ll get bang on the nitrous oxide and he’ll forget everyone hates him.
Considering it seems a good eighty per cent of the home crowd look old enough to have a son or daughter around Raheem’s age, (and some a grandchild) I wonder how they would feel if their child was receiving the same bullshit abuse.
So what, he has a pitbull of an agent. (Balotelli, Di Maria on how much?) You would not want the same for your kid? It is a career that can often end in tragedy, In Sterling we have a gem of a player who, shock horror, is behaving like a twenty year old on the rare occasion. Go ahead, choke the goose that lays the golden egg. A friggin’ “accidental” elbow in the lug hole would not go amiss with some of these vindictive, tired old twats. Don’t get me started on these phones, Orwell predicted this.
Agree with the sentiment in the post match pod, bossed the game for the most of the first half, infuriating in front of goal, which has been the case for the whole of the season. Not sure we can ride that sort of luck for the rest the season.
The conversation about pressing our back 3 / 5 took me back to a conversation Rodgers had a good while back where he was talking about missing the first pass to avoid the press and being able to clip it into the 2nd pass and go from there, missing their front 3 out altogether.
Isn’t it having the in game nouce from an intelligent player or two to be able to see how the other side are setting up in the first 20 of the game and make the change. Once their front 3 start to be missed out would they not then drop and you can revert back to playing it out from the back again.
Reminds me of the analysis of the Arsenal game and how their forwards pulled the back 3 into wide areas and we never reverted to a back 5 to cope with it.
I guess there is a view on we’ll play our game regardless of the opposition but surely when you’re up against it you need to adjust to cope and maybe those in game adjustments allow you to play your game in long term.
Goes without saying though how bad were Newcastle, their lot must be going round the bend.