AS the old cliché goes, home is where the heart is. And there’s nothing more heart-breaking than humiliation on your own doorstep.
When Liverpool play at Anfield — our patch, our city, our ground — we expect to win the match. No matter who the opposition, we fancy our chances. It’s what we’ve been brought up on — watching the red machine in full effect and, more often than not, emerging victorious. A lad I know who used to go every week backed the Reds every home game to score five. A mad punt — but one born of a time when you couldn’t rule it out.
Having a good team helped and perhaps it’s rose-tinted romanticism, but it felt like a collective spirit on and off the pitch willed it to happen. Anfield wasn’t ever a place where teams or their supporters got an easy ride. In the main, Liverpool’s home record was something to be proud of.
The Reds did not lose a league match at home in seasons 1893/94, 1970/71, 1976/77, 1978/79, 1979/80 and 1987/88. Between January 1978 and January 1981, Liverpool were unbeaten at Anfield for 85 games.
Ancient history? More recently, Gerard Houllier went close to taking Liverpool to the Premier League title in 2001/02 with a second placed finish on 80 points after winning 63 per cent of home games.
And between October 2005 and January 2006, Rafa Benitez’s Liverpool went 10 games at Anfield without conceding a goal, equalling a club record set in 1920.
They are the high watermark of standards at home for Liverpool. Some say these standards are a cross to bear.But even under the much maligned Graeme Souness the home record was strong. In 1991/92, Liverpool finished sixth, but 13 wins at Anfield matched the home record of title-winners Leeds. The following season was another sixth place, but again the Reds clocked up 13 league wins at Anfield.
A 0-3 to West Ham cannot be shrugged off. A pattern cannot be allowed to develop.
Brendan Rodgers — the man who insisted on the return of Anfield’s red nets and gave the nod for the oldest This Is Anfield sign to be restored to the tunnel — knows the pride Liverpool has in its history and recognises the role of tradition. It’s why he referenced the importance of a good home record on his arrival at the club, declaring his intention to make games at Anfield “the hardest 90 minutes of every opponent’s life”.
The current manager’s best season at Liverpool was built on the Fortress Anfield idea. In the 19 league games played at Anfield in 2013/14 Liverpool won 16, drawn one and lost two. It was a record bettered only by title-winning Manchester City (17-1-1).
Last season, as the Reds limped into sixth place, they finished the season with a home record of won 10, drawn five and lost four in the Premier League. Champions Chelsea didn’t lose a match at Stamford Bridge in the league all season.
Far from being the hardest hour and a half of the opponents’ lives, we watched Liverpool roll over 1-3 for Crystal Palace in Steven Gerrard’s last game for the club at Anfield. And that came on the back of a season that featured home draws with Championship sides Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers and Middlesbrough in the domestic cups, Basel in the Champions League and Leicester City, Sunderland and Hull in the Premier League.
All sides Liverpool can reasonably be expecting to beat on home turf.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XPckVhU40w
Far from being a fortress, the plan for a successful raid on the Anfield points booty seems to be well increasingly well publicised and all too easily repeated — sit deep, frustrate and counter with speed. We witnessed it last season and now this. Every result offers fresh encouragement to the next team to head for L4. It’s a trend that must end.
With another summer of spending, a backroom shake up and three encouraging results at the start of the season, it wasn’t unreasonable to expect a comfortable win against West Ham. The coupons showed a home banker. And, as we’ve been reminded ever since Saturday’s Hammers horror, it was the first time the Londoners had triumphed at Anfield since 1963, the year The Beatles came to prominence in the charts.
After claiming “all of my teams will have a certain element of steel” Brendan was left looking like the Fool on the Hill at 5pm on Saturday while many in the Kop did a great job of hiding their love away with boos raining down from the stand at half-time. At the final whistle, the empty red seats made their own statement.
It was no wonder. No matter how you describe the volume of liquid in your glass, it was a terrible performance from Liverpool all over the pitch with odd selections and questionable tactics compounded by shocking individual performances. The Dejan Lovren experiment should now be over while Martin Skrtel shouldn’t escape criticism either, a poor header leading to the first and his backing off allowing the third.
In midfield, the balance between graft and guile was swung too far to the former with confusion reigning over creativity while up front Christian Benteke, starved of service or support and offered little protection by referee Kevin Friend, didn’t offer a threat on goal.
That the villain of the piece for Reds, Lovren, managed the only Liverpool shot on target in 90 minutes felt like someone somewhere was taking the mick. Sadly, it wasn’t Liverpool attackers out of West Ham defenders.
It’s still early in the season and so the caveats remain. Liverpool missed Jordan Henderson. Roberto Firmino will surely get better. New players need time to settle. And so on.
But however it is couched, Rodgers simply can’t afford many more days like these at Anfield, not against sides Liverpool must takes points from to reach the top four or better. The decision by the owners to back rather than sack their man after a prolonged silence post the 6-1 at Stoke left many supporters disillusioned, some undecided and others glad of the stability.
The numbers adopting those distinct mindsets shift by result but many decisions about which camp to pitch in will be made by what unfolds in front of eyes on the Kop more than anything else. Too many days of home heartache are hard to take and forty-odd thousand Reds had a fresh seed of doubt sewn in their collective conscience as they headed for home with anger-filled thoughts on Saturday.
Opinions swing from high to deep. Now, what was perceived as three positive results and a solid start is two goals in four matches — one a worldie, the other offside. The battling qualities hailed at The Emirates against a side Liverpool have consistently finished below in the league in recent years, and at a ground where few points have been yielded, are now frowned upon as weaknesses when taking on a side set up to defend and fight away from home.
Liverpool had all the ball against West Ham yet comfortably lost the game to opposition that hadn’t scored at Anfield for nine years. Why set up in the same way with the same team as at Arsenal despite the change in opposition, venue and challenge? Why play a defensive midfielder in Lucas — unwanted and set to be sold a matter of days ago — in his second successive game? Why wait so long and persevere with a plan that clearly wasn’t working?
Only Rodgers knows the answers to these questions and more.
A trip to Old Trafford minus the services of Philippe Coutinho is next to face another side whose supporters are doubting the suitability of the manager. A backlash awaits either Rodgers or Louis van Gaal if they take nothing from the match but losing away to a rival is always the lesser of two evils. Perhaps Liverpool as the underdogs for this post-international break scuffle can benefit from the backdrop of playing in a ground that could be waiting to wail with manager misery like West Ham did at Anfield on Saturday.
Regardless, in many ways it’s perhaps the fixture that follows in the league that will lead to greater scrutiny for Rodgers: Norwich at home. A promoted side. A team Liverpool are expected to beat and beat well. Boos will already be on the lips of many, even more so if the Reds can’t take something from the canal banks of Salford.
A home record of won six, drawn nine, lost four in the league proved to be the undoing of a club legend in Kenny Dalglish and opened the door for Rodgers’ appointment as Liverpool manager three years ago. Anything approaching similar this season, will see it slammed shut in his face with the Ulsterman on the outside looking in after a summer of unequivocal backing from inside the club.
“It’s going to be a really difficult league to get your home wins in,” said Rodgers after West Ham, leaning on the fact that there have been only nine home victories in the 40 Premier League games played so far this season.
“There will be lots of games like that and we have to find the way to win them.”
Teams have tried to shut up shop at Liverpool for years. It’s up to the manager to keep the points in and keep the men coveting his job out.
Rodgers has to build the fortress again. Fast.
FREE PODCAST: The Anfield Wrap – Liverpool v West Ham
[rpfc_recent_posts_from_category meta=”true”]
Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda Photo
The Dejan Lovren experiment is a band name waiting to happen!
Great piece Gareth and pretty summed up what i was moaning about on the way out on Saturday. Whilst walking out the ground i actually heard someone say “it’s ok because Chelsea have been beaten at home also.” A fair point but its unlikely that Chelsea will loose at home again this season and if they do it will probably be because the other team has worked hard to beat them. Norwich and other teams will be coming to Anfield now with the thinking of “West Ham can do it so can we.”
13/14 was by far the best season at Anfield because teams were afraid of Anfield. Arsenal were blitzed because they couldn’t cope with the ground bouncing and knowing that we was going to blow them away. That was missing on Saturday, even at half time there was no real feeling that we was ever going to get back into the game (much like the Villa game of that season when we was 2.0 down). Rodgers needs to reinstall that winning mentality at home and not the idea of not getting beat being a positive.
Honestly i might be a minority here.. But i am so sick of Brendan’s regime (not so much the man).. In three years he hasn’t created a shape to defend consistently, defenders in and out without consistency.. If we ever keep a clean sheet it is often a fluke! Bizarre tactics playing Lucas at home against West Ham over Ings, just why do that.. Inability to get a team to break down defenses, and furthermore bizarre and really expensive mistakes and blunders in the transfer market.. Markovic and Balo, Lambert cost 40 million, where are they now.. Where is Shelvey, why buy a big man striker and get rid of most of our wingers and not bring in any players who are half decent at crossing.. Why is Gerrard n longer a Liverpool player.. Why is it that the majority of players get worse when they join Brendan’s Liverpool than get better (lallanna, Lambert, Balotelli, ect..) Obviously a lot depends how we react to this setback but i can’t believe some still think BR is right for Liverpool or anything more than a mediocre mid table manager appointed far above his station far too early.. Just look at what Padew has done at CP is a few months and with a fraction of the money BR has spent!
Couldn’t agree more. Brendan Rodgers was never the right man for Liverpool but that’s down to the inexperience of the American owners. Liverpool need a big name manager with proven ability and success not some up and coming upstart with limited experience at the top level. We could’ve had Anceloti or Klop but no instead the owners opted to sack Pascoe and Marsh instead of Rodgers. Something I’ve never heard of in all my days. Seems to me the buck was passed there. Shifting the blame on the coaching staff was ludicrous.
Liverpool will go to Old Trafford and go to Rodger’s default setting of three at the back,that way other players can cover for Lovren and we can hope for a glorious draw.Rodgers needs the draw,not for the league status but for his own self preservation,Europa League up next and he simply doesn’t do European football,then an easy game at home to Norwich (?????)
A few dodgy results and he may feel the heat,certainly a lot more from the fans.He was probably 50/50 at the end of last season,I’d of had him sacked after the Stoke game.The problem is FSG wouldn’t sack him.Many,myself included hope he’ll be gone by November in order to salvage the season.It probably won’t happen and there’s no way he will fall on his sword,that would be admitting he wasn’t up to it.He’s too full of himself for that.
There is also the problem that FSG doesn’t want to fall on their sword and admit that hiring Rodgers was a mistake.
Another game that’s left us with more questions than answers.
Same questions, no new answers
Debatable mate. I think the answers became a bit clearer
Great Article as ever,
During those seasons when we were never defeated it was not as if no other parked the bus and played two banks of 4. I would venture to say that every team did that the difference was the team that parked the bus had a lot to contend with to stop Liverpool and this is the problem i have with FSG and Rogers and with the players they buy.
Being old school i think you buy players for a position in a formation,
This is why Glen Hoddle would never be a Liverpool player because his skills don’t fit any of the 4 midfield positions in the 78/79 team. That is not to say Hoddle was not a good footballer, he was, but he did not have the grit to compete with Souness or Case in the center of midfield and he was not a box to box player like Ray Kennedy or Terry Mac. He could not link play, hold the ball up back to goal or score 20 goals and 20 assists as well as Kenny, so even though technically Hoddle was a good player, he would have been useless in that team because it exposes all his weakness.
The way Liverpool was set up in those days is as far as i am concerned as good as it gets because your two center mids won every 50/50 and then played simple balls, but could also make late runs on to the edge of the area and shoot from there. Goals
Kennedy and Terry Mac always played inside the full backs but could overlap and cross in from the touchline if they had too. They could shoot from distance but were fantastic at runs into the box from deep. Goals
Then you had both full back providing width outside of your midfielders. Those full backs both scored goals in open play in many cup finals. Try parking the bus with all that going on and we have not even got to Kenny and David Johnson.
Contrast that with the players on Saturday.
I have always been a big fan of Lucas but he is never going to score a goal, and he is very rarely going to run into the box. If he is playing as a defensive mid ok but the rest of them have to be much more attacking and they are not.
Has Can scored for us yet?
if Milner has Lucas and Can in the team then he should be in Bentekes pocket not Can’s. Milner needs to score as well as hold and provide
I love Coutinho but i want him passing to 2 or 3 players in front of him, but at least he can score from the edge of the box.
Firmino looks good whats his best position?
Benteke is better than Balo but just as isolated and how he is going to play with Sturridge i have no idea.
I like both our full backs and going forward they could be OK with a better front 6.
The problem this team has is that it still does not know how to attack, in theory a front 6 of Henderson, Milner, Coutinho, Firmino, Sturridge and Suarez is what is required, but we dont have Suarez or any player like him.
Benteke away from home is great, at home when teams park the bus not sure.
Take Coutinho out of the team and it looks a lot worse.
I wouldn’t disagree with any that but for me it’s a lot simpler.
Liverpool’s squad / team is better than West Ham’s squad / team.
At home, we should be beating them like we always have. Sometimes we get disappointing draws – it happens. On Saturday we got beat 0-3.
If it was a one off I could probably bring myself to accept it as part of the fortunes of a football club. Bad day at the office and all that. It’s becoming every other week though. The squad / team is better than that. It’s massively under performing. Why? I’ll let you know why I think it is in May
Can scored for us last year. The home league match against The Plastics.
Actually, the same answer.
What bugs me is the damn talking. For example after three games when asked about steel and charavter why does br fall for these loaded questions? Why not just reply ” yknow whatbguys im pleased by results so far but lets wait a few mote games” nice noncommital reply. But no our man starts tossing out vrap like lovren outstandin team full of steel blah blah only to have it smack him in the gob next game. Hes donenthis to himself since he joined. Great coaches let the football talk. Sigh
FSG are as culpable for persisting with Rodgers as Rodgers is for persisting with Lovren.
I doubt they’ll sack him this season unless we’re bottom. The question is, since when is it acceptable for a Liverpool manager to preside over so many humiliating defeats in the last 12 months yet remain in the job? Rodgers has added a total of zero to the Liverpool trophy room; he simply doesn’t deserve the patience he is being given – by baseball owners who don’t feel the supporters pain when we are humiliated on the field.
“The question is, since when is it acceptable for a Liverpool manager to preside over so many humiliating defeats in the last 12 months yet remain in the job?”
Surely the question is “can we replace Rodgers with someone better?”
Yes. Klopp would come. The question is would FSG do what it takes to get him here. Also, would it give him a director of football who could work together and get the proper players in?
If we go and get twatted at Old Trafford with Lovren clowning about, that’ll be making the exact same mistake as last season and showing we’re refusing to learn. That will be the end of something for me. My head went at the 3-0 against United last December and I just don’t think I’ve got the resilience to shake a similar debacle again. How good the run was during 13/14 feels more and more like a death rattle and the thought of us only ever having a league season worth bothering with every 5 years scares me to death. I just can’t knock about like 2009-2013 again where 99% of league games mean shite all.
Despair seems to be the general feeling coming through these mails and there is an empathy particularly amongst the fans who remember the glory years. The younger fans sound even more desperate as the recent season lows have been so low they have been record breakers.
This summer I opened my archive of Liverpool history going back to 1959 and Shankly’s arrival. I asked myself the question what he would have done. Firstly he would have made the players work their socks of in training to get fit. No excuses!!!! Then he would have made them feel responsible for the supporters and their own performances. Reading his statement on arrival still resonates today.
Whilst many would doubt such sincerity today in a press statement it was genuine then. Is Rodgers commitment and determination as genuine? Well he has recruited 3 very skilled and determined coaches and I for one want them to be given a chance…….how long……..well FSG can’t allow NOT to get top 4 and so shameful displays like Saturday cannot be allowed to continue and I would expect every player to be told and pressured to perform against MU. Commitment in every game like against Arsenal is required every week and creating chances like then needs to be restored and delivered. BUT as Rodgers says ‘transferring training onto the pitch’ is a problem and reading match reports after Shankly’s arrival shows this takes time. How much? We collectively can’t take humiliations like Saturday any more and the PLAYERS must take responsibility. The standards must be raised and I for one won’t give them any credit till we’ve seen 3 plus goals scored regularly at home and a solid defence. Rodgers may have to go but it would be a shame to lose the coaches without them getting a good chance to get this team by the bollocks and make them perform. I could go on about individuals letting the fans down but you know who they are……but thank god we have Milner Henderson and Benteke and Sturridge coming back. There is some hope but can Rodgers and co get the players to stop watching the opposition keeping the ball and use it to score…again and again……nothing else matters…..whatever it takes.
The pre-season and first 3 games was about therapy after CP and Stoke. Now the patient has relapsed……and if Brendan doesn’t realise it…..these comments make it clear he needs to stay up allow night (but this time with his coaches) finding the right treatment.
Chelsea and Utd have as many problems it’s becoming clear…….but for us regaining the ‘conscience’ Shankly gave his teams is still the place to start….once again.
Another false dawn?
It’s the crushed hope and expectancy that kills me.
Apathy ensues.
If your looking at new dawns after 3 games you need to get out more. There was too much talk after the first games, much of it bluster and hubris. Hopefully this result will set us on the road with need for hyperbole!
Do we have to change the backroom staff again now or could we just loan Rodgers out for the season?
We need to talk about 4-3-3. Liverpool’s greatest manager abandoned this formation in the late 70s, realising that a 4-4-2 was far more flexible and effective: strikers are strikers, midfielders are midfielders. Midfielders can score goals too, they can be attack minded or defensive, ideally they can be a bit of both. But they don’t carry the burden of goalscoring and they know their roles within the team. Strikers can drop back into midfield to make up the numbers but, like the midfielders, they too are under no illusion as to their role in the team, to whit: goals. 4-4-2 should be the template with adjustments in games in which we’re overrun. It’d help the players too because half of them don’t know whether they’re coming or going at the moment.
You know me by now Paul, I avoid comment on formations for obvious reasons (I’m pretty clueless about them). Saturday got me thinking about how things can improve. I completely agree about playing 4-4-2. I accept this may have some huge flaw I haven’t considered but it seems obvious to me that a 4-4-2 diamond is the way to go with the personnel we have.
Firstly, Like everyone, I wanna see Sakho before Lovren. Any bitterness I may feel for Rodgers since Saturday stems from his pre match comments about, and selection of, Lovren. There’s something about it that’s psychologically disturbing me. I can’t put my finger on it but I’m getting a feeling of being patronised. Obviously Skrtel and Clyne and then Flanagan (though it’s unlikely this season so Gomez (or Moreno if Gomez has too many games like Saturday)). I wanna see Allen play. I’m convinced we play better with him than Lucas (or Can). Our tempo is far better. He gets us moving forward quicker. Then, Henderson, Milner and Coutinho with Benteke and Sturridge as the front 2.
That’s my dream team from what we’ve got. I think it would be unstoppable. Every player would be comfortable in their position, the defence would link up to the midfield (in fairness to Allen I think he has a brain on him and constantly opens up space with his work off the ball), the fullbacks would provide the width we need, the midfield 4 would be like a pack of rabid dogs surrounding you and with the movement and finishing of the front 2 there’d be goals throughout the team and fuckin shitloads too. Surely? We can’t be far away from achieving it. I’m hoping both Sturridge and Allen will be back in training before our next match and so in time it could be a reality.
My feeling is when we play a front 3, whether Coutinho, Ibe or Lallana then we don’t create a lot. That’s just my gut feeling and could be statistically v.wrong. I’m starting to think I don’t like it whatever. As you point out, systems have to change for some games but we need a system that works (possibly right for Arsenal but wrong for West Ham). 3 years in and we’ve got about 3 settled players (Henderson, Mignolet (arguably) and Coutinho) and Mignolet aside, they don’t know what position they’ll be playing in next game. The others are either new or don’t know if they’re gonna start. Seems to be too much fucking about for my liking. I appreciate trial and error but nothing he does has particularly worked out in the last 6 months. I don’t think I can think of one game that’s gone well in that time. Rambling on now but I’m convinced a 4-4-2 should be the system we build around for games at Anfeld and away at average sides, regardless of the personnel that make it up. Just go toe to toe with them.
Little story to finish. Our kids team were in a tournament in Blackburn on Sunday. Saturday night, the manager was texting me asking what I thought of her formation for the tourny. We got talking and she said a lot of the academies were playing 4-4-2 in their matches. It dawned on me how obvious that should be. It’s hard to teach kids new formations. The aim is to get the best out them. You do that by playing them a familiar position in a familiar environment. Does that change with age? I suppose the reason for this story was the realisation I had on Saturday night of ‘Just keep it fuckin simple, for Gods sake’. It doesn’t need to be over complicated.
A very good argument. Joe Allen has his strengths but a problem staying fit. But saying that the alternative players would at least be able to fit the model and be less exposed when we play a poor pass forward. How many times do we get hit on the counter when midfield players over commit or get caught on the edge of the box playing a 1/2 into a crowded area with no cover when we lose the ball. We hit Arsenal with this last week and got caught Saturday by West Ham. High line defence and 4 across the middle keeps the ball going back into the front 2. Provided they keep crossing over and running the channels. It was always the most successful way in the past sides, (even the amateur and Sunday league sides some us us played in) so why not now?. Brendan will probably say ‘it’s not as simple as that’…..whereas every time we lose it’s to the same breakaway tactics. Now we are told the majority of away teams will win away……and they will quote our game and Chelsea’s. Swansea showed how to stop it and beat MU……..looked very close to a 4-4-2 diamond….but let’s not get hooked on systems as we don’t understand them…do we?
For once I’d like more people to focus on what they can actually control: the atmosphere. I’ve never heard Anfield quieter. Even when we went close it was so frustratingly, infuriatingly quiet. Forget the players taking responsibility. How can they do that being surrounded by 40 odd thousand people not giving a flying fuck about the match????
This is basically down to nerves. Supporters go and sit waiting anxiously for something that never happens anymore; an emphatic win. We have no flair, no steel and a manager who constantly tinkers with players positions and shape. We have spent a fortune and consistently loan out players who aren’t good enough or who do not even get a chance. I backed him until now, but this farce must end.
How much more did BR spend than Stoke last year, but finished a few points higher? Bilic is a new manager to the PL, comfortably beating a ‘Rodgers’ side whose results are starting to look very random for a reason – his reasoning is very random.
Dejan-Vu
BR slowly replacing Hodgson on my list of most hated LFC managers. I find his arrogance extremely annoying.
Seems a bit soon to be passing judgement after 4 games. Didn’t we use to wait until October/November to see how things were going?
New season, 5 new players in the starting 11, gonna take a little time.
“Dejan vu ” -brilliant .
It’s a fair comment mate, but I think the reason people feel a bit twitchy is because it feels a bit like ‘we’ve been here before’. I was feeling good about everything after Arsenal, yet 90 mins later I’m feeling terrible. That indicates to me I’m having a knee jerk reaction to what was a disappointing game. I’m all for the view that this season is a clean slate. A full season to determine whether we’re gonna stay together or not. For me, it has to be taken as the whole sum of parts, come May. Games like Saturdays are only a small part of the jigsaw. Despite my good intentions though, I’m human and it’s reopened old wounds from last season that I swore I’d put behind me. Unfathomable decisions and weird substitutions for one (two). I didn’t understand it then and I don’t understand it now.
Totally agree, the team looked lost, BR looked lost, looked like a pub team, very confusing. Its scary/depressing to not be beating stupid teams like the ones we’ve played so far, even Arsenal seriously,
All the stuff about shanks and the glory days is great but them days are gone forever. We need to compete here and now. Just like united will never have another SAF we wont ever get another Time Lord Visionary like shanks! Also gone are the stalwart fans of yesteryear. Today there is a new format. Coaches get maybe a couple of years to deliver and after that they are moved on. Fans are fickle and fake, the twitter and instagram generation, fed and ruled by reality tv and other assorted garbage, their mentality and mindset is likewise similar. Rodgers has had the modern day equivalent of ten years already and sadly has delivered ZERO. I was and am a big fan of the man. But i have doubts whether he is the RIGHT man. Will there come a time in the future when guys like klopp and ancelotti are even on the market, ready and waiting as they are now? FSG have made so many mistakes i cant start. However, its ok to make mistakes if you learn. By keeping rodgers they havent. By rodgers playing lovren he hasnt either. So where is LFC headed? stubborn owners, stubborn manager, stubborn fans….as charlie brown would say GOOD GRIEF!!!
Yes times are different but the Twitter/Instagram world is of no consequence. The big difference is the heads of the players and their big egos/salaries. But any group of players amateur or professional wants to do well and the job of the coaches and the manager is to get the best out of them……however they do it doesn’t matter…..just as long as they keep improving. That was ALL our past coaches(and Fergie and Jose’s way). The concern last Saturday was the decision by Rodgers to see the same team performing against West Ham. Was this just Rodgers or the coaches choice too. They now now they got it wrong. Clearly the mindset of the players is still not tough enough to overcome a goal against and there is much they need to do. Concerns re Can’s ball retention and support to Benteke must be addressed. We can only wait and hope…..for now. But patience is no longer acceptable in today’s football pundit and fans psyche, I agree.
West ham were already 0-1 up when Lovren messed up by the corner flag. Yet within a couple of seconds there were attacking players in the box. They should already be retreating when the centre-back has control of the ball and Benteke to aim for.
To me it looked like they were still prepared to gamble and stay upfield a little further, given Lovren’s knack of making a dumb mistake which leads to a goal.
That’s a little worrying.
Form is temporary Lovren is permanent.
What you expect when he play in the team where as defensive player he is the only one to shoot on target in 90+ minutes game. Yeah right it’s always him to blame. People leave Lovren at peace.