A WIN that puts us through, with a fair chance of topping a group in which it took us forever to post a win. Wasn’t always pretty, but some nice play all the same. Albeit with a few more miles in a few more legs. Anyway scores.
Simon Mignolet 3.5
Massive respect to him for finding a new way of annoying everyone, when you thought he had the full set already. I’d like to score him higher, as I know it upsets people, but he didn’t do anything else apart from a routine save and a laughable header. Actually his kicking was alright. Half a point for that.
Nathanial Clyne 7
Thought both full backs played within themselves a little but he linked up well with his rotating wingers.
Alberto Moreno 7
Has nailed that skip through the legs into the area. A nice skill to have.
Kolo Toure 8
Treated a bit too much like a clown, but that was, by any measure, a fine centre half performance. Enjoyed the win too.
Lovren 6
Shame about the daft dangerous free kick at the end because before that he played pretty well. Stepped out to anticipate the danger on more than one occasion.
Lucas Leiva 6
A bit quieter from the Brazilian, but was there when it mattered.
Joe Allen 6
A funny performance from Diamond Joe. Full of energy but strangely wayward with his passing on occasion.
James Milner 7
Solid, dependable, intelligent, creates chances. I sometimes wonder what people want from a midfielder.
Jordon Ibe 6
Not at his sparkling best, but stretched the pitch and gave their full backs plenty to think about.
Roberto Firmino 5
Not the best night for Bobby. Obviously prefers the company of Phil and Adam, but its not the schoolyard. You can’t always play with your mates. Needs to learn to work with the big man.
Christian Benteke 8
Took all three of his goals really well. Only got to keep one of them, but never mind.
Subs
Emre Can 5
Not really at the races
Adam Lallana 5
At the races. Just the wrong ones.
Divock Origi 5
Stuck in the traps
Come on john how long that take you to write? 2mins? I expect in depth match ratings with at last 100 words on each player (joking) was that from mignolet worse then when he let the ball run out at Burnley ?
Much worse. There’s their goal *and* he’s somehow misconstrued complaints about his footballing ability with trying to nod it down to Kolo Toure standing next to him when their players are closing in with the goal gaping. The man’s absurd.
He’s capable of world class saves and he kept us in the derby and game against Spurs but you can’t tell me there isn’t anyone close to his shot stopping out there who isn’t an absolute tit at everything else to do with being a good Liverpool goalie.
Bogdan is yet to let anyone down I don’t think. He wouldn’t Brad Jones it if he played against Swansea for instance.
Would hate to see your ratings when we lose!
Come on, that wasn’t exactly vintage last night..
‘Massive respect to him for finding a new way of annoying everyone, when you thought he had the full set already.’
Ha. Nailed it. I didn’t think it could get worse than the Sakho roll and the Burnley misstep. The man’s a menace.
Spot on about Lovren too, though I thought Ibe and Kolo were our best players in the first half. Good to see Ibe has an end product after all: he has a good eye for a pass, better than you’d expect from a flier.
How annoying are some of these European refs? I know we don’t talk about them here on TAW, but christ did I want to set myself on fire last night. What a complete knob with his knobhead rants and threatening posing to Milner or Allen or Ibe for no reason whatsoever. Dickhead.
“Diamond Joe”- hehe. Played some nice through balls. Actually might’ve found a half-decent position as back-up under Uncle Jurgen. Mignolet, okay, strange decision by the ref but come on! Lovren and Lucas were both demanding the ball, the fullbacks had split, Lovren even had time to get fed up of asking and pointed to him to lay it out to Lucas. Get Migs’ wife in goal, apparently she knows a thing or two about the art. :)
After the first 10 minutes I was giving Kolo a solid 10 regardless of if he scored a hattrick of own goals, since he didn’t concede any own goals I think we can rightly bump that up to a 12.
Also he goes in for hugs wherever possible, as seen with Klopp and then Clyne.
I think it’s time to admit Kolo is my favourite player of all time.
Expected the Mignolet rating to just say: “What a twat.”
I think Lovren has earned the right by now to be judged on his actual performance rather than people’s preconceived notions of him as a player. He obviously had that glaring error in the West Ham game (which was lost by 3 goals and not 1) but other than that he has varied between okay and good this season, and in fact played more than okay on many occasions towards the back-end of last season.
He’ll no doubt repay me by scoring a bicycle kick og against Swansea, but it’s always great to see a player come through adversity and start to play.
Agree there. He’s starting – *starting* – to look a settled, dependable centre half to fill in for Skrtel and Sakho.
Watch him bullet one past Mignolet on Sunday.
I BELIEVE
That was another step forward, albeit a small one.
Along with Benteke and Milner, I thought Lucas and Firmino were our best players. Lucas was rock solid all night, won every midfield header, and played more threatening forward passes than our other midfielders including a beauty from which Firmino should have done better. Agree that Bobby wasn’t at the scintillating peak of his City performance but he was still creative, threatening and repeatedly won the ball back in unexpected situations – and, on another night, he would have scored twice in the first 10 minutes. Perhaps your rating of Bobby is more influenced by his slight fading and subsequent substitution in second half?
As good as he was against City, I thought Firminho stunk last night.
I think there’s a conspiracy by Simon Mignolet to get the No.1 jersey.
Last night, while wearing No. 22, the stopwatch showed that the Belgian goalkeeper had the ball for a lengthy 22 seconds.
Give him a number less than 6, tell him to look at his shorts if he gets confused.
3.5 was generous…
The ref gets a 10. He played splendid for Bordeaux…. They were falling like feathers and for a while it seemed if a Bordeaux player blew his nose it was a foul against Joe Allen. Simone has done some dumb things but last night was the showstopper.
John, since when did turning up with your kit on earn you 3 points?
From the pass across the box to Lovren early on, to the header (WTF??), to the free, to the save at the end. Yes, criticism because by electing to punch he potentially lost 3/4/5 ins of his fingers. If the ball had swerved away a bit more it may have gone in.
What I cant fathom is that this isnt new its a year since he was dropped ‘indefinitely’. Harsh? No. not one aspect of his game has improved since he arrived. Great shotstopping is wiped out by unsettling the defence and slow/poor distribution.