VERY poor wasn’t it? From back to front. A keeper who can’t catch, a defence who can’t clear, a midfield who can’t pass and a forward line that can’t even stand onside. Baffling how clueless they were. How easily they were dragged down to their level. How resoundingly they were shoved about. Scores…
Adam Bogdan: 3
In positive figures for a decent recovery second half and a genuinely top-class save. But that first half. Wow. Can’t believe signing Bolton’s reserve goalie wasn’t a good idea.
Nathaniel Clyne: 4.5
Kind of feels like he’s the least of our worries. You can see how he works in a good team. Not many you can say that about today.
Alberto Moreno: 4
I really, really wish he could kick a football in a different way than putting his laces through it. We should tie him to a chair and make him watch left backs curl crosses in with the inside of their foot. Or play Brad Smith.
Martin Skrtel: 3
Dreadful for the second goal. Then gets himself injured because he’s more worried about bodychecking someone than heading it away.
Mamadou Sakho: 3
WHY WAS HE ON THE FLOOR SO MUCH????
This fella’s jumper: -10
Just no, mate.
Lucas Leiva: 4
Poor in midfield, but did the best he could at centre half.
Emre Can: 3
Poor on the ball. Haven’t got much to add. Can’t carry him when everything else is going wrong.
Jordan Henderson: 6
Looked rusty, and a few times his final ball isn’t good enough. But did things that a top footballer does — in terms of movement, runs and desire — which puts him miles ahead of his team-mates.
Adam Lallana: 4.5
Infuriating first half when he runs it into their defenders when Henderson is in acres wide right. But shows a good attitude at 0-2. Looked like he was trying to find a way to get back into it at least.
Roberto Firmino: 3
Rumours that Anonymous are looking to replace the Guy Fawkes mask with a picture of Roberto Firmino’s face are as yet unfounded. Looking forward to the latest reason why he can’t perform for Liverpool. The Coutinho excuse is now consigned to the bin.
Philippe Coutinho: 3
I often wonder if lads who play in the centre have ever had to learn how to take a throw in. In the same way it looks like Phil Coutinho has never had to learn the offside rule.
SUBS
Divock Origi: 5.5
Gave us more. Mis-controlled one out of play at one point. But it was only the 270th worst thing that happened. So, yeah.
Christian Benteke: 5
Their rubbish centre halves didn’t seem to like him. Worth thinking about.
Jordon Ibe: 5
Dunno really. Was pretending I was watching Heat by then
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Pics: Propaganda-Photo–David Rawcliffe
I agree with the .5 for Lallana, but the 4 is over generous.
That’s why I cancelled my subscription here on the Anfield Wrap, their nonsensical pandering and outright delusion when it comes to Lallana is beyond appalling to digest. He’s an awful player that piggybacks on other player’s endeavours and when we play badly they never attribute it to him when in fact he’s been our worst performer since he joined us. There’s not a single facet of his game that makes him a top 10 player, let alone a LFC one. Get rid!
Jeff, if a reason for cancelling a subscription is we are too nice about a Liverpool player in the context of that player getting 4.5 out of 10 then I don’t know what any of our next moves are. Yours or ours.
Yet You’re still here reading their match reviews….
You cancelled your subscription because someone had a different opinion to you? Think it was always destined to fail if that was the bar you were setting. For what it’s worth, I’ve just been on a podcast where we discussed how shit Lallana was against Watford. So, you know, almost like we haven’t all got the same opinion about things…
I didn’t think it was in our locker to be worse than we were against the Barcodes, but we were.
Klopp getting mugged weekly with tactics/formations. I know it’s going to take time, but really, what did they do in training all week, practice formations and play players suitable for playing in La Liga?
Wake up Liverpool ffs.
agreed with everything, John…
don’t know what else to say, so I won’t say much. it was just SHOCKING how bad a team could perform…any team..
I stopped counting how.many individual errors we made throughout the match. unbelievable..
actually I wanted this exact line-up…so I shall take the blame for this performance :)
Leave Klopp alone. I believe he will fix it soon enough.
we go again, ladies and gentlemen…
Haha, nice last line.
Sakho was on the floor so much because he only had one knee. His right was strapped heavily and he couldn’t turn on it. Every time someone tried to go down his right side he fell over because he can’t pivot on it. The man just isn’t fit. Firmino and Coutinho did nothing and were terrible, bullied easily out of the game by Watfords high press and physical follow through. Why does Lallana get more though? The man is a headless chicken and he doesn’t produce anything. He deserves the same as the other two.
There’s a whole list of players at this club who need binning ASAP. Hopefully FSG are willing to take the losses because there are some clearly awful players on high salaries who came in for big money. We need a whole new team spine, we always have ever since Rafa left. CBs, GK, DM, Strikers. The list is long and expensive looking…Gods help us.
We look decidedly mid-table without a fit Sturridge. Capable of beating anyone with our A game (as are most of the league) but a massive drop off in performance if we’re not on song. I was watching Ighalo’s performance and it reminded me of Benteke last year – do we think we’re too good to play to his strengths? We’re not.
Was Man City that long ago? Sturridge not to be found, but four goals were. If only we could do that on a regular basis…
Hi Walter
I think that’s the point – like most of the teams in the league we can do it in a one off game but haven’t been able to put in the performances for 6/7 games in a row for 18 months now.
Selling in at the highest table and buying at the one below hasn’t worked (who’d have thought eh!?).
I agree with this 100%, last season we kept saying balotelli can’t play our style now it’s benteke maybe it’s time we changed our style.
Dragged down to their level!!!! We’d be glad of their level. And the odd side thing is seriously pissing me off.
Brad Smith in for Moreno, please. Otherwise we’re never going to score from a cross for the rest of the season.
Lallana has been a disaster since he signed for us. If he’s in the team, we’re playing with 10 men. Worst signing in the history of the club. Weak, slow, pointless and a coward to boot. Awful player who should be sold immediately.
Jeff are you sure you havent misspelled Firmino there?
both, actually, plus 8 more. (bar Hendo)
Everyone was shite. Time to give Brad Smith a run. Albie’s not good enough. Nor is Lallana. Bad day at the office for the rest.
Reckon Jeff’s not a Lallana fan.
People always talk about Lallana’s touch, the problem is he has no vision. The amount of times he fails to see players in space needing quick ball, beggars belief.
his vision was perfectly fine for the dummy against City and the step over at Chelsea…..
Ok, he has some vision, but the amount of times he slows down our counter attacks by simply not seeing runners and not releasing is, frankly, astonishing.
Lallana outdid his usual incredible lack of conviction with a different level lack of conviction. muppet
Can has about as much tactical discipline as my son’s U7 team. I was hoping Klopp could turn Lallana into an English Mueller but that’s as probable as Joe Allen being the Welsh Xavi. What does Jordan Henderson actually bring to the team? Running? Isn’t that a prerequisite for any footballer? Should we brink Dirk Kuyt back? At least he scored now and again. Don’t even get me started on Lucas.. he’s been dead weight since Rafa’s time… he’s Liverpool’s Jon Obi Mikel. Just because we spent a lot of money on an ‘international’ player doesn’t make them world class and that is something we are greatly short of. We are also short of some MEN in the squad. I don’t care if he’s the ugliest player on the planet, I don’t care if he never gets on a Nivea commercial, I want a player(a few actually) that has guts and will give an earful to his team mates when they are being rolled over.
I think the jumpers a right laugh if you come out after winning 5-0. After that performance he must have been cursing himself.for not bringing a coat.
Problem is, I don’t really feel a sense of identity from some of these players. There are no aspects of Liverpool- the city, the character, the club, the supporters- they represent. When everything’s going fine I can pretend I’m wrong, however when the shit hits I know that, away from the stands, there’s none of that strange Liverpool magic to be summoned from a random, disperate collection of individualists temporarily passing through a another stage of their careers.
Wow, that fella’s jumper… I’m glad we lost now.
..the exceptions, the real TEAM players being Lucas, Henders, Sakho, Moreno, Lallana and (when fit) the Sturge. To me, the rest are fair-weather sulkers, essentially playing for themselves.
Worst game I’ve seen in many years. This was worse than Palace 1-6. Nothing was working, it was terrible. It’s as if the ball was something they’d never seen before. Bogdan, fucking hell. After a couple of decent games in cup tournaments, he returns to the shit expected from a reserve keeper from a lower division side. Who bought this turd? Fluffed a simple catch, flops around like a fish and well out of position for the second, and looked more like a centre-back in goal than a fucking professional keeper earning a weekly wage in excess of the national average fucking annual income. What the fucking fuckity fuck happened with him?
And another fucking game with shit up top. Klopp has something like 7 points from 18 now in the last two months. That’s relegation zone form. Beating crap in cup games doesn’t paper over the cracks.
We’re shit with Benteke pretending to be a lamp-post, we’re shit with a false 9, we’re shit in the middle of the park, and we’re shit and the back. Fucking cunting tossing bollocks!
John, I really agree with all the ratungs here by and large, but I have one question about players like Henderson. And in general it’s a question about expectations for senior players. In my opinion, Jordan was much better than most of the players, but shouldn’t he be? Shouldn’t we be able to rely on someone like Jordan to take the team by the scruff of the neck, to motivate it, to pump some hellfire into it, and change the way everybody else is playing? That’s what senior players are for. So we can’t rate players like that in the same way we rate Divok. I guess what I’m really getting at, is that expectations for senior players should be higher, that’s why we have senior players. We need people like that on the pitch to make a difference, not just to be a little bit better than the young players out there. It’s not about these ratings, I get that ratings are just fun/stupid, but what I’m trying to say is, I think we need to expect more from Jordan than just to be better than all the young players. We need to expect more from Martin then just to be better than Moreno. So when we think about their quality and capability, it has to be in terms of their own ability. Because when I hear how good Jordan was, I just don’t think that’s true. Better than the rest, maybe, but for Jordan, crap. It’s not because I don’t love Henderson, I do, I just think we can’t let our senior players off when they’re better than young players. They have to be. We need more from them
Awful performance but we have seen the majority of these players perform excellently against the likes of Man City and Chelsea away from home. Unless they were flukes I am inclined to put it down to a run of recent bad form. The problem is psychological and Klopp knows this better than anyone, and I understand all the negative comments but suggesting we get rid of the likes of Lallana and Firmino is a tad hysterical. Maybe I am looking too hard for the silver lining in this particularly dark cloud but we need to get behind the team even when they are so far off the pace it’s untrue. We must still believe that they are going to come good. Confidence breeds confidence.
TAW stop tweeting at Lineker! Very embarrassing. Wind it in.
No.
Obviously, we needed Joe Allen to shore up the midfield. He may not be Xavi – not that he ever suggested such – but he makes the midfield a lot more solid and presents infinitely more options than Emre “Zinedine Bis” Can.
The most worrying thing about that game was the so called ball players Phil , Can, Hendo ,they all thought they could win the game themselves after we conceded , so your marks for being a proper footballer are bit strange looking like the best player doesn’t mean your your having the best game, touch of the steve g syndrome . Still think the mid 3 that started game is way to go .
The worry is that there isn’t someone in Klopp’s braintrust to tell him what an away match at Watford is going to be like. I think most of us worried when we saw the starting line up with three little ones up top. I’m pretty sure Klopp will learn and I’m (kind of) optimistic he’ll fix these mistakes but would prefer if he’d kept one or two folks familiar with the league among the coaches.
Teams are never as good as they look winning and never as poor as they look losing. Watford have us no time or space on a crap pitch in the rain. Bogdan drop set him up to not get the call but Clattenburg could have protected him there. So, fair to kick the ball out of the GK hands now I guess.
Skertl got caught too high up the pitch on second goal but Bogdan was where he should have been. Ball went in off the far post. On form strikers get goals like that.
I feel sorry for you folks. Drink more, sleep it off have a Merry Christmas and let’s beat Leicester. Someone has to, may as well be the Reds.
Can ypu please start winning a few games Mr Klopp? He’s terrible to live with when you lose
Spot on from pej rohani there. Klopp is going to take a bit of time to adapt to the vagaries of English football. Had he the chance to play this game again he’d probably start with Benteke and Origi , match Watford’s 4-4-2 and save the Firminho false 9 thing for the less “robust” opponents. Watford were superb by the way.
This domestic season is going to be a big learning curve for Klopp. Perhaps he should go all out for Europa League glory.
Well if you are looking for any positives it should shut the ‘dare to dream’ drones up for good.
Mate, Claudio Ranieri’s got relegation scrappers top at Christmas with some lad they signed from the conference (I think?) breaking goal scoring records here. If you didn’t allow yourself to get even a little excited after city or Southampton with the fixtures we had coming up you’re completely joyless.
when the reds lose we all lose :(
i think some people are going a little overboard though
Firmino a million times worse than Lallana. Both dreadful today but at least Lallana puts a shift in. Another cowards performance from firmino.
The moment Watford scored 2 ahead I knew history will repeat. Agree that no pint is given for winning more possession, having more shot on goal or playing with charm. It’s only the goal that bring 3 point.
The starting line up was ridiculous. Klopp still look clueless. You can’t fight team like Stoke, Watford or other with giant defender with the like of Coutinho, lallana or the anonymous Firmino.
It’s basic, fight strength with strength. Seem he’s stubborn just like others so called world class manager.
I would halve these ratings. Firminio and Moreno were sub zero. Negative figures.
When it gets bumpy this collection of underachievers go hiding, we looked like a poor mans Arsenal, bullied throughout. we were shit with the ball and shitter without it. It was that bad I was ready to cancel Christmas until that fellas jumper turned up. I hate footy today.
Still, its worth baring in mind we have always been shite against shite teams. I remember my auld man going all cranky after losing to shite in the ’70s. Watched on huge DER telly. DER and rented tellies are in the past, but losing to shite is a tradition we are upholding.
Adam Bogdan: I think JK should have played him more in the cup and European games. A big mistake but hard to judge after one game. He should have played against Sion and Rubin Kazan. Saying that the best players take the chance given to them – and he fluffed it.
Nathaniel Clyne: A good signing that played well with Ibe in front of him. Sort of lost his way against Watford.
Alberto Moreno: He can’t or won’t defend. Send him off to Real Madrid. He is not a left back. Seems to leave gaping holes in the defence and probably makes the rest of them very nervous. Try Brad Smith in a few games. I am not surprised BR preferred Gomez to him. How we miss Flanagan and even Enrique.
Martin Skrtel: Our best defender – heroic – most of the times.
Mamadou Sakho: Was not fully fit. Played really well recently.
Lucas Leiva: Hmmm – a few good seasons against a lot of bad ones. It’s telling about LFC that our best DEF MID is so poor. Tackling and protecting he is not bad – passing is terrible.
Emre Can: Young guy with potential – not sure about his best position.
Jordan Henderson: Back from injury. Our best MID.
Adam Lallana: Oh no. Apart from one season with nine goals with Southampton – not a goal scoring MID. With what I have seen of him live – a terrible player. Can’t tackle, pass, head, score or assist to a level of his transfer fee. I would love for him to come good. Seems to prefer to dribble and lose the ball rather than playing the simple pass.
Roberto Firmino: Will know better next year. Hopefully this season is his Ozil Arsenal season one.
Philippe Coutinho: Off day. Still our best attacking mid. Sometimes he can be bullied off the ball – sometimes he fights back.
Divock Origi: Getting better and better – then JK does not pick him. JK should have played at least one striker. Watford are not Man City or Chelsea.
Christian Benteke: 19, 10 and 13 goals with Aston Villa. On his way to 15+ for us this season if not for injuries and NOT BEING PICKED. I think he stopped making runs in the last few games and the others were not crossing for him. He has already shown what he could do.
Jordon Ibe: Great young player with potential. Better decision making and shooting skills needed.
‘Martin Skrtel: Our best defender – heroic – most of the time.’
Is this some kind of sick joke?