“DO you fancy doing the numbers tonight, E?”
“Yeah, sound, go ‘ed, it’ll be a laugh.”
“Ok, all you’ve got to do is fill it with the wit and pith that Gibbo does and be prepared for the internet to hate you.”
“Yeah, cool, can handle that.”
“A sentence per player and a number.”
That’s 13 sentences then. Jesus, my introductions are longer than that. Still, it’ll be great because we’re unchanged and Dan’s playing so we’re going to score six and we can all have the night off next Thursday.
Yeah, right. On a scale of five means you’ve not pissed me off, 10 means I’ll worship you forever and one makes you Paul fucking Stewart then:
Simon Mignolet: 6
Well, he’s catching well and he makes that good save after Toure gets done for pace but then he nearly drops a major bollock from the cross. He recovers though. And doesn’t scare me once all night. Not really.
Nathaniel Clyne: 6
They’re doing their damnedest to expose the right-back position — obviously noticed we quite like pushing up from there. Gets back though, covers well, recovers well, moves forward nicely, threatens as much as anyone (not a great deal).
Kolo Toure: 5
I love Kolo. He’s a beautiful human being. Starts off nice and solid but gets really exposed for pace later on. Then does solid again and then does exposed.
Mamadou Sakho: 6
Does the ‘anti-Kolo’. Starts off looking dead shaky and has those, ‘Mamadou’s going to do something mad in a minute’ moments. Settles down after a damn fine headed clearance from a corner. Sure he was more confident with himself than I was.
Alberto Moreno: 7
That’s not a yellow. No way. Not having that. Just leans on him a bit, the lad falls over. Defensively diligent and still the fastest man in red whose name isn’t Brad Smith. Does some great recovery, flies into one of those ‘mad Albie Moreno, I’ll come from behind for this tackle and it’ll be sound’ challenges that he does but then does that mad header back to Migs. Cracking shot on 70.
Jordan Henderson: 6
We give them a pennant, they give us a puppet. A puppet. With strings and everything. Might have been a cat. The puppet perturbed Jordan, you could see it in his eyes during the handshake. Might have thrown him off for a bit there. Was the late recipient of one of these new weird corners we’re doing where we hit the deepest man and he doesn’t score. Like watching me play FIFA. Might go random soon, might invent numbers. Need to entertain myself here because that 90 minutes was cack.
Emre Can: 5
Shouted at the ref. Ran around a bit, didn’t really seem to ‘do’ anything. Twitter seemed to be hating him. I didn’t hate him, just kind of ‘meh’ as you young people say.
James Milner: 6
Did that James Milner thing again where he was everywhere and doing everything but none of it really seemed to matter. Put some nice crosses in and there’s this lovely switched pass through the box for Hendo’s DEFINITELY not offside shot. Gets fallen on. Gets a 6 for not being Albie Moreno.
Philippe Coutinho: 6
Starts off all inventive and sharp, ends up shooting from distance again because he’s decided these other lads aren’t doing what he wants. One of the two men on the pitch most likely to make something happen. But nothing happens so…..go on, guess the number. It’s somewhere between 5 and 7. Look, it’s not my fault, I’d love to be giving out eights and nines but the lads didn’t do eights or nine type things. If they did they’d be watching Britain’s Next Top Model next Thursday instead of doing all this again.
Roberto Firmino: 6
The other lad most likely to. Who also doesn’t. There’s a good break in the first half but he stumbles and then hits a weak, weak shot. There’s a gorgeous touch to Milner in the box in the second half and there’s some nice movement but there’s also some ‘where’s Bobby gone?’ moments in that half, too.
Daniel Sturridge: 5
He was great against Villa, wasn’t he? Yeah, not so much here. Second game back, what did you want? Miracles? Man-of-the-match performances? He’s on his toes, he’s getting in positions and then he’s snatching at things and REALLY upsetting Jürgen with long-distance efforts when there’s better placed lads.
SUBS
Divock Origi: 6
Comes closer to scoring than anyone else. Which isn’t saying much. Has the presence of mind to come for the ball from Ibe which isn’t really going where he thought it was.
Jordon Ibe: 6
Gives a bit of zip. Hard to quantify ‘a bit of zip’ numerically. So another sodding 6.
Nice to have you at the helm Ian. That was all hard work – eh, the game I mean, it’s a famine or feast these days. Maybe you’ll get a cracker to report on, or it’s a two leg – you can do next Thursday? Or have you got plans for the model show? Good effort mate!
Moreno a 7! Can was a 4 or a 3 never made a turn after receiving from the defence always played the ball backwards ir sideways. Slowed our tempo down
I cared about Augsburg v Liverpool about as much as Dan Sturridge seemingly did. As in not a lot and rightfully so.
The more pressing concern for me is that some outfit called Mignoletland can now be added to the ever increasing list marked ‘crap nobodies that can beat Van Gaal’s United when Liverpool can’t to save their lives’. Our league season has been ended at their hands at Anfield for the second season running and they’re deplorable garbage. Not really getting my head round it. Probably why I didn’t care that much for the 4-5 and 0-6 away at rubbish.
Henderson shouldn’t ever have had the pressure of captaincy foisted upon him by Rodgers. It was obviously a powe play by BR but now we are stuck with it. He needs that load lifted so he can concentrate on getting his career back to where it was.
Who would you pass the captaincy to?
Sturridge would be my candidate for next season. One (when fully fit) world class player we have who can cause a bit of fear/concern in our opponents?
Power play. Haha wtf.
Toure, Ibe and Firminio 6 and Moreno 7!!!!
Not sure I was watching the same match – I would put Ibe back to the U21 or on loan for the rest if the season. I would play Flanno in a heartbeat over Mporeno and Toure saved our bacon more than a few times especially in the first Half. Firminio looked clueless personally I think he switched his game brain with a bag of popcorn!!! Just my opinion YNWA
That was dire,
Sakho gave away 2 howlers in the first 5 minutes that showed what a liability he is.
Can was garbage. Firminos powder puff shot in the first half laughable.
Coutinho still looks like a lad who wonders why he’s surrounded by shite.
No wonder Klopp was grinding his teeth on the bench.
Can: one of those ‘left the brain in the locker’ performance that we come to be familiar with. He and Moreno seem to be taking turn.
Hendo: will he ever get back to the 2013/14 level again? Is this the fitness issue or just ‘class’ had deserted him for good? I expect some magic AND/OR leadership from our captain. But at the moment he offers none other than reemphasizing a loud and clear message that “just look at me, we are an average team”.
Ibe: maybe just need a reminder the length of the pitch? or that the goal posts are on the goal line, not 10 metres further back from the goal line?
False-1: He must have been told to be more aggressive recently, but without proper explanation; Instead of being ‘agressive’ in his play he starts to be ‘agressive’ to shout at his own team mates, but no one else seem to arse about what he was shouting;
Moreno is great going forward, but he’s a total liability as a defender and was again last night. So convert him to a winger and get someone else to play LB.
Moreno a 7? I know it’s a matter of opinion but this is a wind up……isn’t it?
The number of times he allows crosses into the box unchallenged…..not good enough. He’s a full back that can’t defend. I could go on but I won’t.
Clyne look like he’s one of The Pasadenas. I half expected him to do the splits, when he scored the other night.
Maybe he’ll spend some of his considerable wealth on starting up the 40p a pint Tuesday nighter at Scotts, under the Adelphi, again?
Am I the only one who doesn’t understand why Coutinho gets killed for having a shot nowadays. Fair enough earlier the season when he was having about ten a game, but when he has 1 shot from distance don’t really understand it. Especially since him blamming them in from everywhere last year was the only thing that made that season bearable.
Don’t get the bullets getting fired at Moreno after last nights performance, thought himself & Kolo had solid games,
Hendo is a shadow of himself carrying that injury and Studge had one of those games that players have coming back from injury where the initial adrenaline wears off,
Still not sure what to make of Can but because he is built like a tank and looks older than his age I tend to judge him differently to others in his age bracket,
Fu*k the Hammers anyway, would love to be looking forward to Blackburn in the cup with the other team this weekend.
That’s two hours I’ll never get back. Really poor. Could’ve been worse, I suppose – but lacklustre in general.
Can was absolutely AWFUL. Anyone can have a game when passing is off, things don’t come off etc – but there he was, jogging around, couldn’t be ar$ed, allowed a cross to come in from the left which he barely bothered trying to prevent, (first half), then second half gives up with another track back, allowing the right back to cross which nearly led to a goal a few minutes from time.
Lack of effort and work-rate is absolutely not acceptable, whether he’s 21 or 31. Can should be canned to teach him a lesson.
Still, Studge isn’t injured…!
The club should reimburse everyone who traveled to see that tripe