YOU work on a gameplan all week. You prepare as best you can. You know what Burnley are and that you might have to be patient. Then you completely fuck it up within two minutes.
Toxic Thunder? Toxic shite more like.
Anyway, here are your ratings for Burnley v Liverpool:
Simon Mignolet: 5
Poor for the first goal. Seemed to be caught by surprise that an opposition forward might have a shot and ended up diving under the ball.
Could do little about the second but we’re in another situation where every shot on target seems to result in a goal.
Nathaniel Clyne: 4
Gave the ball away in the second minute resulting in a goal. Appreciate that, in the way Jürgen Klopp wants to set up, sometimes mistakes will happen, but we were on the back foot before we could make any kind of impression on the game.
Poor end product on the rare occasion Liverpool got forward. Disappointing after last week’s encouraging start.
Dejan Lovren: 5
Good tackle on Andre Gray early on when the forward looked to have the beating of him, only to then stand off and let him roll the ball around him for the second.
Must be mad knowing that you’re basically going to have to restrict your opponents to zero shots on goal to keep a clean sheet.
Ragnar Klavan: 4
The Estonian’s first poor game in a Liverpool shirt. First of about five players who should have cleaned Steven Defour out as he broke away for Burnley’s second goal.
James Milner: 5
Exactly what Alberto Moreno isn’t and offers none of what Moreno does.
Steady enough but absolutely no pace to break through the lines, and without Sadio Mane we needed more of an outlet.
Set pieces were mediocre too. Felt like we had a hundred odd corners and wasted every one of them.
Jordan Henderson: 4
Poor. Looked like the player that was carrying an injury for so much of last season. Not the only player on the pitch who doesn’t look entirely comfortable with his position.
Has the ability to break through the lines so feel’s a little wasted playing so deep.
Georginio Wijnaldum: 5
Anonymous. Neat and tidy, and kept everything ticking over, but did very little to influence the game. Pushed up a little higher second half but to no great effect.
Adam Lallana: 5
Feel sorry for the lads upfront, can’t always be chasing from a losing position, especially against teams that will sit so deep. As with Philippe Coutinho, felt like he always had 10 men in front of him to play through.
Roberto Firmino: 4
Played upfront and never got in the game. Didn’t hold the ball up well at all and, unlike last week, was sloppy on the odd occasion he did have possession.
Philippe Coutinho: 5
Had one of those games where you knew his next touch was going to be a shot. Can become predictable and isn’t at his best when he’s trying to win the game on his own. But as mentioned, had plenty of traffic to play through.
Daniel Sturridge: 5
Didn’t play well at all. Nothing worked. But in mitigation, he’s not a wide forward or an attacking midfielder.
Don’t understand why our best striker, who is at his most dangerous in the opposition penalty area, is playing out wide, or thirty yards deeper than he should be.
Feels harsh criticising the player for doing things that he’s not particularly suited to, but wasn’t a good day.
Got frustrated at Chelsea for getting played out of position, only to be shoved today to accommodate Firmino, who CAN play in a deeper role.
Needs to be relaxed and play on instinct to be effective, and as a result looked massively out of sorts today.
Subs
Divock Origi: 5
On for Sturridge, but yer’know, actually up front, with Firmino moving out wide to accommodate the young Belgian. Had little time, space or opportunity to impact on the game. Hard to judge.
Marko Grujic: 6
Had a shot on target.
Alberto Moreno: 5
Brought on to stretch the play with 15 minutes left, but had no room in behind to do anything with.
Noticed in his absence that he isn’t actually the worst player in the world and brings things to the team that others don’t at full back.
Burnley 2 Liverpool 0: The Pink
Burnley 2 Liverpool 0: The Match Review
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Just a shite performance.
We’re still winning the league though!
Pointless.
3/4 of these ‘ratings’ are the same…5
#filler
Which ones Jimbob?
Thought you’d have been busy watching your lads against West Brom anyway?
Sturridge and Firmino swapped roles at half-time.
The 3 in ‘midfield’ (sometimes appears to be 1 and, at other times 6-7) all look uncomfortable with the their roles.
Lovren – Henderson – Klavan axis is absolutely awful both – offensively and defensively – and it’s (a little) worrying that we’ve seen it twice in the opening weeks.
Sturridge and Firmino both play centrally – that’s it! Play 2 up front or drop one (or both) of them.
Hopefully the Milner left back experiment/abomination is over and we sign a left back.
Actually, please sign a left back, a right sided centre half and a defensive midfielder or be prepared to see this kind of match at least 3-4 more times this season.
Let Markovic go, if he didn’t make the squad today he never will – there must be reason, but I don’t see it.
Can Karius play with one hand??
I absolutely love Klop, but today was on him. A bit like with Rodgers, we do not seem to be interested in buying players in key positions – to most people worth listening to, it seems blindingly obvious that we’re short on quality at RCB, full back and CM (particularly at DM – which seems like it has been the case since Mascherano left).
Remaining optimistic :)
Lack of leaders and grit. Ability yes, graft, strength no.
Have to agree that no leadership qualities in any of the team here, no real fight or desire to really battle in what might be called the unsexy games. Trouble is, it is these games that decide titles.
Lots of nice footballers who look great when in flow, and will hit teams out of the park on a good day, but seem to go missing too often to ever challenge for honours. This is more of a worry after the Utd performance where Ibrahimovic looked like Cantona mark two. What do we do? Start with a bid for Joe Hart. At least he would add some vocal leadership at the back, and a bit more passion. A show of strength to sign a very good goalkeeper who has the arrogance needed to win the league….other than that I would ask Souness if he fancys a game against Spurs next week as this midfield will crumble against Ali, Dier, etc.
Winning the league! No chance with this shower of shit !!
Burnley dragged Liverpool down to their level and killed them. Klopp says he wants to do that to the big teams…but what is our plan when our level is higher than the opposition, and they just decide to sit in and wait for our mistakes and catch us on the break?
Unerringly similar to away at Watford, west ham, Newcastle, etc last season. Not learning our lessons.
And now you’re gonna believe us we’re gonna finish 6th! Same old shit, different season/manager. Can’t wait for this season to be over.
Plays players out of position, no left back, sells Allen, 80% play and no threat. Sorry but this is Klopp’s team and I can see no progress.
Why can’t Lovren throw himself in front of the ball when the other team shoots? Bring back Kolo.
Is it all still Lucas’s fault?
Could have done with his tactical fouls and tackling today!!
I’d have given Coutinho 5 for at least trying to create something even if had a poor game,none of the rest merited more than 4.Two of the weakest centre backs I’ve ever seen,midfield is an embarassment,good to see Mignolet keeping up his good shot stopper reputation.
Pretty spot on Andy. Universally poor today. I though Hendo’s performance was particularly worrying. I think this is a massive start to the season for him or he’ll find himself fighting for a place in the midfield. Can and even Grujic are going to make it difficult for him if he slips up.
I’d be bothered about Studge playing out of position, but since he’ll be injured for the season in 5 minutes I can be bothered. Firmino was dead on shit today. Henderson was relatively worthless, and was a wasted number. Bad, bad performance, we are capable of better, but as I said elsewhere, we never seem to have a plan for these games. Mignolet…. what more can we do to get this joker off the pitch, sign a keeper with steel hands?
Milner somehow may Moreno look necessary, hard task.
Unfortunately we’ve fallen at the first hurdle. I know it’s early but games like this simply have to be won. The manc teams have got the league sealed this year just hope we can put together a run if consistent performances or its gonna be shit again.
We need to figure out ways of breaking teams down who put 10 behind the ball, as it’s going to happen a lot. We were too slow and too predictable. It’s a disgrace we haven’t signed a reliable attacking left back.
Let’s call a spade a spade – Klopp needs to start getting his tactics right away to these shit teams. He got it badly wrong last season away to Watford, Swansea and Newcastle.
Buy a defensive midfielder and a left back, Jurgen. We all think you’re the right man for the club. But don’t become an Arsene Wenger – don’t become a stubborn idiot who refuses to accept where we have obvious deficiencies.
Bad day at the office – dominated pocession – we’ll learn from this – let’s not get on the radio phone ins just yet. Pissed off – yes, but early doors.
Bad day, terrible result. Same problems against a parked bus. Stupid mistakes. Mad angry.
BUT … impatience and lack of guile aside, the boys worked their socks off against a team playing anti-football (their perogative, of course). Hendo, for example, did everything he could to find a way forward. Tackling, intercepting, probing, cajoling, pinging passes around. Yes, he ran out of ideas in the final quarter (as they all did), but what else was he supposed to do? I don’t understand the flack he gets in general or today specifically. (I didn’t intend this to be a Hendo apologetic, but there you go.)
Some odd selections granted (Studge starting on the right, substitutions made late, etc.), but it’s early days, Klopp’s obviously trying something. I couldn’t see it today, but let’s give it 10-15 games before we lose our heads.
Kudos Andy. Can’t be easy doing ratings after such a day.
If Coutinho has a wall of players infront of him then why isnt he/we exploiting the space where it’s being left, namely the channel running between the touch line and 5 yards inside the box, to the biline. There’s nothing as potent as reaching the goal line and pulling the ball back to disect the opposition and expose their underbelly, it creates instant panic amongst defenders Arsenal are about the best at playing that game and yet it’s not rocket science. However you do require intelligence to carry it off, so that puts Moreno out of that particular equation as the simplest of instructions must appear rocket science to that kid. Cheap I know, but ever so true.
In these sort of games where there’s 11 men behind the ball, not until we begin to play the biline game will our forwards be afforded enough space inside the box
Never been convinced by Henderson’s tackling & playing deeper exposes this even more. Runs alongside, jockeys, but rarely wins a tackle. At least Lucas or Can playing there may give some fouls away but it’s breaking up the play & affecting the opposition’s rhythm
Dissapointing day and result. In games like this all the players look to have the same skill sets, they pass and move but do not penetrate. However, there are other ways to score goals and this was my greatest concern. Nobody tried to draw a foul on the edge of the area or just outside within Coutinho’s range. You can park the bus all day long but if you give away free kicks and it is put in the top bins there is nothing you can do. Nobody tried to drive forward into the box in order to be taken down and awarded a pen. Nobody flicked the ball towards somebody hand. This was a game for the dark arts and set plays and nobody realised. There were no goal mouth scrambles, deflections or physical pressure exerted on defenders to get under their skin.
Dalglish would have stood on the edge of the area with has fat arse stuck out and asked for the ball to feet so that he could turn the defender and be chopped down from behind for either a free kick or penalty. Suarez would had gone directly between two defenders to try and draw the penalty, or flicked it at their hands. It was all too easy for Burnley to defend, not enough questions were asked. There was a real lack of game intelligence.
Markovic: Mané is out and the only player that is able to run at players is not on the bench. He may not be the player Liverpool bought but today was the sort of day he should have played, even if he was crap, then at least we know he is crap, however, if his only ability is to run at defences and draw fouls when teams park the bus then this is not such a bad option to have.
‘This was a game for the dark arts and set plays and nobody realised. There were no goal mouth scrambles, deflections or physical pressure exerted on defenders to get under their skin.’
Spot on. We need to realise earlier what sort of day it is going to be. We all know as fans how games are going to pan out. Yesterday was one of those were possession was going to mean nothing.
I don’t like us as a possession side. Obviously there will be times like Coutinho’s second against Arsenal but you always got the feeling something was coming with that one. I prefer us direct, purposeful and moving the ball from back to front as quickly as possible, not letting the opponents get set in their defensive shape.
Andy- I don’t think it’s fair to point to Clyne’s possession loss as the pivotal moment. It was Klaven’s poor play and then a stupid unnecessary cross field pass to Clyne unexpectedly having to deal with that ball- he’s under pressure then loses out for their great goal.
Klaven again is the initial cause for the 2nd. He’s okay but has to have more respect for what a PL newcomer would perceive as ‘lesser teams’ and not be pissing around. He’ll learn from Klopp that every PL team has teeth.
Otherwise- I have to say that was a great team performance, by Burnley. Played to their strengths and did it so well. They’ll take a few more ‘contender’ scalps before year end if Sean Dyches keeps them at that level.
Spurs? Can or Lucas as DM. Hendo to roam. Wid out. Firm out. Mane back to deliver and work with DS. … and dare I say it- Moreno could be back if JK feels he’s learned his lesson(s)!?! JM is less effective coming all the way up from LB. Effective sub though.
Massive blind spot in c mid not just can or Lucas but can and Lucas needed as for miller at left back joke no origi up front mad let’s hope penny drops soon
25 years of this. It would be easier if we were cack all the time.
It’s true mate. But it’d be much easier if we were great all the time.
Never give a sucker an even break. Somebody famous once said that. Liverpool do it all the time. There’s nothing wrong with aiming for a nil nil away from home.
Could be Rafa at Burnley in the FA Cup all those years back.
Play people in their right positions at least, do that for us.
Klopp seems to think we can just attack teams to submission away in the PL.
Rafa eventually learned his lesson: JK needs to swallow it now before another season drifts by.