Unnecessarily nervy last 20, wasn’t it? Could and should have been 52-0 up, but what can you do. The Reds joint top. Sound.
Loris Karius: 10
Thought he’d be getting his second consecutive clean sheet tonight, and the fact that he didn’t isn’t a reflection on him either. Took a few crosses tonight and, one wild blam out of play aside, looked decent with his feet.
Nathaniel Clyne: 7
Standard six out of 10 with a bonus point for some defence into attack trolling, just want him to bag one to start a streak of five on the spin.
Joel Matip: 8
Quietly as important as the signing of Sadio Mane so far. Smooth, strong, calm and assured showing again from the Cameroonian.
Dejan Lovren: 7
Degsy, with his big massive head, smashing headers and playing Stephane Henchoz to Matip’s Sami Hyppia. Huge turnaround for the Croatian.
James Milner: 7
Undervalued option on the left, bit isolated for a change, but never underappreciated with the back against the wall in the last 10. Ridiculous pass to set Phil Coutinho free in the second half.
Jordan Henderson: 7
One of them, if you can’t remember slagging a centre-mid off then you know he’s done alright. Had a few mad switches with Adam Lallana which was interesting.
Emre Can: 7
Wish I could split this, because I thought he was ace for the first 60 and then crap for the last 30, so I’ve taken an average. Suprised he didn’t get hooked. Boss few cameos further forward and, had he been a yard dog, would have got on the scoresheet but was too precise with his attempted worldie that hit the yard dog Jonas Olsson’s leg.
Adam Lallana: 8
Good little showing for his centennial appearance for the Reds, showed what was missed against the equally yard-doggish Manchester United earlier in the week.
Philippe Coutinho: 9
The dummy. Just the dummy. Everything else, norrarsed.
Sadio Mane: 8
Finished off what should be goal of the season. Everything else, norrarsed.
Roberto Firmino: 9
If ever Nolan took the Batman franchise back on he needs to take Bobby on as the riddler. Marked down because he didn’t get on the sheet. Could’ve had a hat-trick.
SUBS
Gini Wijnaldum: 6 (79 for Lallana)
Great touch to put Firmino through but passed up the simplest assist of his life to send one past the post with a few minutes remaining.
Lucas Leiva: N/A (88 for Coutinho)
Closer to a medal in May.
Divock Origi: N/A (90+1 for Mane)
Was offside.
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Pissing myself here, one of the best ‘Player Ratings’ ever Andy. Let’s get Lucas that medal.
Boss ratings.
Whats going on with Lovren’s arm in that photo?
We really are giving Karius extra marks for not being Mignolet, aren’t we. I mean, fair enough, the lad is still settling into the job but let’s at least be honest about his performance, if only out of fairness to Mignolet.
Ok, being honest: His distribution and kicking are both much better than Migs, as is his starting position and willingness to venture outside his 6 yard box.
In a parallel universe we’ve drawn with Swansea,lost to the mancs and drawn with wba thanks to this new keeper and red fans are out with pitchforks calling for him to be axed but while Lady Luck is on his side heat on will keep giving him stupid scores because he’s not mignolet
Karius: 6.5
Didn’t have to do much. Macauley’s shot was saveable. Not saying I would expect him (or any keeper) to save it, but it could have been saved and it wasn’t. An alehouse player like Macauley should not have time to play head-tennis in our 6-yard-box. Karius’ contribution to us winning this game was very small.
Games where your keeper has nothing to do really, except for one moment, are going to be defined by how outstanding they are in that instance. Both Karius and Mignolet look a million miles away from being consistent match-winners, for us.
We need to keep him in the team though, because we already know for certain that Mignolet is not up to the job. He’s probably a better than average reserve keeper though.
Right now, I reckon a corner against us must be worth about 0.3 goals at least to the opposition. A corner for us is worth about 0.03 goals, if that.
If you freeze-frame on the point that the opposition makes the goal-scoring connection, for all of the set-piece goals we have conceded under Klopp, the shape of our defence and goalkeeper looks horrendous.
What’s infuriating, is that this seems to be the only way teams can score against us. They have almost zero threat from open play. If we could just sort this out, we would have the best defence in the league although I’m sure some other clubs could make the same claim.
Still, a win is a win. Our points haul, with almost a quarter of the season gone and most of our rivals played once, is very impressive.
What a pair of signings Matip and Mane are. Matip can best be summed up by his response to being asked how he felt about facing Diego Costa: ‘I don’t give a shit.’ And he doesn’t. He’s so laid back he has caused me to start a sentence with the word ‘And’, yet I’m not even arsed.
As for Mane, probably he is some kind of demon. The thought of playing against him makes me need statutory sick pay. That first goal was something out of FIFA. Lallana, Coutinho and Firmino are like a smooth hot chocolate on a bitter winter’s morning.
We are so fucking good at football.
I thought Karius flapped at the ball into the box which led to the corner tbh, if he deals with it first time we don’t concede but the cluster fuck from the corner was poor, that said I do think it was by far his best game for us yet, everything else was great but we should have scored a hell of a lot more!
10 for Karius? if he doesn’t fuck up and hold on to that ball, they don’t get that corner, and they possibly don’t score. In all fairness, he was good, but to give some body ten out of ten, he need’s to be faultless, not just good looking.
The fact you’re taking that seriously is all that needs to be said.
I’ve just learnt from Tony Pulis that we in fact spent £200m on our frontline. It appears as though we have been grossly misled regarding the true prices of our forward players.
Firmino: £50m
Mane: £75m
Coutinho: £75m
There’s no pulling the wool over Tony’s eyes is there?