A WIN always helps. And Liverpool didn’t get one.
A win always helps because it helps you shrug off what doesn’t go well; what you disagree with, who didn’t have their best game, what wasn’t right.
It’s another edgy team selection from the manager for a big televised game where a win looked on the cards only for it to be snatched away due to bad luck/officiating. A win would have helped, would have vindicated him, would have been a boost for his team who were vastly superior to their opponents.
A win would also have helped vindicate his decision around the substitutes. Every single one of them looked wrong from the outside. Being fair, subs are a mug’s game on the whole but the frustration wasn’t in who came on, but in who went off. Both Mo Salah and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain should have been retained and Dom Solanke lasted far too long.
In real terms, the Liverpool manager will probably be vindicated by the results in the next two or three insofar as he needs vindication. He doesn’t. He’s doing his job about as well as any of his peers are so far this season with the exception of the chap at the Etihad whose side are playing as I type this.
He’s got Liverpool out of their group top and got them playing excellent football on the whole. He’s getting The Reds through their potentially stickiest period of the season and showing how much he has taken from last season and what went wrong. If anything, he may possibly have taken too much from it but that is a conversation for another day which is probably in February.
His team were a bit off the boil. Sadio Mane simply didn’t play very well on the whole, James Milner was anonymous in the centre of midfield, Ragnar Klavan will have, and has had, better days at the back. A win would have helped, a 1-0 when dominant but slightly lacking cutting edge would have been no bad thing. It would have papered over the fact that, of the two key decisions in the match, the one which was under Liverpool’s control Mane got all wrong.
He’s a footballer with so much goodwill in the bank it will scarcely take 10 minutes against West Brom for it to be forgotten. It should be forgotten, like the manager he doesn’t need to be vindicated or forgiven. It was the nadir of a poor performance, but all players, literally all of them, play poorly at times.
In the second half Liverpool were too casual, too happy to throw balls in and too happy to retain when they could have been looking to expose. This goes right the way across the side, only really Oxlade-Chamberlain had a sense of urgency. Too much was too tame.
Liverpool didn’t think they could get hurt. In what was the second key decision of the game the referee made the point that you can always get hurt. It’s about as innocuous a penalty as you can imagine; it isn’t a penalty and no one in the ground thought it was at the time. I’m with the manager, the captain, the vice captain and the fella who had the penalty given against him. I’m with them because they are right and I am also with them because they are scrapping for Liverpool. They should all do that and things like it more and start making certain officials persona non grata at Anfield.
Indeed a win would have helped for the referee. It would at least have expunged that decision and meant he wouldn’t be called out by the Liverpool manager after the game. Again, well done. Keep doing it if it is what is required.
In truth Liverpool had hard lines. Could they have done lots of things better? Yes, of course. But hard lines happens to everyone at some stage in a season. Liverpool are allowed to win a game like that 1-0. Yet at the minute it seems that isn’t the case.
“A win always helps,” is a phrase my uncle uses. He went to his first game 50 years ago yesterday and he will have been there today. He’s seen enough to know how a season works, how you bounce back from disappointment, how you pull this thing of ours together.
Like much around football, It’s a truism because it is true. A win always helps. But a win isn’t a prerequisite. Nor should it ever be a complete and total precondition. We can still go out and enjoy one another, enjoy the day, enjoy the night. A win always helps but absence of one needn’t hinder. Not hinder Liverpool, not hinder Mane, Klopp, nor you and me.
We’ll always have Anfield as the snow falls. And we have the quest for the season. Liverpool faulter in the winter freeze but we remain on the march. Nobody said it would be easy. A win always helps but you don’t win, let alone win 7-0, every week.
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The best, fairest and wisest set of words anyone will read anywhere on this game.
Well said. Level headed when it’s so hard to do. Jürgen was the same way despite being antagonized in post game interview by some gobshite trying desperately to provoke an outburst.
We go again. Good times.
A second goal would have been there but for the dreadful actions of Mane. He was coming one on one at a tight angle to the goalkeeper. There were THREE (!) red shirts standing less than 6 yards all across the goal and free to tap in. What does Mane do? He tries a ridiculous angle shot up into the crowd…….. absolutely disgraceful. Klopp should cut his b…s off. Cost us the game.
To paraphrase Neil…. a goal would have helped.
Mane slips that in the net from 8 yards and no one mentions it.
The better option is only an option because he missed
He also missed other chances. So the better options were still there not because he missed his chances.
How many chances do you have to miss before you consider it to be a better option?
Did Mane have options? Yes
Is there a problem with Mane backing himself? No
I couldn’t believe Mane took that shot, literally. My eyes didn’t track where the ball went because they were so certain that it was going to be squared to 1 of 3 teammates to tap it in and put the game to bed. Even if we had held on to win 1-0 I would have ben annoyed at him because it would have capped off the perfect half of complete domination.
But as Neil said, he has the goodwill in the bank, and hopefully he shows the required contrition to his teammates and learns his lesson for next time. Seemed as though he wanted to steal back some of the limelight that Salah has been claiming, which is kind of understandable on one level but completely unacceptable on the other.
If Everton are happy with that then fair play to them I suppose. State of that performance. What a terrified bunch of lads they looked.
I was raging with Pawson but this one’s on us. The Mane miss was a terrible moment and he’ll know it. Salah reaching outrageous levels just now.
The sight of Allardyce on the bench, Shakespeare in the stands and Rooney on the pitch is not one I wish to see again any time soon.
Would it have made any difference if VAR was introduced with this match?
Not really Walter.
From the replay Lovren did make contact.
Whether the Ref considers it to be an Oscar winning dive would still be up for debate then.
If they looked at other angles possibly – replays show Calvert-Lewin jumps into Lovren exactly as Klopp said he did, and what I imagine our players were explaining to the ref. Lovren makes contact because he’s literally being jumped into. Harsh on Lovren; ref been conned there from what I’ve seen in the replays.
Lovren is the more experienced player and I expected him to use his better judgement here.
I would understand if he was up against Suarez a master at these dark arts but why incite trouble when the kid was clearly not yet a threat on goal?
Just seemed the right opportunity for the swan dive whether he jumped in front of him or not. It’s been done before many times by other forwards…D Costa is notorious for this.
What does it matter anyways?
We had 17 minutes to respond to this mistake against a crap side.
We dropped two valuable points. Luckily and hopefully for us, so did Chelsea, Arsenal and United.
I don’t think he incited trouble though – that’s my point. He was doing what any defender would do in that situation, or did you want him to give Calvert-Lewin the freedom to run in on goal? The player was looking for a penalty and if he didn’t get it the way he did he’d have tripped himself up somehow to get it. Saying that Lovren incited trouble just feeds the narrative that our defence always makes mistakes, and this narrative then gives referees the confidence to award a pen against Lovren the next time a player jumps into him. (And no, I don’t think Lovren is good enough for the first eleven, in case this conversation turns into that).
I get your point that we had 17 minutes to score – I agree we should have won regardless of the pen – but other teams get to go one goal up, make questionable subs, have players miss chances, and still walk away with a 1-0 win because the ref does his job. Of course it matters. It’s not the first time we’ve had a bad pen decision given against us this season and I have to wonder how much of the “there’s always a chance an LFC defender will do something stupid” narrative is playing into it (this quote courtesy of Carragher, who doesn’t miss a chance to slate our manager or our players for the RTs).
All this doesn’t mean it’s not annoying and frustrating that we’re not sitting in third place right now.
I don’t agree with you on Lovren.
Watch the match/highlights again here from 6:27 – 6:30 and the first replay at 6:50 to see that Lovren has him further away from the goal than what you seem to state. Plus at 6:50 you see there was no need for Lovren to touch him either, but he did.
http://www.totalsportek.com/highlights/liverpool-vs-everton-match/#comments
Whatever the mistake I think we lost the chance to win the match when Mane did not square the ball as we had the foot on Everton’s throat.
I’ve watched it many times and from multiple angles Sash, and I still don’t think it was a penalty. Not in any other game this season is that a penalty. I think the ref made a mistake there.
Loved the paragraph about the penalty, Neil. Loved all of it, really.
Probably one of Evertons worst preferences and they still come away with a point, tells you something about Liverpool, they’ll go nowhere this year.
Never a penalty, it’s a yellow for a flop. One day this game will come out of the dark ages and be willing to have a second look at those kind of decisions.
I still cannot believe how bad Everton are. The only thing their fans had to cheer was Rooney pushing Milner into the advertising boards, and then a dive that gets rewarded.
I swear they passed to touch more than blue shirts.
Pawson would not have given it had it been at the other end. But he gave it and we only had ourselves to blame for not killing them off sooner. The fact is we missed at least 3 or 4 excellent chances and I’d rather Klopp had said that than moaning about the decision. It gave Fat Sam the chance to take the piss which he duly did.
Fact is we’re in a battle for fourth and the results this weekend mean we’ve lost no ground. We put this behind us, move forward and win Wednesday.
Why do you think he wouldn’t have given it?
I’m only looking at positives now and one is Jo Gomez! What a player he is starting to become! Pace, positioning and poise, class!
Agree. I swear he took his game to a new level today. Him and VVD will make a great partnership next season.
Joe made great strides today, and especially quick ones when needed. I’m ready for a Gomez-Klaven pairing.
Spot on about Gomez. What a player he’s developing into. Ox played well too.
Agree but wait ’til he makes a mistake and then we’ll all bury him!
Joe Gomez was brilliant today. Not one player got beyond him at any point. Top player we’ve got here.
Everton were rubbish and after everyone and TAW made fun of them we still couldn’t beat them and threw the game against a poor side, dropping two valuable points in the mix.
We had 17 minutes to respond after their goal. Instead we have excuses and moaning about the penalty.
It had to be Lovren, though he had a good game. And so did Klavan and Gomez. Anyone could’ve made the mistake that led to the penalty.
I’m convinced now Henderson is not much more than a squad player. Gerrard used to put those away in his sleep and we saw him visible in every derby match. If He ever gets to play a different position in the near future maybe I will stand corrected.
Mane was selfish unlike Bobby who showed teamwork in the last game when he squares to allow his teammates to score. Hopefully Mane will realize this by the next game or Klopp will let him know.
Loved to see Solanke on but there’s a time to say he might be better off the field and give someone else a chance or enough time to come and turn the game around.
So not sure about the subs, but let’s move on.
I also learned that when we trash Barca or City 7-0, we can talk up and rubbish the other teams.
Until then we still need to beat the mighty teams led by the San Allardyces of this world without excuses.
Hope the players will take out frustration against Pardew team on Wednesday and win by a big margin again.
Hendo: I’d still like to see him used in Gini/Millie role, slightly more advanced and not #6, since he played such a crucial role in 13/24 in diamond midfield ahead of StevieG.
Ha ha yeah beating Pardew’s team would indeed be amusing Josh. Hope we regroup.
And Jan window or Keita/VVD can’t come sooner for Hendo. It’s past the point of ludicrous to try and force this position on him or him trying to force it on himself.
Nonsense. With the right selection instead of that arrogant shite, we’re out of sight at 60 minutes. Manager fucked it right up. His Rodgers moment.
Poor from Klopp, from team selection to subs.
We’ll fuck ’em silly in the cup…
I hate to say it but Liverpool looked sad out there. I can now see what the pundits said about Liverpool lacking “ruthlessness” and “killer instinct.” Liverpool should have killed Everton despite Allardyce. But then again this is the squad we have.
No leader in Henderson. Still a grunt and a bad one at that. Seeing him flip out at the ref isn’t helping his cause as Captain. Captain is supposed to negotiate.
As for the penalty, it unfortunately validated my concern going into the game “So when is the defense going to fuck us?” The award goes to Lovren. I love Liverpool but I saw that was a blatant penalty from space. How does he and the rest of the clowns at the back still have their jobs?
It’s a miracle Liverpool is in fourth. I remember the Benitez’s 4th place teams and they would have eaten this squad for breakfast. Damn FSG and their amnesia as to where their wallet is.
Its not bad luck, its Lovren… again, he may being carrying some bad luck, bad energies, brujo’s as Shaman in South America refer to it, his shadow side takes over, its happened to a friend who is now on remand, he’s a talented drummer, who missed his bands first gig. One day, Sports and the World will catch up and use Energy/ Shamanic Healing. Leicester were blessed by Buddhist Monks on several occasions and look what happened. Saido just backed himself to score unlike the Captain.
WTF are you talking about?
Lovren needs healing as we all do, my friend who I referred to is called Sasha, see how these things work,
I didn’t like Mane’s reaction to his miss. A smile. Signs were there against Spartak, he was wasteful then as well. One attack and the opposition score, how many times has this happened over the last few seasons. Lovren shouldn’t be giving the ref an opportunity to make a decision. He’s cost us too many points. He’s not got the required temperament. He over defends at times, too aggressive.
I see these starting 11’s and think he’s setting up for a Coutinho/Firmino double substitution on 65/70 once legs have tired – and then he doesn’t……
I understand the 11 taking the weather conditions on the day into account and the fact that Fat Sam would be doing a Joe Royle, so it made sense to me to play the majority of British players from the off…..