FRESH, or is that raw, from the Tricky Reds’ first crazy loss in ages Neil Atkinson was joined by John Gibbons, Martin Fitzgerald and, making his TAW debut, Neil Scott as they discussed IT still being on for Liverpool.
Don’t waste any time (you aren’t Chelsea) and get on this now.
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Listening to the podcast now, and I think I have an answer for the ‘What would Chelsea do at 0-0 with 20 to go’ question.
Nothing.
Mourinho was always going to play for the point, to maybe get a bit of luck or a mistake and snatch a goal and all three points, but yeah, he didn’t care about this match, particularly. Anyone who is playing with a back eight and wasting time from the first whistle doesn’t care about winning.
I’ve read a lot today about Rodgers being naive. In hindsight it’s easy to say that. He probably was but if you’d have said to me before the game would you take a draw I’d have said ‘no way’. For one I thought Palace was just as difficult and we needed the points, and for two, when I saw the team sheet I thought we had to go for it. 3 points as good as won us the league. To be honest and naively (again, in hindsight) I also had my eye on finishing the season on a record breaking 14 game run of wins. The probability is though, we wouldn’t have conceded without the slip. It’s just one of them. Unfortunate. We couldn’t afford to go 1-0 down but we did through a freak of nature. If I’m brutally honest I don’t think the fans would have accepted this notion that’s flying around that we should have sat off and took a draw, with them either coming out or sitting there themselves.
As was pointed out, we needed the early goal. Sakho should have got it. As it was Chelsea countered that threat by wasting time. The ball was dead for 4 minutes of the first 10. It was disgraceful. That’s not a masterclass it’s cheating. Cheating’s fine if Suarez takes a dive and wins a pen. That’s an art haha, but time wasting in the first minute is low. I think we can still win it but if I’m honest the Palace trip feels a bit of a damp squib now. Obviously Bank Holiday means it’s still worth a day out but last week it felt like we were going for a Wembley final. It was carnival time. If we can win at Palace it’s in the balance.
Well done guys. Must have been the toughest cast you’ve had to do with so little to work with.
Jose removed our work tools so what is there to say except we lacked ideas to make a difference.
Could we have tried 2 of Sakho, Skrtel and Agger as forwards for those crosses? Everyone else servicing and run in to support.
Gives their defence something to think about, play the slower game so its less exposure risk.
Jose dictated the game and that might have pressured them.
For the big games we need all our players fit and with no Hendo or Sturridge it was always going to be difficult to break Chelsea down. Chances were going to be few and we needed to take them or have a bit of luck. We did neither and we came up short. However, even if we do not end up as champions we are the team of the year. The team everyone will have to beat next year because we are young and there is a lot of room for improvement, we are not yet the finished article but we are Liverpool and we are boss at football and at scoring goals in particular.
We went to Spurs for a fourth place shoot out, a game which could go either way, we did not buy in January and now we are in the champions league and still in with a shout on the last day.
That’s a lot of progress in a very short space of time.
We go again
Really great show guys again.