WE played like we meant it during the second half against Stoke City on Saturday. There was a bit of intensity, some spirit, a touch of defiance and even a degree of passion on show. Most of it was directed towards the task of putting the ball past Asmir Begovic, while simultaneously stopping the ball going past Simon Mignolet. Some of it however was directed at fellow team-mates.
I almost fell asleep during the first half. One of those when your head nods violently forward, only for you to catch yourself just before chin hits collarbone. It was that bad and, when combined with some pretty erratic sleeping patterns of late, then it was perhaps understandable. All the same I had to do one of those quick glances to my left and then right to see if anyone had noticed. So let’s draw a line under the first half and forget it happened.
Only time will tell if this season turns on the sixpence that was the second half of this game against Stoke. Apart from Tottenham Hotspur away, which was a full three months ago, the second 45 (52) minutes of this game was marked by the most promising football of the campaign so far. It was also laced with a fair bit of attitude.
It was nice to see Glen Johnson risk his face in the name of obtaining three points. It was intriguing to see Philippe Coutinho getting openly frustrated with Rickie Lambert, when the through balls the Brazilian international laid on to a man who was leading the line for Bristol Rovers just a few short years ago, came to nothing. It was great to then see Lambert’s perseverance pay off in a match-winning manner. It was brilliant that it all seemed to mean so much to them.
The relationship between Mignolet and Martin Skrtel appears to plummet further with each passing game, however. From my seat in the Paddock it was one of the most entertaining aspects of the second half when Skrtel reacted like a man cut up at a roundabout by someone in a 4×4 every time Mignolet ignored him for the usual short ball. It got to the point where Mignolet refused to play him the short ball at all and Skrtel would spin round to remonstrate to Brendan Rodgers on the touchline. Mignolet not coming at all for the through ball that Bojan sent Diouf bursting into the penalty area with almost made Skrtel spontaneously combust. Mignolet’s after match praise of Kolo Toure alone spoke volumes of the festering ill-feeling.
Animosity can provoke excellence sometimes. Again there were some fine reaction saves from Mignolet and his shot-stopping can’t really be faulted too much. Maybe it’s time to just let him be the natural born shot-stopper he clearly is. At least until the sweeper-keeper of our dreams can be located.
We ended the game with what was on paper a 3-5-2, yet in reality was the tactical equivalent of curling up into a protective ball when about to take a kicking. The spectre of Peter Crouch waiting to enter the fray and the associated response from Rodgers made that scene from Blazing Saddles spring to mind.
“Never mind that shit, here comes Mongo”.
A fluid 3-5-2 though is the way I’d love us to go for now. Extra security at central defence where it’s needed, also allowing scope for Mignolet to stay rooted to his six-yard box. An extra man in the middle of the field, with a traditional defensive midfielder allowed to sit and protect. Emre Can perhaps? Jordan Henderson as the pivot and a free role that could be filled by any number of likely candidates, be it Steven Gerrard, Adam Lallana, Lazar Markovic, Raheem Sterling or Coutinho. We already have wing backs in the making, as our full backs are more adept at pushing on than they are at defending. All of this would eliminate the sole striker issue that no one at the club seems completely comfortable with. It just feels to me a system better suited to the players we have at the club.
Regardless of favoured formations, what has been a prime source of annoyance for me is the way Rodgers won’t always field players that link well together. When Lambert is on the pitch then Lallana more often than not isn’t, despite the way they linked so effectively at Southampton. Lallana also links well with Henderson. Away at Manchester City when Markovic came on in a left-sided role in front of Alberto Moreno they linked very well, yet they haven’t been combined in such a manner since. It’s the simple things that often make the biggest differences in football.
Between now and the end of the calendar year we have both winnable and potentially moral-boosting games — a month of football that can dramatically change the composition of the season. Leicester City and Sunderland can give us six points if we play as we did in the second half against Stoke. Burnley and Swansea City between Christmas and New Year are in the same bracket. Manchester United and Arsenal is where the feel-good factor is on the line, and both of those sides are throwing punches like a wobbly ex-heavyweight champion that should have stopped climbing into the ring long ago. Basel and Bournemouth offer us the opportunities of having European and domestic cup nights under the floodlights at Anfield to look forward to going into 2015.
2014/15 is still all to play for.
Let’s bloody well hope so!
And if Liverpool fail to beat bottom of the league Leicester tonight, what will be made of Saturday’s victory then? Stoke had 2 excellent opportunities to take the lead before Liverpool did, one hit the post, one off the line. They seem to have been forgotten.
Scorelines change perspective.
On the 23rd of November Liverpool had “6 winnable games”
3 games in and Liverpool have just about won 1 of them.
And at this moment in time, Liverpool are more likely to play a game tonight akin to Newcastle and Palace away last month, or Hull away at the same stage last season, than a swashbuckling/defensively sound team we all wish they would be.
No corners turned. No baby steps taken. One victory and this article dreams of cup nights under the floodlights in 2015.
Liverpool have so many problems at the moment, and with so many games packed in together recently and over the next few weeks and so little time to prepare between games, I expect we will see a spluttering sturring Liverpool over the festive period.
There will be highs.
But prepare for the lows.
And we had one off the bar and one that anyone but Lucas would have scored.
Positively Churchillian!
Are you available for weddings?
Haha
Gareth Southgate lives! :-)
All social functions catered for :)
Lose tonight and it’s another retrograde step. The beauty of football is that it isn’t scripted. There were however positives in the second half against Stoke, just as there were negatives. All you can do is move on to the next game and try to build on the positives and aim to eliminate the negatives. As far as confidence for the rest of the season goes, tonight is pretty crucial.
Yeah. My feeling right now is if we win tonight then everything is back on, on 4 fronts. Lose or draw and we’re just kidding ourselves. Saying that, I’m fully convinced we’re gonna win. Can’t see it any other way. I’ve not had that in the last month or so.
I was just saying to my mate after the match on Sat that the Basel match could really turn our season round. A draw last week away from home, a win on Sat with a clean sheet, go tonight to the bottom team in the league where I expect a win and then Sunderland at home this Sat could be a very nice little mini run of games taking us into the make or break Basel match.
We win against Basel that takes us into the knock out rounds of the CL in Feb which I’d imagine would give everyone a boost. Come Jan it also allows us to entice potentially new players with CL football (if they’re not cup tied). Hopefully by Feb we’ll have Sturridge back and into some sort of match fitness and form and if we got a decent draw we’d be one match away from the quarter finals. That’s mad considering our form these past few months! I know it’s all ifs and buts but theres only a coupla things that have to go our way for us to be in the quarterfinal as far fetched as that seems it’s still very possible but all hinges on the Basel match and these coupla matches leading up to it.
A win against Basel would also kick start our league campaign with a renewed sense of confidence and belief. At the start of the season I believed finishing top 4 and into the knockout stages of the CL could be regarded as a successful season for us this year (wouldn’t mind a cup win too). A win against Basel and that would be half of that complete and a major boost for the league campaign.
I don’t want to even think what a loss against Basel would do for morale, both the supporters and the players!
Excellent all around, but I’m nodding most vigorously at your point about the players that link well together. Last season, Coutinho and Sturridge seemed telepathic, while Sterling and Suarez seemed to enjoy playing off each other most. Some players just hit each other’s wavelength, and one of the many head-scratchers from Rodgers is his failure to foster this again.
With Lambert finding a form of sorts, I’d put Lallana at the tip of the diamond (with Sterling creating space up front). Allen and Lucas also seem to avoid mixing responsibilities up, which is very different from Lucas and Gerrard. No surprise that our rare clean sheet came with the two of them shoring things up.
As for defense, the one mathematical possibility left untested would be Toure and Sakho…
It’s BRs big mistake this season.
He hasn’t changed things that weren’t working. He persevered until Stoke and then chucked it all out of the window. After 2 or 3 games, if something isn’t working (SG, Balo as lone striker) then you have to change something. It doesn’t make sense not to and it’s put is in an awful position where it’s a real fight to challenge for top 4, which we’re just not doing right now. BR’s mistake.
I’m not saying he shouldn’t have made changes sooner, but I’m skeptical it would have made much difference. At the risk of repeating myself, I think you could perm almost any 11 from the current squad and each combination would have as much of winning the next game as any other. There is no one first 11 where you look and think: that’s it! At least I don’t. I’m assuming Rodgers thought along similar lines hence his reticence to change things. Not saying it’s right, but it might explain things (partially).
Also, there’s some mitigation in the fact that twice now, BR was hours away from having Sturridge back in the fold. If Sturridge had been crocked at the beginning of September and it was known then that he’d be out until mid-December, I think the changes would have come sooner and been more far-reaching. But I appreciate that’s a guess.
Spot on.
Finding room to explore the Markovic-Moreno partnership is a good shout. Looked effective in Madrid.
What concerns me is with that swashbuckling play in the 2nd half, dumping the patience [testing] strategy of prior games, were we opening up to being porous again? BRs change in formation to the one striker was clearly to improve defence and midfield play, having an extra body there so if we play as per the second half, will we just go back to conceding like last season? Better teams will have those same chances and score.
The answer to the question posed in the original post would appear to be “Yes”.
Or “fucking YES!” if you prefer. Which I do.
Ya Brownie and with a Lee Mason lesson on how not to referee a game of association football,
Really thought that c*nt was gonna cost us tonight,
Lucas & Toure have sorted out our soft centre and even Skrtl looks like he might be finding a bit of form,
Migs had a Brainfart again and it’s a huge worry how poor he still is on the deck.
Yep, Lee Mason is a **** (add your own expletive). Raheem was kicked from pillar to post again tonight. He isn’t getting any protection this season. Time for Brendan to make some noise.
Yep, agree with that. I thought they’d temporarily changed the laws so that assault on small tricky wingers was no longer a foul. It was ridiculous. I don’t mind shit refs – everyone makes mistakes. But Mason is a bottler. No pen and sending off for Schmeichel; scared to give fouls against Sterling. I hate bottlers. Mason has never been fit for purpose.
Fucking fuck me, I’m really imagining an alternate reality where the fourth official looks at some of tonight’s decisions on a screen and then gets to give Sterling and Gerrard the go ahead from the sidelines to batter Lee Mason’s bubble head with sticks till it bursts open like a piñata. Haven’t been angered by a ref’s performance like that since Webb last season. Whoever the coward was who bottled the penalty decisions for both teams near the end of the Tottenham-Everton game the other day needs to be fucked off as well. I don’t really see how it’s acceptable for refereeing to be this piss-poor when the ‘EPL’ is this huge global export. I’m fuming – and we fucking won!
Michael Olliver
That’ll be him, yeah. Woeful.
and don’t forget that glaring handball Michael Oliver missed in that Champions League game last week – think it was Shaktar Donetsk. Shocking.
it has now. Another scruffy win but we’ll take it. Glen Johnson had another great game, my MOTM. Shout outs to Kolo and Lucas. The skipper did ok too; good composed finish. Still wouldn’t play him myself, but I won’t be churlish. Moreno’s a bit of a worry at the moment.
More perplexing substitutions. Why not take Gerrard off after the third goal if rest is so vital.
Would have taken Gerrard off just because he was on a booking. I hope Brendan doesn’t see starting him further up the pitch and him scoring as mere coincidence either. I think he can still do the Lampard arrive-in-the-box-with-perfect-timing-for-the-easy-finish thing for a good few seasons if he’s rotated smartly.
I thought Gerrard was head and shoulders MotM, but you knew I was going to say that. :-)
Johnson is still doing the odd thing that has me scratching my head, but his overall play is light years ahead of where it was. And agree Moreno looks wobbly right now, although I don’t think that’s anything to worry about long term. There’s a good player in there.
Yeah, I’m with you on Moreno. He’ll come good.
Good to see Lambert and Lallana combine. Again. Let’s hope Brendan learns from that; two starts together, two goals.
Yeah, Lallana works with Lambert much better than Sterling and Coutinho did at the weekend for obvious reasons. Our first goal reminded me of when Gerrard would play off Crouch.
Still very fragile, but growing in confidence game by game, Liverpool are emerging, blinking into the daylight and building strength and belief. It can all go backwards, such is the fragility, and that’s where the manager comes in. Toure at the back, Lucas as the shield, Gerrard further up the pitch where he terrifies the shit out of the opposition every time he gets on the ball, Lambert holding and battling and not being Mario, all makes for a stronger unit. The weaknesses are still there – Mignolet and Skrtel, Johnson too, all add to the feeling of panic when defending, but LFC came from behind tonight, as with Saturday, they battled, looked out for and after each other snd, yes, let’s put it out there, this is the kind of away game the Reds have ballsed up in the past, so give the boys credit.
Little by little, hang in there, confidence breeds confidence
YNWA
Very quick post.
Thought we were remarkably bad again and that Gerrard contributed incredibly little again, especially first half. But I have a feeling most will see “3-1 win” and “Gerrard scores” as evidence enough to suggest we and he are close to something resembling form. It couldn’t be further from the truth.
The 20 minutes after they went down to 10 men was our worst 20 minutes of the season in my opinion, which says a lot given we’ve already lost 9 and had lucky last minute wins against Swansea and QPR. We were fucking abysmal, none worse than Skrtel and Mignolet. Lambert constantly getting caught offside for no good reason (hardly running on to through balls is he?) backs up my belief he’s quite thick.
We were playing the worst team in the league. Remember that. Rodgers saying tonight was a “massive victory” and calling our performance “magnificent” doesn’t help matters one iota.
We’ve won again but I’m tired of hearing “it’s not about the performance, it’s about the result” When will it ever be about the performance? Not xmas time. Not in the run in. Not in the first weeks of the season. So when?
And yes, Lee Mason was an absolute cunt. Should never referee another one of our games.
But you’d rather have Gerrard contributing a goal and looking to create as opposed to shielding the defence and covering over for his full backs though, no?
And you’re right about how much shitter we got after the sending off (which was daft for them – It’s Lambert! Let him go and then catch him back up again). It was remarkable how we suddenly lacked all composure to like, pass the ball for a bit; other than for the 3rd goal it was like we were a man down.