[quote=âtherock67â]Didnât see the Liverpool-United game as it clashed with Celtic at Motherwell but what was the story with the match?
Saw the goals afterwards and United could certainly have defended better at both. Was it a case of lapses by United getting punished and Liverpool stealing three points or did they genuinely look better throughout?
Saw a small piece of the game on half time ad breaks and one thing struck me was how small the Liverpool players are from midfield forward. Benayoun, Keane, Alonso were getting muscled off the ball alot. Even Mascherano was struggling a bit.[/quote]
Utd started well , got the early goal and played some nice football for the first 10 to 15 mins. Once Liverpool woke up it was pretty much them doing the pushing for the rest of the half but with out creating a whole lot, but deserved to be level.
After the break it was pretty much all Liverpool. Utd were a shambles at the back all day, especially down the left, where Riera and then his replacement Babel had great joy all day. In the earlier stages of the first half perhaps they were being out muscled but once they woke up, and in the 2nd half in particular, Liverpool totally out fought them and clearly wanted it more. It could easily have been 3 or 4 for a finish.
It was a huge boost considering Gerrard only played 20 Minutes and Torres was not played at all. Riera had a decent debut with some lovely touches and after an initial dive or 2 stood up to the physical side of the game. Liverpool of old would get a result like this then lose to Boro or Bolton the following week ! Lets hope they can push on from here and at least put up a challenge this season.
Great result from liverpool alrite. missing gerrard and torres id say benitez would have settled for a point before the game. united started really well with berbatov dominating carragher and rooney giving aurelio a lot of problems. but with mascherano in fine form the game changed quickly.
mascherano let tevez go for the goal but after that he totally dominated the midfield. he has really improved on the ball and his pace and tackling were evident throughout. i thought alonso was a bit quiet tho. he seems a different player for spain. carragher hit berbatov a couple of times and he hardly touched the ball after. arbeloa had a decent game i thought never rated him but he did well. benanyoun aint great. kuyt played pretty well but missed a real sitter and his touch is quite heavy at times. difference between a work horse and a class striker really. riera came into the game in the second half but without torres liverpool were never going to be a threat in the air from open play. keane tried hard and played a few nice balls but in general his touch was off and had a bit of a shocker in truth. benitez gave him the full 90 mins and like crouch will keep playing him until he scores.
united were absolutley woeful. i laid liverpool before the match as with the starting line ups i reckoned only one player - mascherano would make the united team. liverpools workrate though got them on top with a bit of help from VDS. games after the internationals can be a bit strange but its obvious it will take time to integrate berbatov. their centre midfield was worrying tho. paul scholes was totally anonymous. fergie will need to make a decision when ronaldo comes back as he wont be able to fit rooney, berbatov, tevez and ronaldo into the one team
despite saturdays game i reckon liverpool have a long way to go. there is a criminal lack of pace in the side. with or without torres. i think benitez should babel more of a chance. maybe up front with torres
Agreed on their lack of pace KIB man. I think itâs a really valuable commodity in the game these days and itâs one of the main reasons why I think the likes of Milan are struggling recently and signing Sheva wonât rectify that. But getting back to 'Pool, I still think theyâll drop more points against the rest than the other title challengers due to an over-reliance on Torres for goals and I can envisage them having more trouble breaking down dogged teams who are set up defensively and part of this is down to that lack of pace (bar Torres as you mention).
ya forgot about reina. a fine keeper and has improved each season. better with the ball than many outfield players. similar to shay given in that regard but both of them arent as strong at crosses.
i thought van der saar was a bit dodgy at times last season too. still handy enough on the ball but he is making some woeful errors.
an interesting point in that the modern keeper has to be comfortable with the ball at his feet. reina is like a sweeper at times. others like scott carson struggle. with all the daft rules introduced by fifa the abolition of the back pass has infinitely improved the game
[quote=âKIB manâ]ya forgot about reina. a fine keeper and has improved each season. better with the ball than many outfield players. similar to shay given in that regard but both of them arent as strong at crosses.
i thought van der saar was a bit dodgy at times last season too. still handy enough on the ball but he is making some woeful errors.
an interesting point in that the modern keeper has to be comfortable with the ball at his feet. reina is like a sweeper at times. others like scott carson struggle. with all the daft rules introduced by fifa the abolition of the back pass has infinitely improved the game[/quote]
reina has probably been the best goalie in the premie league over the past 2/3 yearsâŚlets in the odd soft one but is more often than not excellentâŚhis biggest problem for crosses is that he seems to back himself too muchâŚwhen he gets out for a cross he always seems to take it cleanly but he tries to come for every ball(including one which he has little or no chance of getting) in the box when there is no need for it leading to a few nervy moments and the odd scrappy/soft goal conceededâŚ
Good performance from Liverpool Saturday, especially in coming from behind. The defeat wonât do any major damage to United but had Liverpool lost it would have been a big blow. Fucking bedlam after the second goal, canât beat it.
[quote=âfarmerinthecityâ]0-0 with Stoke at half time.
Looked at the start that we were going to blow them away and Gerrard had a perfectly good goal disallowed. Since then - nowt.
If they donât win this then they can forget it.[/quote]
Sure we may as well throw open the old offside debate again.
I think it was a correct decision not to allow the goal. Once the Liverpool player - Torres was it? - tried to head the ball then he was offside. You can stand statically in that position all you like but any effort to play the ball renders you offside.
I saw a tiny bit of Goals on Sunday (I think it was) yesterday where they went through the Sunderland goals and concluded that Chopraâs second goal shouldnât have been given. Fucking pisses me off something else when Sky do that. Thereâs enough confusion about the offside rule without Sky adding to it with their opinions on what the rule should be - Chopra was clearly onside once Malbranque touched the ball. Argue against the rule all you like but for Christâs sake stop suggesting that should have been flagged offside at the moment.
I didnât think anyone was standing offside tough. Agreed if someone is offside and tries to head the ball then the goal should be disallowed but when Gerrard takes the free there is no offside for me. Again I canât swear by this.
Either way, failing to score at home against Stoke for the next 85 minutes is criminal anyway. Babel was left out as well despite him being in terrific form recently. Another master stroke by Rafa.
I canât remember the last game where he dropped KuytâŚ
Ah right, only saw brief replays and thought the controversy was over the fact that the ball went in untouched rather than nobody standing offside in the first place.
Anyway miserable result anyway and presume that was a reflection of the performance.
Iâve said it before on this thread but I still reckon Liverpool will continue to drop points like this on a regular basis through a combination of not having enough pace in wide areas (when they leave Babel out) and by playing too narrow. Limited teams will defend deep and in numbers to prevent Torres getting in behind through the middle and basically set out to stifle them. Sometimes theyâll get away with it by passing through a team or with a long distance Gerrard strike (like against 'Boro at home recently) but on other occasions theyâll be left pretty frustrated.
I have to say I donât really agree with you there Bandage. Itâs a historical issue alright but I think Riera on the left and Babel on the right would give us fine balance and width. Also, in theory, Robbie Keane should give us another option should we choose to play narrow through the middle. Also, Torres scores plenty of goals where he doesnât get in behind but makes something from nothing. Liverpool have been anything but good this season from the bits Iâve seen and reports Iâve read but theyâre getting decent results so I think the Stoke result is a blip rather than a sign of things to come.
Iâm still perplexed as to why Liverpool essentially traded Crouch and 9 or 10 million for Keane though. Keane looks like heâs trying too hard and thinking too much at the moment. Torres up top with Gerrard behind and Babel/Riera interchanging on either flank would be far more effective imo.
In other news, Liverpool linked with a 4m move for Owen in January. Not the worst move Iâd say as heâd obviously be rotated a fair bit which would hopefully mean he wouldnât break down too often. Thereâs a lad whose career took a rotten twist.
would be a good signing for 4 million he mightnât have the pace he once had but he is still a fairly clinical finisherâŚravaged by injuries and i would say they have taken their tole mentally on little moâŚ
Everyone thinks that Liverpools problem is that they cannot beat the lower teams in the league. Drawing against the likes of Stoke at home is a very poor result but in the last few years the reason Liverpool havent been challenging for the title is because of their poor results against the other 3 teams. Every year there is 18 points up for grabs and Liverpool have consistently picked up very little of these 18. (I think last here they only got 4 out of the possible 18 )
Thats why beating Utd last week was so important. If you take the season as a whole the top 4 will drop more or less the same amount of points against the other teams in the league and the title winner will be the one that fares best against the other top 3.
The reason Liverpool get tagged with this misconception is that they might go on a run of games against shit teams where they will drop points and everyone jumps on the bandwagon. Liverpool were 11 points behind Utd last year, if they had beaten them twice it wouldâve been a 12 point swing and they wouldâve finished ahead of them.