Liverpool FC Forum

Blimey that was painful!  All credit to Villa for coming out and giving 101%, they deserved the win.

That said, Adrian is a liability and Gomez is challenging him for the title. Don't know what's wrong with Gomez, we know he's a good player but he keeps letting himself down.

That said we were missing Hendo, Becker, Mane and Thiago, nearly half the team however we really should have responded better than we did.

In my eyes Jurgen showed once again he has no Plan B. Robbo especially was caught time and again too high up whilst Gomez struggled to cover. Fabinho had a quiet game and when we're playing gangen-presse you can't have a quiet game. We should have switched to a 4-4-2 being a tighter defence and rebuilt from there.

Naby and Minimino showed they're not good enough, neither influenced the game. Good enough for the EPL, but not Liverpool. We paid 52m for Naby, our 3rd most expensive buy after VVD and Becker. Move them on and bring in proper replacements. Jota on the other hand had another very good game so all credit to the lad.

I can't get too annoyed because Villa deserved to win, however my little book of things that p!ss me off is getting bigger, principally with players being chosen who shouldn't and a manager who can't change his style.

At least the Mancs have a far, far deeper problem than us... they're staring into the abyss.

We have looked vulnerable defensively for a while, although statistically we finished last season with the best defence in the division cracks were deffo starting to appear around the time we went into lock down. Adrian is going to be the fall guy and yes he was awful but he wasn’t playing when City wiped the floor with us, nor was he playing when Pulisic tore us apart in 20 minutes, he wasn’t playing when we conceded 3 at home to a newly promoted Leeds team either.
To just write this off as Adrian doing his thing would be a big mistake, the problems are clearly systemic, teams have obviously sat down and figured out how to beat the high press, there’s no need to press the panic button though, get Alisson, Mane and Thiago back and we are still the best team in the division, we just need to tweak a few things here and there tactically.
As Carragher said a high press is great but instead of trying to play offside just start going with runners, it’s not as if Virgil and Joe are slow, our keepers need to start playing as a sweepers too, that gives teams looking to hit balls over the top a smaller window to aim into.

and thats it, Allison is one of the best sweeper keepers in the game, when Adrian comes in the tactics need to be tweaked

I never want to see that SEIVE of a keeper in net for us. May as well played an extra outfield player and played 'goalie when' rules.

Only saving grace is the manc.utd fans are quiet this morning too.

Another thing, it’s suicidal to try and play that high line offside game if your forwards aren’t applying tons of pressure further up the pitch. If opposition players have got time to lift their heads and pick out a pass then you are going to be in trouble.
Also It was noticeable last night that we weren't only outplayed we were outworked too, it was Aston Villa players who seemed to be swarming all around our players in the middle of the park not the other way round. I lost count of the number of times the likes of Bobby and Mo got dispossessed, they’d get past the first man only to run into another 2 or 3. Villa were hunting in packs and they did to us what we normally do to other teams.
It was just a complete disaster of a performance made worse by the fact we could have almost won the league last night, at least psychologically. After City’s last 2 results and after what happened to United a good performance last night would have had everyone thinking Liverpool have got it in the bag (even after 4 games). As we saw in the 90’s with United when everyone is convinced a certain team is inevitably going to win the title it pretty much becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Everyone starts buying into it, players, coaches, officials, journalists, pundits etc etc, as I said it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

hammering Everton


Good luck lads

Did you see the number of incomplete passes? We gave the ball away so many times... Villa badgered us to death. Our MF was absent. (Understandable with the injuries but Gini had no answer, Fan was quiet and Naby's a schoolboy.

Well, the game did reveal some things

1. Mane, Alisson and van Dijk are our 3 most important players. Mane has been our best for the past 1 and half seasons
2. Adrian can't play in goal if he is supposed to pass the ball. If he's in goal he MUST clear it every time the ball comes close. Forget about using him to pass it around at the back
3. TAA and Robertson is just not that good at defending so others in the midfield must help and cover
4. Gomez is not good enough to start every week for us. He's had enough chances and he doesn't cut it
5. Van Dijk isn't superhuman
6. Keita just doesn't do enough. Sloppy with the ball and doesn't work hard enough to help at the back
7. Minamino will propably be gone in a year or 2. Sub material
8. Gini and Fabinho wasn't up to par, not horrible though
9. Salah does his thing and scores even if he is selfish and not an all around  player
10. Firminho must be sold next summer if he doesn't get his head out of his *****
11. There are no easy games. Just cause you beat Chelski and Arsenal your are not on top of the world and will lose to any Pl team if you are to lazy

Even though it could have easily been our worst ever defeat I don’t think we need to over react, as well as Villa played everything did go right for them on the night.
Adrian gifted them their first goal, their second was well taken but they got a lot of luck in the build up re the pass, it wasn’t a good pass it was hit straight at Virgil but it somehow got through his legs, then after Mo made it 2-1 not only did they get extremely lucky with the penalty shout they got a huge slice of luck with the deflected third goal just as we were building a bit of momentum.
In fact every time we threatened to get back into the game they’d get a deflected goal to knock the stuffing out of us.
We didn’t play well but Lady Luck was deffo on their side yesterday. Goals change games and not only did they get a lot of luck the luck came just at the right time for them as well, it wasn’t as if they were 4 up and then got 3 deflected goals, the deflected goals came just when they needed them, when we were threatening to get back into the game.

Penguins » Mon Oct 05, 2020 3:47 pm wrote:Well, the game did reveal some things

1. Mane, Alisson and van Dijk are our 3 most important players. Mane has been our best for the past 1 and half seasons
2. Adrian can't play in goal if he is supposed to pass the ball. If he's in goal he MUST clear it every time the ball comes close. Forget about using him to pass it around at the back
3. TAA and Robertson is just not that good at defending so others in the midfield must help and cover
4. Gomez is not good enough to start every week for us. He's had enough chances and he doesn't cut it
5. Van Dijk isn't superhuman
6. Keita just doesn't do enough. Sloppy with the ball and doesn't work hard enough to help at the back
7. Minamino will propably be gone in a year or 2. Sub material
8. Gini and Fabinho wasn't up to par, not horrible though
9. Salah does his thing and scores even if he is selfish and not an all around  player
10. Firminho must be sold next summer if he doesn't get his head out of his *****
11. There are no easy games. Just cause you beat Chelski and Arsenal your are not on top of the world and will lose to any Pl team if you are to lazy

I agree with most of that. But not 10. Bobby is a top player and you don't bin him off because he's struggling for form

ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Mon Oct 05, 2020 7:01 pm wrote:Even though it could have easily been our worst ever defeat I don’t think we need to over react, as well as Villa played everything did go right for them on the night.
Adrian gifted them their first goal, their second was well taken but they got a lot of luck in the build up re the pass, it wasn’t a good pass it was hit straight at Virgil but it somehow got through his legs, then after Mo made it 2-1 not only did they get extremely lucky with the penalty shout they got a huge slice of luck with the deflected third goal just as we were building a bit of momentum.
In fact every time we threatened to get back into the game they’d get a deflected goal to knock the stuffing out of us.
We didn’t play well but Lady Luck was deffo on their side yesterday. Goals change games and not only did they get a lot of luck the luck came just at the right time for them as well, it wasn’t as if they were 4 up and then got 3 deflected goals, the deflected goals came just when they needed them, when we were threatening to get back into the game.

Yup everything just went right for Villa. I don't think they would have played with that sort of freedom had we got the match back to 2-2 or even if we lead the game. I just felt at 5-2 we should've abandoned the high line. It was like we just weren't learning. Time and time again Villa kept getting past us with no defenders to be seen.

Anyhow I can't wait for the Derby and hope for a positive result. It is going to be one heck of a battle.

7_Kewell » Mon Oct 05, 2020 9:28 pm wrote:

Penguins » Mon Oct 05, 2020 3:47 pm wrote:Well, the game did reveal some things

1. Mane, Alisson and van Dijk are our 3 most important players. Mane has been our best for the past 1 and half seasons
2. Adrian can't play in goal if he is supposed to pass the ball. If he's in goal he MUST clear it every time the ball comes close. Forget about using him to pass it around at the back
3. TAA and Robertson is just not that good at defending so others in the midfield must help and cover
4. Gomez is not good enough to start every week for us. He's had enough chances and he doesn't cut it
5. Van Dijk isn't superhuman
6. Keita just doesn't do enough. Sloppy with the ball and doesn't work hard enough to help at the back
7. Minamino will propably be gone in a year or 2. Sub material
8. Gini and Fabinho wasn't up to par, not horrible though
9. Salah does his thing and scores even if he is selfish and not an all around  player
10. Firminho must be sold next summer if he doesn't get his head out of his *****
11. There are no easy games. Just cause you beat Chelski and Arsenal your are not on top of the world and will lose to any Pl team if you are to lazy

I agree with most of that. But not 10. Bobby is a top player and you don't bin him off because he's struggling for form

I love Bobby but his just been off form for a while. I hope he get back into gear soon, I'd still prolly start him though against Everton. If his plays shyte then slot Jota in second half.

Villans took full advantage of the high defensive line . Why Kloop didn't notice and proceed to make necessary changes is mind boggling , yes some players went missing but not changing the game plan did huge damage as well . The lose is painful and downright embrassing and hopefully the team gets a huge wake up

Given Shaq has now tested positive for Covid it makes you wonder if half the team didn’t have it on Sunday!

We have the guts of 2 weeks to get a handle on this so we have only ourselves to blame if we don't.  Test them every 3 days if we have to and make sure the ones coming back from the internationals get tested before they join back up.

After Villa we cannot afford to drop more points to the bitterz. Losing to them will be just unbearable.