TOTTENHAM VS LIVERPOOL - Saturday november 1st 17.30pm ko

Liverpool Football Club - General Discussion

Postby LFC2007 » Sun Nov 02, 2008 12:34 am

After a few hours of reflection, here are my thoughts on the game:

We completely and utterly bossed the first half, we got the goal, we were positive in our approach, yet we kept our shape and discipline when we weren't in possession. We nulified them totally, primarily through dominating the midfield and well disciplined pressing. Because of this, they found it very difficult to find a forward pass, and as a result had - at best - one half chance in the shape of Modric volley late in the half. We were in firm control, but couldn't find the final ball, or the final shot on a few occasions, which would've enabled us to kill the game (though for the first half, I'd only call these minor criticisms). First half instances: I recall Riera getting in one or two good positions, but having his passes intercepted or rolling short. Gerrard also gave him a bit of stick midway through the half for running into their defenders after he found himself in open space and running toward their area. Not only Riera, but also Dossena, who found himself out wide and in open space on two clear occasions, only to cross straight at their defence. Keane had one or two positive moments where he linked up with Gerrard on the edge of the box, but he fecked the final pass. Gerrard had a couple of shots or chances to shoot which he didn't get hold of. Second half, we continued in the same vein, although this time we actually created the chances which would've enabled us to kill the game. Gerrard's deflected shot hit the post, he then hit the crossbar, Kuyt then missed Arbeloa's flicked on cross in front of goal, and then Alonso missed a bit of a sitter at the far post from a Gerrard f/k. Then Gerrard had a shot curl wide of the post from the edge of the box after good interplay by Riera, Alonso and Arbeloa. A few more nice passages of play followed involving Riera, Keane and Gerrard, but none resulted in chances. This was all up until about 67', then Babel came on for Keane. Spurs began to have a little more possession and won a couple of corners, and from one of these situations, they got a flukey equaliser. The goal lifted the crowd and this unnerved us a bit. Reina missed one cross and then fluffed another which resulted in a good chance for them to score. They recovered a bit of fight and pressed well, playing very compact out of possession and proving difficult to break down. We regained dominance of possession, though, at around 84', but couldn't find a way through. Babel made no contribution whatsoever and Benayoun wasn't much better. Then the sickening blow at the end; a passage of collectively poor defending. Alonso, Arbeloa and Carragher all failed to stop Bentley, Reina saved well, yet Dossena failed to get a block on Bent's cross, and Agger was second to the cross, which led to the goal.

We didn't choose to sit back after the equalier, we went for the three points because we'd dominated for so long, and one point wouldn't have been justice. As it was, we paid an even heavier the price for slacking late on and earlier for failing to convert one of four or five very good chances.
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Postby Bam » Sun Nov 02, 2008 12:59 am

:(

We need a good response from this.

Bav, feck off and support chelsea.
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Postby Bermenstein » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:15 am

We were doing just fine up to the substitutions. It was a good passing performance by Liverpool, and in the second half we were cruising, just needing that illusive 2nd goal. 

But If it ain't broken, don't fix it.

Made the subs too early in the game. Babel for Keane was wrong for the game. Keane was holding the ball up well, whereas as Babel liked to take too many touches, ultimately loosing crucial possession.Riera was solid on the left, taking pressure off the Dosena, who was poor. Benayouin came on, but was anonymous. Funny thing is, if we were loosing, chances are the subs would have been made too late..i.e. 10 mins to go.

Anyhow we were unlucky today. Up until now we were not playing great, but we got the rub of the green. It was roles reversed today. We played well, but our luck ran out.
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Postby Dundalk » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:18 am

I find it hard to believe people are blaming Rafa for the result today.  :no
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Postby account deleted by request » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:19 am

It's Bermenstein fault, if he wasn't so lazy and had started this thread we would have won today ..... start the West Brom one NOW Bermenstein! :angry:








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Postby metalhead » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:21 am

Dundalk wrote:I find it hard to believe people are blaming Rafa for the result today.  :no

The only thing I would criticise rafa for is taking off Keane, and thats about it.

I thought Keane was very busy today, did well with his link up play.

but overall, I won't blame Rafa, we just couldn't take our chances.

saint, now your a bermenstein basher :D
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Postby Bermenstein » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:24 am

s@int wrote:It's Bermenstein fault, if he wasn't so lazy and had started this thread we would have won today ..... start the West Brom one NOW Bermenstein! :angry:








:D

I actually started the thread 1 minute before stmichael but my post was deleted. ?????  :D  Anyhow, at least my record is intact.

Gonna keep my match threads for the big teams.  :eyebrow
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Postby J*o*n*D*o*e » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:28 am

one of those results which leaves you scratching your head and wondering how the fook did we manage to throw that one away, hindsight is a wonderful thing so lets not go overboard on the substitutions.

Chelsea lost a 4 years home record last week and moved on we can do the same, disappointing yes but the end of the world...
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Postby account deleted by request » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:30 am

metalhead wrote:saint, now your a bermenstein basher :D

No mate, I just EXPECT more from our star thread starter  :D
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Postby Dalglish » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:32 am

Football is a bit like life...............you don't always get what you deserve and today was an example of that. We dominated the match until the Spurs equaliser and Redknapp as good as admitted as much.

The problem was NOT with who Rafa substituted and when, the weather, the Redknapp effect or whatever other straw you want to clutch onto. It was simply that we didn't convert many of the chances we made after the initial goal by Kuyt. We hit the bar once, the post twice and the hapless Gomez pulled off a couple of decent saves and that gave Spurs hope even though they were (like on Wed against Arsenal) outclassed.

How we respond to this loss is important and I fully expect that Rafa and the backroom staff will be working on the players but to be honest as anyone will tell you who has played competitive sport, you don't really need to be lifted when you know you have played well as we did today. The players will know that this time they were unlucky and are unlikely to play as well again and get beat. The mind games only start to bite when you have played badly and lost so I wouldn't expect an adverse reaction to be honest.

We've rode our luck this season at times and it ran out tonight. Time to eliminate luck and play your way back to winning ways.

Chelsea responded to their losss last week by winning 3-0 away at Hull and 5-0 at home today against the Mackems. We need to do the same and I think we will because this Liverpool team is as good as any that Rafa has had since he joined.

Walk on ..........
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Postby account deleted by request » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:38 am

I honestly don't think you can start bashing Rafa for the subs today. I thought Keane had struggled to make any impact, and though he had worked very hard had given the ball away on too many occasions. Who was to know that Babel would play like an empty shirt?

I think the players have to take what "blame" there is for this defeat. We need them to start taking their chances......we had enough to win this game comfortably!

I really think we need someone better than Benny to come on when we need to change the game though.
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Postby Dundalk » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:41 am

Top Post Dalglish  Image
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Postby LFC2007 » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:42 am

It's a serious psychological knock back because of the way we conceded the game. The points were as good as ours for 65 minutes and just thinking back up until the equaliser, I thought it was too easy, way too easy. There seemed no way for them to get a foothold in the game, and that kind of turnaround could cause doubts to arise in the players' minds if we let this result fester.

I'm just glad we don't have any extra-difficult away fixtures in the near future. It should at least enable us to reassert our confidence, a bit like Chelsea have done against Hull and Sunderland. Leading up to the Arsenal game at the Emirates we need to be confident, and we need to maximise our points total.
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Postby Dundalk » Sun Nov 02, 2008 1:53 am

Seen this on another form thought it might lift the mood a little....


Don't torture yourselves by watching MOTD and all the missed chances. Don't go over Carra's own goal in your head again and again. Don't go to sleep thinking "If only Stevie's shot went in off the bar". Most of all, don't kid yourselves into thinking we went there tonight, buckled under the pressure of being top, played :censored: and lost our title challange.

We went there, twated them all over the shop, didn't score the killer goal and they got lucky. We didn't get what our performance deserved and neither did they. Such is football, such is life. We've had enough good luck this season and for once we've been bitten on the :censored:. There's no point crying about it or over analysing it, :censored: happens in football (it's not an exact science) and tonight was just "one of those games" where a team that get played off the park somehow scrape a result. That's why everyone loves football and that's why moments like these are so hard to stomach.

Anyway, Nando's fit again, we'll qualify from the CL group with 2 games to spare on Wednesday and then we have the following 6 Premier League matches:

West Brom H
Bolton A
Fulham H
West Ham H
Blackburn A
Hull City H


Let's make sure we go on another boss run and get back to the top of the table. Nothings lost at all. The club can't afford to let 1 ridiculously unjust result get rid of the positivity around the place or let it erase the fact that we are better than we have been for years and have a genuine shot this time around. So to Rafa, the coaching staff, the players and all of us i say get up and get on with it. That's what champons do.

Believe.
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Postby bigmick » Sun Nov 02, 2008 2:05 am

LFC2007 wrote:It's a serious psychological knock back because of the way we conceded the game. The points were as good as ours for 65 minutes and just thinking back up until the equaliser, I thought it was too easy, way too easy. There seemed no way for them to get a foothold in the game, and that kind of turnaround could cause doubts to arise in the players' minds if we let this result fester.

I'm just glad we don't have any extra-difficult away fixtures in the near future. It should at least enable us to reassert our confidence, a bit like Chelsea have done against Hull and Sunderland. Leading up to the Arsenal game at the Emirates we need to be confident, and we need to maximise our points total.

I like this post, and theres a couple of points I'd like to make leading off it.

Firstly, this psychological angle. I think that's the nail on the head right there for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we were unable to put the shutters up and close the game down despite being quite obviously a class above Spurs. The potential ramifications of that are far reaching in the teams minds, as every time you go into the last 10 minutes a goal to the good you'll find yourself getting pretty jumpy pretty quick if we do what we did here very often. The team needs to know that it can close a game out, and on the odd occasion your opponent gets lucky it should be a draw. To lose the game was absolutely criminal given what had gone before.

secondly, I'm going to come back to this "winning mentality" which we all talk about sometimes. Once we didn't get the second goal (and I know we were unlucky on occasions) there was an air of inevitability about them getting back into it. FWIW I actually found our first half perfromance a bit disappointing. Yes we were on top, yes we were a goal to the good but I'd like to see us really go to town at that point. They were absolutely shambolic and nthere for the taking. We had obviously worked on hitting Kuyt with diagonals from deep against their left fullback who was absolutely awful, and they had absolutely no answer to it whatsoever. Now during that period, despite making them look silly we barely made a chance, which for me isn't good enough.

For too long now we kind of wait for things to happen in games. That aspect of our play has improved immeasureably this season, but we still have the mindset of "fourth of big four" as opposed to Champions sometimes. It was fairly obvious that Spurs would have to make changes at half-time, and the switching of Corluka to left full back was probably the most significant of all. The Mancs or Chelsea though would have been going hell for leather in that first half though to put the thing to bed there and then. I can't help thinking we need to be much more ruthless sometimes.
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