Liverpool 1-0 Bournemouth: Post-Match Thoughts

Two games into the season, I’m getting a real sense of déjà vu. Despite missing our star striker we’ve opened the campaign with two victories, albeit unconvincing 1-0s. The parallels from 2013/14 are clear, and if this season pans out like that one did then I for one will most certainly not be complaining! It is a little too early for talk of title races though; on the whole Liverpool have been largely uninspiring, and there was a definite hint of fortune about the victory over Bournemouth.

The visitors took the game to Liverpool from the off: Eddie Howe opted to play two strikers up top, and they caused real problems in the opening 20 minutes. King and Wilson seemed to have the beating of the LFC back line – their pace got them in behind, and there were a couple of nervy moments early on. The worst of these came after Wilson absolutely embarrassed Lovren with a nice bit of trickery, drilled a shot in at the near post and won a corner. The ball was subsequently whipped in, and Elphick headed it home; it was no more than the Cherries deserved, but the officials ruled it out, deeming that the Bournemouth man had fouled Lovren while jumping. This was a harsh decision at best: Lovren made the most of minimal contact having realised he’d lost the header.

This incident did seem to shake Liverpool out of their reverie somewhat. After a couple more waves of attack from the away side the Reds got their act together, and were soon creating a few chances of their own. Benteke was being utilised much better than he was at Stoke, and the big man won multiple knock-downs that were picked up by teammates. His pressing was also excellent; he fashioned a few chances out of absolutely nothing by robbing defenders of the ball deep inside their own half. Even so, there weren’t really any clear cut opportunities. Lallana seemed loathe to utilise any of the space he worked for himself, preferring instead to turn back into trouble, and Coutinho was not having a particularly good game by his standards either – as such, creativity was limited. Somewhat unexpectedly, however, Liverpool did make the breakthrough in the 26^th minute. A short corner was worked out to Henderson, who whipped in a great ball. Coutinho went for it and missed, but Benteke was lurking at the far post to knock home. Unlike Bournemouth’s disallowed goal, this one shouldn’t have stood: the Brazilian’s attempt to play the ball should have prompted the assistant to raise his flag. Still, the home crowd weren’t complaining – they roared their approval of the goal, which to be fair was no more than Benteke deserved on what was an excellent home debut.

From here on in Liverpool did a fairly good job of controlling proceedings – they came close to doubling their lead minutes after the goal through a sublimely controlled first time volley from Henderson, and the skipper then had a penalty shout turned down after a push in the small of the back. Half time saw another slight shift in momentum in favour of Bournemouth, but Liverpool began to control the pace of the game a lot more, and saw out the rest of the match fairly comfortably.

their attacks were handled well; throughout the game they were only allowed two shots on target. Clyne in particular was immense – he contained the threat of the rapid Max Gradel excellently, putting in a few amazing tackles. This defensive prowess combined with an extremely potent attacking threat is what makes Clyne such a brilliant signing: the days of Glen Johnson as first choice right back seem like a distant nightmare now. Much like in the first half, Bournemouth’s attacks lost momentum about twenty minutes in –

One extremely interesting change made by Rodgers in the latter stages was the introduction of Moreno at left wing. He was brought on in order to provide extra protection down the left side (Gomez, though still solid, did not look quite as assured as he did vs Stoke), and he did this admirably. He put in a couple of great challenges, breaking up a lot of would-be promising situations for Bournemouth. However, it was what he did going forward that really got me thinking. Freed at least partially from his defensive shackles he bombed up the left side, terrorising defenders with his pace and positivity. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he has been our best performing winger so far this season – never sure whether he’d sprint down the line or jink inside, the Bournemouth back line simply could not contain him. We know he’s capable of finishing; one only needs to hark back to his marvellous goal at Spurs. Maybe, then, he could reinvent himself; with rumours rife that he is now firmly second choice at full back, could he rejuvenate his Liverpool career as a winger? This change between positions has been done to great success in the past: while it would be a huge claim to suggest that Moreno could be as good as Bale, that is certainly the model of transition he would be looking to emulate. There have never been any complaints about Moreno’s talents going forward; defensive positioning has always been his issue. Surely it follows, therefore, that without having to worry about defending he could be a truly excellent wide player? This substitution would appear to suggest that the same thought has crossed Rodgers’ mind, and I for one hope to see a lot more of Moreno here as the season progresses.

Put bluntly, however, Moreno’s cameo was one of the few highlights in an otherwise average performance. Of course, the most important thing is the win, especially at this stage – racking up some early points can be a huge confidence boost. That said, we’ll have to play better than that if we want to get anything from our trip to the Emirates on Monday. Admittedly Arsenal are enduring a rather shaky start, and their back line are there for exploiting, but Liverpool look equally vulnerable. Firmino should be fit to start by next week; hopefully his flair and ingenuity inspires us to create more chances. It really is exciting to think that he and Sturridge are still to be integrated into our side – even without them (discounting a couple of Firmino run-outs) we have put together back-to-back wins and shown flashes of immense quality, which begs the question of what we are capable of with a full strength starting eleven. Could we be in for a 2013/14-esque season? Perhaps not, but a few more good results and Liverpool might just start to make us dream once more. 

-James Martin

Follow me on Twitter @JamesMartin013

Newcastle 1-0 Liverpool: Discontent Grows as Reds Slip to Defeat

For the last few weeks, Liverpool have been nowhere near their scintillating form of last season. At first the excuse was that the new players needed time to gel to with the team, and that we were still adapting. We are now 10 games in, and the finger is pointing in a much more worrying direction: Brendan Rodgers. His stubborn refusal to switch the formation and put someone up front to partner Balotelli has led to woeful performances and lots of dropped points. It was the same story today, as Liverpool lost 1-0 to an average Newcastle side.

The performance was sadly one we have become very much used to this season. It was lacklustre, uninspired and frankly poor. Nobody could create any chances – Sterling was wasted out wide, Coutinho was far from his best and Balotelli was horribly isolated. These problems would have been addressed by putting Sterling up front with Balotelli, but Rodgers opted to stick with the 4-3-3. Fortunately Newcastle were putting in a fairly poor shift as well, or things could have got very embarrassing. One of the dullest first halves of football Liverpool fans have witnessed for a long time ended goalless, and this scoreline flattered the reds.

The second half saw a slight improvement in quality, and it looked for a while like Liverpool might be able to take all three points away from St. James’s Park. Steven Gerrard’s inclusion in a midfield three (alongside Henderson and Allen) gave him licence to push up the field, and he rolled back the years with some good passes from advanced positions. That said, no clear cut chances were being created; the only genuine test of Krul was a close-range header from Coutinho, which was incorrectly called back for offside anyway. The referee had a poor game, and both Janmaat and Sissoko were lucky not to see red. As it was the magpies were allowed to carry on with a full compliment of 11 men, and there was an awful inevitability about their goal in the 73^rd minute. A failure to clear the ball from Moreno allowed Ayoze Perez the opportunity to nip in and smash the ball past a helpless Mignolet, giving the hosts the lead.

Any hopes of Liverpool being fired up by going behind quickly faded. By contrast, they had looked much more of a threat prior to conceding. It was Newcastle who played the better football for the last 15 minutes, and it would have finished 2 or 3 nil had it not been for some excellent saves from Simon Mignolet. The introduction of Lambert had absolutely no effect, throwing into question whether he was really worth buying as a ‘Plan B’. The game ended 1-0 to Newcastle, and Liverpool now find themselves 12 points adrift of leaders Chelsea.

Unless these performances can improve rapidly, we can wave goodbye to hopes of a top 4 spot, let alone another push for the title. The return of Daniel Sturridge towards the end of the month will definitely be a help to us, but certainly doesn’t solve the core issue of defensive frailty. Brendan Rodgers opted to spend a sizeable proportion of the money from the sale of Luis Suarez on Dejan Lovren: this is a very painful thought. Suarez was one of the best players in the world, whilst Lovren is an utter liability. A defensive pairing of him and Skrtel is laughable, and Rodgers’s continued insistence that we don’t need a defensive coach brought in is worrying indeed. The first step to curing any problem is acceptance that the problem exists, and until Rodgers does that we’re in big trouble.

-James Martin

Follow me on Twitter @JamesMartin013

Liverpool 0-1 Southampton: Post-Match Thoughts

After taking 10 points from their first four games and sitting pretty at the top of the Premier League, Liverpool had the right to go into this home game against Southampton feeling fairly confident. The Saints started the season relatively well, but if Liverpool had performed as they did in their first three games of the season, you can’t help but feel this game would have been a walk in the park. The fact is they didn’t play like that; they played awfully. Southampton’s drive and determination to win was contrasted by Liverpool’s lacklustre, uninspired performance, and consequently they flopped to a 1-0 home defeat.

If I was trying to be kind to Liverpool, I could say that nobody was entirely to blame. A perhaps more accurate way of looking at it would be to say that everybody was, to some degree, at fault. This includes Brendan Rodgers, who made some very odd selections. Despite Jose Enrique being fully fit, Rodgers opted to play Sakho, a centre-back by trade, at left-back. Kolo Toure, another central defender, was also played at full-back in the absence of Glen Johnson, meaning that Liverpool lined up at the start of the game with 4 centre-backs in defence. At first I thought this could be a shrewd tactical decision, as the sheer physicality of Agger, Skrtel, Sakho and Toure should have been enough to prevent Southampton from getting anywhere near our goal, but as it transpired they simply could not function properly out of position.

This was the first mistake; unfortunately it was followed by many more. Liverpool started the game relatively brightly, but right from the start seemed to be lacking the incisive edge that they have shown when on the attack in previous games this season. Steven Gerrard had a free kick saved well by Boruc, and Liverpool should blatantly have had a penalty when Lovren took out Sturridge in the box. Moses also looked relatively bright, but those were the only two real chances of note for Liverpool in the first half. This was partially down to the absence of Philippe Coutinho, who is normally so good at creating chances. Iago Aspas was played in the number 10 role for the first half, and he simply wasn’t good enough. His poor performance led to his replacement by Raheem Sterling after just 45 minutes.

If the first half was underwhelming, the second half was downright disgraceful. The attackers continued to fail in making chances, but now it was coupled with defensive sloppiness. Mignolet looked extremely uncertain whenever he received the ball from his defenders, and the defenders themselves kept tying themselves in knots by refusing to boot the ball clear. In attempt to retain possession by passing it around the back, the defence gifted Southampton many chances, and eventually a goal. Their refusal to clear the ball out of danger led to the conceding of a pointless corner, which Dejan Lovren subsequently scored from. Daniel Agger, who was meant to be marking him, got nowhere near the ball. Gerrard was also at fault: he was standing on the goal-line, and had he used his left foot he could have smashed the ball off the line, and away to safety. Instead he opted to use his favoured right foot, and consequently he was only able to hit the ball into the roof of his own net.

I hoped that this may prove the stimulus that Liverpool needed to kick on and start playing some decent attacking football. I was disappointed. Not only did the reds seem unable to create attacks, they also seemed unwilling. Their was no desire to push forward and try to equalise, and the team merely continued to pass the ball around in midfield, never really troubling the Southampton defence. To be fair, Sterling (who had replaced Aspas at half time) looked bright; he combined well with Sturridge on a couple of occasions to create the only half-chances Liverpool made throughout the second half.

I defend Liverpool whenever I can, but there is simply no denying that Southampton deserved the victory in this game. They pressed the ball, put pressure on our defence, and generally harried us into mistakes. In the end, they were rewarded. Liverpool were the polar opposite: their lack of desire and effort were what lost them the match. It was not the performance of a team that can finish in the top 4, and we will need to up our game hugely if we want to keep that ambition alive. Hopefully the return of Suarez next game will rejuvenate our side. Whatever his faults, nobody could accuse Luis Suarez of lacking passion and drive. If he slots back in well, I expect to see a huge upturn in performance in the League Cup against United, and subsequently in our league match against Sunderland.

-James Martin

Follow me on Twitter @JamesMartin013