Aston Villa 0-2 Liverpool: Post-Match Analysis

In a fairly tame affair at Villa Park, a quietly efficient Liverpool eased through to a comfortable 2-0 victory. Although concentration seemed to be lost for a period at the start of the second half, the second lowest scoring team in all of Europe’s top five leagues were unable to convert any of the chances presented to them.

Gritty hard work was the order of the day in yesterday’s match – a solid performance from the defence for the majority of the match ensured that there weren’t many serious scares at the back. Sakho and Can in particular were excellent – Can demonstrated the advantages of having a ball-playing centre back on multiple occasions, frequently cleverly working his way out of tight spots. Sakho’s highlight was a perfectly timed sliding tackle on the edge of the box to deny Villa a clear-cut opportunity which even they might have managed to convert. Going forward, Liverpool showed good signs in the first half. Sterling didn’t quite look at the races, but Coutinho continued his good form of late and Moreno and Markovic posed a threat going forward. Henderson, too, was playing very well; it was his exquisite pass that led to the opening goal on 24 minutes. He clipped it into the middle of the box, just far enough away from Guzan, and Borini was on hand to guide it skilfully into the corner. Sadly, this moment of quality from the Italian was the anomaly of the game – his performance was largely underwhelming.

After this first goal went in, a multitude of half-chances followed for the visitors. The best opportunity fell to Sterling – he capitalised on a defensive error and ran clean through on goal, but he tried a clever chip over Guzan that ended up an easy catch for the keeper. Had he simply blasted it, Liverpool would surely have doubled their lead. As it was, they went into the break with just a one goal advantage. Once the second half got underway, it looked like we may be made to rue all of the missed chances. Villa upped their game; Benteke was only kept out by an excellent double save from Mignolet, and Baker missed a glorious opportunity. On the subject of Mignolet, I feel obliged to once again jump to his defence. Contrary to what many fans would have you believe, he is by no means our biggest problem. In fact, I would rate his overall contribution to the team as neutral; the semi-regular stupid errors he makes are cancelled out by the number of times he’s bailed us out with excellent saves.

He certainly helped us out in this game – had Villa managed to score, it is hard to imagine that the recovering but still frail Liverpool side would have managed to take the lead again. As it was, LFC weathered the storm. By the last 15 minutes Villa had tired themselves out through their efforts to equalise, and Liverpool were able to get on top again. This second period of pressure was marked by a goal from Rickie Lambert. After a poor pass from Delph was cut out by Sterling, Lambert turned smartly and unerringly found the corner with a shot from just outside the box – although he’s much too slow and reliant on crosses to fit into our team, his technique is undoubtedly good.

This goal all but killed the game, and the final few minutes were a formality. It was a performance that Liverpool can be very satisfied with. The defence were, on the whole, respectable – they guided the team to their third consecutive away clean sheet, a feat we haven’t achieved since the 08/09 season. The midfield can also be satisfied with the number of chances they created; once Sturridge and Balotelli are back up top rather than Borini or Lambert, these chances will surely be finished off on a more regular basis. The combination of a passable defence and high chance creation is a very promising one, and, if sustained, may well be enough to see us finish in the top 4.

-James Martin

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Real Madrid 1-0 Liverpool: Post-Match Thoughts

Having predicted a scoreline of 5-1 Real Madrid prior to the match, I’m coming out of this game feeling extremely positive. We played very well for the majority of the game, made hardly any defensive errors (yep, you read that correctly) and managed to prevent Madrid from scoring two goals or more in a match for the first time since mid-September. We even managed to create a few promising attacks of our own, and although Casillas wasn’t tested very much at all we were at least working good chances. The only real negative is the fairly major one that we lost the game, but the performance was certainly encouraging.

The headline news in the lead-up to the game was that Brendan Rodgers had selected a second string team to face the reigning European champions. Balotelli, Coutinho, Sterling, Gerrard and Henderson all found themselves on the bench, with Lovren not even making the matchday squad. Many fans were up in arms about this, with the ‘Rodgers Out’ crowd on Twitter becoming more vociferous than ever before. However, Brendan had the last laugh. All of the players he selected were hungry to prove themselves and earn a permanent place in the first team, and consequently they worked exceptionally hard. Borini chased down every ball, Emre Can and Lucas seemed to be in the right place to make a tackle whenever Real came at us and Kolo Toure had the game of his life. Lazar Markovic also showed some promising signs, and even Skrtel looked more solid than usual. Despite going behind after 26 minutes through a Benzema goal, there was no point where the game looked beyond us. This is a testament to our performance; we arguably deserved a draw against one of the best teams in the world.

The statistics, predictably, were very much in favour of Real. They had more possession and lots more shots – a team of their calibre playing at home nearly always dominate the game, so this was unsurprising. Mignolet was called into action a lot, and he rose to the challenge magnificently. He had one of his best games in a Liverpool shirt, showing confidence when coming for the ball and making some excellent saves. Our chances came through playing Madrid at their own game: we staged multiple rapid counter-attacks, with Markovic utilising the frequency with which Marcelo was out of position. The final ball was never quite there, but there were definitely dangerous moments. There were two instances where decent crosses would surely have resulted in a goal, and Lallana fashioned a decent chance for himself which he put just wide of the far post. The pattern of absorbing pressure well then springing counter attacks continued right until the end of the match; we never looked totally out of it.

Whilst this stellar performance certainly vindicated Rodgers, it has also caused him some problems for Saturday’s game against Chelsea. If he plays the same team that he fielded against Madrid, questions will have to be asked if we get anything other than a victory. Obviously playing Chelsea is an extremely tough game, but it is winnable; as such, if Rodgers benches his star players again then fails to get a result, he will have to take some blame. On the other hand, the so-called reserves made such a good account of themselves that it seems harsh to drop them – the Real game was one of our best performances of the season. Personally, I would go for a happy medium. Toure should definitely retain his spot in defence, as he was solid throughout and arguably our man of the match. Can should also start – he was excellent, and deserves a run in the starting eleven. However, I would start Borini, Markovic and Lucas on the bench: whilst they all had fairly good games, none of them were good enough to keep Balotelli, Sterling and Henderson out of the team for such a big game. That said, if Rodgers did name an unchanged side then he couldn’t be blamed.

In conclusion, this is the most positive I’ve ever felt after a Liverpool defeat. We played with pride, and Real didn’t completely outclass us. We retained our goal threat until the final whistle, and never let the Spanish giants relax. Our defence was also uncharacteristically good, aside from an error apiece for Skrtel and Lucas. If we can maintain that level of performance against Chelsea at the weekend, we have a good chance of getting a result.

-James Martin