On Monday night I watched on with many others as a poor Liverpool team got brushed aside by a poor Man City team. Of course, levels won’t be at their required rate just yet but what’s certain is Man City will improve with each passing week, where Liverpool go, that’s a question for Roy Hodgson.
Before the match, Andy Gray and Richard Keys did their best Statler and Waldorf impressions by mocking Rafa Benitez before a ball had been kicked. Thinly veiled swipes at his 4-5-1 tactics and marking philosophies were cringeworthy enough. It occurs to me that it didn’t occur to them that should Joe Cole have been fit, Liverpool would’ve lined up 4-5-1. Nevermind the fact that City scored from a corner, and when Andy Gray was asked why man marking went wrong, he simply replied ‘well it happens’. Thanks Andy, your insight was outstanding, s**t does indeed happen no matter what marking system you play.
The game itself was no spectacle from a reds point of view and I won’t dwell too long, I don’t want to provoke some unwanted shudders while you read. Hodgson quite simply got his tactics all wrong, his record of 4 away league wins in 2 seasons could be understood with his line up. Starting a crunch game away with 4 strikers on the pitch is only going to lead to trouble.
The prerogative for any team like us is to build on small things. A series of early defeats could be very damaging come the usual winter fixture pile up. While the loss to City was unsurprising for most, enjoyable for some and deflating for the rest, again the most worrying for me was the tactics. Lucas, while a player I like and admire, cannot hold the midfield against Barry, Milner and Toure.
Back in Muppets studio, Gray found the vocabulary to praise Hodgson for his bravery in playing 4-4-2, again reminding us that a manager like Rafa would not have done this. Well, our outnumbered midfield and wingless strikers were food and drink for a combative midfield trio in sky blue. Gerrard played in his ‘best position’ though, which was well worth the defeat.
It seems that a spot of contradiction was being served at Sky Towers, their dynamic duo in the same breath called for Gerrard to play central midfield, while drooling over the fact Gerrard and Torres could potentially be back among the goals together. Hmm, I’m sure when Gerrard and Torres were firing on all cylinders, Stevie wasn’t playing central midfield. Forget that though, this is the wonderful world of media! In HD, Yeah!
The repercussions from this defeat are not that great, in a way, I was relieved we got a reality check early on. The goal posts can be shifted so to speak, and as a club we could do a good job out of the ‘lime light’ of the fight for 1st with the new ‘Big 3’.
With Mascherano proving to be as unprofessional as he is fiery on the pitch, we must concentrate on getting our house in order off the pitch before things improve on it. On this topic, I don’t understand why the player was allowed back to training at all. His behaviour has been despicable and if he truly did refuse to play, breaking his contractual obligation in the process, Liverpool should be free to dock him wages for his remaining time at the club.
The change in manager has proved to us only, thus far, that the more things change the more they stay the same. Let’s hope this ‘secret but not so secret’ bid comes through and we can attain some certainty in our future.
Our fixture list has not been kind, a win against West Brom and then Birmingham is important if we are to have any confidence enough to go to Old Trafford and then potentially on to the rest of the season.
So, the question falls to ‘Mr Roy’. Everybody expects us to take it to the likes of West Brom, especially at Anfield. The match should be a given, but will Hodgson be able to bring the big away results we need to reach the tables summit? I hope so, and I don’t doubt that he will learn fast.
At the City game the away fans were chanting Rafa’s name, I can’t see this as helpful to Hodgson’s cause (although I did raise a smile in acknowledgment), but it does raise the question, are these the same idiots who were calling for his name last year? Who knows, but Hodgson will need our full support from here on in, not to mention a lot of patience.
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mate no manager would loan out a 20m signing(ok maybe man city given that they’ve got infinity funds) and roy’s loaning out aquilani as if we’ve got a plethora of creative attacking midfielders. if we still had aquilani and actually played him against city im sure we’d have done much better with him, stevie g and lucas forming a 3 man midfield. and no mascherano didn’t force the 4-2-4 at city cause we bought poulsen for a reason. yea riera called us a sinking ship and it was logical for him to be sold but for something like 3m when we got him for 8m? it’s ridiculous. rafa loaned nemeth in the first place cause he needed to play more regularly and could return stronger. rafa left us in 7th place, that was because the yankee twats didn’t give us money to spend and we were left with ngog to spearhead our attack for much of the season and players like lucas and insua starting.
eric, you would only loan out a 20 million player if he was not salable, we could as you say have done better against city but aqualani would not have changed the result, riera went for 3 million because no one bid more as he’s not woth it, nemeth was loaned out before he was ever given a chance (i’m a big fan of nemeth) although they are tw—s or worse, the 20 million aquilani money could have bought the striker we were crying out for, insua was first choice of rafa why wont he bid for him ? why wont anybody bid for him ?
well if he’s not salable then it’s quite simple, don’t loan him out. it’s not even as if we have a lot of players in that position. if we sold him we could re-invest the money but since he isn’t salable then we should have kept him cause we need a player of his quality in midfield. and for nemeth, he wasn’t even given a chance during pre-season so i guess his departure was predictable. insua, you either sell him or give him a squad number and include him in the squad.
eric, the loan is with a selling option, as for insua you cant sell if no team will buy. aquilani is skillful but weak, i think he could have made it and might still but he hould not have been bought when injured, there is no excuse for it, anyway rafa will buy him cut price surely he thought he was so good ? rafa never played him because he knew he had made a mistake and that we would all see it.
still looking for a burst bubble
@ stan howard & eric, you’re not helping the team so shut the f**k up
soebi, your last effort has helped the team no end, please keep it up