It’s always difficult to judge games like the game on Saturday. Where do you start? We lost. We weren’t particularly great but then, we weren’t particularly awful. Likewise West Brom were neither good nor bad. Both sides limped through the game and tried to make the most of any opportunities that came their way.
From the perspective of a Liverpool fan, we could argue that West Brom were given a great deal too many decisions by ref. I’m sure that most fans from either side wouldn’t argue that that wasn’t true but like I said: when opportunities present themselves, you have to take them. West Brom had around 14 shots; Liverpool about the same, so in those purely statistical terms either side could’ve won the game and football is always about taking your chances. Sadly for Liverpool, football is also a sport were you can limit the oppositions opportunities and in the past, Liverpool have been a side who have – time and time again – taught all of Europe’s’ top sides what it truly feels like to not get a sniff at goal; often to not even get a sniff at coming within 5ft of the penalty area. So it is the fact that West Brom managed to prise 14 shots at goal out of Liverpool (with very little effort) on Saturday afternoon that has me very worried indeed.
Because, let’s be honest, if Liverpool hadn’t been so free and easy from midfield to defence, West Brom wouldn’t have managed to get 3 potentially penalty winning opportunities. Two of which were presented to them on a nice, shiny plate and two of which they took (as an aside, what the hell happened to Pepe Reina’s ability to save penalties??). It is not that the penalties were given that I have an issue with, it is the regularity lately with which the Reds are allowing other sides to have chances. It may feel like a lifetime ago but it was only 12 months ago that Rafa was still manager and the thought of any side having more than 10 shots at our goal in a single game would’ve been laughed at.
There is the argument that Liverpool had to make two very important changes early on and that the rhythm of our style of play was affected by this and I would agree; replacing Johnson and Agger with Wilson and Kyrgiakos is always going to affect you. And our wonderfully knee-jerk support (who probably about 6 months ago thought he was the bargain of the century) now believe that Sotirios is now surplus to requirements and will blame him for the loss on Saturday. However, it is the fact that when two of our first team players are withdrawn, we have no answer. Kyrgiakos and Wilson are not bad players, on the contrary, they’re both decent players and their introduction shouldn’t have affected us too much.
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INTRODUCING CRYSIS 2!
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A very poignant article. I’m tired of hearing about how bad our squad is, it’s not as bad as some the results we’ve had.
As for Spearing…he’s mediocre. No better. He may have more heart than Maxi and Ngog put together and would kill himself for the success of LFC but no amount of effort will create ability out of nothing. The idea that we have a player of Aquilani’s calibre on our books and choose to send him out on loan whilst playing a player like Jay Spearing makes me want to give up and start watching basketball. There’s a reason why Tottenham play (injury-prone) Van Der Vaart and keep sending Jamie O’Hara on loan. Kenny needs to drop the sentiment and drop this guy. Actual talents like Martin Kelly and Shelvey need game time because they will be good players. Spearing needs a transfer.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who watched Dani Pacheco’s debut for Norwich and it only raised more questions about the management which seems to be above criticism from most fans.
Before any ‘real’ fans reply to comment without addressing any issues to tell me to ‘get behind’ Jay Spearing and the management. I am fully behind both. If Jay Spearing does anything good on a pitch, I will applaud. If he does anything bad, I will encourage. Same goes for the management. However after the games when we reflect on the past mistakes, I will not act blind and I will not tolerate mediocrity at Liverpool Football Club.
Rant over.
Your clearly a joker if you want to blame anyone blame the team. You’d probably moan if we were top of the table.
Substitute the name Kenny Dalglish for Roy Hodgson and I bet you wouldn’t have blamed the team!
What an ignorant article that hides from the truth. The truth being westbrom wanted it more than us, they didn`t just go through the motions. They out passed us, not difficult as we played long ball all day. They were more of a threat upfront and 11 of their 14 shots were on target, only 5 of ours were. The real issue is whether King Kenny is the man or not, I for one don`t want to see long ball and I don`t want to ever see us played off the park by westbrom again. Fair play to them, theyve been playing good football all year and shouldn`t have lost at Anfield really but with our resources they shouldnt be giving us footballing lessons like last saturday.
If you’re referring to me, I would moan if we were top of the table and lost to west brom because it would be points dropped. I guess you would celebrate?
We should be brushing teams like west brom behind. 25 goals against them in 9 meetings. 0 goals against us – not that this statistic means we will win, but we just didn’t play the correct game plan. We dont have the players this season for 4-4-2. We should stick with 4-3-3: suarez , carroll and kuyt up front. A midfield of gerrard, lucas and meireles. Johson, Agger, Carragher, Kelly. That’s our strongest team at the moment if they are all fit. Or the 3-5-3 system which has worked well. All we can do is stay behind our team and hope that we can attract the quality of players that will stand us in good stead for next season.
3-5-2 system sorry
Everyones still not mentioned that we haven’t replaced our midfield players for those of the same quality we swapped alonso for that Italian sick note aqualanni and mascherano for meirelles although he has his good spells he is an attacking midfielder we miss real fight across the midfield.
ffs, get over it you were beat by a better team on the day.your goalkeeper saved you from a b00lickin.and if you were there you would agree.
what a shocking article. west brom outplayed you in every department. If liverpool would have won the game it would have been injustice. Why do journalists have no idea about football. For instance, ratings in one paper stated that wba’s 2 central midfielders mulumbu and scharner rating was 5/10 but lucas and spearing were 6/10 when they were over run by the wba 2.
It’s all Spearings fault..awesome. There are better players? Maxi…in central midfield? Maxi makes no effort when he plays in his position. Pacheco, every opportunity he has been given in the past few years have not led me to believe that he cares too much about playing for Liverpool. He was atrocious against Northampton Town when tricky players like him were supposed to make the difference….the only 2 players that came out of that game with and credit were Spearing and Lucas. The whole team were rubbish against West Brom. Spearing has only played a few first team games and is certainly better than Lucas was 2 years ago. He was awesome against Sunderland and against Everton earlier in the season. What the hell do you want from him? As for Aquilani, Kenny didn’t loan him out and he has been making it very clear that he wants to stay in Italy. As for some of other loanees that were mentioned in an earlier article on this website, they either need experince of first team football which they were not going to get at Anfield or they were not good enough (Konchesky). In some cases there is no doubt that Dalglish might have liked to have then but they were loaned out before he was manager.
Colin you’re an idiot if you really think Spearing is better than Lucas was 2 years ago. Spearing is a rubbish Championship player who is not good enough for Liverpool. He might have been decent at Sunderland but he was running around like a headless chicken against Everton and West Brom. Moreover, Spearing is so bad that he has just got into the first team at the age of 22. If he was good enough he would have been playing in the first team 3 years ago. Moreover, the fact that he hasn’t even represented England at youth level suggests that he is not cut for the Premier League. The guy offers absolutely nothing in midfield and needs to be transferred as soon as possible. The only reason so called ‘fans’ like you like the guy so much is simply because he is a local lad.
Lucas, in contrast, was already a Brazilian international 2 years ago. In fact, he got his first international cap 3 years ago. 3-4 years ago he was arguably the best midfielder in Brazil and top teams like Inter Milan were after him. And Spearing? If you were to even suggest that he is close to an England call up now everyone on this website would be laughing their heads off.
It also seems to me that you’re suggesting that Spearing is a better player than Maxi who has earned more than 40 caps for Argentina. If you watched the World Cup, you would know that Maxi played alongside Mascherano in central midfield so he would have had no problem in playing in that position. In fact, he played in central midfield in the 1-0 away win at Chelsea.
Saturdays game was bad for Liverpool but as for spearing give him a break, the team were bad and west brom out played us, trouble we have now is that the squad does not have all that much strength in depth, we need to give game time to the youngsters to proved that strength (or buy more bench warmers) changes will occur in the summer and to be honest i feel that some of our injury prone players need to be moved on (not helping the defense by not playing week in week out together)
Plus it is better to check out all of your team options before the summer to see where and what needs to change, this i believe is what Kenny is doing and if that means playing the younger players great. That said the will to win and desire needs to be present