Quantcast
Match Day

L4L Match Report: West Bromwich Albion 3 v 0 LIVERPOOL

|
Image for L4L Match Report: West Bromwich Albion 3 v 0 LIVERPOOL

LIVERPOOL’S league season got off to a very depressing start yesterday with a 3-0 loss to West Bromwich Albion. The goals came from Zoltan Gera, Peter Odemwingie (penalty) and Romelu Lukaku, and they provided Liverpool with their worst ever result in an opening Premier League fixture.

What could have gone wrong pretty much did, but Liverpool started the game reasonably well and looked the most likely team to score in the opening exchanges.

Fabio Borini had Liverpool’s first chance on 5 minutes, heading wide after a Stewart Downing cross. Not surprisingly, Luis Suarez was Liverpool’s biggest individual threat and on 15 minutes he had a well-struck shot saved by Ben Foster after ghosting around two West Brom defenders. Then on the half hour mark, the Uruguayan missed a glorious opportunity when he fluffed a far post header after Glen Johnson’s cross.

Generally, Liverpool displayed an endearing willingness to implement Brendan Rodgers’ principle idea of bossing possession. Indeed, some reports have suggested that Liverpool’s pass count across the whole game outnumbered the total passes made by a Liverpool team in any game for four seasons.

After a loss however, statistics like this will provide absolutely no relief for the manager and players, and the possession counted for nothing when Zoltan Gera smashed in a terrific volley from 25 yards out, just before half time. It is always one of the worst times to concede, but planning for a goal of such quality is impossible. Overall, it was a pretty even half but Liverpool were behind.

The second half began in a similar vein, Liverpool’s patient passing continued but no chances came. On 58 minutes however, the wheels began to come off. Daniel Agger was adjudged to have fouled Shane Long at the edge of the area and a penalty was awarded. The incident came after a swift West Brom break and the Dane was Liverpool’s last man. Accordingly, the red card was shown and Agger looked completely bemused. He probably had good reason to question the decision, the penalty call falls into the ‘soft and slightly harsh’ category, but he will know that any modern day striker goes tumbling to the ground upon the slightest of contact. There was an element of justice when Long missed the spot kick, his tame effort saved easily by Pepe Reina.
[ad_pod id=”unruly-video” align=”center”]
Unfortunately, Martin Skrtel didn’t take heed of this incident, and proceeded to concede another penalty on 64 minutes. Again, Shane Long showing ruthlessness in the area and he didn’t waste any time in going down when contact was made. The penalty decision was slightly harsh yet again, but there was arguably more contact than the Agger foul. Peter Odemwingie didn’t make the same mistake as Long, his penalty kick was dispatched firmly into the bottom left hand corner.

The game was all but over, but West Brom slammed another nail into the coffin on 77 minutes when Romelu Lukaku headed in a Liam Ridgewell cross. The goal was slightly unlucky in that Youssuf Mulumbu’s shot deflected well to Ridgewell and Liverpool didn’t have time to re-adjust their defensive positioning after clearing the preceding corner.

One swallow doesn’t make a summer, but for many years Liverpool fans have emphasised the importance of an opening day victory. It breeds confidence, momentum and a collective feel-good factor across all areas of the club which can often provide a solid foundation to the season. With better teams to come in the forthcoming weeks, Liverpool will need a victory against Premier League champions Manchester City next Sunday or they will already find themselves behind the league’s top teams. More importantly, it will get the club back on track and relieve some early tension for the new manager. Early mutterings from several Liverpool fans appear to be along the lines of ‘you can pass the ball all you want but it counts for nothing if you don’t score’. Fair point, but the same fans should not expect Rodgers to change.

L4L Man of the Match

Joe Allen. Nothing spectacular from the new signing and he didn’t have much competition, but he was the basis to Liverpool’s passing game and he performed admirably considering it was a debut appearance.

Catch Antony on Twitter @antonyjlfc

Live4Liverpool is recruiting columnists. For further info contact the site editor at live4liverpool@snack-media.com

Follow us on Twitter here: @live4Liverpool and ‘Like’ us on Facebook

Share this article

9 comments

  • Elias says:

    All we need is to buy players we need to spend coz this is the truth about our squad, we must get atleast a type of player one which is roystone drenthe who was former lonee of everton who is free agent @ madrid, adam johnson can bring the much needed creativity and one spanish or germany striker. Tired of losing

  • yunus says:

    Disgusted ,here we go again , our season will be the same as last season if not worse,Henry & Werner like H & G before them made promises and never materilaised , one again we have American owners who is is fooling us and they are lookingg at big profits only , they must sell our club to a Middle Eastern billionaire so that firstly a new 70,000 seater stadium gets built and huge investment into a top coach and top players are pursuit,money buys success Chelsea and Man City has proven that

  • Branfield says:

    Great passing! Pity about no goals!!!! Have seen a few sites remarking still about not doing well against “lower” teams but anyway we will beat City come Sunday – wonder what world they live in? Is there room for more?

  • peter says:

    I don’t think we liverpoolfc play badly last season but our problem is goal scoring at the same not over as the plan of Brenden Roldger is to play passing game not goal scoring which to me means His going to fail make it today.he is not faceing our challege

  • IndianRed says:

    A real horror start, but the special circumstance was that Steve Clarke was manager of West Brom. He doesn’t lose easily to former teams. Remember Chelsea v Liverpool after we’d just sold them Fernando Torres? Check out an interesting article on http://www.lfcopinion.in showcasing Steve’s role in the defeat – there seemed to be an almost mystical understanding amongst the West Brom players where the Liverpool players were going to pass the ball. There were so many interceptions its uncanny.

  • Elias says:

    Liverpool went wrong when RB not BR was given less money to boost the squad ..rafael benitez was not supported financially ,he had to sell and buy which is a hard root to get

  • Is with this Tiki Taka that Liverpool will be among the top 4?? Where WB scored 3 goals without any Lfc defenders infront of them .The way that Lfc play gave WB the opportunity to compact their defense where Lfc can’t score and WB counter attack became more success than Lfc attack so wisely they let Lfc to dominate for nothing by the way i didn’t found the Tiki Taka game that BR asked Lfc squad to play i hope BR will prove adequate for Lfc next game

  • NJRedsFan says:

    Joe Allen, seriously? He made a bunch of largely safe, easy, and neutral to backward passes, essentially same as Hendeson last season. Other than that he was largely anonymous and not very strong defensively. I think it was too soon for him, Shelvey should have gotten the start.

  • Matt Evans says:

    How long have we known about needing a goal scorer? to long! Dempsey is a proven goal scorer!
    He may be the a bit long in the tooth, but if he gets us in the champs league he’ll be worth what ever it costs!
    All the top teams buy at Harrods while we buy at Aldi…..

Comments are closed.