I don’t want to come out and call this weekend’s goalless draw against Stoke City at Anfield a good result. It was frustrating, it was frankly brutal – it was a war! But there are a few positives that I want to accentuate as we head into the further irritancy of an international break.
The first and most obvious positive is that we didn’t play particularly badly. I thought our approach to the game was attacking and we stuck to our principles.
This of course in spite of some of the most thuggish tactics I have ever witnessed in a game of professional football being unleashed on us. We tried to keep the ball on the floor and we stuck to the way we played and to what we believed in. There were no attempts to launch the ball forward aimlessly and lower ourselves down to Stoke’s level.
Of course, our old Achilles heel came back to hurt us again as we missed three huge chances to score what would have been the one and only goal we needed. If Stoke would have had to come out and play I think we’d have won 3-0 at the very least. As it turns out, Johnson, Suarez and Skrtel all missed very presentable chances, with Johnson’s being the pick of the bunch for me. We were laboured in attack at times but how many teams look good against Stoke?
It’s my least favourite game of the season. It’s about getting your result and going home, preferably with all of your players in once piece. And as a side note, Stoke defended very well. They were happy to let us get to the box and then they defended superbly.
But nobody can doubt our attitude. We stuck at it, and I want to praise the young lads especially here. Wisdom, Sterling and Suso would have felt like they were struck by a typhoon, and were afforded no protection by the most truly incompetent display of refereeing I have ever had the misfortune to witness. But they never went hiding and they never went missing. Sterling in particular was given some rough treatment. But they stood tall; Wisdom excellent in defence, Suso using his skill to beat people and Sterling always looking to get in behind (though it ultimately wasn’t his day.) The kids are alright – and they were one of the brightest things about that game. Wisdom looks like he has been our right-back for years, he has slotted in seamlessly.
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After a ropey start, we also managed to restrict Stoke to virtually zero chances on goal. Reina and Sahin have their distribution issues, and the whole “can’t go long” from Reina’s point of view is a concern as we keep leaking chances. For once, we got away with it. After these two early chances, both borne from our own errors, we defended very well and we have our first clean sheet of the league season.
We have been shipping far too many goals and it was pleasing to see this tide stemmed. Of course, Stoke had no intention of attacking or carving out chances, they played for set pieces. We retained possession well and Skrtel and Agger saw off the best intentions of Peter Crouch very well.
Going forward, it’s not the greatest result in the world and it’s frustrating. So much ball, but no goals. We need to start taking our chances. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. We need to build on our clean sheet and we need to keep encouraging the young lads to keep improving, working and fighting. The results will come. The performances are quite good – but they can still improve.
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Was disappointed to not see Stevie, as the Captain, not be all over the Ref when Huth stamped on Luis. Would have been a different game from then on if Stoke was properly down to ten men. Shawcross should have been sent off for his hit on Johnson near the sideline, made no attempt for the ball, pure hatchet job. Luis really screwed the pooch with his poor decision to dive near the end of the match. Although a very sarcastic effort, almost as if he was asking the Ref if that was what he had to do to get a call, if he had not done it the pundits might be talking about how there might be a special set of Ref’s rules for him.
another biased idiotic comment . try and watch a game with your eyes open and not wearing your magic glasses that make everything liverpool do look good
No matter how good or bad Liverpool do idiots like you will always see the opposite just to wind Liverpool fans up, I recommend get a life, maybe go back to school and get an education
im not trying to wind anyone up . we are 14th in the league , 1 striker and a thin squad and owners reluctant to spend . yet all i read here is about how great we are doing .
Another biased idiotic comment from someone who only saw the highlights, yeah saurez dived and we are all frustrated by him but also frustrated the treatment he has been receiving. Go comment on your own team.
” liverpool can take the positives from that ” . i dont know how mant times ive heard that this season , from the manager , players and fans . its getting boring !
what it means is – we weren’t good enough to win the game but lets disguise that by talking about this and that .
football is about scoring more goals than your opponent , so lets concentrate on that .
everyone please stop making excuses
I am not too sure whther Bob is a fan or not, but i have got to agree with him on this one. Many starting from the manager (including one ex-manager) all the way to some fans likes to offer excuses for some time now great we play, we could draw positive from so and so, blah, blah, blah while conveniently forgetting that we are not scoring goals and thus not getting results.
You would never get this from teams like Manure, Chelski, MC. Maybe that is why they are champions and we have not won the league for more than 20 years.
These days under BR we are even languishing near bottom of the table. Any positives from that?
However i do agree that there seems to be one set of rukles for Suarez/Liverpool and another set for others, such as Stoke, Manure. If Pulis wanted 3 match for Suarez, would it be 6 mathces for Huth who blatantly tried to stamp on Suarez?
How many matches for RVP for that elbow? Would he had excaped if RVP is still an Arsenal player?
WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE TO SAY MR. PULIS?
Bob, your comment to what I wrote, like much of what you post, makes no sense. There were no glasses required to see what I mentioned, you may be the one with blurred vision.
you said shawcross should have got red – ridiculous ! thats a yellow all day , no one , not one player after the game or anyone on tv even brought it up . just you .
you said huth should have got red – maybe if he meant , but there was no way of knowing for sure , suarez did the same to someone a few weeks ago accidentally .
you say suarez dived sarcastically … do you realise how pathetic that sounds ? suarez should have got yellow too
just because we support a team , we dont have to be totally biased and see everything our way , a balanced opinion is more honest and truthful . i roared at the referee when suarez was denied the most blatant pen ever against norwich ,but i also cursed when suarez dived last week rather than defending him for that .even my 9 year child was angry at suarez for it
i have to agree with bob , we battled well with stoke but wernt good enough to score . dont score >dont deserve to win
We’re in 14th place, 3 points out of the top 10 and 8 point out of the top four, with more than 80% of the season left. The sky is falling, the sky is falling…… Destabilizing ownership sounds like a grand idea!
you should go and support coventry if you think that is ok.
too much bickering on here and too much making excuses , lets not be like fergusons lot and look to blame the ref or something else all the time .
we are LFC and better than that !!!
If you cant support the team when we lose or draw. Then dont support us when we win. – Bill Shankly
fans are ruining the words of shankly by over using them . that quote is being said nearly every week . face facts we are not winning games and we are in a terrible position in the league. under Hodgson that was terrible under Kenny that would be cause for him to lose his job so don’t expect fans who want lfc to be great again to suddenly accept mediocrity .yes things could improve but not while Suarez prefers to fall on of the floor when it is easier to score . when he in stays on his feet we win ie Norwich but it is not often enough.
ill support the team no matter what but there is no point pretending to be something we are not , and right now we suck !