THIS Saturday must have been a case of projecting confidence on the outside and desperately praying deep down for something on Brendan Rodgers’ part.
It must’ve been, surely.
Following Chelsea’s loss to Newcastle United, when Arsene Wenger and Brendan Rodgers oversaw their teams walk out on the Emirates pitch, it was literally a top of the table clash.
Table toppers at home, clear by 2 points, and flying high since that shocking opening day home defeat to Aston Villa.
The away side – the pleasant surprise package this season, with a few convincing wins (and some not so much), some great attacking play displayed in glimpses, cancelled out by some clumsy defending at times.
And when the defending held up its own, the midfield looked more than happy to oblige with a few shockers of its own.
You don’t win the league with performances like that. Neither do you hope for much after the body language displayed on the pitch this Saturday.
Was it nerves? Or perhaps even over excitement, and a sense of heightened expectations, coupled with feverish anticipation?
On the one hand (despite Brendan Rodgers’ best attempts at playing down its significance) this was the match of the season, so far.
The last two words are extremely important here – so far. The way the table has seen teams jump up and shift down like the authenticity of a ghost writer, anything can still happen and no one has anywhere near won anything just yet.
Plus, it might have been an attempt by Rodgers of taking the pressure off his players by saying a defeat won’t derail the campaign.
A sort of reverse psychology of lowering the players’ expectations so they feel like they have nothing to lose, which in turn eliminates any fear that might have held back their confidence levels.
But if that statement was meant to have much effect on his players, and if it did, then the Northern Irishman might have overplayed his hand a tad on this occasion.
Because the Liverpool players seemed at their lackadaisical worst as if they were up against relegation with just the one match to go and 3 points required just for a mathematical chance of survival.
Such was the mediocrity against an extremely fluid side, who had been scoring goals for fun, and with silky moves and smooth passes making up most of their build-up.
This was a side (still is for that matter) who are once again passing the ball for fun, making space for double the pleasure, and not to mention scoring – at times – almost at will.
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This was there to be seen again from the Gunners over the weekend.
Liverpool on the other hand, weren’t just erratic with possession, but quite clumsy with their first touches as well. It might have been nerves, if not among individual players then certainly a collective sputter or two for the entire group.
There was no purpose visible whenever the Reds got the ball. Some years ago it might have been fair to say they’d have gotten away with against a lower or a less prolific side. But the way the game’s standard has increased today, almost any team would’ve taken advantage of Liverpool’s inability to compose themselves with the ball before imposing with it.
That’s what it was.
Whenever, whoever had the ball, they seemed to be rushing without much of a clue regarding their next direction. It was haphazard, and certainly not the way even a top 8 side would be expected to play, forget top 4 and certainly do us all a favour and wipe away any mentions of a certain ‘L’ word from the phenomenon called ‘hope’.
Not based on Saturday’s performance, not a flying chance if it was between that and monkeys flying to the moon.
Now, as said before, this doesn’t make that big a dent. Matches have been lost to Arsenal away in the past and it is possible to recover. The big question though, is how many comebacks can Liverpool afford?
The answer surely must be: Not many.
Judging by some of the inconsistencies seen among the Liverpool players in some of their basic professional footballing skills, the picture does get a bit scary.
Jon Flanagan did well, considering his age and lack of experience. He seemed to have raised his game for the occasion, but given it must be well below the more established players in the squad to begin with, what the youngster managed to raise for the table fell short against the opponents.
Mamadou Sakho did not look much of anything on the pitch and Steven Gerrard looks extremely weathered down this season. Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge meanwhile, quite simply had an off day. Perhaps the timing of all that ‘SAS’ talk wasn’t chosen to perfection, but neither of the two looked beaten by the Arsenal defence as much as they looked off it on their own.
That happens. As hard as it may be to accept, players have an off day. Trouble here, was that while the two men up front weren’t at their best, the midfielders also chose the same match, to possibly be at their worst.
The ball was perennially in Arsenal’s possession, and well, they made it count.
Twice.
And it could so very easily, have been so much more.
The only thing they can do now is clear their heads, and approach the home game against Fulham as a fresh one.
Forget The Emirates, forget Santi Cazorla and Aaron Ramsey’s unstoppable shots, and while they’re at it, most certainly forget the bulk of their own match as well.
It’s time to go back to the basics, and do them well. Pass, move in to space, pass again, find some more space. And if the blatantly obvious needs to be stated here, do try and bring the ball under your control as soon as possible, and then pass it to one of your own.
Just as Arsenal did on Saturday.
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Rodgers wasted our summer kitty . The 31 millions we spent on Sakho , Llori , and Aspas could have been spent on a top class midfielder : hell even 2 top class midfielders. Rodgers is proven to be out of his depth.
enough already, we lost to a very very good arsenal side with a top class midfield,we got dominated and rightly so , we are not ready for the champions league unless we get anoter RB and 2 to topclass CM.WEVE got Fulham at HOME its a must win , not less that 2-0 win or Rodgers out HAHA
It was an away game against arguably the best side in the premiership. We had a key player coming off injury and lost our right wing back just prior to the game. Martin Atkinson should have allowed play to continue but elected to book the Arsenal player and stop play instead. This is meant as an observation rather than an excuse. This team needs no excuse because they are playing far above expectation. Fulham will be a much more telling game than Arsenal so let’s reserve judgment at least until that fixture has run its course.
Fulham a telling game??? Fulham are relegation, championship material. They could have played another 9 hours of football against saints and still would have strung 2 passes together. Lost to Leicester and Man U….
Not a telling game. Sorry, just about the most winnable game of the season. Nothing short of 3 points will do.
Ps, would someone tell BR to stop talking about turning the corner, consistency etc… We lose the next game every time he opens his mouth
Well said Erin. Fulham is an easy 3 points any day.
Rodgers never have been interviewed at any other top club. We know he was brought in because he agreed to all the cost cutting and the plans to save money, which incidentally probably financed their Red Sox season. Last season we won 1 game out of 18 against the top 10 , this season is developing the same, how lucky is he that this week we face a really poor Fulham , posters will all be on on Monday saying ” we are on the way ” . Sickening.
As opposed to ridiculously overspending and place the club back into debt??
Any manager the owners hired would have to agree to their plans… It is after all their club.
Who was the last manager that had us competing for top four after 10 games?? This includes our idol King Kenny.
We wait so long to compete then when we do people are upset that we lose 2-0 to a team that has had the same manager and stability for 16 years.
I think people overreact and look to blame someone. If there is anyone to blame it is the owners who decided to sell to G&H. We’ve been in the sh it ever since.
If you wanna go even further back blame Souness!
But dont blame someone whose goal is to get us to where we need to be, especially not when we are sat in third place. Get some perspective and support the team and manager, they are doing a better job than previous seasons.
Nonsensical drivel by Aaron (as usual)
Spot on Micheal .well said
Dennis, are you pleased we lost and have you been shouting ‘told you so’ like some petulant child?
I love ‘supporters’ like you.
In seasons gone by Fulham would have been viewed as a tough game, because people hate Rodgers now it’s facing a ‘ poor Fulham’
How many times in the past have we drawn or lost to teams at the bottom of the league? This includes your previous Rafa!!!
Now we truly believe and do beat the teams we should and have lost a game to the league leaders, people are up in arms.
As I said last week, more comments when we lose than win, what does that say about you people who love to hate the ‘ FACT’ we are third????
Of course im not pleased we lost , and I have never said ‘i told you so ‘
Im just sick of reading your nonsense excuses and bullsh it.
Dennis it is not an excuse to support a manager who is third in the league, rather than always vilify him, as you always do. Has he slept with your Mrs or something? No he is trying to improve the team, where were your same comments when king k was in charge???? Exactly!!!
Some Arsenal fans wanted Wenger out last year, they don’t now!
Also where do you live, I’ll send you that thesaurus I told you about last week. The word delude is really tiresome now my UN supporting friend.
Rodgers is incompetent. Simple as.
What words I use are none of your business. I don’t care what words or phrases you use.
Also if I vilify Rodgers that is MY choice and MY OPINION .Absolutely nothing to do with you
And you have no idea of my opinions when Dalglish was in charge , so it’s immature of you to presume
I care zero for your opinions , they are from the mind of a delude
Dennis you said you were sick and tired of reading my comments, if you didn’t care you wouldn’t be sick and tired.
Your business is shared on a forum, frequently, and uselessly I might add. That makes it everyone’s business. You should keep your mouth shut if you didn’t want to make it my business.
Of course you have an opinion, everyone does. It’s just your opinion is always negative. Unsure why you say I’m immature when you can’t even use a different word than delude?? You repeater you.
Listen Dennis, the team is doing better than ever before (most recently) and you have nothing positive to say. Now re read delude in the dictionary and you should see a nice picture of your face. Happy days.
Deluded fool. This team is going nowhere
I love you Dennis, I really do, you’re the reason I post on this site in the first place.
Going nowhere??
Read the article in Paisely Gates about progress under Rodgers, scientific and statistical FACTS, showing clear, un debatable improvements, before showing yourself up as a (fav word coming) DELUDED fan, there’s a good boy (girl) – no offence to girls unless your girl name is called Dennis.
Do you think some article by a deluded fool.is going to make me or anyone else change my mind ?
Last season was awful , Rodgers has bought poorly again . Ee are only where we are because of a easy start .Rodgers has proved himself incapable over and over
If you want to delude yourself into thinking we are going to achieve success with this clown in charge well do so
You obviously have little or no understanding of football. And I really have no desire to debate with a delude like yourself
Said I would post up here for you Denis. You said I am a delude. So here is my reply to you. It’s a fact a nice big one. We are joint second in the league on points with over a quarter of the season played. Crap like easy start is a matter of opinion.
DELUDED FOOL!
Ha ha ha ha
Sad little no sheep . Always there to laugh at.
The same fool who thinks Liverpool are better without Suarez
Ha ha ha
Just laugh at his idiotic comments
Dennis Dennis Dennis.
Now your making yourself more idiotic than you hoped we would discover!
Your intellect knows no bounds, we should all bow down to your enhanced knowledge of football and writing skills, how many times have you used the word delude in the last four or five posts, and you call me immature…..,as ever you Muppet…. I LOVE YOU, YOUR POSTS ARE THE BEST, BAR NONE!
Nobody could be as idiotic as you arron. Total assh0le
Except you Jay. You obviously are as idiotic as me, you can’t even get my name right even though it’s, clearly, spelt and all you need do is copy and paste.
If you can’t even do that ‘Jay ‘ why should the rest bother with anything else you have to say.
See what I did there? Rhymed Jay with Say. Not clever I know, still it’s more clever than you ‘ Jay ‘ who can’t even copy and paste.
There are schools for people like you my friend, they’re called special schools… Oh, you already attend one, my apologies.
Give Gerrard a rest. On the hand, when tactically matters as in Arsenal match, BR failed miserably. I can imagine another scenario if Rafa is our manager.
How many times did Benitez beat Arsenal exactly?
My point is, even precious Rafa lost to Arsenal. Were people saying he should be sacked then.
Oh and Arsenal were not top of the league then, nor were we joint second!!!!
Have no idea what you’re comment is supposed to entice…
We are still in the same position in the league so although it was a bad evening it could have been a lot worse. I do think our 3 midfielders against their 4 or 5 was asking for trouble though
Time for Agger to be back in the team to help drive them forward. Also time for Gerrard to be rested to get some movement in the Midfield. Need to get some consistency to the game.
Gerrard definitely needs a rest, we desperately need another right and left back, cover for Johnson and Cissokho is not up to it.
As long as we beat the teams we should then come January or next summer we can push on again, hopefully from within top four position.
Said I would post up here for you Denis. You said I am a delude. So here is my reply to you. It’s a fact a nice big one. We are joint second in the league on points with over a quarter of the season played. Crap like easy start is a matter of opinion.
Posted on wrong one.
Ha ha ha ha
The little fool no sheep can’t even get that right.
Overracting as usual…we played badly yes…we surely were nt gud enuf on d day bt u cnt jugde a season on one woefull performance…br was also responsible…agreed we could v played a lot beta…4 me d target 4 naw is 2 win d next game against fullham…we arent out of anytin in d league yet…we certainly r going 2 be amoung d top 4 by d end of d season believe it or nt…YNWA
Nothing changes , you all come on here saying ” this players not good enough ” etc. Listen lads a lot of us have been saying since day one that this manager of ours is not a ” top, top manager ” , never will be. Some even blame Kenny , well that was 16 months ago. This work experience manager of ours has spent £ 95m , remember this fella brought us Borini etc, this fella didn’t have a clue were to play Sahin, who this week will line up for Dortmund against Arsenal in the CL. This fella lost the tactical battle on Saturday, because make no mistake we got stuffed, outclassed. If he stays ,you can forget top 4 ,that’s already gone . But FSG can change things by getting rid before its too late.
Shows what you know. Br beat and drew with Kenny in his first season in the prem.
so does that mean Kenny is a division 1 level manager?
He also beat arsenal and man city. City were crowned champions. So by your powers of deduction swansea were the real winner of the league were they?
Guess what Chelsea Sunderland Everton and arsenal also beat them.
So stop crying losing 2 games in 10. Is a massive improvement. Joint second. Would you have taken that start of the season? And don’t go on about easy start unless you put up all our top 4 rivals fixture lists. Ours is not that much easer then most!
For Swansea . Not Liverpool.
Beating a poor Liverpool side under Kenny was no achievement. Why are you talking about Swansea ? Who cares about Swansea ?
Bring up the fixture list yourself . Liverpools was much easier
“work experience manager” he beat the team who won the league and a top 4 team. not sure how many work experience managers have done that. showing Swansea results show that he has beat top managers with a much lesser team.
he also should have beat arsenal once and city twice last season only for the players to let him down big time. did he start crying and pointing the finger at people(like what happens on here)? no. he even after the first draw with city said to blame him for asking the players to keep the ball on the floor.
chelsea lost to new castle 2.0. should jose get the road? he also only drew with united.
i will ask you again to put up proof of you easy start. it shouldn’t take long just copy and past. oh and if was wrong about this easy start crap. that cretin below would put it up. so when he fights for your side you have already lost.
sahin was asked to play further up the field because he was not willing to fight in midfield and if i remember right from only a few games he got a couple of goals and a couple of assists. another cry baby.
Ha ha ha ha
Little no sheep making a BIGGER fool of himself.
Sahin WANTED to play in centre midfield cos that is his position. That is where he plays . You fool !!!
Still banging on about Swansea ? Nobody cares about Swansea. Is Chris hughton a top manager cos he beat the champions once ? Stop being a total clown
Maybe we should look at Rodgers cup failures as Swansea boss too ?
Grow up , your the only one ‘crying’ around here
Once again (yawn) , if you want to copy the opening fixtures then do so . It is obvious to everyone that Liverpool have had a ridiculously east opening 9 matches compared to all others. I find your points irrelevant and quite childish. You talk of me losing because someone unknown to me agrees with me , how can I lose ? I simply gave over my point of view . As I said I find your attitude and demeanor very childish .
Guys . Don’t waste your time with no sheep. He is just a delude .
Typical with most bitters. Have there opinion challenged and they leave.
Ha ha ha . Is that another idiotic comment by no sheep ? Yes it is
Ha ha ha ha
The little fool goes from the ridiculous to the totally stupid. Wittering on about what teams beat city 3 seasons ago ! What drivel.
Little no sheep is one of those trolls who writes nonsense and doesn’t have the cop on to realize he’s making a fool of himself.
Realist. I have read nothing of note from you except insulting someone else, namely no sheep.
Show us your immaculate insight into football rather than hide behind the little bully you are.
What p*ssed me off was the way we lay down against an overrated Arsenal side. Yes they’re good, but that’s it. Our strongest 11 is better…
Aggression, desire – a will to win, that’s all we needed and they would’ve capitulated. They had no one available to change the game if they went behind. Wenger being smug at the end of it was bad enough, but Rodgers accepting defeat so calmly at the end of it made it even worse.
Saturday game between Arsenal and Liverpool comfirm BR as an average manager that lacks tactical approach to big game like arsenal one..
Yet he has enough tactical skill to get us third place???!! Or was that luck or just an easy start?
Still had to play those teams in past seasons and past seasons we would have lost.
So what you’re saying is that he is not good but has made us beat the teams we should be beating yet is tactically clueless for guiding us to third. Contradiction much!!
Easy start . Look at the matches we had . Easy easy start
And what about past seasons when we have had easy starts but not been consistent?
We have had easier starts than this and done much worse… The Premier league is 20 years old…So what’s your point?
what is he(henderson) even doing in the field always while good play maker like Allen is fit to play…
why did Moses benched in an important game like this? Why don’t u install Agger in LW ahead of cissiokoh.?
We knew we are going to loose this once we saw team lineup and formation. BR lost it before it has started, I remember Wenger was smiling before match cause he knew what going to happen next. No team this year can outplay gunners by playing 3 at back. Gunners are fluent in passing. Anyway if you play 3 at back against gunners, Chelsea, Mancity they gonna rip u apart. But still Liverpool played really good. If we would have played 4231 then that was really awesome test for both. One thing is clear this season, it does not matter how many star players u have in your team its what tactics you play against depending on the opposition.
i tink it shld be sos rather dan sas coz the players wea playin 4 dem selves
Truth is drop Lucas play Allen and revert to 4 5 1 or 4 3 3 cos SAS are playing 4 themselves not the team esp Sturage yam.
BR is tactically inefficient. By playing 3 5 2 formation against arsenal on saturday shows that he can’t lead us anywhere this season. Why play cissokho,who can’t even dribble a toddler as wing back. Agger should have come in as a left back-with toure as a right back. We needed the creativity of Moses against arsenal. Again,despite his childish play at times, we needed the paste of Sterlin in that match for tactical reason in place of average Henderson,who should have put us in the lead against arsenal.But, BR is no tactician. And, this is our doom.Our failure to invest in a DM in the summer is now hunting us as Lucas is nowhere a top 4 material. Together with Gerrard, they constitute one of the weakest midfield pair in epl. No matter our position on the table now, we can’t get top 4 with midfielders who can’t score goals. As a matter of fact, we must invest in a DM in the winter. We missed Wanayama in the summer. He could have added steal to our midfield. Again, we will need a mature top class no 10. Coutinho has skills but his finishing is too poor – causing us a lot of scoring chances. I hear of Andre Ayew link in the winter. If it materialises, we will be rest assured of top 4.