Quantcast
Featured

5 Things to remember before Crystal Palace

|
Image for 5 Things to remember before Crystal Palace

Liverpool v Chelsea - Premier LeagueAfter the loss to Chelsea at Anfield, fan’s emotions have varied from disappointed to utterly destroyed.

But it’s important that players, staff and fans alike remember some salient points going into the must win game away to Crystal Palace.

1) We dominated Chelsea

Chelsea have been the most successful English club in the last 10 years. They’ve won more trophies than anyone else. They spent over £100m this last year and have spent more money on players in the last 10 years than any other team (only Real Madrid have similar expenditure). Furthermore, Jose Mourinho is the most successful manager presently managing in European Football, a serial winner.

And yet Mourinho was so scared of our young Liverpool team that he felt the only way to get a result was to play 10 players in the 18 yard box and hope for a set piece, counterattack or mistake. This is a great compliment on how impressive our side is, and something we should be proud of.

2. A lesson we needed to learn

As Jamie Carragher said during his Monday Night football analysis, it’s surprising that Chelsea are the first team to play in this manner against the Reds – play deep with limited ambition, hoping for a goal against the run of play. If it hadn’t been for an uncharacteristic mistake Liverpool would have gotten at least a draw.

That it was a mistake is less relevant than that we were 1-0 down to a strong defensive side that were well organized. The goal could have come from a set piece or a refereeing mistake. Either way, as a team we need to learn how to play against such a team in such a situation. In the game we became a little too desperate and too emotional. Steven was perhaps the epitome of this, although he played rather well overall. It reminded me of when Rafa took Steven off in the Derby against Everton to much derision, and Lucas, who came on in his place, won us the key penalty. I’m not at all suggesting we should have substituted Steven, just that we need to learn to be calmer in such situations.

Crossing the ball into a crowded area when we had only 1 payer in the box, players who lack power in their game trying to shoot from 25 yards, hesitancy to pass into feet when players were marked near the box, were all uncharacteristic of the way the team has been playing for most of this year. As the manager said, we needed to show a little bit more patience in the final 20 minutes, this is easier said than done of course.

It was a painful game in which to learn of some of these shortcomings in our game, but we will be tested like this even more often in the future. As Carra suggested, it’s what teams like Barca and Bayern have had to deal with regularly over recent years.

But we are still the youngest side in the Premier League, in our first title challenge in years, with a team that in previous years have finished 7th and 8th and many thought we’d be struggling to challenge for even a top 4 place. This loss was tough, but I trust Brendan and the players to learn from this experience, as they have learned from other disappointing results, and be better next time we face such a challenge.

3. We are still in great form

Before the Chelsea defeat we had won 11 games in a row. Unbeaten in 16 games. Hypothetically, if we had instead lost to Arsenal in that wonderful 5-1 win but then gone on to win our next 11 games (including beating Chelsea instead of losing) everyone would be saying we’d win the league, yet we’d still be on exactly the same number of points as we are now! The perception of momentum is an important concept in football, but we still have great momentum. We lost to Chelsea but we completely dominated them. The boys mustn’t dwell too much on the loss, and refocus to play their normal game. I’m sure they will, but with all the negativity in the press it is much too easy for us fans to get caught up in it.

4. Everton isn’t City’s only tough game

Everyone is hoping that the Blues will do us a favour by taking points against Man City. City have an awful record at Goodison, losing the last 4 games, and 5 of their last 6. But the worst thing that could happen is if Man City beat Everton and Liverpool’s eye goes off the ball and we fail to beat Crystal Palace on Monday.

Gary Neville, who I grudgingly accept has become quite the pundit, said that Man City can be unreliable and unpredictable against a variety of teams. City have Aston Villa and West Ham to play and these aren’t easy games, even though they’re at the Etihad. Villa were unlucky not to beat us at Anfield when they went 2-0 up and could’ve scored more before we came back strongly to draw. Villa are a classic counterattacking team and tend to struggle only when they need to be proactive. Villa even beat Chelsea earlier in the season when the Blues were top of the league.

West Ham may be inconsistent and mid-table, but with Allardyce fighting for his job there’s little doubt his team will fight also, and what chance Andy Carroll ruffling a few feathers in the City defence?

5. Liverpool rarely win easy

When it comes to the final stages of trophies, we usually do things the hard way. The greatest recent example of this is of course Istanbul, but there are many, many more. We were involved in the greatest Uefa Cup Final of all time when a Houllier team that tended to defend first and grind out low scoring games ended up beating Alaves 5-4.

In our last trophy win, the 2012 League Cup, we made life difficult beating a Championship Cardiff City on penalties after initially going behind and drawing 2-2 after extra time. Many of the finals we’ve played in have been high tension fraught affairs, remember Gerrard’s last minute 35 yarder in the FA Cup Final against West Ham? It wouldn’t be Liverpool if it wasn’t an emotional rollercoaster!

But more often than not, we somehow still manage to get across the line. So I for one, still have hope.

You can catch more from me on my own blog: http://taintlessred.blogspot.co.uk/ and on twitter: @taintlessred

Share this article

Gabriel Darshan (Writer) - aka Sutha Nirmalananthan aka TaintlessRed. I am a lifelong Liverpool fan who has followed the Reds from near (e.g. living in Kirkby) and far (e.g. living in Johannesburg), though am again living back home in the UK. I’ve watched football in stadia all around the world, from the Maracana to the Camp Nou, though Anfield will of course always be the greatest! I enjoy healthy football debate, preferring reasoned analysis based on sound evidence over gossip. I also write a blog at http://taintlessred.blogspot.co.uk/ on all things Liverpool FC and you can follow me on twitter @taintlessred

8 comments

  • andrre says:

    Sack Rodgers and Gerard to f–k off they both blew history to win EPL

    • TaintlessRed says:

      They are two of the biggest reasons we’re even challenging for the title. They’ve both been great all season.

  • Sir Cecil says:

    Main problem with your analysis of the Chelsea game is that the London club fielded more or less a 2nd XI. As for what Chelsea has spent over the last ten years, what has that to do with the team that played Liverpool? They played a young central defender who had never started even one Premier League game in his life! The goalkeeper was a free transfer. Terry cost them nothing. Players like Azpilicueta and Ivanovich cost only £7m and £9m respectively. Salah was £11m (and apparently Liverpool didn’t rate him as being even worth that little). The more expensive signing Matic actually cost Chelsea only £1.5m the first time they signed him. Even substitute Cahill, now an England regular, only cost Chelsea £7m. And so on. You think the fee they paid for Cole all those years ago is something Liverpool couldn’t afford to spend on a full back today? So who are you trying to kid with your excuse-mongering? Liverpool were beaten, and well beaten, by a 2nd XI with help from an 18-year old novice. All that’s been talked about since is how Chelsea slowed the game down… but it’s a pity Gerrard didn’t do likewise, in which case he might not have fallen on his face through rushing and mis-controlling the ball, thus tossing Liverpool’s title hopes in the bin.

    • TaintlessRed says:

      2nd eleven? Cole, Azpilacueta, Lampard, ivanovic, schurle, Salah, Matic have all been playing for Chelsea. The point is even their 2nd eleven, which this was not, would have challenged Arsenal for 4th place.

      We have one suspension to Henderson and Sturridge part fit and we don’t have the depth of squad to deal with it. We had to trust in Aspas!?!

      Kalas was the only reserve player and he had 5 defenders next to him, and 3 midfielders covering the space in front of him.

      We need to be better at dealing with the way Chelsea played for sure, but against any other team (except possibly Man City) Mourinho would have made that exact same team play very differently. Of Hazard had played, his lack of defensive nowse may have created the changes for us to win (as it did with Atletico).

  • Franz says:

    I agree with you,especially the last point.It true we win trophies a hard way.Take this season,we have been on top of the league on four occasions and we may be second right now bt when we return there after the palace game(depending on city’s results) the last game against Newcasle ‘ll decide.If we could have beaten chelsea,the last game would not been that impotant.So there’s hope still

  • pino pino says:

    Mancity will draw 2 2 with villa nd if u doubt then we shall see.livpool will win this league.

  • stevie says:

    things to remember after crystal palace…………exactly the same comments as above. what a pathetic, brainless surrender last night! utterly fed up with the slap dash nature of the last two games. there comes a time to take stock and hold what we have. a draw would have done against chelsea so why not play their way for that game? last night was even worse. they should all be rounded up and shot for that performance!

Comments are closed.