Liverpool: A Team of Two Halves

It says something about how strong we’d been in the first half against Tottenham on Sunday that the final result was such a crushing disappointment. Lennon’s last minute goal was full to the brim with sourness and bitterness after missing chance after chance in the first half and seeing Kuyt denied as blatant a penalty as the one Spurs were awarded in the second. The first half was as good a performance as the first against Chelsea a few weeks earlier and therein lies our problem: the team seem to think that a good result at half time equals a good result at full time.

Like I said, a few weeks ago Liverpool performed wonders in the first half against Chelsea, going in 2 goals up after a great performance. The resulting second half performance was not great and had we ended up drawing or losing, we’d have looked upon the second half as a ‘collapse’. Instead, we came through, so the good first half performance becomes a good overall performance and weeks on, we only remember the good stuff.

Go back further, to the start of the season though, and you’ll see a great first half performance against Arsenal let down by a limp second half and a result that wasn’t as impressive. That result is viewed as a lost opportunity.

But it is not just the second halves that are the problem, there have been more than a few poor first halves coupled with a strong second half that, in the end, proved to not be enough. The most notable of games that went this way was the match against Manchester United at Old Trafford. A tepid and, quite frankly, lame first half showing was followed up by a much stronger second. Two goals followed in a whirlwind half but United were already 2 up before this comeback and so when they grabbed a third late on it had all been for nothing. You had to wonder what might’ve been had we turned up for the whole game.

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Lemmy and his band Motorhead at a French bar

This week it is former Liverpool WAG Claudine Keane.
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