If there was one resounding theme from Saturday that has permeated our whole season so far then it’s our inability to take our chances and the missed opportunities, in terms of league positioning that tends to go hand-in-hand with that.
I wrote last week that Liverpool have had 122 shots on goal in their 8 league games up until Saturday evening. By 8pm on Saturday, you could make that 151. With 29 shots at goal (and 9 more on target) we scored 1 goal; which means that, for 151 shots so far, we’ve scored just 12 goals. That statistic positively terrifies me.
What is even more concerning is that we currently sit in 6th position, behind both Tottenham and, more alarmingly, Newcastle United. If Tottenham are to win their game in hand they will have 19 points, as do Newcastle. This would put them 5 clear of us. Now, a five point difference is nothing at this stage of the season, I know, and I really wouldn’t be surprised if United made up that same difference to overhaul City come the 38th match of the season but the difference is that Man U do not have a problem finding the net. Even when down to 10 men and getting completely pummelled, they still managed to pull a goal out.
Against Norwich, Luis Suarez had 11 shots, 6 on target and scored none. Admittedly, the Uruguayan makes most of his own chances so he has to be commended for that but he really, really must start making more of them count. He often does a lot of the hard work, only to strike his shot poorly or straight at the ‘keeper.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a criticism of Luis, not in the slightest because without him we would be a weaker team without doubt. It is more an indicator of an overall larger issue with the team: we just cannot score. This has now become a recognised issue in the press too, as one website I saw this morning pointed out: Liverpool would be 2nd right now if we hadn’t squandered 6 points over the season because of our inability in front of goal. Just look at Stewart Downing’s efforts in the same game: 6 shots; 0 on target – it desperately needs to improve.
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Yes we should have converted more goals and yes a worryingly large percent of our shots are off target BUT we’ve got a good defensive record with only chelsea and man city having a better goals against record at moment AND we have one of the best chances created in the league too. You’ve got to remember this is a new team that will have teething problems here and there but its only a matter of time and luck before we click in front of goal and start handing out thrashings. We weren’t that impressive against norwich and ruddy gave an awesome account of himself with some great saves but we still hit the woodwork 3 times, that game COULD have been a very good 4-1 win with a bit more luck.
I’m with you on this one dreamer, as i generally with with most of your post on kopsource too, you’re absolutely right we do need a little luck, we hit the woodwork AGAIN last night, thats 10 times already this season, but i tell you what, at least we are making the chances, i’d be far more concerened if we werent, it seems to be a liverpool thing that very ordinary opposition keepers seem to grow an extra pair of hands or grow 3 feet and play a blinder against us and the very next game they return to type, letting in shot thru their legs or limp wrists. OK we got a little deflectio on the goal vs norwich but id say 18 times out of 20 any deflected shots of ours go on to hit the post or deflect wide, when for certain other teams they tend to hit the net more, its this little bit of luck that we rarely get can be a factor. added to that the referees this season if they made the right calls we’d be sitting on 20 points(a perfectly good goal vs sunderland disallowed, a blatant red card not given to richardson in the penalty incident, and two blatant penalties at stoke not given) and not to mention not one single free kick given to suarez vs norwich when he was blatantly tripped, kicked and climbed upon for 90 minutes… we’ll play worse this season than we have vs norwich, stoke and sunderland but we’ll come away with a 2-0 or 3-0 win from it…. its just a matter of inches at the minute tho, we’re creating LOADS and its only a matter of time before they go in. keep the faith!! YNWA
Luck SHMUCK! Too many clear chances gone to waste. Though this is not the first season we’ve done this. I remember in 2008 when we came second, we had numerous shots on net, but the thing is we scored at a higher pace than this! To be honest, I have a feeling Andy will come good, but its October and he only has 1 goal! This is really a stress test for LFC fans! He needs to be clinical, as well as with Downing. Suarez needs another Suarez in the line up if you know what I mean! ie: Mancity has Silva, Nasri, Johnson etc…Players with Trickery! and more of it!. I truly hope that ‘Pool will see a few come Jan and re-invest that money in the Brazillian-Englishman, Adam Johnson! That would create a mess for other teams! and more goal chances! Too many shots at the GK and not enough around him! Throw young Morgan in for these games and I’m sure he’ll come good! The lad is such a clinical poacher at his age and the future star of LFC along with fellow scorers/poachers Sterling, Silva, Bijev, Ngoo and may be even Moli
shaun, the problem is, if johnson was at any other club than city then i think we’d easily get him, problem is its city, they have no need whatsoever to sell, for any player to leave city now they would have to hand in a request i feel because they simply wont allow their players to go to rivals(bellamy is slightly different situation) and i think this was proved on the last day of the transfer window where we bid 20+ for him but it was flatly refused, i’d love to sign him and personally i’d pay anything city wanted, but i just cant see it
I think we should charge the coaching staff to urgently do somthing about it.We can’t continue to just hope and watch the season fly untill we find it deficult to meet our target.