IT was perhaps a strange coincidence that I read that Liverpool’s 611 shots at goal – prior to facing Reading – was the highest total of any team in Europe’s top five leagues. It was also not a surprise that the Reds went on to have a further 28 shots against a very poor Reading side.
And, sadly for us as fans, it was even less of a surprise that we didn’t score a single goal. While things haven’t been half as bad as last season with regards to missed chances, it is perhaps now even more disappointing considering the players that have been brought in to bolster our attack in the past two windows.
There is no doubt that Reading’s McCarthy had the absolute game of his life on Saturday afternoon, it’s likely he’ll never ever top it but that can’t be used to excuse our extreme and embarrassing profligacy in front of goal.
The Reading stopper saved 10 of Liverpool’s 28 shots on Saturday, many of them pretty spectacular, but that still means that Liverpool’s players managed to squander the other 18. So while we can put a third of those efforts down to being stopped by great goal-keeping that still means we somehow failed to put away a further 18.
There have only been six occasions this season that Liverpool have failed to score at least one goal in any competition. While that may seem relatively impressive, it does only mask the fact that Liverpool regularly create over 20 chances per game, regardless of the opposition, and yet despite having all of these chances they find themselves in a very unflattering Premier League position.
I read a startling statistic online following Saturday’s games: Liverpool have scored 38 goals this season in the 10 games were they have scored 3, 4 or 5 goals but have only managed 21 goals in the other 23 games.
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That would seem to suggest that Liverpool are nothing more than what the press are so fond of referring to as ‘flat-track bullies’; it’s easy to score more goals when you already have the game wrapped up but it’s difficult to break teams such as Reading, West Ham and the like down when they have something to cling on to, as Reading did on Saturday afternoon.
As my title suggests, it’s very easy to blame goalless games on opposition ‘keepers having blinding games but there’s only so many times that that excuse will wash with me, when our players are squandering a greater number of opportunities of their own accord.
Some went as far to suggest yesterday that Liverpool’s manager and players were already on their summer holidays, given that there was nothing left to play for.
But with 4th place still possible mathematically and a Europa League spot a realistic prospect (prior to the last couple of goalless draws) it makes the manager’s comments in midweek regarding both Rafa Benitez and how not qualifying for Europe maybe being a good thing all the more concerning.
I’ve had a long-held belief that the current manager was being a bit more stealthy about attempting to lower our expectations this season, and while I’m not blaming him directly for the poor result on Saturday, allowing the players to believe that the season is over and it being OK if we don’t qualify for Europe can only have contributed to the lackadaisical attitude toward scoring recently.
If he genuinely thinks it would be acceptable to not be in Europe this season and that the remaining five games mean nothing, then it may be time to take Mr. Rodgers to one side and have a few words with him about what it means to be the manager of Liverpool Football Club.
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Get over yourselves. Your passing was es bad as readings in fact worse at times. yhe cost of your team far outways readings. reading worked harder and had much more passion.
This is incredibly disrespectful to Alex McCarthy. So you have never heard of him before and that automatically makes him a bad player playing above himself? Typical big club supporting fan bias …
How many of the so called shots was played to his left? 1. The coaches of liverpool are tactically not savvy. I believe if 40% of those attempts went to his left a goal would have been made as 90% of the attempts went to his right.
Just because you haven’t heard of him, don’t assume that he top it. His performance came as no surprise to Reading fans, he was playing superbly before he got injured and is just picking up where he left off. It is only a matter of time and a bit more experience before he is playing for England.
We only hope we can hang onto him for next season to get us back up (after a lot of strenthening).
Come on.less with the excuses please
The keeper was good but most of the shots were straight at him
Both Rodgers and the fans are too keen every game to find excuses rather than admitting our faults
Fact is ..reading are a poor side . We should have won comfortably even if they had 3 keepers in goal
Don’t even know what your trying to say but your talking rubbish
Liverpool had enough shots on goal to win three games just poor finishing.