Report by
Dave Usher
Presumably the players knew that their manager’s job was on the line, as they’ve been getting asked about it often enough lately. So if this is what they serve up when playing to save Brendan’s job I think it’s best all round that he’s gone. I won’t dwell too much on the sacking as that’s been covered elsewhere and this is a match report, but what I would say is that with Rodgers now gone the spotlight falls on the players now.
I’m one who feels they aren’t the problem and that we have a lot of quality in the squad. Not necessarily title winning quality but we should be a lot better than we are given the calibre of player we have. Because of that the finger has mostly been pointed at Rodgers and the players have virtually had a free pass from a lot of fans (the likes of Lovren and Allen notwithstanding) but that’s all about to change. There can be no hiding behind Rodgers anymore and they are going to have to start delivering.
These performances they are putting in are just unacceptable but Rodgers has rightly carried the can for that as it’s his responsibility. With him now gone they need to start performing and displays like the 2nd half at Goodison need to be a thing of the past.
And what’s the deal with not being able to hold onto leads anymore? The was the fifth game in six we’ve gone 1-0 up and quickly been pegged back. There’s only so much of that can be blamed on Rodgers, the players need to sort their shit out too and stop making these ridiculous mistakes.
For example, Emre Can made another howler and while it’s easy for people to pin that on Rodgers for playing him in a back three, that was not a positional error it was just a basic football mistake. I don’t care if he’s a midfielder, a striker, a goalkeeper, a manager or a fucking ball boy, he has to do a better job clearing that ball.
That stupid mistake undid what had been a decent enough opening 45 minutes. Not great, but we were the more dangerous side and deserved the lead we’d established after Ings headed in a corner from close range.
If we’d held onto that until half time maybe the second half would have followed a different pattern, but we didn’t and they went in with their tails up when they should have been getting booed off. As it was they went in to the dressing room with fire in their belly after an equalising goal and a bit of a spat between Barkley and Can that had them spewing bile like only they can.
To be fair our boy instigated it by not giving him the ball for a throw in, and then words were exchanged and it looked like Barkley called him “a fucking puff” which caused Can to blow his top, which will no doubt provide the spark for a million and one rumours on the streets of the city about Emre’s private life. His head went for a bit and not long after he made the mistake. The two incidents may or may not be related.
Anyway, they were both booked and that should have been Barkley’s second yellow after he had petulantly booted the ball away earlier. He would later get away with a blatant dive too, the little shitbag. Not that I’m complaining about the ref’s leniency because it was staggering how he allowed Lucas to stay on.
His first booking was really harsh as he won the ball, but knowing he was already on a yellow it was outrageously stupid to deliberately trip McCarthy up right under the ref’s nose when he was miles from goal and posing no danger. I’m not implying anything here, but it was so stupid it almost looked like he was trying to get himself sent off, as you just don’t do that. He was incredibly fortunate to get away with it and Rodgers rightly subbed him immediately.
The second half was just a case of them attacking, us keeping them out with relative ease, giving it straight back to them and rinse and repeat. We posed virtually no threat. Sturridge was shite and starved of service. Ings picked up a knock early on and didn’t do much before he was eventually replaced, Coutinho was invisible and Milner tried as hard as anybody but was just poor.
There was only one good thing that happened in the entire second half really. It’s kind of been overlooked because of the whole Rodgers drama, but Sakho completely losing his shit with Lukaku is one of the greatest things ever. He’s one of the most mild mannered players we have, he’s always Mr Cool but something Lukaku said riled him and he just went batshit crazy, beating his own chest and yelling threats and generally looking like a fucking maniac. I loved it, it was the best part of the entire game.
Skrtel was trying to calm him down and Moreno joined in too but Sakho couldn’t be tamed, not until Milner got involved and finally defused things a little. It’s a pity there were other players around as I’d have loved to have seen how that played out.
Sakho was one of the few who can hold his head up after this. Mignolet and Skrtel being the other two. Some of the others weren’t terrible, the likes of Clyne, Ings and Moreno didn’t embarrass themselves, but really this was just poor all round as we stopped playing after the break and needed stout defending from the centre backs (Can was good in the 2nd half too in fairness) to hold onto the point.
Everton should have won this game. They were in complete command in the second half but they didn’t do enough to finish us off. The thing is, no matter what dire state we may find ourselves in, they just can’t take advantage. We can be at our lowest ebb, losing to all manner of shite teams but Everton will never be able to beat us because it means so much to them they completely bottle it.
If these were Roman times and both Merseyside teams were gladiators, you know how this would play out? Everton would deliver a crippling wound and they’d be standing over us, wondering what the hell to do next. The Emperor would give it the old ‘thumbs down’ the crowd would yell “FINISH HIM!!!” and they’d get far too excited, take a huge swing at our head, miss, trip and impale themselves on their own sword. The fucking losers.
Star man is Mignolet, he made two brilliant saves in the first half and two good ones in the second.
Team: Mignolet; Can, Skrtel, Sakho; Clyne, Lucas (Allen), Milner, Coutinho; Ings (Lallana), Sturridge:
Recommended Comments