Report by
Dave Usher at Anfield
Did anyone actually think this would be any different? I’m not even angry or upset about it, if anything I’m relieved it was only 3-0 as for a while there it looked like we might get really embarrassed. Still, it says a lot when few if any are surprised by what is our heaviest ever defeat at home in Europe. It’s gotten really bad, really quick, hasn’t it?
This was all too predictable. Real Madrid are the best team in Europe and we’re in a state of disarray having been played off the park by the worst team in the Premier League last weekend. Yeah we won that game - although I’m still not quite sure how - but there’s a world of difference between facing Bobby Zamora, Richard Dunne & co and coming up against Ronaldo and the European Champions.
Madrid beat us without really breaking sweat. Ludogorets gave them a much more difficult game than we did, probably because right now the Bulgarians are a better team than we are. Not even the magic of an Anfield European night could inspire this sorry team. They tried, they really did, and for 15 minutes it was looking quite promising. Once Madrid weathered the early flurry though it was so, so easy for them.
From the moment Ronaldo opened the scoring this one was over and it was just a case of how many they’d score. That first goal was brilliant and I don’t think there was much anyone could do to stop that. You had the world’s best player combining with the best player at the last World Cup (a lad who cost something like £70m) to conjure up a great goal.
Fair enough. I have no problem with us conceding a goal like that at all, sometimes you just have to accept that great players will make you suffer. That’s why they’re great players. What happened after that is a different story though.
The narrative will be how Liverpool were played off the park by the mighty Real Madrid, and that’s partially true. They were clearly superior to us in every way, that’s not even in question. They played a lot of the game in second gear and the second half was little more than a training exercise for them. The reason for that was not that they blew us away with their incredible firepower, it was because we defended like schoolboys once again.
As I said, the first goal was all about world class talent doing their thing. The second and third goals could have been scored against us by a non-league side though. There was nothing ‘galactico’ about those two goals, they were both completely down to our absolute hopelessness in dealing with anything in the air.
I’ve come to expect us to concede goals like that against QPR and Villa etc because we can’t defend it and it's not like they’re going to score goals like the one Ronaldo did are they? What is hard to take is when we concede QPR type goals to Real fucking Madrid. They’re the best side in the world, they don’t need a helping hand from us. If we’re going to lose 3-0 at least make them beat us by scoring ‘Real Madrid’ type goals like the first one.
We completely handed them the game because we can’t deal with the aerial stuff. Much is made of us being unable to defend set-pieces but that’s not the real issue, it's merely a symptom of a wider problem; we can’t cope with any balls put into the box. It just so happens that set-pieces highlight the issue because they are the most common way to get men in the box and put the ball in the air. Set-pieces are the snotty nose and sneezing, they aren't the cold. You cure the cold then you no longer have the snotty nose and sneezing.
Madrid’s second goal wasn’t from a set-piece for example; at least not directly anyway. It was from the second phase after we’d cleared the initial corner. They still had plenty of men forward from the original set play and when the ball came back in we didn’t deal with it as the marking on the back post was criminally bad.
Sound familiar? It should do because the exact same thing happened on Sunday against QPR. Then we followed it by conceding from a corner that we didn’t defend properly. Sound familiar? Again, it should do because that also happened at Loftus Road on Sunday.
The net result was that Madrid went in at half time 3-0 up when really it should have been 1-0 on the balance of play. It’s not as though they wiped the floor with us and we competed quite well for much of the first half. None of that matters when you repeatedly shit your pants any time a cross comes into a crowded box though does it?
Lovren made a telling remark earlier this week when discussing the QPR game. “If the game had lasted another minute it would have been 3-3” he said. I agree with him completely, but for one of our own defenders to be saying that says all you need to know about the mess we’re in right now. Those players expect to concede goals, they have no confidence or belief in themselves or eachother or in what they’re doing.
The mentality of the side when it comes to defending is all wrong and the responsibility for that lies with the manager and his coaching methods. I keep saying it, you can blame the defenders all you like but it’s become increasingly obvious they aren’t the problem. Just look at the second and third goals, they’re absolutely horrendous. We give up goals like that every other week and it’s been going on for ages, regardless of which players are on the field. The players aren’t the issue here, the coaching is and the sooner Brendan acknowledges that the sooner he can go about fixing it.
All this nonsense about Balotelli and the shirt swapping is just white noise and it’s deflecting attention away from the real issue here. We can’t defend and we can’t attack. We’ve lost everything that we were good at and we’ve retained everything we were bad at. That’s what worries me, not Balotelli doing Balotelli things.
Should he have swapped shirts with Pepe at half time? No (although there are some mitigating circumstances involved here that I’ll get to in a sec), but on a list of things to be concerned about from this game it ranks dead last for me. The only reason it’s getting so much air time is because it’s Mad Mario and he's 'box office'.
I couldn’t care less about that incident as we’ve got much, much bigger concerns than that. Balotelli swapping shirts with Pepe had no bearing on the outcome of this match and I don’t think it was any kind of indicator that he doesn’t care either. I wouldn’t say he played with a poor attitude, I just think he played poorly (again). There’s a difference.
Look, I don’t want to see any players swapping shirts at half time, and I hammered Sakho for it last year at Chelsea. There are some subtle differences this time though. I saw the footage of it and it was Pepe who was pestering Mario for his shirt, not the other way around. He was asked for it, complied and Pepe was then patting him on the back, all grateful.
What should Mario have done in that situation? The ‘English’ thing to do would have been to say “wait until full time”, but the reason players swap shirts at half time is because they usually want to get someone else’s at the end of the game, a two for one kind of deal. Pepe probably wanted Gerrard’s shirt at full time so went for Mario at the break. Had it been Balotelli actively going looking to swap shirts at 3-0 down then he’d deserve whatever flak came his way, but that wasn’t the case and this is a non-story really.
It’s also worth remembering that this kind of thing probably happens all the time in Italy. He wouldn’t be getting any stick for something like this at Milan, it’s a cultural thing in English football where we don’t like to see it. That’s why you’ve got morons like Paul Merson - a man who let’s not forget, admitted to playing football when pissed as a fart - calling Balotelli a disgrace. People like Phil Thomson and Micky Quinn have also frowned upon it because it’s not what we do here. I agree with the general point, but let’s keep it in perspective.
It being a Champions League game also comes into the equation for me too. European games are almost like international football as far as players are concerned (and I bet Mario wasn’t the only one of our players to go home with a Madrid shirt last night), while collecting souvenirs from European games is something we all do, whether it’s swapping scarfs with rival fans or buying swag from their club shop on away trips. It’s not the same as domestic football in that regard (although try telling that to the weirdos who buy ‘half Liverpool, half Man United’ scarfs).
Players swapping shirts in Premier League games against rival teams bothers me, especially when it’s at half time. Sakho doing it against Chelsea last year pissed me off, because 1 it was Chelsea and 2 the player whose shirt he was so keen to get had almost taken Hendo’s leg off at the knee in that half.
Unless Balotelli had been told beforehand not to do it (which I’d bet he hadn’t), I think it’s harsh to be having a go at him for it. Have a go at him for his relentlessly poor performances by all means, that’s fair game and it’s far more of an issue than him granting Pepe’s request to swap shirts. If he does it again that's a different story of course.
He was hooked at half time for Lallana (who played well) and can have no real complaints. He was no worse than some others but by taking him off we became more mobile, we pressed the ball better and looked more energetic as a team. Is that the way forward until Sturridge returns? I think it has to be. Until he comes back we’ve only got three decent attacking players so they all need to be on the pitch at the same time when possible, and that means Sterling will have to play centre forward for now.
I’d hesitate to read too much into the ‘improved’ second half display though because Madrid had one eye on El Classico and were happy to just see this one out. They still had some good chances to increase their lead on the counter and Mignolet had to make a good save to deny Ronaldo, while Rodriguez shot inches wide after being teed up by the outstanding Benzema who had skinned an over-committed Skrtel on the left touchline.
Considering the dangerous breaks they had we actually defended those quite well I thought and Lovren in particular made some good interventions. It was all just so easy for Real though and we couldn’t really get near their goal. Casillas had little or nothing to do, and it’s just sad that the team that got us into the Champions League is not the team that’s playing in it.
I said a few weeks back that I’d rather not even be in it as we’re not equipped to be here right now. We need heavy hours on the training ground to fix our problems but we don’t have those hours. After that QPR shambles last weekend I’d have much preferred Rodgers to have had the whole week preparing for what looks like being an extremely tricky game with Hull this weekend.
Instead we’ve had to prepare for a game that we had little hope of winning, and now he has to pick the players up after being completely outclassed. Does he even know how to fix this? I guess we’ll find out over the next few months.
To tell the truth I’m not even remotely bothered we lost this game and all I’m hoping for from this group is that we don’t finish third. If we come second and go through then all well and good, but it might be better for our domestic season that we finish bottom. The one thing we don’t need is the Europa League, that would kill us in my opinion.
We need to just somehow grind out some results in the Premier League and hope things eventually improve. It’s not going to be easy though as next week we’ve got a league cup game interrupting the preparation for trip to Newcastle, and Rodgers is going to have to do some juggling with his squad over the next week or two because he can’t just run the likes of Sterling, Gerrard, Henderson etc into the ground.
The problem is, who do you bring in? Our better younger players (Wisdom, Ibe) are out on loan, we’ve got Suso and Flanagan out injured and the squad depth we thought we had simply isn’t there. We’ve got plenty of bodies, but how many do you trust?
Maybe Lambert should get another chance, as perhaps with Sterling playing centrally and running in behind Rickie will be able to play his natural game. He had Rodriguez doing that at Southampton, with Lallana buzzing around him too, so maybe we could recreate that set up until Sturridge is available again?
Emre Can was quite lively when he came on too, a lot of what he tried didn’t come off but he was positive and was looking to get involved as much as possible. He looked like he saw this game as a chance to show what he can do and that has to be a positive sign. Markovic on the other hand…
Thankfully Madrid weren’t overly concerned about rubbing our noses in it and made some changes to give their stars a rest. Ronaldo left the field, initially to boos and then appreciative applause from all four corners of the ground. Marcelo and Kroos (both outstanding) were also given a well earned rest.
It’s incredibly frustrating that we didn’t get to play them last year as we’d have given them a real game. Instead they came here and faced this timid, toothless, directionless bunch who were never going to be able to pose them any problems. So demoralising isn’t it?
Our best player on the night was clearly Coutinho and I’m not sure why he was brought off. If it was about preserving legs for Hull then for God’s sake Brendan get Raheem off too. Coutinho has barely played lately so he’s not going to be tired. When his number went up there was a split second where it felt like the crowd were about to lose their shit about it, but the groan/boo was immediately stifled as he was applauded off.
The play from the full backs was really disappointing as they were often the ones in plenty of space but neither of them did a tap when they had the ball. Johnson continues to just run into people while Moreno got no change from the wily Arbeloa.
The best way to sum this up was that we were the little kid trying to throw punches while Madrid were the grown man with his hand on the top of our head keeping us out of range and playfully laughing. It’s a helpless feeling watching us right now.
Team: Mignolet; Johnson, Skrtel, Lovren, Moreno; Gerrard, Henderson (Can), Allen, Coutinho (Markovic); Sterling, Balotelli (Lallana):
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