Good old Mario eh? For the third game in a row he came off the bench to make a match winning contribution, although you could be forgiven for not realising given the barrage of criticism he received after this one. That the criticism was led by Steven Gerrard just made the whole thing even more farcical.
Liverpool didn’t play well but won a late penalty that was converted by the best penalty taker on the pitch. The end. Or at least it should have been, except this is Mario and nothing is ever straightforward. I’m really not comfortable with the situation I find myself in here though. Taking sides with Mario Balotelli over Steven Gerrard just feels wrong, yet that’s what I’m doing. For me Balotelli was 100% blameless in this situation, so to hear Gerrard slamming him on national TV and accusing him of “disrespecting” Jordan Henderson was disappointing to say the least. What the fuck Stevie? Talk about an over reaction.
I don’t want to delve too deeply into the penalty thing as I’ve already written a lengthy piece on it for ESPN today, and besides, I can sum it up in a paragraph…
Hendo was designated the penalty taker based on the starting eleven, but substitute Balotelli is higher in the penalty food chain so took charge of the situation. Hendo seemed ok with that until Sturridge stuck his nose in and caused a scene. In the end Hendo did the sensible thing and stepped aside, and Mario tucked away the pen. If Gerrard hadn’t ran his mouth in the ITV studio that would probably have been the end of it. Rodgers should have stopped it in it’s tracks straight after the game but waited until his press conference the next day to
I actually feel pretty bad for Mario, he shouldn’t have had to deal with this shit as he did the right thing and won us the game. Not just that, but all this crap takes away from the fact that he played very well after coming on as a sub. We were struggling and in need of a lift, and he provided it. Everything he did was good, he was actually really impressive and for me this was easily the best he’s played for us. It’s unfortunate that because of Gerrard’s untimely outburst no-one seems to want to talk about that.
I’ve been as critical of Mario as anyone and stand by all of it. He’s been a liability for much of his time here and I’d all but written him off completely. That said, I still desperately want him to succeed though and if in the process of him doing that he makes me look stupid, great, I can cope with that. I genuinely like Mario, I’d love him to be a big hit here but nothing I’ve seen so far makes me think he will be. Until this game that is. It’s not much but it’s a start. He’s got an awful lot more to do if he’s going to prove that he has a future here of course, but at least he’s giving it a go and I have to give him credit for that as he could have just thrown in the towel.
Given the way he’s been mostly out of the team and often hasn’t even made the bench, I can’t be the only one that’s mildly surprised that he hasn’t at any point spat his dummy and kicked off about not being a regular starter? Of course he’s not had any real grounds for complaint, but considering his reputation as being somewhat troublesome, egotistical and unpredictable, it’s surprising to me that he’s never uttered a word out of place and has just got his head down and waited for a chance. He deserves some credit for that I think. Maybe that winning goal against Spurs will prove to be something of a springboard for him, but time will tell.
He was one of the few bright spots against Besiktas. Mignolet was another, he made a vital save from Demba Ba in the first half when the game was goalless. It was uncannily similar to the situation he found himself in last April but this time he was equal to the task. I expect all of us watching that said the same thing: “Why the hell couldn’t you do that last time?”. The difference is we are now winning games because of Mignolet and not in spite of him.
Sakho was another big plus, he was terrific. Some of his passing was ridiculously good. I don’t buy into the whole pass completion % bollocks and never have done, the reason being that Phil Babb led the league in that one year despite being one of the worst passers I’ve ever seen. He spent the whole year rolling it six yards to Neil Ruddock and ended up with 95% completion rate or something, so that stat means nothing to me. Sakho’s numbers are great too, but unlike Babb this is genuinely impressive because a lot of his passes have a high degree of difficulty, as he always looks to be positive. There was one threaded ball along the touchline to Moreno early in the second half that was stupendous, real eye of the needle stuff.
The flipside was Emre Can who had by far his least comfortable game since coming into the side. He just seemed a bit off, lacking on focus, and twice he played blind backpasses that could easily have been punished. He was better when he moved into midfield and I'm wondering if Lovren is going to get a start in the next couple of games, having been eased back into it as a sub in the last three games.
Scoreline apart, Jordan Ibe was arguably the biggest positive of all though, even if this wasn’t even his best game. He was good and caused them a lot of problems, but his end product has been better in other games. The way he goes past people though is fantastic and he completely terrorised that full back any time he had the ball. He’s going to be an incredible player.
To get a 1-0 win despite being nowhere near our best is a real bonus. I thought we looked jaded and leggy, which is understandable given how many games we’ve been playing. That one Ba chance aside we defended well and that’s crucial when you’re not at your top level. Maybe I’m not giving Besiktas enough credit, they might be better than I realised but to me it just felt that we were a bit flat rather than it being about anything they did.
Sturridge especially struggled, which tends to happen to players coming back from a long term injury. They come back flying and running on adrenalin and then after a few games they hot a wall. Did that happen to Sturridge or was it just one of those nights? Either way, he was shite and incredibly frustrating. Twice he tried to score from impossible situations when he had team-mates well placed. Not good, but at least it didn’t cost us and hopefully he’s got it out of his system now.
We’re in good shape for the 2nd leg, a draw puts us through and if we score then they’ll need to get three. Looking at the teams in this competition, we’ve got as good a chance as anyone. The only thing is, we’ve played seven European games this season and not really looked good in any of them so a big improvement is going to be needed if we are to go all the way.
Team: Mignolet; Can, Skrtel, Sakho; Ibe, Henderson, Allen (Lovren), Moreno; Lallana (Balotelli), Coutinho (Sterling); Sturridge:
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