Report by
Dave Usher at Anfield
Seven points dropped from the last 12 now. It’s hard not to be concerned by that, especially as we didn’t play anyone decent in those games. Prior to this four match stretch we were top of the table and had a real chance to build a bit of a lead before we faced City on New Year’s Eve.
As it turns out, even if we’d won all of those games there still wouldn’t have been much of a gap over Chelsea because they’ve won nine straight, but we’re now six points back and just a couple of bad results away from quite possibly being out of it.
I know it’s only December and there’s a long way to go, but it feels like we really needed to beat West Ham after what happened a week ago. We needed the three points to get back on track and to show that the Bournemouth result was just a careless, stupid aberration. Not beating West Ham doesn’t tell us anything definitive, but it sure as hell raises serious questions, particularly about Klopp’s unwavering faith in this goalkeeper.
Karius was the focus of most people’s ire following the Bournemouth loss, but as I wrote in the report for that game he was only a small part of what went wrong. This one is different. I blame him almost entirely for us failing to beat West Ham. That might seem harsh but here's my reasoning.
We needed a good start to get last week out of our system and we got it with a brilliant goal from Lallana early on. We were playing well, the crowd were into it and it was all looking good. All we needed to do was keep playing, not let West Ham score and wait until the goals came. West Ham looked like they would go the same way as Leicester, Hull and Watford and be on the wrong end of a spanking.
Then Karius unforgivably gifted them an equaliser and turned everything on its head. I’m fuming about that goal even now, 24 hours later. Handling or kicking errors are one thing, they’re an occupational hazard for any keeper, but this tit basically just gave Payet an open goal, either through sheer stupidity or arrogance.
I’m not being wise after the event here, as I called that goal before Payet even struck the ball, as did half the people inside Anfield I expect. Initially when I saw the position Karius had taken up just a couple of yards inside the post I thought he was still organising his wall. Then it dawned on me that he was actually going to stand there and dare Payet to put the ball over the wall into the corner he wasn’t protecting.
I mean what the actual fuck? The best free kick taker in Europe and you’re giving him virtually an open goal to aim at from 25 yards out? It would have been more surprising if he hadn’t scored. Payet’s eyes will have popped out of his little fat head when he saw where Karius was standing. Bet he couldn’t wait for the ref to blow the whistle to let him take it. Just stand in the middle and make him beat you with a special strike. If he puts one in the top corner, so be it, but don't gift wrap it for him for fucks sake.
What makes it worse is that it wasn’t even Payet’s best effort. Karius managed to scramble across and should actually have saved it, but it went through him. What are his hands made of, fucking crisp bags?
Is anyone truly surprised though? It was nailed on he was going to cost us the minute he started running his mouth at Gary Neville via the Daily Mail through the week. I thought he came across terribly in that interview and had no need to respond to anything Neville, Carra or anybody else said.
If you make mistakes you’ll be criticised, it’s part of the job and unless the criticism becomes personal (which it didn’t) then it’s fair game. Take the high ground and say “they’re paid to offer their opinion and it’s true I could have done better at Bournemouth, so that’s no problem”.
Bottom line, do your job to a higher standard and the criticism will stop. Simple as that. Don’t try and be a smart arse and throw shade at a fella who has won more as a player than you ever will, as not only do you make yourself look like a knob, but you put yourself in the spotlight even more and bring added pressure that you’ve already shown you can’t cope with.
Neville must have been laughing his tiny little cock off on Sunday, and who can blame him? Imagine if this was a United player and Carragher. We’d be pissing ourselves.
Klopp should drop him now because keeping him in is detrimental to our title chances and it sends out the wrong message. Players should be picked on merit, but that’s not happening. Of course it’s more difficult with goalkeepers and once Klopp made the decision to make Karius his number one he had to stick with it for a while, because chopping and changing keepers is never good and you can’t have them going into games thinking “one mistake and I’m dropped”.
I understand that, and even when Karius was hideous against Swansea I was ok with Klopp keeping him in for the United game as he had to let him play to see if he was a better option than Mignolet, but when do you say enough is enough?
If he plays at Boro and Goodison and he fucks up again, that’s not on his shoulders anymore, it’s on Klopp's. The pressure on Karius is huge now and keeping him in the side is probably doing him no favours, and it’s definitely not doing the rest of us any.
Persisting with him and letting him learn from all this may well benefit us in the years ahead if he comes through it and justifies Klopp’s faith, but that's looking like a big IF right now. And please don’t make that ridiculous “David De Gea struggled in his first season” argument, as for every De Gea there are a dozen Massimo Taibis.
My question to Klopp would be; even if this is a good long term move, how many fuck ups are we supposed to put up with in the short term, especially as we’re in a title race?
His mistakes last week came after the rest of the team had already lost their way, which is why I didn’t hold him solely accountable for the loss. His mistake in this game though came when we were well on top. That goal changed everything, as confidence was bound to be a bit fragile after Bournemouth so this was the last thing we needed. It knocked us right out of our stride.
The second goal arrived not long after and once again it was entirely avoidable, even if this one was somewhat unfortunate. Matip got caught flat footed after Henderson deflected an attempted through ball and suddenly the dangerous Antonio found himself clear. Karius initially thought about coming out but decided that he wouldn’t get there and ended up just standing there in no mans land, which made it easier for Antonio to score. I’m not blaming him for it by any means, but maybe another keeper does better?
Going behind like that felt like a massive kick in the bollocks and all the optimism that we had a week or so ago was in danger of going up in smoke. It’s some small consolation that we equalised and didn’t lose the game, but it still feels almost like a defeat anyway. Things are in danger of getting away from us and we’ve got to become more resolute and stop making it easy for these crap teams to score against us.
West Ham are shite and they were in the bottom three prior to this game. We’ve been dealing with these crap teams at home fairly handily all season but the loss of Coutinho looks to have really screwed things up for us. Not specifically because he’s so good that we can’t cope without him, more to do with how it’s changed the dynamic of the team.
Nothing against Origi - who has scored in four consecutive games now - but we just don’t look quite the same at the moment. We’re still dangerous, but a few weeks ago we looked almost unstoppable. We didn’t just lose Coutinho, we effectively lost Firmino as well because he’s not even half the player when he’s moved out of the centre. Mané has been streaky of late too, but regardless of how he plays he still makes things happen and made both of our goals in this game.
Firmino was shite for the second week in a row, but Klopp’s hands are tied here. He could move him back into the middle, but then that hampers Origi, so we're no better off. The injury to Coutinho is hurting us more than I thought it would, but we’ve still scored five goals in two games which should be enough to earn more than just one fucking solitary point.
There are statistics out there that will show just how well we are defending. Hell, the Echo even ran an article on it a couple of weeks ago claiming we had the best defence in the whole of Europe. It’s not actually as ridiculous as it sounds (we really don’t give up many chances) but it counts for nothing when virtually every shot we allow ends up in the back of the net.
Chelsea are top and have won nine on the spin because they aren’t conceding stupid goals. Often we’ve been able to concede stupid goals and get away with it by outscoring everybody, but it does eventually catch up with you and that’s what has happened to us over the last two games. It caught up with us.
It’s not as though we aren’t playing well. We might not have been at our absolute best against West Ham but we were alright and created enough chances to win the game with a bit more luck. Wijnaldum was a threat all day and could easily have had a couple of goals, Hendo almost topped his Chelsea goal with a brilliant shot that brought an equally fantastic save from Randolph, and if Clyne had kept his shot down late on we’d be talking about that goal for years to come as it was such a great move. We should have had a pen as well when Payet bundled over Lallana.
Ultimately though it’s two points dropped against shite, following on from three points dropped against shite last week (was anyone even remotely surprised Bournemouth lost to Burnley this week?). You can’t drop points against shite and expect to win things. Leicester won the title last year because they didn’t drop points to shite. Chelsea are top now because they don’t drop points to shite. We never fucking win anything anymore because we always drop points to shite.
I thought the lesson had finally been learned this year but sadly I was wrong. What this means for the rest of the season I have no idea. I'm not giving up on them but my belief feels like it's been in the ring with Anthony Joshua.
It could just be a blip and we might get back on track by beating Boro and then the Blueshite, or we could be two games into a four game run that we’ll look back on and say “that fucked up our season”. All I know is that I felt great about this team a couple of weeks ago but now it feels like it’s just turned midnight and our swanky carriage has turned back into a smelly pumpkin, riddled with maggots.
Star man is Milner. Hendo and Lallana were also good and Matip was terrific aside from that misjudgement for West Ham’s second.
Team: Karius; Clyne, Matip, Lovren (Klavan), Milner; Henderson, Lallana, Wijnaldum; Mané, Origi, Firmino:
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