Watford 3 Liverpool 0 (Dec 20 2015)

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Dave Usher

There was me thinking Newcastle was as bad as it could get. Wishful thinking that, because this was much, much worse. It was utterly shameful in fact, as bad as anything I can remember in a long time. At least against Newcastle we defended quite well for the most part and it was the attack that didn't show up, but this one was a train wreck from start to finish in every area of the pitch.

Only Jordan Henderson played to anything like an acceptable level, and only two or three of the others looked like they were even trying. In fact, the only winners in this - aside from Watford - were Dejan Lovren, James Milner and Simon Mignolet, whose battered reputations were enhanced without even kicking - or saving - a ball.

I’ve seen a lot of Reds calling for Bogdan to be given his chance over Mignolet, but unless 'Simple Simon' got to a point where he was far worse than he has been I wouldn’t have even considered it. A couple of decent outings in the League Cup doesn't change who Bogdan is, the whole body of work has to be considered. If Bogdan was a better option than Mignolet he wouldn’t have been second choice at Bolton. Being better than Brad Jones doesn’t equate to being serious competition to a Premier League goalkeeper.

He's a back up who should only play in emergencies and talk of making him first choice is just daft. By all means say Mignolet isn't good enough and we need a new keeper, but can we stop with the Bogdan talk now?  Mignolet is unquestionably a better keeper than Bogdan, it’s just that people hadn’t seen enough of Bogdan to realise it. I assume they have now.

I was having that argument with my dad before the game. He’s been on the Bogdan bandwagon for months after he made a couple of saves in a cup game. “You haven’t seen enough of him to know if he’s any good” was my response. “Be careful what you wish for” was another. Three minutes into this and he’s gifted a goal to Watford. I looked over at my arl fella and he just goes “yeah he’s crap”.

The goal shouldn’t have stood of course, but Clattenberg didn’t have a clear view of it when the lad kicked it out of Bogdan’s hands so what’s he supposed to do? He had to give the goal and there’s no point complaining about it. If Bogdan doesn’t drop it in the first place then the goal doesn’t happen. He says that he’ll “learn from it” but what the fuck is he supposed to learn? Don’t drop the ball? I'd like to think he knew that already. You don’t 'learn' from a mistake like that as you knew beforehand not to fucking do it.

He almost made an even bigger clanger not long after when instead of gathering a simple loose ball he inexplicably tried to punch instead and it bounced off one of his own defenders and nearly ended up in another joke of a goal. Fucking ridiculous. He made a good save from Ighalo in the second half and he had no chance with the second or third goals, so this isn’t all on him by any stretch of the imagination, but his fuck up set the tone early and we never recovered from it. Come back soon Simon, all is forgiven.

If I was right about Bogdan I have to admit that I’ve been wrong about the rest of them. I see that now. Those who have been saying the players aren’t good enough are right. They’ve been right all along. I just didn’t see it because I always allow the good performances to cloud my overall impression of them, but if they can’t produce those performances on a regular basis then they aren’t good enough. I accept that now.

After Newcastle I was furious but after this one I’m just depressed and despondent about where we are. We're shite. We deserve to be 9th in the table and it's not a false position. A few weeks ago I felt differently and with everybody else dropping points I was beginning to excited about what we could do this season. One point from nine against three jabroni teams has put paid to all that though. 

I said at the start of the season this was a good squad and I repeated it when Klopp took over. Lots of good players, no great ones but overall a good squad that’s just somewhat unbalanced. Well I’ve changed my mind, I was talking shite. I’m doing a complete 180 on it now as I'd had an epiphany. This is a good squad in terms of the players having talent, but what good is talent when you have no balls? We’ve got too many lightweights, too many shithouses and too many who are just not cut out for the pressure of playing for Liverpool. The last few weeks have proved it. We can’t just blame Rodgers anymore, the finger needs pointing squarely at the players too as for the most part they’re a bunch of pussies who are too easily bullied out of their stride.

Klopp must be realising that now, I imagine he was furious watching that shit yesterday. He may have been fooled by them until recently because they probably look great in training and we all saw how they performed in games where they were the underdog against teams who wanted to play football and attack us. They looked fantastic against City and Southampton, and they performed well at Chelsea and Spurs. Look at how they’ve played against all the cloggers though? They don’t like it up em, as the expression goes.

For too long many of us have judged players based on their good games. As I said, if a player has a few really good games, that’s the level I often put them at, and when they fall short of that level I’ll put it down to a bad day at the office or make some other excuse for them, like playing out of position, not being suited to how the team was set up etc Benteke is a prime example of this, but he's not the only one. I've done the same with Lallana and Allen too, among others.

Not anymore, I’m done with that shit. There’s just too many fannies in this squad, too many players who don’t produce week in week out, and who’ll look great when the situation is favourable to them but then fall to pieces when they come up against adversity. How many of them can we truly count on when the chips are down? There’s no Suarez. No Gerrard. No Carragher. Not in this sorry bunch. Loads of ‘nice’ players and ‘nice’ lads, but no steel. No winners.

It looks like the mass improvement in those first half dozen or so games was down to “new manager bounce” after all. Klopp turned water into sparkling water for a little while, but he can’t turn it into wine.

Last week he tried to strengthen the bond between crowd and players. There’s been a disconnect there because of the countless gutless displays over the last 18 months. What Klopp tried to do last week, the players completely undid this week. Virtually everyone I’ve spoken to since yesterday, not to mention most of the opinions I’ve read on the forum, seem to feel the same way. Most of these players can get to fuck now.

It’s a semi knee jerk reaction I admit, but thinking about it last night there’s not one player in this squad I’d be sorry to see leave, with the possible exception of Henderson. Maybe Sakho too actually. I like big Mama and he’s one of the few that I wouldn’t label a shithouse. The problem with him is twofold though.

First, he’s only a rung or two up from that wastrel Sturridge on the injury prone ladder, and second, he’s got a nasty habit of trying to play football in all the wrong areas at the worst possible time. Just what the fuck was he doing in the second half of this game? When Klopp first arrived Sakho was keeping it simple and he looked great. Looks like he forgot that during his injury layoff because he was in full on clown mode for this one.

Most of his problems were of his own making because he was trying to be too clever, and just how many defenders are going to fall for that wrong footing move Ighalo does before they get wise to it? Do they not research their opponents? MOTD last week highlighted Ighalo putting four defenders on their arses in the same game with that exact same move, yet Sakho fell for it twice. Was he even shown DVD’s of Ighalo?

We missed Lovren. There, I said it. I never thought I would say it, but I am because we did. Lovren would have stood up to the physical challenge of Deeney and Ighalo far better than Skrtel did and he wouldn’t have continually tied himself in knots by trying to be Alan Hansen in the way that Sakho did. 

We all knew before the game that Deeney and Ighalo are a handful, yet watching the players it was as though they were taken completely by surprise. That second goal was fucking pathetic, why is Skrtel not just leaning into him and leathering that ball into the stands and taking Ighalo out with it? The half arsed effort he made was embarrassing, although Ighalo’s finish was excellent to be fair.

Deeney was on Talksport after the game saying he bullied Liverpool and that Skrtel probably wasn’t even injured when he went off and that he just didn’t fancy it. I won’t go that far yet but we’ll know by how long Skrtel is out for whether that’s true or not. He does get bullied at least three or four times every season by physical strikers and it’s been the same ever since he’s been here. He's another one I judge on his good games rather than the bad ones, of which there are too many.

More or less the whole team didn’t fancy it though, it wasn’t just Skrtel by any means. Lucas was pitiful (another one who blows hot and cold), Can (him too) tried to meet the physical challenge at least but he was shite too while the three up front can all fuck right off. It was like playing with eight men as none of them contributed anything. All of those come into the same category too, they're just as likely to be shit as they are to be good.

The disgraceful Firmino at least has the rather flimsy excuse that he’s still trying to adapt to English football, but what about Lallana and Coutinho? Little Phil often gets a pass from the fans because everyone loves him and when he’s good, he’s fucking dazzling, but what about when he’s not good? Like in 90% of away games when he’s fucking shite.

Of all the things that got me angry in this game (and there were loads) the one that caused me to lose the plot more than anything was Coutinho giving Origi down the banks for not passing to him, despite the fact that he was never onside at any point from the moment Origi picked the ball up to the moment he lost it.  

Then there’s Lallana. I’ve been one of his biggest fans but I have to reluctantly admit that his overall body of work just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. He’s lovely to watch with his clever, graceful turns and ability to change direction in one motion, but it’s mostly style over substance isn’t it? He grafts, I’ll give him that, but ultimately we need more than he’s ever likely to provide. That said, he’d be far less of an issue if we actually had a goalscorer of any note.

Benteke came off the bench and did fuck all other than repeatedly get caught offside. If I’m Klopp I’d be letting him have it with both barrels after that, as this is basic shit that you learn when you’re a kid. He’s being linked with Chelsea and if we can get them to take him off our hands then we should do it. And if we could do a straight swap for that nasty bastard Costa then all the better. No, I'm not kidding, if Chelsea were stupid enough to do it I'd be all in on that.

Part of this is on Klopp too. Just because those three terrorised Man City doesn’t mean it’s going to work on the likes of Watford. He’s learning as he goes, about his own players and also the difficulty of the opposition. Playing that front three against that opposition on THAT pitch though was just a huge mistake (and what the fuck was that Lucas at centre half business all about??). Those Watford defenders will not have an easier game all season. It was like taking candy off a baby. The problem Klopp has of course is that Benteke has been shite too and doesn’t deserve his place.

Origi has been our liveliest forward in recent weeks but that says more about how shite the rest have been than anything else. Origi isn’t great and he’s not the answer, but at least he bothers to run in behind and tries to make a nuisance of himself. He was only a six out of ten in this game when he came on, but that was still much better than any of the others.

I’m just totally fed up with them all. They’ll show just enough to make you start to believe and then they revert back to who they are. For a little while there Kloppo did have us go from doubters to believers. The Newcastle game put me back in the doubters camp, but now I’m not even there, I’m some place else. I’m not a doubter because there isn’t any doubt now. I know EXACTLY who they are, and the next time they string a result or two together it's not going to pull the wool over my eyes. Klopp really has his work cut out to turn this around.

The one crumb of comfort is that it is Klopp tasked with the job and not someone else. He’s the only thing to cling to right now.

Team: Bogdan; Clyne, Skrtel (Origi), Sakho, Moreno; Lucas, Henderson, Can; Lallana (Ibe), Firmino (Benteke), Coutinho: