PODCAST: Liverpool 1 Crystal Palace 1 - Match Reaction

6 minutes ago, dave u said:

It was also a spill over from the pre-season game a few weeks ago apparently. Anderson played it to perfection and even admitted the plan beforehand was to get under his skin. Chipped away at him over and over with annoying little shoves, nudges, pulls, verbals until eventually he got the reaction that allowed him to finish it. Mission accomplished. Played him like a fiddle.

 

Now everyone will try do it, because why wouldn't you. So Nunez better calm himself down. He's said it won't happen again and apologised for his "ugly attitude" so that's a good first step.

 

Annoying as fuck he has ruled himself out of Old Trafford though. 

I cant get my head around the fact he didnt get this playing for Benfica in their league or European competition. Id say he did but, the added pressure of being a big money signing, desparate to impress and maybe aware of some negativity, just blew the valve?

19 minutes ago, dave u said:

It was also a spill over from the pre-season game a few weeks ago apparently. Anderson played it to perfection and even admitted the plan beforehand was to get under his skin. Chipped away at him over and over with annoying little shoves, nudges, pulls, verbals until eventually he got the reaction that allowed him to finish it. Mission accomplished. Played him like a fiddle.

 

Now everyone will try do it, because why wouldn't you. So Nunez better calm himself down. He's said it won't happen again and apologised for his "ugly attitude" so that's a good first step.

 

Annoying as fuck he has ruled himself out of Old Trafford though. 

Nothing about what Andersen did is the story here.

Darwin was done like a kipper and the irony is that a kipper is’unt even a real species of fish.

Agree that Diaz turned into Superman after the sending off and I’m afraid that therein lies the problem. Why wasn’t he like that from the start?

Can’t be doing with Paul’s holiday equivalence. Fuck me their entire life is a holiday. They “work” about two hours a day don’t they. People do this stuff for a hobby outside of their proper working day. 

Great pod. Had to chuckle when Dave was praising Suarez for never getting red carded while at Liverpool. Find someone who loves you unconditionally like Mr Usher loves Suarez. Ha!!

Yeah, Suarez didn't get caught by refs while on the field but he did get long bans for naughty behaviour. Hopefully Nunez doesn't go biting people as soon as he returns from this 3 game ban.

43 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

Agree that Diaz turned into Superman after the sending off and I’m afraid that therein lies the problem. Why wasn’t he like that from the start?

That's a great question. 

I would say that Diaz has shown exceptional individual quality thus far, but he hasn't looked great within the confines of our tactics, for whatever reason. I wouldn't say he's been particularly helped by our system or that he's added to it much thus far.

With 10 men, the tactics change or go out the window and Diaz just went into instinctual street footballer mode and took the game over by himself for 15 minutes. Don't know how accurate that is, but it could be a bit of an explanation. 

54 minutes ago, Supremolad said:

Great pod. Had to chuckle when Dave was praising Suarez for never getting red carded while at Liverpool. Find someone who loves you unconditionally like Mr Usher loves Suarez. Ha!!

 

Yeah, Suarez didn't get caught by refs while on the field but he did get long bans for naughty behaviour. Hopefully Nunez doesn't go biting people as soon as he returns from this 3 game ban.

Suarez was only ever caught by video grasses. He was never stupid enough to do it in front of the ref.

My impression was that Diaz was sticking firmly to the left side as per our game plan but getting no support from Robbo. Everything went down the right. When we went down to ten he adopted a freer role and started to look like he did in his first few games 

Firstly, good pod.  I thought Paul was really good in his assessment of why things are not quite right and I fully agree. 

I also know the whole argument that we are "mentality monsters", but to have such a hugely disappointing end to the season by losing the two biggest prizes by the kick of a ball, and then have virtually no time to get over that, just can't be helping.  We all think the season is too soon. Imagine what it's like for the players?

With regards to the biggest talking point, I'm fine with the Darwin red.  Not fine that it happened obviously, but fine with Darwin and I think we'll see long term benefits.

He has already said that he has struggled a bit with coming to terms with moving to such a massive club.  Just the whole immensity of such a big move.  He's said he's tried too hard to impress and let it get on top of him.  I think Monday night was a symptom of that. He was fairly easily wound up with basic, standard defender shithousery.  Has reacted and had the worst type of debut you can have - missing a really easy chance, and then getting a daft red.

Why I think he'll get the long term benefit though is he now has 2.5 weeks sitting on his arse to assess what he's done.  But he also has 2.5 weeks of settling into the club with no game pressure.  He also has to watch his team mates prepare for the biggest game of the season, which he now has to sit out because of his own stupidity. Yes, Utd are shite, but the 2 biggest games in English football each season are Liverpool v's Man Utd and Man Utd v's Liverpool. And he has to watch it from the bench because of his own daft actions.     

His frustrated anger along with the pressure he's putting on himself could have dragged on for months of average to poor performances.  But it's come to a head right at the start of his Liverpool career.  If Klopp and the club psychologists do their jobs correctly, which I have no doubt they will, this two week can be absolutely brilliant for Darwins settling in. 

And what will be his first game back from suspensions?  Everton away....  What better way to demonstrate he won't let the bastards get in his head then to play well and pop in a few goals away to the blueshite.