Yet another game in which we turned it on in the second half after an underwhelming opening 45 minutes. It feels like we do this every week and it feels like I’m saying every week “it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish”. I’d have preferred us to win the first half 4-0 and then start resting people for Wednesday, but I’m not complaining. Another win, another clean sheet, the forwards in the goals and five points clear. Great stuff.
It is weird though the massive discrepancy we’re seeing between halves. Every week I have to listen to my Dad say before the game “we’re always crap in the first half, we’re a second half team”. He’s right of course, but it’s got to the point now where his mind is made up that this is how it’s going to go and he’s looking for the tiniest shred of evidence to set him off. Bournemouth got a corner in the first minute and it started. “I told you, we’re always crap in the first half”. Jesus, it’s one minute into the game, have a day off, Dad for fucks sake!
I can’t dispute it though. The evidence is there. We hardly ever seem to score in the first half and it always needs Klopp to tell them what they’re doing wrong at half time before they are able to fix it. I actually didn’t think the first half in this one was too bad but Klopp did. He wasn’t happy about it at all and said as much afterwards.
My view was that we started the half a bit ropey and ended it a bit ropey but the 35 minutes or so in between was alright. I just thought the front three were shite and that was the problem. My team talk would have been to get the three forwards together and say “stop being shit and we’ll win this easy”. I thought the rest of it was ok, and Mac Allister in particular was outstanding.
We had situations but they didn’t lead to chances. For most of the half Jota was doing that thing where he decides he’s going to impersonate someone who has won a competition to play in a Premier League game. Then he had a couple of nice touches and grew into the game before half time. He was great in the second half.
Darwin wasn’t great to begin with either. Starting him on the left made a lot of sense so I don’t have any issue with that, but it wasn’t working and as Klopp said afterwards our left hand side was completely static as Darwin just stayed out wide most of the time and the ball wasn’t getting to him. Nunez on the left has worked well at times but I think it’s dependant on the opponent and how the game is going. I prefer him in the middle but there are some games I think him being wide helps us a lot. This wasn’t one of them though, clearly.
Then there’s Diaz. He’s shown some nice encouraging signs recently that he’s coming back to form, but he never got into this game playing on the right. I don’t think it was the position he played that was the problem, I just don’t think he got going at all.
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