Probably the most disheartening thing about this was that I’m sure none of us were surprised. I actually said in a group chat before the game “I’ll be shocked if we win tonight”.
Beating Sheffield United was important to stop the bleeding (albeit temporarily as it turns out) but it was never really going to have any bearing on this.
It wasn’t that I envisioned us to be outplayed and lose by a few goals. That was never likely as we rarely get dominated by anyone. I expected exactly what we got because it’s the same performance we’ve seen over and over again since December. This is who we are now. A team that has a lot of the ball but who can’t score.
When you actually look at the starting eleven we fielded it wasn’t THAT depleted. Of course we are missing some key players but it doesn’t look like a bad line up on paper. We’re just shit though aren’t we?
And it isn’t the patched up defence that’s the problem. In fact, all of the lads who have filled in at the back this season come out of it with varying degrees of credit. They aren’t the ones that have let us down. Our problems are at the other end. Opposing keepers often don’t need to even make a save when they come up against us.
Chelsea didn’t do anything special and I thought a lot of the praise they were getting was greatly exaggerated. What they did do though was what most teams are doing against us now. They nullified the front three and exposed the space we leave at the back. The truth is that it’s no longer difficult to do either. I mean shit, even Aston Villa’s fucking youth team did both for 45 minutes.
Chelsea can do that easily because they have quality all over the pitch. That’s why I didn’t think we could beat them in our current state. They’re better than us. That’s just a fact. Half the league are better than us right now. More than half probably, the form guide since we smashed Palace will back that up.
We’ve fallen so far, so fast that everyone’s heads are spinning and no-one knows how to get us out of this tailspin. Even Klopp doesn’t know, which is cause for panic. I was hoping he did but that hope disappeared at the same moment Salah and Jones did. The most baffling sub since Rafa hooked Stevie at Goodison. That one actually worked but this one never had a chance.
Any hope we had of getting back into this game left with Salah. Not because he was brilliant, but because he was the only forward who actually looked anything like himself. He was sharp and engaged and looked bang up for the game right from the start. Too often he was crowded out but he wasn’t playing badly. He created chances for Mané and Jones with excellent passes and he was chasing everything.
The other two? Fuck me. Firmino just plodded around doing fuck all again but Sadio was even worse. He was brutal. He couldn’t do a thing right and was getting more and more frustrated with himself, the referee and the Chelsea defenders who stuck to him like limpets. He was hopeless and I said at half time I’d probably sub him because his head wasn’t right and he was a red card waiting to happen.
My mind was blown that Klopp chose to take Mo off ahead of the other two. Jones going off I can accept because I think there are some underlying fitness concerns with him at the moment and there’s a worry about overplaying him. Taking off Salah was insane though.
I don’t buy the explanation Klopp gave us either. He didn’t look tired or jaded or anything like that. Just before he was hooked he went sprinting off like a man possessed trying to win back a ball he’d given away. If he was subbed to prevent injury that smacks of Rafa waving the white flag at Reading (taking off Stevie and Torres) because he was prioritising the CL.
I’m not angry that he subbed Mo and I’m not even confident that we’d have equalised if he’d left him on. That isn’t really what I’m getting at here. What I’m saying is that decision really left me deflated because it shattered any illusion I had that Klopp was in control and he could fix this.
He can’t fix it. We’re done. We aren’t getting top four and I’m now 90% sure we’ll finish below Everton. Everyone other than City is shite and from that perspective there is hope, but that hope vanishes whenever you actually see us play and realise that we’re actually shitter than most now.
It’s just utterly miserable and it can’t end soon enough. There’s no shame in losing to Chelsea as they’ve got a massively talented squad and now they finally have a capable manager to work with them they should probably finish in second.
So in isolation this result is something you can shrug off but the issue here is it’s virtually the same game as Brighton, Burnley, West Brom, Everton etc
This is no longer a slump, it’s an identity. Our identity used to be our intensity. Now it’s this shit. Our identity is that we’re slow, timid, scared, toothless, afraid to shoot. Thats who we’ve become. Not such a catchphrase and don’t expect Pep Ljinders to be throwing that one around in interviews, but that’s what we’ve become.
We’re ok moving the ball from back to front but when it gets up there nothing happens any more. We had one good chance in this game when Mané raced onto a ball over the top but somehow completely missed his kick. He ended up all confused, looking around to see where the ball had gone. That one moment was this season in microcosm. Shite, clueless, confused and in a daze.
I don’t know where the fuck Sadio’s head was at all night really. He was fouled in the box but stayed on his feet. No-one does that. Every other forward in the league nicks that ball away, draws the contact and then goes down. Instead he rode the challenge and nothing came of it.
He also got absolutely clattered by Reece James near halfway but immediately bounced back up and tried to carry on playing, which saved James from an obvious yellow card. Something just wasn’t right with him all game but then he’s been mostly shite for months now.
He’s noticeably slower too. He used to get to balls he had no right to. You’d think “he’s not getting that” but somehow he’d get there and get a toe on it and be away. The last couple of games he’s had sprints against defenders where he looked favourite to get there but didn’t. Something isn’t right.
You can say that across the whole team though really. Physically and mentally they just look completely cooked now. There’s nothing left. I don’t think it’s about confidence because even when we’ve had good wins we’ve taken nothing from them and followed it up with stinkers.
Chelsea had the best chances in this game and they looked comfortable throughout. At no point did I ever feel like we were going to score. I wanted to switch it off at half time as I knew we weren’t getting back into it and I knew that watching would just make me feel sad. And it did.
That’s mostly what I feel now when I watch us. Sad. I’m past the angry stage. I haven’t been angry with the team for weeks and most of my anger has been directed at the officials (with great justification) but I can’t even be arsed getting angry about them anymore.
Even in this game, as shite as we were, we probably would have salvaged a draw if the officials had done their job properly. We were denied the most stonewall of penalties when Kante handled. I’m not one who often calls for handball decisions in the box because more often than not there isn’t a thing the defender can do and I don’t want penalties given unless they’re clear. This was clear.
Kante is doing fucking jazz hands for about five seconds! He’s got both hands up and out and he blocks the cross with his hand. That isn’t a natural position, he’s just making himself bigger, which is the very definition of a penalty. Whereas most defenders now are putting their hands behind their back to avoid this very thing, Kante is waving both hands around and makes no effort to get them out of the way.
That’s a penalty. No two ways about it. The decision not to give it was ridiculous but it’s what I’ve come to expect now. I didn’t even get angry about it. I knew it wouldn’t be given. I’m almost numb to it all now. I’ve been beaten into submission. I reckon we’ll get some daft decisions go our way between now and May because it no longer matters. They can even up the numbers a bit without it helping us in any way.
The only thing that surprised me was that Werner’s goal was disallowed in the first half. That was so tight I was certain it would go against us. I wouldn’t have even been arsed if it had. I almost don’t care anymore, I just want this over with and for the misery to end.
Disallowing the goal was the right decision under the current rules but let’s be honest here, none of us want goals like that disallowed. To me that’s onside. It looks on to the naked eye and that’s what these decisions should be based on.
All these lines and stupid rules about arm sleeves and shit has made football much, much less enjoyable and we’ve seen loads of goals disallowed because of it. It worked in our favour this time but I still hate it.
We need to be seeing more goals, not less. Instead we’ve got the authorities instructing officials to forensically look for reasons to disallow goals (Fulham’s disallowed goal against Spurs in the game before this one is one of the worse decisions I’ve ever seen). It’s just shit. Like us.
The one bright spot was Jota coming back. He looked lively and when he’s physically ready he’d be the first name on my team sheet now. He’s been our best striker this season and it was his injury that really fucked us. We were coping with everything else but when he went out and we were left with only the fading front three to rely on the goals began to dry up.
Maybe he can give us a spark but it feels now like we’re just broken, both mentally and physically. We’ve got Fulham next and I’m not expecting us to win. What I do expect is for Klopp to start mixing it up and try something different. This isn’t working and the sample size is now big enough to know that this isn’t going to get better if we keep picking the same players in the same system.
If Phillips or Davies are available then get them in alongside Kabak, get Fabinho back in midfield and for fucks sake get Firmino out of the team. There has to be room for Shaqiri now too. At least he isn’t scared to fucking shoot. Put him in and get him in advanced areas.
Just try something different because we’ve all seen enough of this now. By something different though I don’t mean Oxlade-Chamberlain. What’s the point of him anymore?
Star man is really difficult. I thought Mo was doing alright. Kabak didn’t do much wrong. Gini was decent and Trent played well other than not backing up Fabinho properly on the goal. No-one really deserves it though so I’m not going to bother.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Kabak, Robertson; Wijnaldum, Thiago (Milner) Jones (Oxlade-Chamberlain); Salah (Jota), Firmino, Mané:
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