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Liverpool 1 Man City 4 (Feb 7 2021)

     

     
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    Dave Usher

I’m writing this immediately after the game so I can get it out of the way and try to forget it ever happened. This was an absolute shambles and I dread to think what’s going to happen between now and the end of the season because the team looks completely broken now.

 

Klopp’s version of events afterwards couldn’t be further from my own but that’s fine because I don’t think he believed a word of it. He’s trying to boost flagging morale and putting the boot in and saying how shit this was is hardly going to help. He’s said the right things because the confidence of this team has gone completely and he needs to rebuild it.

 

There’s no way he can possibly think that this performance was fine though. It wasn’t. It was shite. Even at 1-1 before Alisson’s sabotage act this was shite. That ugly bastard in goal for City didn’t have to make a save of note. By full time he still hadn’t. It's a recurring theme now. Too often we don't work keepers enough.

 

We’d marginally been the better side in the first half but that’s only because City seemed to be in second gear and were possibly still gripped by their “Anfield hoodoo”, especially when they missed a pen. We hadn’t been good though. Not at all. I think we caught City by surprise by how shit we were. They were geared up for fire and brimstone and we gave them wet bogroll. Like I said last week, should change the sign to "This is NOT Anfield".

 

In the end City won this without even extending themselves. They didn’t even break sweat because it was so easy they didn’t need to. Forget the mistakes that handed them the points and just focus on how we played. Not good enough. This just doesn’t even look like Klopp’s Liverpool. It’s unrecognisable.

 

They aren’t mentality monsters currently. They’re feeling sorry for themselves and only a few of them look like they’re even still fighting now. Most of them look shell shocked. And fucking knackered. There's no energy, no zip.

 

Like I say, I thought this performance was meek, timid, overly cautious and devoid of all confidence and belief even BEFORE Alisson fucking handed them the game on a plate. The first half was mostly shite but it maybe didn’t seem that bad because City offered absolutely nothing themselves until Sterling won a penalty. Gundogan skied it into the Kop but ultimately it didn’t matter.

 

This will sound stupid but I knew after about five minutes we weren’t winning this game. One incident was all it took for me to come to that conclusion. Ederson kicked the ball straight at Mané and for a second I thought “aye aye, here we go”. Ten seconds later the ball was back with Alisson. What the fuck????? That’s not Klopp’s Liverpool. It just isn’t. It’s the exact fucking opposite of Klopp’s Liverpool.

 

Klopp's Liverpool don't go backwards. They go forwards. All the fucking time. Over and over and over. They take risks. They lose the ball but they win it back and then shove it straight down the opposition's throats. We've turned into a team full of Gareth Barrys. Fucking slow, boring, crabs.

 

It was a recurring theme in the first half. Any time we picked the ball up with City’s players out of position, we slowed it down, didn’t commit to the break and just kept possession while they got back into their defensive shape. It was slow and ponderous and safe and scared. As I say, the exact opposite of who this team is. It was soul destroying to watch it. Just what the fuck has happened to them?

 

And don’t tell me it’s Virgil not being there. The centre back thing is a bit of a red herring. I’m not saying it isn’t a big factor because of course it’s hurt us and contributed to some of the shit we’ve witnessed these last couple of months, but it’s far more than just that. We’ve lost three home games on the spin and we never look like scoring. 

 

Even the goal we got in this game was a penalty after a defensive mistake. It was nothing to do with us breaking them down. Is it the midfield or is it the forwards? It’s a chicken and egg question. Do the strikers look bad because the midfield (and full backs) aren’t getting them the ball? Or are the midfield looking bad because the forwards are doing fuck all with the balls they get? It’s both but with a heavier emphasis on the front players for me.

 

City are much better defensively these days because they don’t commit as many players forward and they don’t leave the centre backs one v one in the way they used to. Still, they don’t play with everyone behind the ball like most of our opponents do and there were plenty of opportunities for us to create chances. We never looked like doing so though.

 

We had one good chance in the first half that Sadio headed over. Should have scored, but he looked way off the pace all day. He probably wasn’t fit but we couldn’t afford to leave him out as that would have meant Origi playing. Not that he could have been any worse than Firmino. 

 

Bobby’s a problem now. No doubt about it. The occasional good game gives us false hope that he’s going to get back to being the Bobby we all loved. Not gonna happen. This is who he is now and it’s pretty heartbreaking to see.

 

It’s not just him though. The whole team just doesn’t look right. I’d like to think that playing centre backs at centre back and freeing up Hendo and Fabinho to revert to midfield will fix it, but I think it goes deeper than that now. We’ve got big problems. I can live with being beaten by City but not like this. Not without even making them work for it. 

 

Where is the fight? The pressing? The passion? The desire? I didn’t see ANY of those things. Just a meek, timid, scared performance that got exactly what it deserved. This isn’t Heavy Metal Football. Fuck me, it’s not even Ed Sheeran Football. I’d settle for Ed Sheehan over this. What we’re seeing is “Adele Football”. Feeling sorry for yourself, whiny fucking cryarsing shite. 

 

No fans continues to absolutely kill us. Those half arsed breaks when no-one wanted to take a risk and instead just went backwards? That doesn’t happen with a full stadium roaring the lads on. And we definitely don’t play the game at City’s pace inside a packed Anfield. We play it at our pace. And they can’t live with our pace. We’ve seen it time and again.

 

This was as far removed from that as it’s possible to be. There was no intensity, no zip, no passion, no fight. It was a behind closed doors training match. Just like most of these fucking lockdown games. No wonder City are running away with it. These games suit them perfectly. They’re winning games without even having to extend themselves. They might even win the league by a record margin the way the rest of us are all going.

 

Not that it matters. What City do is no longer of any consequence to us. They’re out of sight beyond the horizon and there’s no point us even worrying about what they’re doing now. We’ve slipped so far, so fast, that now we have to be looking at the results of fucking Everton and West Ham. And resurgent Chelsea are right up our arses now too. I feel sick even typing that, but that’s our situation. 

 

I don’t know how we reverse this tail spin and I no longer think Klopp knows either. It just feels like a case of getting this season over with and trying to regroup for next year. There is not a hope in hell that we can win the Champions League and it’s now just about ensuring we stay in the top four.

 

There’s just not really any area of the side functioning properly. Thiago is a quality footballer who looks like he’s playing in the wrong team. He looks like a Man City midfielder. He’d fit perfectly into their side but he looks completely out of place for us. He’s not playing badly as such, but he’s just not helping us in any way is he? 

 

I don’t even blame him, it’s not his fault. It’s like putting the world’s best violin player in a rock band. The one big caveat I’d add to any Thiago criticism is that he was signed to play in a midfield with Henderson and Fabinho and that’s happened maybe, what, once? There’s no shortage of effort from him but he needs to stop picking up early bookings that mean he’s on a knife edge for the rest of the game. 

 

Klopp isn’t helping matters with some of his changes either. Shaq for Thiago made sense as we needed a spark and Thiago was walking that tightrope. Taking off Jones when he was our best player was baffling though. I love Milner and have no issue with him being brought on to give us a bit of intensity. It shouldn’t have been for Jones though. 

 

Get Firmino off, play Jones or Shaq as the false nine. Just do something fucking different because there was not a hope in hell that Firmino was going to do anything in this game. 

 

It probably wouldn’t have made a difference as there was no belief in that team at all, but it couldn’t have been any worse. Hendo tried to rally them and Salah kept plugging away but even after we equalised we didn’t seem to even get much of a lift from it. Again, not having fans killed us there as it’s so hard to create any emotion and momentum in an empty stadium.

 

Still, at 1-1 we were comfortable enough even if we didn’t look like scoring. The only threat from City was Sterling running at Trent and Fabinho. He won the penalty doing that (definite pen for me, Fabinho shouldn’t be hanging out a leg like that) and he set up their opener by doing it. Just too easy really.

 

But we came back from that with Mo’s penalty (superbly taken). At that point we had no idea of what was to come. Fucking hell. 

 

Not gonna lie, I’m fucking disgusted with Alisson. I know he’s been great for us and that everyone is entitled to an off day. I get all that. I’m not calling for him to be sold out or even dropped. I’m just saying right now, as I type this, I’m fucking disgusted, angry, resentful and it’s not something I’ll get over quickly.

 

If it was just a case of being beaten by shots he should be saving I’d feel differently. But what he did was cocky, reckless, irresponsible and just fucking stupid. I hope something is said to him. Publicly Klopp and his team-mates need to back him but privately I hope they tear a strip off him as there’s no excuse for this.

 

I don’t know what the fuck he was doing. He was flirting with that shit even before it happened. Taking forever on the ball and inviting pressure. I noticed it in the first half. Just too fucking casual and cocky. Was he trying to prove a point to Ederson that he can play with his feet just as well as him? Because he fucking can’t. 

 

As great as Alisson is, when it comes to his ‘footballing ability’ he’s massively over-rated. He’s decent, that’s all. Nothing special with his feet at all. I thought he was when he first arrived because that was his reputation and I bought into it. Truth is though, he’s not that great with his feet and his passes often go astray. 

 

Which is fine. I don’t expect him to be Xabi Alonso and in goalkeeper terms he’s definitely above average with his feet. He’s clearly not as good as he thinks he is though, as we’ve just seen, much to our embarrassment.   

 

He didn’t learn from the close call in the first half and even after he got caught and conceded a goal he carried on doing it, the tit. I can’t get my head around what he did.

 

We’d got back into the game and who knows, maybe we could have sneaked a winner. City weren’t doing much, but then Alisson took an age on the ball, got it stuck under his feet and almost got caught out. But he got lucky and when the ball came back to him a second or two later he should have just been launching that. Instead he played some shitty casual half arsed chip straight to Foden and just like that it’s 2-1.

 

And then, unforgivably, he did the exact same thing a few minutes later. A shitty pass to Fabinho that put him under pressure, and then seconds later a pass straight to Silva who set up Sterling to make it 3-1. Unbelievable. And if that wasn’t enough, he then allowed a Foden shot to fly past him to rub salt in the already seeping wound. Even I’d have saved that. It was straight at him. His head had completely gone though.

 

This is the worst individual goalkeeping performance I’ve ever seen from a Liverpool keeper. It was worse than Karius, not least because at least Karius had the excuse of a concussion. It was marginally worse than David James against Coventry too, although I may be allowing recency bias to influence me there. James cost us a title. This title was lost weeks ago.

 

I know that our keepers are instructed to play out from the back but that’s just not an excuse for what he did. You have to be able to react to the situation and the opposition. Playing out in those situations, when City were smelling blood and you’ve already been caught, it’s just not acceptable. Fucking get it as far away from your goal as possible and then clear your head.

 

I also blame the defenders for continuing to pass to him though when his head was clearly up his arse. 

 

You know what though, fuck this, I don’t even want to talk about it anymore. It was another miserable experience in a miserable fucking season. And I’m getting sick of these bummings we’re letting City give us too. That’s three in as many seasons now. A team as good as ours shouldn’t be letting this happen so often.

 

I just don’t know where we go from here now. I said a few weeks ago after we lost to Burnley that it probably wasn’t rock bottom. I had hoped that the Old Trafford defeat in the cup might have been the low point, especially as we won the next couple and looked to have our mojo back. But then came Brighton and now this. Have we hit rock bottom now?

 

My gut feeling is no we haven’t. I feel like it’s going to get worse. We might even lose the derby, even though Everton are shit. We’re shit too currently. They’ll never, ever, have a better chance to win at Anfield. I mean let’s face it, every pother cunt is winning here now so why not them?

 

Hopefully I’m wrong and Klopp can make the most of a full week’s training with no midweek game to fix things. I understood the logic in playing Henderson and Fabinho at the back just because it was Man City. Against anyone else I wouldn’t have been in favour of that, but I could see why Klopp went with that for this one game.

 

Now though? Fuck that. We’ve got nothing to lose now. This isn’t working so let’s change it. Play whichever two you like from Phillips, Davies and Kabak in defence, get Fabinho and Henderson back in midfield and let’s see if we can start looking more like Liverpool again. This title defence has been fucking embarrassing.

 

Star man is Jones.

 

Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Henderson, Robertson (Tsimikas); Wijnaldum, Jones (Milner), Thiago (Shaqiri); Salah, Firmino, Mané:

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Sorely depressing.

 

We are missing everything about us that made us great over last couple of seasons.

 

Like watching an old fighter who's legs have gone try and fight from memory and the poor bastard no matter how hard he tries just can't get his shots off, can't see his opponents shots coming and when they land, can't absorb them.

 

It's tough to watch and its not a blip, or a downturn - it is what we are and what we will continue to be until we get our centre halves back and as a result of that our midfield back.

 

I'll argue we fucking chose this though and it didn't have to end up like this, we could hae done a lot more to cope and done it a good while ago - but that argument can go round and round forever....what can't be argued is we are a team in absolute crisis and every week that passes it sets deeper into every area of the team.

 

The big question now for rest of season is have we got enough to get that top 4 spot, as fear is if we don't there are some dark days ahead.

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Totally agree Dave, we keep playing the ball backwards too much and we lose it too easily.

 

Hendo’s passing from the back certainly does not help, its abysmal, I’ll post the numbers tomorrow. He needs to get back in midfield.

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How many myths and stories show than in breaking a curse or overcoming insurmountable odds, that often it comes at a heavy price, great loss or sting in the tail?

 

In our own odyssey, we attained our own unattainable but without being able to share in the joy, in person with the team. Those celebrations continue to be denied, we are unable to shove it down the throats of all those deserving of our ire and since we have had to endure the great loss of many of the team, be it by presence or form.

 

Let’s not forget the journey and trials we have endured, and put this season into that perspective. Yes, it’s unbearable to feel that we never succeeded, but the fact is that we did, we overcame, we broke our curse. 

 

Unlike before, we know we have the fortitude to do it again, that the ‘golden sky’ is more than just words, it’s a rallying cry. Let’s take this season on the chin, and use it to build towards the next.

 

So much about the club is better than it was before, it’s easier to go on a new odyssey when your stocks and rations are much better provided for than the scrimping and piecing together we started the last one with.

 

 

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Spot on about that Ederson kick straight to Mane. Our forwards usually pounce on such mistakes but Mane seemed to be taken surprised by it. 

Also when the forwards are receiving the ball,  for the past several games, their first touch is taking them back away from goal instead letting it roll forward and taking it in stride - similar to how Minamino scored his goal for Soton the other day.

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Truth is we are missing our leader badly, vvd used to take control of a game, organise the defence, set up attacks and feed the forwards, we will continue to struggle until he returns and gains match fitness, without him some of our players have lost their way, Allison has become nervous and our fullbacks seem to have lost confidence, even Henderson seems nonplussed, we need you know who back asap. 

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Ten seconds later the ball was back with Alisson. What the fuck????? 

 

Think that just about sums the season up, we are like a Chuckle brothers tribute act, to me to you,to you to me.

As I don't watch any other football I had no opinion onThiago other than what I read on here, unlocking defenses and all that, hope he finds that key.because I'm yet to see anything, pretty impressive fouling though.

 

 

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No idea how this team have fallen so far so quickly but we've got certainly got real problems. There's only so much you can blame the injuries for and this has gone way beyond that. This group of players have been amazing for a couple of years, but they've been an absolute embarrassment since the West Brom game.

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Said it before this is all on the owners. 

 

The first team players have given them everything for three years with no squad and now when they desperately need help, FSG deliver two reject bums for free on the last day of the window (one of which didn't even make the squad) 

 

Wouldn't surprise me if they've seen them in training and thought fucking hell we are fucked here boys. 

 

Needs to be coridnated fans action to drive them out

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I have never seen a team so willing to play backwards. Ever. Free kick to us in the final third? Five passes and it's back, deep in our half. Play out from the back and an opposition player comes within 15 metres? Back we go. Or hoof it aimlessly. 

 

Here's the thing. Fuck getting beaten at Anfield by Everton. Continue on this trajectory and I genuinely fear we won't have Klopp next season. 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, rb14 said:

Here's the thing. Fuck getting beaten at Anfield by Everton. Continue on this trajectory and I genuinely fear we won't have Klopp next season. 

 

Totally hope I'm insane, but I have a very uneasy feeling about that too.

 

 

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I've said more than once that I consider this season a write off due to COVID however, that was with the hope that at the end of the season everything would at least be close to normal again However, things are still so bad that Liverpool can't even travel to Germany for their CL match and there is a very real possibility that we will go into next season with fans still banned from stadiums.

 

If we go into next season with this form while still being unable to really buy or sell players it's gonna be even worse. It's so demoralizing watching the team suffer.

 

Everything that could have gone wrong this season has and it's a fucking joke. We didn't get to celebrate our title and we have had to go through the worst luck while defending our title what the fuck man.

 

The only thing I can do is hope that Jota comes back to help the forward line rest and the new defenders are good enough to allow our midfield to return, and then finally can this injury bug just leave us alone until the end of the season.

 

 

 

 

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40 minutes ago, skaro said:

 

Totally hope I'm insane, but I have a very uneasy feeling about that too.

 

 

I think it's more insane to not have an uneasy feeling about it, especially if come the summer there's little or no investment in the team.  Still, with hugely important players to come back from injury you've got to hope he wants to stay to see if he can achieve any more with them.

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Just now, Moo said:

I think it's more insane to not have an uneasy feeling about it, especially if come the summer there's little or no investment in the team.  Still, with hugely important players to come back from injury you've got to hope he wants to stay to see if he can achieve any more with them.

 

Yeah, but as is being pointed out more than once here, this has been going on since Watford.

 

Can this squad achieve more?  With VVD back, a fully functioning midfield (with Thiago in the mix) and Jota?

 

Maybe. 

 

Because we'd never want to be hanging by our Niagras waiting for more quality personnel to arrive... 

 

 

 

 

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Tough love Dave, can’t disagree with any of it. There’s no part of the team is operating at anything like what it can.I think Bobby is now a one game in 5 (if we’re lucky) player, nothing is working for him and he just looks slow. Surely JK recognises that? Then there’s midfield. We have no drive, zero creativity. We need to get fab and Hendo back in there immediately to try and get momentum before the end of the season (which I agree is a write-off at this stage). We have zero strength in depth - I’ve been a big critic of Jones but speak fair he was the best of the MF’s, but he got hooked for a guy staring 36 in the face who was never the quickest to begin with. I love Milner but just what was Jurgen hoping for with that one? We have a list of sick-note players who can’t play 3 games in a row and even if they do, how many are 1st team certs? We utterly wasted £52m on Keita; we won the ECL and totally failed to capitalise by strengthening the squad. Likewise with the Prem - Jotta and Thiago may make a difference but would you bet on it at this point? Everyone could see we needed back-up at CB but we did nothing until sick-note Joel did a sick note Joel and even then we leave it to the last day and end buying two guys who no-one has ever heard of, one of whom we gazumped Celtic for! Yeah I know VVD played there, but at this stage if we’re in the market for the same players Celtic are chasing something has gone seriously fucking wrong. No doubt we’ve had an appalling run of luck, but there’s been bad decisions along the way no no-one is exempt from that, not even the boss unfortunately. Christ what a start to the fucking week...

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Moving Hendo and Fab back to midfield doesn’t stop them defending, in my opinion. If anything it is added strength to the back line - so many times we’ve seen them both intercept an attack well before the backline has to act. Also, as you correctly say, their presence would be a much needed boost for Thiago. I firmly believe it is the key to a turnaround. Yes we may ship goals, but we’ll look more like scoring them too.

 

I remember a certain title challenge under Rodgers where we shipped tons of goals but nearly won the league. 

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32 minutes ago, Marcas said:

Tough love Dave, can’t disagree with any of it. There’s no part of the team is operating at anything like what it can.I think Bobby is now a one game in 5 (if we’re lucky) player, nothing is working for him and he just looks slow. Surely JK recognises that? Then there’s midfield. We have no drive, zero creativity. We need to get fab and Hendo back in there immediately to try and get momentum before the end of the season (which I agree is a write-off at this stage). We have zero strength in depth - I’ve been a big critic of Jones but speak fair he was the best of the MF’s, but he got hooked for a guy staring 36 in the face who was never the quickest to begin with. I love Milner but just what was Jurgen hoping for with that one? We have a list of sick-note players who can’t play 3 games in a row and even if they do, how many are 1st team certs? We utterly wasted £52m on Keita; we won the ECL and totally failed to capitalise by strengthening the squad. Likewise with the Prem - Jotta and Thiago may make a difference but would you bet on it at this point? Everyone could see we needed back-up at CB but we did nothing until sick-note Joel did a sick note Joel and even then we leave it to the last day and end buying two guys who no-one has ever heard of, one of whom we gazumped Celtic for! Yeah I know VVD played there, but at this stage if we’re in the market for the same players Celtic are chasing something has gone seriously fucking wrong. No doubt we’ve had an appalling run of luck, but there’s been bad decisions along the way no no-one is exempt from that, not even the boss unfortunately. Christ what a start to the fucking week...

With Jota out, what are the options? We loan Minamino out, so that leaves very little. I'd happily never see Origi in a red shirt again and Shaqiri and Chamberlain aren't far behind. 

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Up to their pen I thought we'd just and I mean just, shaded it. They got the pen almost against the run of play. Ive no problem with the pen against Fab so long as we get them. And all too often we dont. At least Oliver evened it up with Mo's pen.

 

I agree about us being slow. I think Gini was the main culprit. I love Bobby but he's a shadow of the player he was even if he did force a save from Ederson. Sadio may have the excuse of not being fully fit but in all honesty, his performance was no worse what we've seen from him this season so far.

 

Yet again, Mo was on his own up front showing any fight. Young Curtis was showing fight but I dont think he was as good as you make out Dave. He led one break then played a truely awful ball about 5 yards behind Gini and the move broke down.

 

You're bang on about Virgil. Ive took quite a bit of stick saying our problem isnt the CB position. At the moment, 2 of our 3 forwards, 4 if you include Origi cannot score in a brothel.

 

I fear there's something majorly wrong at the club now. Jurgen is very, very tetchy in interviews. Even before last season's title win, he'd have laughed at arsehole like shreeve and the others. Now, he's Mister Angry.

 

Covid has fucked football. Im left wondering if the likes of Sadio had a move lined up but this has fallen through due to the finances of the buying club? Gini's contract situation isnt helping. chelsea spunking the cash about clearly wrecked Jurgen's plans to bring in Werner, losing van Dijk, Gomez and Matip was truely calamitous and loads wanted Degsy just got shot off.

 

Alli, what can you say? You missed Dudek and those 2 goals by that manc for comparison. But Alli isnt the only one in this team filled with indecision right now. Some of them get the ball and it's like a hot potato to them or they're thinking 'what the fuck do I do next?'

 

Scary days ahead I fear.

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