Jump to content
tlw content
tlw content

By tlw content •

Liverpool 2 Aston Villa 0 (Nov 9 2024)

    image.jpeg

     

It wasn’t as impressive as the Leverkusen game but there was just something very routine and grown up about that win and performance. It was just very mature, controlled and drama free. It should have been over long before it was but it never felt like the missed chances would cost us as - two quick corners in the first half aside - we were never really threatened.

 

Villa showed very little ambition which could be a result of the respect Emery has for Slots team, or it could be that they came into the game in a wobbly run of form so he opted to play it cagey. They were happy to just sit in and try to counter attack and never showed any real intent until the last 15 minutes. When they did that, we kept picking them off on the break and it was pretty obvious why they hadn’t tried to do it earlier.

 

I thought they did pretty well in the first half as a lot of teams would have been swatted aside by the intensity we had early on. Anfield was always going to be rocking for an 8pm Saturday kick off when we’re top of the league, but City losing the 5.30 game just set it off even more.

 

The pre-match buzz and sense of excitement was more like an April European night than a league game in November. City losing meant we could go five points clear, which ordinarily doesn’t necessarily mean a great deal so early in the season, but there’s something not right with City at the moment and it feels like we might be able to really out some daylight between us and them.

 

So while we’ve generally not been great in the first half of games so far and often the tempo has been quite flat, I was expecting fire and brimstone to start this game because of the situation and the emotion of the crowd. I was even thinking that losing the toss might be a good thing because attacking the Kop in the first half might work to our advantage.

 

We did lose the toss and Villa did turn us around, and I thought that might backfire on them spectacularly. It might have had we added the second goal, but we had to settle for just the one goal lead at half time. The way the game started I thought we might blow them away. For 10 minutes or so we swarmed all over them when they had the ball and we were winning it back constantly.

 

To their credit though Villa didn’t panic at all and they kept trying to play out from the back, often with some success. I thought they played pretty well in the first half all things considered and there wasn’t really much in the game.

The rest of this article can only be accessed by subscribers. A Liverpool Way subscription includes all Match Reports, Premier League Round Ups, the Weekly Diary feature as well as access to the Members Forum, and subscribers will no longer see any adverts on the site.

Subscriptions cost just £3 per month and are available in three, six and 12 month packages. For a free one month trial send a private message to @dave u and he'll activate your trial subscription.

Show subscription options

  • Upvote 28
Go to articles

User Feedback

Recommended Comments

Anubis

Good report.

 

I'd give Darwin a pass on the header. He was the wrong side of the post and it wasn't easy to guide it to the corner.

 

Emery was snart enough to keep Mings on the bench otherwise we'd have been good for a couple more.

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites
ralph

I moved to the upper centenary stand for this one, so had to watch the game back to front, atmosphere was very good throughout the whole match. Long may it continue. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Arnaud

Enjoyable read as usual, Dave, can’t wait for the diary to show up any minutes now….

 

I thought Robbo had a very good game too, many runs and good crosses. 
 

As you wrote, it was mature and under controlled, but a bit boring still.

 

But I understand Slot, it works out well, why would he change ?

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
lebron

Nice report, the atmosphere sounded great!

 

Just wanted to comment on this:

"he frustration is that you can see in the training videos the club puts out that Darwin’s shooting technique is fantastic with either foot, but doing it at full speed is a different matter. "

 

I was actually surprised to see that in a few of the training videos where they have shooting drills, there seems to be no restrictions on time/steps and/or touch before they have to shoot. Both Salah and Nunez take a long time (and about a dozen steps) before they shoot at those drills. I understand that they need the slowed-down version to get their technique right, hopefully they are practicing with restrictions as well. Watching Darwin struggle to hit the ball when he hasn't got time to make those additional steps suggests he need more training on it though.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
dave u
3 hours ago, lebron said:

Nice report, the atmosphere sounded great!

 

Just wanted to comment on this:

"he frustration is that you can see in the training videos the club puts out that Darwin’s shooting technique is fantastic with either foot, but doing it at full speed is a different matter. "

 

I was actually surprised to see that in a few of the training videos where they have shooting drills, there seems to be no restrictions on time/steps and/or touch before they have to shoot. Both Salah and Nunez take a long time (and about a dozen steps) before they shoot at those drills. I understand that they need the slowed-down version to get their technique right, hopefully they are practicing with restrictions as well. Watching Darwin struggle to hit the ball when he hasn't got time to make those additional steps suggests he need more training on it though.

 

 

I've thought the same, not specifically just with Darwin and Mo but in pretty much all of the shooting drills where they take a touch to turn and then hit it. You don't get THAT much time in real action so it feels a bit pointless so some degree.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
dave u
5 hours ago, Arnaud said:

Enjoyable read as usual, Dave, can’t wait for the diary to show up any minutes now….

 

Posted the diary around Sunday lunchtime but I can't see it anywhere! Hold on, let me find out what's happened.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Tj hooker

Coote could have waved play on as Darwin was through, and if he had I’d have had no complaints about the decision even if Darwin hadn’t scored. That isn’t what happened though. He specifically signalled for no foul, which is genuinely disturbing. Thankfully it didn’t matter because Nunez ran through, went around Martinez and finished it emphatically into the roof of the net.

Quite the paragraph in light of what's happened today , Good report Dave 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
dave u

It was disturbing, but equally I have to say if he wanted to fuck us over he'd have given them one of the dodgy penalties they wanted. 

 

Despite everything in the video, I think what we saw on Saturday was that he's a shit referee rather than him deliberately fucking us. Some of the previous incidents on the other hand, when Klopp was still here, that's a different story. 

  • Upvote 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites
lifetime fan
On 11/11/2024 at 12:14, deiseach said:

I was expecting something a little more effusive. I mean, Scouser Tommy made its way down to my end of the Main Stand - twice! That's how good it was.


Came across brilliantly on the telly as well.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
deiseach
1 hour ago, dave u said:

It was disturbing, but equally I have to say if he wanted to fuck us over he'd have given them one of the dodgy penalties they wanted. 

 

Despite everything in the video, I think what we saw on Saturday was that he's a shit referee rather than him deliberately fucking us. Some of the previous incidents on the other hand, when Klopp was still here, that's a different story. 

 

He's very bad, and the archetypal moment from him had nothing to.do with Liverpool - not giving Lo Celso a red card for his stamp on Azpilicueta. It's noteworthy how his boss seems to think all that was needed was for Coote to "reflect on it". Should have been on special measures.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...