It had been coming. You can’t keep playing the way we have without it eventually catching up with you. The wins over Red Star and Cardiff at Anfield suggested we were getting back into the groove but we now know that’s not the case. This was shite.
We weren’t very good at Arsenal but we were just terrible in this game. There are a lot of reasons why and one of them is complacency. After what we did in Europe last season it’s understandable to a degree, but the whole approach to this game just reeked of “walk in the park”.
Firstly, leaving Shaqiri at home. Why? Why would you do that? I get that there are tensions involved and that the Red Star fans hate him. So fucking what? Are we going to leave Lovren and Van Dijk at home when we go to St Mary’s this year then? Of course not.
Yes, there’s a difference in the hostility levels in Southampton and Belgrade, but the point still stands. The stadium was hostile anyway, Shaqiri or no Shaqiri. Choreographed chanting with one end shouting “Fuck off” and the other end replying with “Liverpool”. They booed and whistled throughout. So fucking what? They’re miles from the pitch so it shouldn’t matter.
And I don’t think it did matter. We didn’t play like shite because of a few boos and whistles and there is nothing that Shaqiri shouldn’t have been able to handle. We were reduced to bringing on fucking Divock Origi to try and salvage something because we left the little fella at home. Fact is, we’re not playing well enough to be able to leave Shaqiri out.
So that’s the first thing. Then there’s the team selection, with Sturridge, Matip and Lallana all brought in from the cold. Loads seem to be fuming about that but personally I have no great problem with it. It’s not like the rest were all great and those three let us down, but it's a valid point to say that making those changes does make it look like we took Red Star too lightly.
We can’t play the same eleven players every game though and we should have been able to rest a few and still have enough to beat Red Star. That’s not how it turned out though and when it goes wrong like that a manager is always going to cop some flak for making changes.
It’s not the changes themselves that I have an issue with, it’s that the team just didn’t look prepared and went swaggering out there as though it was going to be a walkover. Maybe Klopp needs to get them more focussed and give them a few home truths? In fairness, perhaps he already has, I have no idea what goes on behind closed doors.
Looking at it from the outside though I’d say there’s too many of them loving the smell of their own farts at the moment. There’s lots of big talk from them about how well we’re doing, but look beneath the impressive results and it really hasn’t been much to be bragging about, especially up front. It's also alarming to see that we've been outrun in seven of the last eight games. What the fuck is that about?
Up front is where my biggest frustrations lie. It's mad the amount of times I’ve found myself muttering “oh fuck off Mo” or “what the hell was that shit, Sadio?”. They’re doing my head in, it's like they've all been replaced by bang average versions of themselves.
They set such a high bar with how they played last season that they’re now victims of their own success. They were the best front three in the world and although statistically they’re not doing that bad so far, it’s nothing like how they were playing last year.
It’s not just them but it is mostly them, because when they aren’t getting it done everyone else looks worse. We can moan about Milner and Wijnaldum not making enough of an impact, or complain about the lack of thrust from the full back positions or whatever, but really it comes down to the forwards not delivering like they were last year.
When they don’t perform it makes everyone else look worse. That said, it wasn’t the forwards fault that Milner inexplicably passed the ball straight to a Red Star player in the build to their second goal, or that Wijnaldum was prancing around the goalscorer scared to give a foul away. Or that Alisson made a pigs arse of his attempt to save it.
Seriously, what the fuck was that? I’m no goalkeeping guru but I know that if you go for a ball like that with your left hand then you’re giving yourself far less chance of saving it than if you go with your right.
Seriously, try it now. Move your left arm to your right and see how far across you can reach and how much space you can cover. Now use your right hand and do the same. The difference is fucking massive. He had no chance of saving that shot with his left hand.
So there’s more than enough blame to go around for this loss, but it’s the forwards who are angering me the most right now and have been all season really.
Things might have been very different if Sturridge hadn’t missed a fucking sitter when it was 0-0. There’s just no excuse for that, he has to score. It’s his only fucking job. We know he won’t do much pressing and he can’t run, so he’s in the side to put away any chances that come his way and he failed miserably by basically missing an open goal from six yards.
He missed that and then spent the rest of the half being a greedy bastard trying to make up for the one he wasted. No surprise he was hooked at half time, although in fairness there were about six players who could just as easily have been subbed.
It was just shit. We were giving up chances and making them look like a top side. They played well and defended for their lives, but under no circumstances should we be losing to them and we’ve made life unnecessarily difficult now in terms of qualification.
It’s more than that though. If we manage to win in Paris we’re through and the defeats here and in Naples won’t matter. So I’m not fixating on the results, it’s the performances that are the real concern.
All season we’ve been saying “we’re getting results but haven’t clicked yet. Imagine how good we’ll be when we hit form”. Well it’s November now and if anything we’re getting worse. Seven straight wins to start the season but we’ve only won three of the last nine.
I don’t know what’s wrong but it’s clearly not clicking at the moment. Maybe we’ve been found out and teams have sussed how to play us, or maybe it’s just a case of too many players (specifically the frontmen) just not being in form. Could even be a hangover from Kiev combined with tiredness from the World Cup. I don’t know, I just hope Klopp does and knows how to get us going again.
We’re still in a great position in the league and if we beat PSG or Napoli (might need to do it by two goals) then we’re in the knockouts, so it’s hardly cause for panic.
Thing is though, unless we start to play better then it won’t be long before a gap opens up between us and City (and maybe Chelsea too), and on this form it’s hard to see us getting anything in Paris.
Time to get your shit together lads.
Star man is.... shit, I don't know. Gomez was alright I suppose but he only played a half, so I'll go with Robbo as he didn't do much wrong.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold (Gomez), Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Wijnaldum, Milner, Lallana (Origi); Salah, Sturridge (Firmino), Mané:
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