29th August 2015 - Home against West Ham

[razor]

Back in haste.

 

There should be just a handful of certainties in life, death, taxes, and LFC home victories against West Ham. It is the natural order of things. The southern softies turn up, and get turned over. If the ICF dared turn up in Stanley Park they got sorted quicker than a first class letter at Copperas Hill.

 

The Kop knows. As I arrived, there was a swaggering confidence that we should win, but that with Brendan we might not.

 

I am no Brendanista, but I certainly would not judge him on a game, or a handful of games. But last season, as the campaign drew to a close, few on the Kop would have joined a “ keep Brendan “ protest. The argument against him was not that he had not won quite a lot of games ( and with a spend pushing £300m so he should now), but that he didn’t have a winning mentality. Nice cup campaign- until capitulation against Villa. Nice title tilt, until the Palace madness, etc. Great start to the 15/16 season (helped by some favourable refereeing decisions). At that point you either say ,“We have had the rub of the green lads, now you show me how good you are”, or you believe that you are the 21st century incarnation of Shanks and don’t need to prepare. Boom.

 

Keeping Brendan was not just about keeping him, it was about not having the likes of Klopp. As Sgt Wilson used to say “Is that wise, sir?” Brendan was happy to ditch Susan for Charlotte when something better turned up, I know he was amazed that the Board didn’t think the same last summer.

 

We have to stick with Brendan after giving him a fortune (again) to spend. Yet after three seasons the Kop deserved better than what we got today, as was the case at Stoke etc.

 

For me, I am tiring of this. Worst result for half a century against West Ham at home. Stoke, worst result ever in league for half a century. Abject embarrassing Euro exits for a club with one of the finest Euro pedigrees in Europe.

 

The last goal went in to a largely empty Anfield, as West ham fans savoured bubbles, and Reds lamented froth.

 

Coutinho’s sending off was harsh. But Rodgers’ has failed to instil discipline to his men and his absence at Old Trafford will be a huge miss The pairing of Lovren with anybody was equally harsh on the fans, and team. You would have thought that by now he would be as forgotten as a yellow pair of trousers bought on a drunken stag weekend, it made sense at the time but not in the cold night of day. £20m? You’re having a laugh, Brendan’s valuation of Lovren makes Stones look a bargain across the road at £40m.

 

But Brendan will survive this. Losing to Man U is now no deal breaker, and the following three games against Bordeaux, Norwich and Carlisle are as soft as it gets. Expect more routine wins, and more heartbreak when it counts. Benteke being played on his own up front against West Ham was absurd.

 

Standards slipping...

[Anubis]

He prevented a corner.

 

 

[kemskem]

ok, we were garbage today... totally crap but dont forget the spammers beat the arse at home a few weeks ago, so they arent too bad really, so be positive... bring on the dung in 2 weeks time... lfc forever.... YNWA...

It's a bit hard to be positive, though. It seems like we've got a dead man walking until the new year. So it's a bit grim. I read that with my bleary eyes as, "bring on the drugs", btw. That's what may be needed in the next few months.

[Captain]

So our luck finally ran out.

 

It's going to be a long season.

[Trumo]

Rodgers got this tactically wrong. The defensive mistakes exacerbated the problem, but Rodgers seemed to be caught out by West Ham's tactic of containing and then countering at pace. I'm not sure why as that is the default mode of away sides in the league this season.

 

There have been 38 games played in the league so far prior to today's games, and only 7 of those have resulted in home wins. 18 of the 20 clubs have played 2 home games, and 13 of those sides have yet to win a home game. While you can't call it a definitive pattern so early in the season, it's been noticeable how away sides have set themselves up so Rodgers should have been aware of it and set up accordingly. Having faced as well as seen Slaven Bilic's teams in the past, he should also have known that Bilic plays this way by default.

 

The biggest problem was the midfield 3 of Lucas, Milner and Can. It didn't need both Lucas and Can in there, and would have been better with Coutinho ahead of Milner and Lucas/Can as he can link up with the players in attack, distribute the ball, make attacking runs and keep our play ticking over. We'd have been able to select another forward up top (maybe Ings) and it would have helped Benteke because West Ham's back line would not have been able to double up on him. It would have helped Firmino too because he could link up more with the others higher up the pitch and also make attacking runs beyond.

 

Instead, West Ham's centre backs were able to double up on Benteke and nullify him by having Ogbonna man-mark and Reid and Tomkins mop up behind, and it meant that their central midfielders could look after Coutinho and Firmino by not giving them room in dangerous positions, so those two ended up too deep looking for space. That caused our midfield to sit deeper still and they aren't the sort to pick out a telling pass nor make runs beyond the West Ham set-up in the first place. West Ham were compact and we were far too spread out from front to back.

 

Changing formation and personnel at half time didn't help because West Ham were already 2 goals to the good and could simply sit back. We've shown for years under Rodgers that we are incapable of retrieving such a situation and I think they would have known that. We tend to get desperate, lose our shape, get frustrated and give free kicks away.

[J-V]

Oh yeah. Emre Can was dogshite and lazy as fuck today. As bad as Lovren and thats saying something.

 

No he wasn't.

[RoboRiise]

“It was the overall performance, I felt we disappointed right from the off,”

 

“Once we conceded the early goal we just couldn’t get back in the game again – our overall performance with and without the ball will be much better in the future.

“Up to today, the morale and the confidence has been really high. We know today a lot was self-inflicted.

“We gave poor goals away and that was the biggest disappointment, but I’m lucky that I work with an honest group.

“At this level you have to be able to bounce back and that’s our job in the next game.”

 

I sincerely hope that a few of that honest group are honest enough to tell him that the problem is his dogshit fucking tactics.  I wouldn't be quite so mad were it not for the fact I read that under a headline which said Rodgers had referred to a 'self-inflicted' defeat and actually thought for a second that he may have acknowledged that he had something to do with it.

 

I'm sorry but as a few others have said, I'm genuinely starting to hate the guy now and I don't like feeling this way about an LFC manager.

[BCM]

Rodgers got this tactically wrong. The defensive mistakes exacerbated the problem, but Rodgers seemed to be caught out by West Ham's tactic of containing and then countering at pace. I'm not sure why as that is the default mode of away sides in the league this season.

 

There have been 38 games played in the league so far prior to today's games, and only 7 of those have resulted in home wins. 18 of the 20 clubs have played 2 home games, and 13 of those sides have yet to win a home game. While you can't call it a definitive pattern so early in the season, it's been noticeable how away sides have set themselves up so Rodgers should have been aware of it and set up accordingly. Having faced as well as seen Slaven Bilic's teams in the past, he should also have known that Bilic plays this way by default.

 

The biggest problem was the midfield 3 of Lucas, Milner and Can. It didn't need both Lucas and Can in there, and would have been better with Coutinho ahead of Milner and Lucas/Can as he can link up with the players in attack, distribute the ball, make attacking runs and keep our play ticking over. We'd have been able to select another forward up top (maybe Ings) and it would have helped Benteke because West Ham's back line would not have been able to double up on him. It would have helped Firmino too because he could link up more with the others higher up the pitch and also make attacking runs beyond.

 

Instead, West Ham's centre backs were able to double up on Benteke and nullify him by having Ogbonna man-mark and Reid and Tomkins mop up behind, and it meant that their central midfielders could look after Coutinho and Firmino by not giving them room in dangerous positions, so those two ended up too deep looking for space. That caused our midfield to sit deeper still and they aren't the sort to pick out a telling pass nor make runs beyond the West Ham set-up in the first place. West Ham were compact and we were far too spread out from front to back.

 

Changing formation and personnel at half time didn't help because West Ham were already 2 goals to the good and could simply sit back. We've shown for years under Rodgers that we are incapable of retrieving such a situation and I think they would have known that. We tend to get desperate, lose our shape, get frustrated and give free kicks away.

 

Of those teams who failed to win at home.

 

How many got beat

How many failed to score

How many got beat by more than 2 goals by a team who probably cost less than half of ours, who had 4 teenagers on the bench with 3 premier league outings between them.

[Original202]

I sincerely hope that a few of that honest group are honest enough to tell him that the problem is his dogshit fucking tactics.  I wouldn't be quite so mad were it not for the fact I read that under a headline which said Rodgers had referred to a 'self-inflicted' defeat and actually thought for a second that he may have acknowledged that he had something to do with it.

 

I'm sorry but as a few others have said, I'm genuinely starting to hate the guy now and I don't like feeling this way about an LFC manager.

 

I'm so sick of hearing him say "we'll improve" or "we will be better next time". In a few days time on the official site there will be an article with quotes from a player along the lines of "we know what we need to do to bounce back, we're working hard" or some other such shite. 

 

It was the same almost every week last season (and in 12/13). If the manager and players know what they have to do, why can't they just get on with it and do it? Less talk, more action.

 

We'll no doubt go to Old Trafford and suffer a brave defeat and then everyone will be talking up our chances for the game at home to Norwich "The season starts now" and we'll end up drawing 0-0 and the cycle starts again.

 

It's going to be another long and frustrating season isn't it?

[liverpoolsno9]

What's with all the negativity on here? We got a brilliant 0-0 v Arsenal only 6 days ago *sarcasm*. Some of the comments on here compared to post-Arse are embarrassing, making some of you look like right fickle hysterical tits.

[RoboRiise]

What's with all the negativity on here? We got a brilliant 0-0 v Arsenal only 6 days ago *sarcasm*. Some of the comments on here compared to post-Arse are embarrassing, making some of you look like right fickle hysterical tits.

 

I completely agree.  Itis bizarre how after celebrating our 'wonderful' result at the Emirates against perennial Champion's League qualifiers Arsenal, people are then displeased by getting twatted 3-0 at home by West Ham.

[moof]

It was a decent point at the Emirates and a good performance at a place where we usually get spanked. I don't understand the need to downplay that because yesterday was shit.

[Kevin D]

It was a mistake to keep Rodgers in the summer and watching that mistake play out over the next 9 months is going to be painful.

[TheHowieLama]

What's with all the negativity on here? We got a brilliant 0-0 v Arsenal only 6 days ago *sarcasm*. Some of the comments on here compared to post-Arse are embarrassing, making some of you look like right fickle hysterical tits.

 

 

Makes us look like a bunch of quims.

[Red House]

It was a decent point at the Emirates and a good performance at a place where we usually get spanked. I don't understand the need to downplay that because yesterday was shit.

 

45 mins, a good 45 mins. Only good 45 mins out of the 360 mins so far this season in truth..

 

Anyway, what you are saying is no much different to those who downplayed the averageness/shiteness of the Stoke and Bournemouth performances just because we got full points, usually with the traditional condescending shit of "stop moaning, be happy with the 3 points...".

[Torvald Utne]

45 mins, a good 45 mins. Only good 45 mins out of the 360 mins so far this season in truth..

 

Anyway, what you are saying is no much different to those who downplayed the averageness/shiteness of the Stoke and Bournemouth performances just because we got full points, usually with the traditional condescending shit of "stop moaning, be happy with the 3 points...".

We should have been a goal down in that 45 minutes too

[KopOut]

United beaten by Swansea.

 

Thank fuck for that, although they move agead of us on goal dif.

[Paco]

I envisage Payet running our defence ragged. I can scarcely believe that West Ham are 8-1 shots here as they won fairly comfortably at Arsenal, and we are scoring 0.33 legitimate goals per game.

the only one to make any kind of accurate prediction before the game.

 

all the detractors waited to see what happened then claimed prescience.

 

easy that.

[Mook]

I was just speaking to a fellow Red at my work there, he took his 8 year old lad down for his first game at Anfield last Saturday, bought him a Coutinho third jersey at the club shop before the game as well, poor wee bastard.

 

Thanks to Liverpool Lad on here I managed to get them tickets for Sunderland away last season so his first ever Liverpool game wasn't a 3-0 home defeat to West fucking Ham.

[Dr Nowt]

I was just speaking to a fellow Red at my work there, he took his 8 year old lad down for his first game at Anfield last Saturday, bought him a Coutinho third jersey at the club shop before the game as well, poor wee bastard.

 

Thanks to Liverpool Lad on here I managed to get them tickets for Sunderland away last season so his first ever Liverpool game wasn't a 3-0 home defeat to West fucking Ham.

 

No, but he did have to go to Sunderland.

[Mook]

No, but he did have to go to Sunderland.

 

Not only that but he had to meet me as well, some life the boy has had and he's not even 9 yet.

[Dr Nowt]

Not only that but he had to meet me as well, some life the boy has had and he's not even 9 yet.

 

Puts everything into perspective that does, mate.

 

Poor little fucker.