Liverpool 3 Aston Villa 2 (Sep 24 2015)

[tlw content]

I suppose the first thing to say is I enjoyed this; it was fun and I had a smile on my face when I came out of Anfield. It changed nothing in terms of the big picture but it’s a step in the right direction at least. The second half was almost, almost like the return of “Rodgeball”, with goals at both ends, exciting attacking play and Keystone Cops defending.
 
In comparison with most of our other games this season, this was a big improvement, but then that just shows what a low bar has been set these past 12 months.

Despite it being better, much better even, Villa were absolutely dreadful yet still came close to nicking a point. That’s not good is it? Not that it stopped Rodgers from sounding off at his critics. Won one have you? Fucking hell. There’d be no living with him if he ever managed to beat anybody decent. You’ve seen that little statistic I’m sure, how since April the only teams we’ve beaten have been 16th-19th place in the table or halfway down the Championship. We couldn’t even beat Carlisle, yet he comes out swinging after just about overcoming Tim fucking Sherwood.

I’m actually embarrassed for him now, but I’m not going to dissect all of his ridiculous comments in here, I’ll leave that for the Diary and just stick to the game itself.

If Agbonlahor had been available this could have been a different story as he always seems to give us big problems at Anfield. Even in his absence our defence couldn’t cope with that big lump Gestede even though we had three centre backs, so there’s still plenty of cause for concern despite the improved play at the other end.

Beggars can’t be choosers though and I’ll take this kind of performance over the West Ham one all day. It seems as though the only way we can be defensively secure is to completely sacrifice any kind of attacking play (e.g. the first few games of the season) and as soon as we open it up a bit we start shipping goals again. We’ve had that for over three years now and that’s not going to change under this manager, no matter what players he signs.

Still, there are encouraging signs that our attacking play is returning now and it’s not a co-incidence that it’s happened since Benteke (and to a lesser extent Firmino) went out and Sturridge and Ings came in. We all knew how important Sturridge is to making Rodgers’ brand of football work, but this display put an exclamation point on it. And guess what Brendan, playing two up front increases the chances of scoring goals. Who’d have thunk it eh? Oh yeah, basically everybody except you, it seems. Still, better late than never.

It’s fair to say though that had Sturridge never gotten injured there’s every chance Rodgers wouldn’t be in this precarious position. That’s not an excuse for him, if anything it’s the opposite. If he can’t make his style of football work with players other than Sturridge and Suarez then that’s a fairly damning indictment of his coaching ability. A drop off was to be expected when you lose players of that quality, but there’s no excuse for the arse completely falling out of our game for the best part of 12 months.

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[Trumo]

Some blert has nicked this and called it "testing". Might wanna look into that.

[Paco]

Suar-ings

[Newport]

Seems like Rodgers learned fuck all when he was at Chelsea. Well, apart from being a total knob in the media.

 

Villa were as poor as Dave's Bears was last night and still we conceded two. I wish our defenders had as much pride about defending as the Seahawks, though. Skrtel is a fucking disgrace and the fact that this was his 301st appearance for this club says a lot about how our standards have been lowered.

[Through Ball]

Gestede gave us a beating last season too when we played Blackburn in the FA Cup. Even though he didn't score we couldn't handle him.

[Ranxerox]

Money quote 

 

"Won one have you? Fucking hell".

[JermainePennant]

I have to disagree with those who say we scraped a win against villa, we dominated them for 90% of the game and should of have more goals.

 

Can made a terrible mistake which gave Gestede a chance, the first goal they scored was poor from LFCs point of view but their second was unstoppable like Carra said last night.The lb put in a perfect cross for Gestede who had the beating of Sakho in the air, only way to stop it was to foul Gestede.

 

There's a bad atmosphere at anfield at the moment which is making players nervous, I didn't see the carling cup game but from the highlights I saw the crowd was appalling.Constant groans and it was like they were waiting for something to complain about.

 

The villa display was very encouraging considering that, fans want to say this one game proves nothing but the losses against Manu and west ham are clear evidence the manager has to go.I think it's too early to judge what's happening either way but I do think its logical to think we can expect more games like villa then like against Manu and West ham.

 

Even last season those kind of losses were rare, we train everyday to play the way we did against villa, players can perform better then then have, new players will jel, and we have good players out injured who will add something to the team.

[Russ Atmosphere]

I have to disagree with those who say we scraped a win against villa, we dominated them for 90% of the game and should of have more goals.

 

Can made a terrible mistake which gave Gestede a chance, the first goal they scored was poor from LFCs point of view but their second was unstoppable like Carra said last night.The lb put in a perfect cross for Gestede who had the beating of Sakho in the air, only way to stop it was to foul Gestede.

 

There's a bad atmosphere at anfield at the moment which is making players nervous, I didn't see the carling cup game but from the highlights I saw the crowd was appalling.Constant groans and it was like they were waiting for something to complain about.

 

The villa display was very encouraging considering that, fans want to say this one game proves nothing but the losses against Manu and west ham are clear evidence the manager has to go.I think it's too early to judge what's happening either way but I do think its logical to think we can expect more games like villa then like against Manu and West ham.

 

Even last season those kind of losses were rare, we train everyday to play the way we did against villa, players can perform better then then have, new players will jel, and we have good players out injured who will add something to the team.

 

Don't really understand this post. Demoralising defeats were commonplace in the league for us last season. We lost 7 times by 2 goals or more, whilst our supposed nearest competitors in terms of club size, Arsenal, lost by this much just twice (already matched by us this season).

 

Perhaps if you don't understand how bad we've been since selling Suarez then I'm not surprised you can't fathom why the crowds have so little to be vocal about.

[JermainePennant]

Don't really understand this post. Demoralising defeats were commonplace in the league for us last season. We lost 7 times by 2 goals or more, whilst our supposed nearest competitors in terms of club size, Arsenal, lost by this much just twice (already matched by us this season).

 

Perhaps if you don't understand how bad we've been since selling Suarez then I'm not surprised you can't fathom why the crowds have so little to be vocal about.

When I'm talking about losses like that I'm talking about performances like Manu and west ham, we were dog shit and hardly created a chance.There was poor performances and losses last season but rarely as bad as those two games, atleast in games we were losing last season we were creating chances but didn't have anyone to put them away.

 

The atmosphere looked dreadful against Carlilse whatever the reasons were, imo the atmosphere has definitely contributed to poor performances at Anfield.Fans are quick to jump on any mistake meaning players are weary about trying risky things on the pitch.

[Russ Atmosphere]

When I'm talking about losses like that I'm talking about performances like Manu and west ham, we were dog shit and hardly created a chance.There was poor performances and losses last season but rarely as bad as those two games, atleast in games we were losing last season we were creating chances but didn't have anyone to put them away.

 

The atmosphere looked dreadful against Carlilse whatever the reasons were, imo the atmosphere has definitely contributed to poor performances at Anfield.Fans are quick to jump on any mistake meaning players are weary about trying risky things on the pitch.

 

[Guest]

Gestede gave us a beating last season too when we played Blackburn in the FA Cup. Even though he didn't score we couldn't handle him.

Well I guess we know which striker Rodgers will be pursuing next summer.