FC Rubin 0 Liverpool 1 (Nov 5 2015)

[tlw content]

I know it was only 1-0, and I know they aren’t very good, but that was the best European performance we’ve had since the days of Rafa. It was complete and utter dominance for most of the game, and then when we eventually needed to do a bit of defending we made it look comfortable. 
 
Rubin are a poor team, but we’ve played loads of jabroni teams in the Europa and we usually make really hard work of it, so this was a big step in the right direction. 
 
We’re now in great shape to get out of the group and it’s another good performance the players can use as a confidence builder moving forward. We’re improving every game now it seems, and in many ways this was the most complete performance we’ve seen so far. In terms of the control we had with and without the ball it’s the best we’ve looked in ages. Quite simply, Rubin were never in this game until the last ten minutes when we understandably got a bit edgy.
 
The start we made was great. Just swarmed all over them right from the first whistle and who knows, if Milner’s shot is a couple of inches lower and we take an early lead, we might have ran riot. I’m not sure they’d even touched the ball at that point, and the bit of play from Firmino to create the opening was great. Sadly Milner hit the bar and we had to wait until the second half to finally break the deadlock. 
 
Everything else was perfect though in that first half. They couldn’t get out of their own half while we just moved it around quickly and worked the ball into good areas only to let ourselves down with a poor final ball or weak shot.
 
That side of it still needs a lot of work, but the rest of our game has come a long way in just four weeks. We’re doing things now that Rodgers no longer believed was possible. We’re playing four at the back and keeping clean sheets for one thing. Not just that, we did it with Lovren and Sakho playing together and with Moreno at left full back. Emre Can is playing regularly in midfield and we’re playing 4-2-3-1 and actually making it work. Whenever Rodgers played that system it was a train wreck.

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[rmgriffin10]

Great read as always. Disagree though with the comments about Michael Owens commentary. He's awful.

[Ipplfc]

Good report that,think your right about Milner,be interesting to see what happens when hendo's fit.benteke's work rate was terrific ,he looked a bit lazy at the start of the season,kloppo would never stand for that

[Mathewbet1]

starting to enjoy owens commentry? id rather hargreeves jay zee impression than owens dronning hum

[Red Sun Rising]

spot on apart from the Owen thing - wtf.

[Anubis]

Now that his mate Howie has passed away, Dave is cosying up to Owen.