League Cup semi-final: Stoke on a wet and windy Tuesday night (A)

[3 Stacks]

Allen is our most technically gifted midfielder. His problems are he's injury prone and he lacks confidence in his abilities, which is a real shame because he is a much better player than he's regularly shown here. Every so often, you get top performances from him like we saw today. 

[Joey8FrogsLegs]

If his body was still up to it, Kolo would still be our best defender.

He looks fitter and more mobile. May be down to harder training, I don't know. The other question of course as mentioned above, is more/harder training the reason for all the hamstrings? (Not counting Sturridge here, as he's obviously a special case)

[Curly]

Stoke were hilarious by the way. They tried to play passing football at the beginning, than realized that because they're shit that it would get them nowhere. Then Hughes throws on his big cunt strikers and starts hoofing it every single time.

 

Lesson of the day: leave the fluid football to the big clubs and know your damn place.

Knock them down for trying, knock them down for not. They can't win these "little" clubs.

 

Ridiculously and stupidly arrogant comment. You sound like an Arsenal fan.

[Tony Moanero]

I'm going to phone Clubcall for January transfer gossip

We're signing Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Jimmy Carter.

[DirkDiggledinho]

Tonight makes me wonder how the team that went out tonight would have fared against West Ham.

 

Much better, I'd imagine.

[DirkDiggledinho]

And I don't understand how anyone could fail to be delighted by this result. We're never going to win the league and look very unlikely to get fourth, but this is a great chance to win something this season.

[Red House]

Tonight makes me wonder how the team that went out tonight would have fared against West Ham.

 

Much better, I'd imagine.

 

Well, it didn't have Benteke in it, so yes, much better.

[Sugar Ape]

[3 Stacks]

Knock them down for trying, knock them down for not. They can't win these "little" clubs.

 

Ridiculously and stupidly arrogant comment. You sound like an Arsenal fan.

Plenty of small clubs play good football, but Stoke still don't. Even with Bojan and Shaqiri they are still a cunt of a team with a bunch of talentless cloggers. They created squat against a makeshift backline and only looked threatening when they started launching it.

 

You sound like a Stoke fan.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

I think we really benefitted tonight from having last weekend off....

 

Also, anybody who doesn't value the league cup can chew on my left one. We've hardly been trophy rich recently.

[Red House]

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He was right too. Should have been a goal kick.

[an tha]

Fair do's to our lads tonight....showed some balls for a change and toughed it out.

 

Sadly injuries to an already threadbare squad mean we go into games against arsenal and the mancs pretty much fucked - but fuck it, we aren't doing anything in the league anyway so hopefully we can put a half decent team out for the 2nd leg.

 

Fair do's to them tonight - they might be shite but they did a job tonight.

[stringvest]

Fair do's to them tonight - they might be shite but they did a job tonight.

 

that's the definition of being damned with faint praise.  

[lebron]

Tonight makes me wonder how the team that went out tonight would have fared against West Ham.

 

Much better, I'd imagine.

 

I doubt it, once Stoke went full alehouse we struggled (again). We would have lost to the Stoke of old tonight. Thankfully Hughes has them trying to play football and a pitch that's in very good condition.

 

We just don't have enough physically imposing players to handle the aerial threats of the likes of West Ham and Watford - a minor flaw in the previous regime's strategy to buy small and gifted technicians... I loved the initiial strategy, but it's hard not to be tempted to just hoof it against us, as we struggle immensely in both boxes. Benteke on was to get some presence and aerial prowess as Stoke reverted to type.

 

Encouraging performances from our midfield three and Kolo. I was also impressed by Firmino's running/movement (even if his finishing was woeful).

 

Great result, hopefully it'll only be 3-4 weeks for Cou/Lovren before they're match ready. Another lengthy layoff for both would be extremely untimely. As previously mentioned in the thread, would like to see us bring back Illori if possible. Think he could be a revelation given his pace and our wish to play a high line/pressing game.

[JoeBuck]

That was a really brave and mature performance tonight...Kolo and Lucas stood up as leaders, the full backs were outstanding (tucking in as a unit), and Allen and Can both look made for a midfield 3 with them allowed to do the harrying and they seemed to have more time to use the ball better and quicker.  Surprised Jurgen hasn't picked Allen more as he seems really suited to the pressing, short and sharp use of the ball type of high tempo game.

 

Apart form the injuries, the one disappointment remains the lack of composure, final ball, and finishing of the front three with Firmino and Lallana panicking every time they got in a good position.  Lallana's 29 this year and won't get any better but I still have hope for Firmino - it took the likes of Overmars and Pires 6 months to adjust to the English game.

 

Overall though, well done Red men, this season has the feel of 04-05 about it, with a lot of poor displays mixed in with a lot of excitement and promise.

[DirkDiggledinho]

I doubt it, once Stoke went full alehouse we struggled (again). We would have lost to the Stoke of old tonight. Thankfully Hughes has them trying to play football and a pitch that's in very good condition.

 

We just don't have enough physically imposing players to handle the aerial threats of the likes of West Ham and Watford - a minor flaw in the previous regime's strategy to buy small and gifted technicians... I loved the initiial strategy, but it's hard not to be tempted to just hoof it against us, as we struggle immensely in both boxes. Benteke on was to get some presence and aerial prowess as Stoke reverted to type.

 

Encouraging performances from our midfield three and Kolo. I was also impressed by Firmino's running/movement (even if his finishing was woeful).

 

Great result, hopefully it'll only be 3-4 weeks for Cou/Lovren before they're match ready. Another lengthy layoff for both would be extremely untimely. As previously mentioned in the thread, would like to see us bring back Illori if possible. Think he could be a revelation given his pace and our wish to play a high line/pressing game.

 

Giving the likes of Cou and Firmino licence to run at the West ham back line and harry the defence would have given us far more attacking opportunities and simultaneously preoccupied them enough that that wouldn't have been able to bombard us as frequently. It's how we beat these teams when we had Suarez - they were too busy up the other end to bully us in the way they would have wanted.

 

It's all speculation of course but I think removing Benteke would have made us far less static and dramatically increased out chances of at least getting a draw. I'm worried there's a bit of a Shevchenko situation with Benteke, in that he's under pressure from someone to play him due to the fact that he cost 32.5M.

[Curly]

Plenty of small clubs play good football, but Stoke still don't. Even with Bojan and Shaqiri they are still a cunt of a team with a bunch of talentless cloggers. They created squat against a makeshift backline and only looked threatening when they started launching it.

 

You sound like a Stoke fan.

No mate, I'm a liverpool fan. A liverpool fan that winced with embarrassment at your "leave the football playing to the big clubs" comment, or whatever exactly it was you said.

[aRdja]

Shaqiri was shocking. Thank fuck we didn't get him.

[TheHowieLama]

Remember Hamstrung? Visionary.

[3 Stacks]

No mate, I'm a liverpool fan. A liverpool fan that winced with embarrassment at your "leave the football playing to the big clubs" comment, or whatever exactly it was you said.

I don't know why calling Stoke a small club has a Liverpool fan seething.

 

So again, I'll ask you: are you a Stoke fan?

[G Richards]

Good win there. I thought we'd do well as Stoke try to play these days. Obviously they lumped it up front too, but we kept that out as well. Great assist by Allen (!) and then Ibe finished with aplomb. A good evening's work, but obviously the tie is not over.

 

Frustrated by the injuries. We were already under pressure with injuries and it just gets worse. Hopefully this prompts a bit of urgency in the transfer market.

 

I'm gutted we are threadbare as I think we could do well against Arsenal and Man Utd. It will be so frustrating if a rubbish Man Utd side beats a depleted Liverpool team in what might be an important match in the battle for top four.

 

Anyway, a good win tonight. Patch up the walking wounded and on we go.

[DirkDiggledinho]

Shaqiri was shocking. Thank fuck we didn't get him.

 

If we did everyone would be bitching and moaning about how we got him and not whoever Stoke signed instead.

[therevivalist]

Haven't seen this game but wasn't surprised by the result, the pattern pretty much is one win  three losses. Klopp should stop kidding himself and start building his own team. We're going nowhere with this bunch. And start with this window.

[Dan Vito Corleone]

Really gritty performance. We got royally fucked with injuries etc today, really badly done to because we were well in control and Coutinho was running the show when he went off. I'm pig fucking sick of injuries now, it's getting ridiculous. It's severely hampering our ability to compete at any level because we're constantly in the circle of having to play players we probably want to rest.

 

It was a good defensive display, there's still work to be done attacking as we are so infuriatingly wasteful and we lack that X factor, that cutting edge. But they all worked their bollocks off today and with some better decision making, a bit of luck and a referee with a set of stones to award a penalty in front of their dribble chinned dickhead fans, we'd have a much more commanding lead and we would really have deserved it to be honest.

 

It's come at a cost and we need to dig in deep now because we're low on numbers. But that's something to be pleased with tonight. For all their bluster they actually created very little. Lucas and Kolo were excellent.

[TheHowieLama]

We sucked, they were worse. Roll on next week!