Liverpool 0 Chelsea 1 (Mar 4 2021)

[tlw content]

 

 

 

Report by

Dave Usher

 

Probably the most disheartening thing about this was that I’m sure none of us were surprised. I actually said in a group chat before the game “I’ll be shocked if we win tonight”.

 

Beating Sheffield United was important to stop the bleeding (albeit temporarily as it turns out) but it was never really going to have any bearing on this. 

 

It wasn’t that I envisioned us to be outplayed and lose by a few goals. That was never likely as we rarely get dominated by anyone. I expected exactly what we got because it’s the same performance we’ve seen over and over again since December. This is who we are now. A team that has a lot of the ball but who can’t score.

 

When you actually look at the starting eleven we fielded it wasn’t THAT depleted. Of course we are missing some key players but it doesn’t look like a bad line up on paper. We’re just shit though aren’t we? 

 

And it isn’t the patched up defence that’s the problem. In fact, all of the lads who have filled in at the back this season come out of it with varying degrees of credit. They aren’t the ones that have let us down. Our problems are at the other end. Opposing keepers often don’t need to even make a save when they come up against us.

 

Chelsea didn’t do anything special and I thought a lot of the praise they were getting was greatly exaggerated. What they did do though was what most teams are doing against us now. They nullified the front three and exposed the space we leave at the back. The truth is that it’s no longer difficult to do either. I mean shit, even Aston Villa’s fucking youth team did both for 45 minutes.

 

Chelsea can do that easily because they have quality all over the pitch. That’s why I didn’t think we could beat them in our current state. They’re better than us. That’s just a fact. Half the league are better than us right now. More than half probably, the form guide since we smashed Palace will back that up. 

 

 

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[Pidge]

If Liverpool are 'Heavy metal football', then this must be our prog phase.

 

Because it's fucking shit and gone on far too long.

[Bobby Hundreds]

I'll be disheartened to fuck if he goes same again v Fulham. 

[dockers_strike]

I share your pain, again Dave. Ever the optomist, I did expect us to win before kick off. A scrappy goal or moment of brilliance. After 15 minutes, I realised it was going to be same old, same old.

 

I dont have an answer. If I did, Id be the manager.

 

Im worried this is developing into Jurgen's last season in charge at Dortmund. A team who should have been in the top 4 of the Bundesliga, in the bottom 3 at the winter break. Jurgen said he'd get them out of it and he did. But he knew his time at Dortmund was complete and he needed a break.

 

It's important to understand Im comparing the form of Dortmund here and not to Jurgen. Both teams seemingly nothing going right for them no matter what the manager tries.

 

My big fear is the twatteratti and their idiotic social media posts. It will not be long for a bandwagon to start rolling and become a virtual runaway juggernaut.

 

Would FSG sack Jurgen? Well they sacked the King and they also sacked the head Red Sox manager when results plummeted.

 

Im praying the boys can turn this around and quickly. The alternatives dont bear thinking about.

[mike23]

Would have been nice to see Keita as well. I know he'll probably be injured again in a few days, but he surely would have brought more to the game than Ox did (hard to imagine he could have brought any less). Weird subs to round off another crappy performance.

 

I always said I wouldn't care how shit the season was after we finally won the league again, and the football Gods seem to have decided to fully test my resolve on that statement. I'm starting to think our players were beamed up by aliens and replaced with lookalikes around the 20 minute mark of the West Brom game because no logical reason can account for just how bad they've been since then. 

[The Guest]

I thought Trent was absolutely shocking again.  It wasn’t just the goal either which I’d near enough put most of the blame on him for.  He went fully into his lazy cunt can’t be arsed defending properly mode.  When he’s like this and the ball goes past him and gets nearer to the goal than he is then he’s done.  He just starts walking.  He can’t be bothered to look behind him and is just positionally all over the place.  It’s odd how little if ever he actually makes it to the byline attacking either yet is caught out of position so often.  Against Sheffield the goal comes from him getting a byline cross in and we just revert back to the same Shite of not doing it all game.

[Josef Svejk]

That was about the most depressing read of the season. Appropriately. 

[ZonkoVille77]

We're fucking shite. 

[fredo49]

Utterly depressing and predictable. God knows where we go from here...

[Marcas]

Much as you hate it, if a club is to enjoy consistent long-term success there comes a time when fan’s favourites have to be eased-out and replaced by younger, hungrier and hopefully more talented players. This is my single, biggest criticism of the club - since 2018 we’ve wasted a golden opportunity to attract and recruit better players (and in fairness I don’t know if this is the fault of Jurgen or FSG, in truth it’s probably both). Instead we hit upon a first team that hasn’t really changed since the summer of 2018, despite a huge drop-off in quality in a few of them. Apart from odd glimpses Bobby’s been living off past glories for two seasons and everyone can see it. As you say Dave, Ox is finished and don’t get me started on Keita. Much as I love Milner if we’re relying on a 36yr old who was never quick to begin to change games against the likes of Chelsea’s ‘Road-Runners’ then god help us. But the biggest cock-up, and this is surely Klopp’s fault, was to leave us with only 3 quality CBs, two of which we know can wreck themselves opening a fucking bag of crisps! Hindsight’s great, but seriously, is there anyone out there who wouldn’t have broke the bank for Koulibaly as soon as VVD got crocked? Klopp should have been hammering the yanks’ door down to get a quality (not a fucking bargain basement stooge) replacement instead of trying to be really clever by fucking-over our midfield by taking the best defensive MF out of it. Without Hendo and Fab in MF we’re a one-dimensional lightweight, nice pretty passes, but create nothing shambles. I’m not suggesting that the owners / manager should have been doing a city and buying every player on the planet, but adding one or two absolute quality players per year who can impact the first team straight away is surely the least that can be expected for a club like Liverpool. Instead now look, where do you begin to change this and our chances of attracting players who can make a difference in our current state is deminishing by the week. 

[Kevin D]

[Iceman]

1 hour ago, Marcas said:

Much as you hate it, if a club is to enjoy consistent long-term success there comes a time when fan’s favourites have to be eased-out and replaced by younger, hungrier and hopefully more talented players. This is my single, biggest criticism of the club - since 2018 we’ve wasted a golden opportunity to attract and recruit better players (and in fairness I don’t know if this is the fault of Jurgen or FSG, in truth it’s probably both). Instead we hit upon a first team that hasn’t really changed since the summer of 2018, despite a huge drop-off in quality in a few of them. Apart from odd glimpses Bobby’s been living off past glories for two seasons and everyone can see it. As you say Dave, Ox is finished and don’t get me started on Keita. Much as I love Milner if we’re relying on a 36yr old who was never quick to begin to change games against the likes of Chelsea’s ‘Road-Runners’ then god help us. But the biggest cock-up, and this is surely Klopp’s fault, was to leave us with only 3 quality CBs, two of which we know can wreck themselves opening a fucking bag of crisps! Hindsight’s great, but seriously, is there anyone out there who wouldn’t have broke the bank for Koulibaly as soon as VVD got crocked? Klopp should have been hammering the yanks’ door down to get a quality (not a fucking bargain basement stooge) replacement instead of trying to be really clever by fucking-over our midfield by taking the best defensive MF out of it. Without Hendo and Fab in MF we’re a one-dimensional lightweight, nice pretty passes, but create nothing shambles. I’m not suggesting that the owners / manager should have been doing a city and buying every player on the planet, but adding one or two absolute quality players per year who can impact the first team straight away is surely the least that can be expected for a club like Liverpool. Instead now look, where do you begin to change this and our chances of attracting players who can make a difference in our current state is deminishing by the week. 

Great post. We completely squandered our chance to sign some great players after winning the CL. Arrogance or frugality? Whichever it was, it's been a massive error of judgement. I'm all for using the resources at your disposal but what's with the reluctance to consolidate our position when we were on top by signing some fresh blood? VVD being destroyed was the moment we gave up on the season by not replacing him with like-for-like quality. 

[Jordy Brouwer]

1 hour ago, Fred Oldfield said:

Utterly depressing and predictable. God knows where we go from here...

Europa League most likely. 

[Section_31]

They're starting to piss me off now to be honest, you can tolerate the idea of injuries, Covid and the rest of it but the very least you can expect is for them to put a shift in, they've lost their balls and need a good slap. 

[johnsusername]

1 hour ago, Jordy Brouwer said:

Europa League most likely. 

I admire the optimism! 

[Crazy Dave]

1 hour ago, Section_31 said:

They're starting to piss me off now to be honest, you can tolerate the idea of injuries, Covid and the rest of it but the very least you can expect is for them to put a shift in, they've lost their balls and need a good slap. 

The Everton game said a lot about this group of players. 

[johnsusername]

1 hour ago, Section_31 said:

They're starting to piss me off now to be honest, you can tolerate the idea of injuries, Covid and the rest of it but the very least you can expect is for them to put a shift in, they've lost their balls and need a good slap. 

I'd give anything to get Virgil, Henderson and Milner in the team. 

[bigal]

No leadership; too tame, no pressure on the ref. Mané has a ball kicked in his face whilst lying on the floor and there's no kicking off. We are so timid and accepting. 

[dave u]

21 minutes ago, bigal said:

No leadership; too tame, no pressure on the ref. Mané has a ball kicked in his face whilst lying on the floor and there's no kicking off. We are so timid and accepting. 

 

Yeah good point.

 

As was the post above about the derby saying a lot about their current meek as fuck mentality.

 

There's zero anger in this team. Fucking zero. They're accepting this shit and aren't fighting back at all. 

[No2]

I said in the match thread last night that taking Salah off will make him angry and guarantee a couple of goals against Fulham. The reality last night was we could have stuck Jota on and played them with 12 men and we wouldn't have scored. Same with Brighton and Burnley,  obvious after 10 minutes we weren't going to score. If Salah does what I think he will on Sunday then we will have taken 6 points from 9, that's more than Leicester and Utd regardless of what they do this weekend. 

[johnsusername]

19 minutes ago, dave u said:

 

Yeah good point.

 

As was the post above about the derby saying a lot about their current meek as fuck mentality.

 

There's zero anger in this team. Fucking zero. They're accepting this shit and aren't fighting back at all. 

[El Rojo]

1 hour ago, Crazy Dave said:

The Everton game said a lot about this group of players. 

Yeah, unforgivably gutless performance, particularly given what happened at Goodison. 

[Butch]

I wonder if Sadio getting Covid has anything to do with his lack of pace, really noticed it last night. Mo had it too and he seems to be fine, maybe it's affecting Sadio differently than mo. He's not been himself since then really. 

Sooner this season is over the better, maybe then regroup and try something else now. 

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Pidge said:

If Liverpool are 'Heavy metal football', then this must be our prog phase.

 

Because it's fucking shit and gone on far too long.

Simon Cowell is grateful for not being blamed. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, No2 said:

I said in the match thread last night that taking Salah off will make him angry and guarantee a couple of goals against Fulham. The reality last night was we could have stuck Jota on and played them with 12 men and we wouldn't have scored. Same with Brighton and Burnley,  obvious after 10 minutes we weren't going to score. If Salah does what I think he will on Sunday then we will have taken 6 points from 9, that's more than Leicester and Utd regardless of what they do this weekend. 

I hope you are right, not just Salah but the whole team because right now I think every match we currently go in as underdogs.