PODCAST: Leicester City 1 Liverpool 0 - Match Reaction

[tlw content]

The Reds suffered their second defeat of the season after slumping to a 1-0 reversal at Leicester. Despite having had extra time to rest up the performance was surprisingly lethargic and lacking in sharpness and the result leaves Klopp's side six points off the top and facing a must win game at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

 

Your host Chris Smith is joined by Julian Richards and TLW Editor Dave Usher to sift through the wreckage of a demoralising night in the East Midlands.

 

 

 

View full article

[dockers_strike]

Great analysis by the boys, especially Chris.

[Paul]

I can’t get on board with Dave’s take on this. For me, Klopp’s point on the 48 hours being “impossible” is not that it’s impossible to play as that’s self-evidently not true; rather it’s impossible to protect players from fatigue-related injury when games are so close together as there’s literally no recovery time. 
 

In terms, of expectations, I too thought a win was nailed on. However, I don’t see this as any worse than the West Ham result as the context thing is purely arbitrary. It only seems worse because of our expectations. In fact as this was a much narrower margin of defeat in a game we “dominated” this is more understandable than West Ham for me. 

[dave u]

I watched him explain in detail how players make poor decisions and attackers lose their sharpness when they have to play twice in three days. 

 

There's a large enough sample size now to show that this is more evident when they haven't played for a week or more. Our strikers were as sharp as a butter knife and the decision making was on a par with Boris Johnson.

 

They are more likely to get injured, that's obvious and I wouldn't dispute it. What I dispute is that they can't perform to their normal standard, as I reckon that' bollocks. We're defo worse when we're undercooked.

[lebron]

I thought we would beat Leicester handsomely, and I still stand by that if we put away Mo's penalty or shot, or Mane's chance, Leicester folds. Unfortunately we gave them too many gifts in not taking those, and with our players looking less confident, they found and extra gear/more adrenaline. This happens all the time in football, the home crowd injecting the home players with extra energy, and sapping ours of our energy.

 

I agree with Chris in that this wasn't as bad as performance as is being made out, but our finishing will unfortunately continue to be erratic as long as we lean on Mane, Salah and Firmino (and to a lesser part Jota). Their biggest asset is the energy levels, pressing and dribbling, being a constant thorn in the side of the opposition. Their shooting skills leave quite a lot to be desired, always have. Salah might go on the odd streak of curling the ball into the far corner, but you never bank on him finishing like you would an Alan Shearer, Ian Rush or Thierry Henry. The sacrifices they make to their offensive part of the game tirelessly working for our team press is part of the explanation for their misses, but overall the shooting technique just isn't good enough, or at least not consistent enough. Bobby's is probably the best of the three, but he doesn't seem to get enough power or zip on his shots to beat the keeper from 20 yds, he needs to be inside the box and place it. It's a huge frustration in games like yesterday, but I can't really fault them either. They're giving everything they have for the club, and let's face it, had their finishing been better we probably wouldn't have been able to buy any of them at the time we did.

 

I also think we made it harder for ourselves with the subs. We should have brought off one of Mane or Jota, or at least put Jota in the midfield. I'm one of Firmino's staunchest supporters, but having him dropping deep trying to be a playmaker from midfield has never worked. He does his best work dragging CBs out of defence, linking up with Mo and Sadio. As mentioned, he's also not a threat from distance. Would be better having Jota running at them and trying his luck. If Curtis was fit, he should have been on at HT for either Henderson or Ox. Henderson was pure shite, and seems to have regressed massively both in terms of decision-making and bravery on the ball. Can we also make sure he never, ever gets the chance to attempt a volley, half volley or a floater into the box ever again? I love him for his energy and enthusiasm, but he's just not good enough to be the creative force of our midfield. If Thiago or Curtis or Harvey isn't available, Henderson really shouldn't be playing. Putting him in there with Ox and/or Milner is something you might get away with in a game where we are chasing a really good side. Watching them roll sideways passes 10 yds is just painful these days. When Henderson's not really able to (for whatever reason) cover for Trent (who IS our creative force with that MF) I don't really see the point in him playing. If he wasn't our captain I'm pretty sure Klopp would have pulled him at HT. That would have given Keita and/or Bobby a better chance to get in the game as well.

 

With City winning narrowly yesterday, looks like we will be 10 or 12 pts behind on Sunday, so a win at Chelsea is probably necessary to keep within distance. Hopefully Thiago can play, as I'm not looking forward to Hendo/Milner trying to keep up with Mount and Kovacic in midfield. I'm still quite optimistic about our chances, but we need to get the first goal more often in games to be able to go on streaks like the one City is having.

 

Anyway, good listen once more. Keep it up!

 

[Paul]

2 hours ago, dave u said:

I watched him explain in detail how players make poor decisions and attackers lose their sharpness when they have to play twice in three days. 

 

There's a large enough sample size now to show that this is more evident when they haven't played for a week or more. Our strikers were as sharp as a butter knife and the decision making was on a par with Boris Johnson.

 

They are more likely to get injured, that's obvious and I wouldn't dispute it. What I dispute is that they can't perform to their normal standard, as I reckon that' bollocks. We're defo worse when we're undercooked.

Agree we’re worse when we haven’t played. That’s been the case for years. 

[aws]

We always seem at our best with a four day turnaround. We're sometimes slightly jaded if it's three days. But some of the players seem to be running in treacle if we have had a week or more since playing. I have no doubt we'd be six points to the good if we'd played Leeds.

I don't think it's good to keep talking about energy levels and over-playing because    it can lead to players starting off slowly or easing off too much before a game has been won. We used to work harder than any other team but I doubt that is the case any more. 

[JohnnyH]

Weird podcast this one. I’ve listened to every one of them and thoroughly enjoyed them. But then we tend to win so it’s easy to enjoy them and the very good analysis. But this one was a bit off I thought. Klopp was wrong when he said we didn’t deserve the win.  We absolutely did. Leicester we’re very lucky that we didn’t score 3 or 4, so the initial comments I thought were wrong. I also thought we played fine to well in the first half (something Dave acknowledged after Chris said it to be fair) and as poor as we were in the 2nd half, we were still the better team. 
 

There was also too much moaning about the Leicester fans. Yes, they’re cunts, but 30 seconds of that would have been enough. 
 

The game and result really fucked me off though. So that will no doubt have coloured my view too. A moaner moaning about moaning. Also, we don’t always have to agree with everything said. That’s the point. 
 

Keep up the good work though. It’s a really good podcast. 

[dockers_strike]

12 minutes ago, aws said:

We always seem at our best with a four day turnaround. We're sometimes slightly jaded if it's three days. But some of the players seem to be running in treacle if we have had a week or more since playing. I have no doubt we'd be six points to the good if we'd played Leeds.

I don't think it's good to keep talking about energy levels and over-playing because    it can lead to players starting off slowly or easing off too much before a game has been won. We used to work harder than any other team but I doubt that is the case any more. 

I generally agree with this. Bob used to say the players were like race horses, they needed to be competing every 3 or 4 days to maintain their edge.

 

Thing is, we dont know just how much effect covid is having on those players who had a dose and just returned. Loads of people in the match thread called out Jurgen for subbing one of the covid returnees, Fabinho with Milner and saying they didnt understand the change. But if Fab was still feeling the effects of covid, it seems a bit clearer why he was taken off.

[Chris]

23 minutes ago, JohnnyH said:

Weird podcast this one. I’ve listened to every one of them and thoroughly enjoyed them. But then we tend to win so it’s easy to enjoy them and the very good analysis. But this one was a bit off I thought. Klopp was wrong when he said we didn’t deserve the win.  We absolutely did. Leicester we’re very lucky that we didn’t score 3 or 4, so the initial comments I thought were wrong. I also thought we played fine to well in the first half (something Dave acknowledged after Chris said it to be fair) and as poor as we were in the 2nd half, we were still the better team. 
 

There was also too much moaning about the Leicester fans. Yes, they’re cunts, but 30 seconds of that would have been enough. 
 

The game and result really fucked me off though. So that will no doubt have coloured my view too. A moaner moaning about moaning. Also, we don’t always have to agree with everything said. That’s the point. 
 

Keep up the good work though. It’s a really good podcast. 

Appreciate this feedback as much as anything. It’s great to know what we’re not nailing as well as what we are, so thanks. 
 

The opinions on the game? Those are things not everyone’s gonna agree on (especially when we get beat!) so we have to speak as we find really. It’s great to have you lads come on here afterwards and tell us what you disagreed with.  
 

Thanks again. 

[dockers_strike]

To be honest, Im never on board with this 'we're going to rattle in a hatfull of goals against these' type of thing especially in the context of this game.

 

We'd beaten them in the EFL Cup. They thought they were hard done to with some decisions. Tough shit, welcome to our world. They then got hammered by city despite pulling the score back to 4-3 at one point. They were never, in my view, going to give up without a fight especially at home.

 

Sure, they rode their luck, desparately flung bodies in front of the ball and tried all the gamesmanship etc. Im not convinced madison's effort to put Mo off contributed to the missed pen which, again in my view, should have been retaken as it looked like schmeichel didnt have at least one foot on the goal line the moment the ball is struck.

 

But to top it off, our finishing was piss poor, Mo, Sadio, Jota equally all contributing to that and I also think we started to panic a bit \ got a bit desparate after they scored.

 

As Riker once said, some days, the bear gets you.

[dave u]

I still feel the same way I did at the full time whistle.

 

We aren't going to win every game. Sometimes we'll drop points and that just goes with the territory.

 

There are some games, however, where you just absolutely can't afford to not win, and this was one of them.

 

Literally every single thing looked to be in our favour going in (full strength team, fully rested, knackered and weakened opposition etc) and we found a way to somehow fuck it up.

 

We missed chances, but we always miss chances. The difference is we'll usually create a lot more than this. We just didn't play well and I agree with everything Klopp said about us not looking like ourselves. I reckon he feels the same as me that this might be our worst defeat under him, all things considered.

 

Appreciate all the feedback on the pod by the way, it's helpful.

[an tha]

7 hours ago, dave u said:

I still feel the same way I did at the full time whistle.

 

We aren't going to win every game. Sometimes we'll drop points and that just goes with the territory.

 

There are some games, however, where you just absolutely can't afford to not win, and this was one of them.

 

Literally every single thing looked to be in our favour going in (full strength team, fully rested, knackered and weakened opposition etc) and we found a way to somehow fuck it up.

 

We missed chances, but we always miss chances. The difference is we'll usually create a lot more than this. We just didn't play well and I agree with everything Klopp said about us not looking like ourselves. I reckon he feels the same as me that this might be our worst defeat under him, all things considered.

 

Appreciate all the feedback on the pod by the way, it's helpful.

With the pod - have you thought about instead of the same (what i presume are TLW staff/helpers) every week maybe opening it up to include different forum members each week or every so often?

 

Might be a way of keeping it fresh/getting more people engaged....i'd deffo tune in to listen to code etc.....