Chelsea 0 Liverpool 0 (Apr 4 2023)

[tlw content]

What an awful, drab spectacle that was. A fixture that has thrown up some incredibly intense, dramatic, hate fuelled games over the last 20 years was reduced to this; two pensioners in an old folk’s home fighting over the last rice pudding. One is throwing punches that don’t land, the other is just trying to make sure his false teeth don’t fall out. 

 

Chelsea are shite. We’re probably worse. At least with them you know a centre forward would go a long way towards getting them respectable again. Our problems run way deeper than that. Chelsea were not impressive at all in this game, yet if they could finish they’d have beaten us at a canter. We gifted them three gilt edged opportunities inside the first 12 minutes and they didn’t take any. If they had done, you know we wouldn’t have come back.

 

We did tighten it up a bit after that but they still had good chances and had two goals disallowed. What did we offer? A Fabinho shot from a corner they didn’t clear and a speculative Gomez effort from outside the box. That was basically it.

 

Klopp was clearly pissed off about the 2nd half capitulation at City, that much was obvious from his comments afterwards and in the press conference ahead of this game. He said there would be changes and that places are up for grabs. There were changes, but did anyone who came in stake a serious claim for a place? Gomez maybe. I thought he was alright. The rest? Not really.

 

How many of those six changes were punishment and how many were necessary? Hard to know for sure. You could justify ten changes based on the City game but we don’t have enough players to do that. So some had to keep their places. Klopp said only ‘two or three’ are guaranteed their spot now and that he’s told the players this and informed them that places are up for grabs.

 

Who are the two or three? Hard to say at this point. Alisson, Konate and I would have assumed Salah except he was on the bench. I’m not reading much into that though, I think he was rested rather than dropped. Same with Robbo, who does get the occasional midweek night off. If both had been dropped they’d still be back for the weekend because their replacements (Tsimikas and Jota) did nothing.

 

Virgil was out of this one too. Illness they say. I have no reason not to believe that, although if he was dropped I doubt they’d tell us as it’s not a story they’d want out there and you can do without the noise. I’ll take it at face value though and accept he was ill. There are some nasty bugs going around at the moment and anyone who has kids of a school age is going to be at risk. So yeah, he’s probably ill. He defo comes back in for the weekend because Matip is a mess currently. He’s not alone in that.

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[El Rojo]

Fair play to you for getting any kind of an article out of that spectacle last night. 

 

I had the same thought on Curtis Jones leapfrogging Arthur from not even being in the squad to the starting eleven. Absolutely baffling, though I was happy to see him play and he did fine. 

 

For me, there have been real late era Houllier, Rodgers last season or Hodgson levels of atmosphere about everything since the 7-0 last month. Just abject stuff, though the players should take the bulk of the blame.  

[Reckoner]

Re Curtis Jones. It’s not unheard of to leave a player out of the squad with the intention of starting him in a few days is it? Why Arthur is on the bench I couldn’t say though. Maybe to make it look like slightly less of a terrible signing?

On a separate point why have Chelsea escaped half the criticism we have got this year despite spending huge amounts? Genuine question as I can’t be arsed with the conspiracy theories. Is it because they changed manager maybe? Or they’re just still a small club in peoples eyes? 

[sh#t waffle]

I think the thing that's most worrying is that even if Klopp got all his main targets in the summer (let's say based on amount of noise that it's Bellingham, Mount, Caicedo and Gvardiol), I'm no longer 100% sure it will make enough difference. We just appear completely broken from front to back.

[Paul]

Curtis looked like his old self for the England U21s last week. It’s a Liverpool thing. He’s either being told to play safe or thinks he is. Either way, it’s not who he is and he needs to show that attacking edge those of us who’ve championed him used to love when he played for the youth teams. 

[DaveT]

28 minutes ago, Paul said:

Curtis looked like his old self for the England U21s last week. It’s a Liverpool thing. He’s either being told to play safe or thinks he is. Either way, it’s not who he is and he needs to show that attacking edge those of us who’ve championed him used to love when he played for the youth teams. 

He was outstanding in his cameo against France, a terrific goal and an assist. He didn’t make much impression against Croatia as a false 9 against a mass defence - but he covered every blade of grass, twice.

He was brilliant in his last season with our u21s. Interestingly he mostly played as the left sided attacker of s front three , but with freedom to roam. He ran most of the games I saw, and scored and created a bagful  of goals. He’s been used almost exclusively as one of a middle three for the first team and it’s seen him lose the creative side of his game.

[Kevin D]

[UnwelcomeinPeru]

I assumed that Mo was on the bench given that it's Ramadan?

[Barnesey]

Ali played well (again) but twice looked uncertain with long balls that came into his area. The second one had hendo on his case but our captain berated him from a distance after the first.

And I can’t get too excited about Curtis. I thought he struggled and fell over 3 times when well placed. He also took a touch in the second half when a first time pass to Bobby would have created the best opportunity we had all night. But no point getting to upset. Ive put this down to us having a gap year

[Dave D]

Ive been a TLW regular since the Evans Era in one way or another- the opening paragraph of this match report is vintage Usher..... "applause"

 

The weird scenario we now find ourselves in- we could come back from 0-3 down to beat Arsenal 4-3 this weekend and none of us would be fooled. It would be such an empty celebration.

 

Id agree Nunez is the only player with a positive style of play, but it pains me to say it- he's a squad man at best in a title challenging team. He's a Villa/Spurs superstar in the making. We needed better at the time and need better now

[Ipplfc]

We might as well keep Gomez in and play Trent in front of him,what’s the worst that could happen 

[manwiththestick]

5 hours ago, DaveT said:

He was outstanding in his cameo against France, a terrific goal and an assist. He didn’t make much impression against Croatia as a false 9 against a mass defence - but he covered every blade of grass, twice.

He was brilliant in his last season with our u21s. Interestingly he mostly played as the left sided attacker of s front three , but with freedom to roam. He ran most of the games I saw, and scored and created a bagful  of goals. He’s been used almost exclusively as one of a middle three for the first team and it’s seen him lose the creative side of his game.

I have said this before I'm sure but my thoughts are he's been playing safe either by choice or more likely by instruction for a couple years and I'm pretty sure the exact moment it changed was a home game against West Brom (I think), he lost the ball in the right back area trying to be too clever and cocky with possession instead of a simple pass and they scored from it. I expect he got a bollocking for that and since then he's been more cautious with the ball and we're seeing less of the impulsive stuff.

[DalyanPete]

Our attacking play is no stagnant and passive it’s a really difficult watch.

There’s just nothing there. It’s horrible to watch.

 

I spoke to my 12 year old grandson on Monday and asked if he'd been watching the footy 

He said, "it's more fun watching everton, at least they're trying!"

To be fair, my Daughter told him to never talk like that.

But having videos of him crying after great wins, this was hard to take but a sad indictment of where we are.

 

Totally with you on Nunez, just don't get the subbing all the time as he really is the only one who looks vaguely interested. Why did we buy him if there isnt a plan?

[razor]

Sensible Soccer is the best computer game ever created.  I don't just mean of its time, I mean the best computer game created past and present. And future.

[Creator Supreme]

4 hours ago, DalyanPete said:

Totally with you on Nunez, just don't get the subbing all the time as he really is the only one who looks vaguely interested. Why did we buy him if there isnt a plan?

It all smells a bit of the Rafa - Keane situation. Didn't want him (admittedly probably not the situation here), isn't sure how to use him, and ergo regularly subs him off whether he's playing well or not!

 

It may destroy the lads confidence completely.

[DalyanPete]

18 minutes ago, Creator Supreme said:

It all smells a bit of the Rafa - Keane situation. Didn't want him (admittedly probably not the situation here), isn't sure how to use him, and ergo regularly subs him off whether he's playing well or not!

 

It may destroy the lads confidence completely.

Yeah, certainly does mate.

He must be regretting signing now. Like to think it was part of a future plan but we signed he him when we were good.

[terry symes]

6 hours ago, Creator Supreme said:

It all smells a bit of the Rafa - Keane situation. Didn't want him (admittedly probably not the situation here), isn't sure how to use him, and ergo regularly subs him off whether he's playing well or not!

 

It may destroy the lads confidence completely.

Think that's spot on

 

It's utterly baffling the treatment of him. He was clearly bought to be our number 9. It was clear he wasn't gonna be a Bobby replacement, and was never gonna be a false 9. We had clearly made the decision to alter the way we were going to play, whether that was in the same 4-3-3 as previous or in a new 4-3-2-1 system. He was bought in to be an orthodox number 9, an out and out goalscorer, who would take the chances and be the difference maker that we sometimes missed last season (in the 3 cup finals for example). Yet we've barely seen him in that role.

 

Why is that? Does Klopp not trust him to play through the middle? I must admit i have my doubts about Nunez's ability. I'm not a big fan to be quite honest. I think he lacks game intelligence. Too often chooses the wrong option and i personally don't like the blind alleys runs or shots from distance - even if it is something different to what our other attackers are providing. But would he score goals as a number 9 in this team? Yeah, I absolutely think he would. And surely the coaching staff thought the same because they sanctioned the big money transfer. Have they had second thoughts based on what they've seen? Maybe they've decided he can't play there for whatever reason, so have reverted back to a false 9 in Gakpo / Jota. If that's the case then we may as well cut our losses, as it's not fair to the lad.

 

The constant changes, scrabbling around to see if something works is really worrying. Highlighted by Jones' sudden recall to the team. We used to wax lyrical about how clear our thinking and planning was (in every department). It's all just a mess now. 

[Creator Supreme]

It is a weird situation like. I'm not a fan of Nunez, and a lot of people weren't fans of Keane, but the parallels are apparent. Maybe the club will cut their losses on him in the summer, we'll see!

[Judge]

Worst performer and the elephant in the room these days: Klopp. He has absolutely no clue what to do, and it has been that way for ages.

 

I think you are too harsh with Jota and too positive about Nunes. Jota moved quickly and looked like the only player available to break through and create something special. Nunez has raw power, but his football brain fail to impress. It doesn’t help that he is played out of position all the time.

 

Good to see that the talk about top 4 is over. Anyone suggesting that these football and mentality midgets can reach top 4 is insulting our intelligence.

 

The most important thing now is to end up so low in the table that we avoid the utter humility of playing in the conference league with matches on thursday nights against opposition from Island, Aserbadsjan, San Marino etc.

 

 

[dave u]

With Jones it turns out he's on a special fitness regime where he has to rest every fifth day, even if it's a game. The City game was his fifth day so he wasn't on the bench.

 

In terms of him playing too safe, he actually said in a post match interview that he wanted to just keep the ball and didn't try anything. Suggested that he was just trying to play his way back in after a long time out. So we'll see how he goes for the rest of the season.

[stringvest]

4 minutes ago, dave u said:

With Jones it turns out he's on a special fitness regime where he has to rest every fifth day, even if it's a game. The City game was his fifth day so he wasn't on the bench.

 

In terms of him playing too safe, he actually said in a post match interview that he wanted to just keep the ball and didn't try anything. Suggested that he was just trying to play his way back in after a long time out. So we'll see how he goes for the rest of the season.

 

I'd love to understand the science behind this 'every fifth day' stuff.  Can't we adjust his fitness regime so it's every sixth day, or seventh day, for example?

 

The broader question about how he's used when actually playing won't go away - it appears that Klopp prefers to nullify his instincts as a ball playing front foot midfielder to play other, less expansive, roles which do not leverage his strengths.

[Bobby Hundreds]

And on the fifth day... nobody noticed.

[sir roger]

I have no idea why Jurgen ever buys or promotes attacking midfielders when he clearly hates them.

 

I still occasionally wake up worried about Shaq's trusting, little face when Klopp shellacked him on the Anfield pitch after the Chelsea Milk Cup game.

[Reckoner]

17 hours ago, sir roger said:

I have no idea why Jurgen ever buys or promotes attacking midfielders when he clearly hates them.

 

I still occasionally wake up worried about Shaq's trusting, little face when Klopp shellacked him on the Anfield pitch after the Chelsea Milk Cup game.

I think Shaqs problem was not tracking back.