Luton Town 1 Liverpool 1 (Nov 5 2023)

[tlw content]

 

Last season called, it wants its dogshit performance away to relegation fodder back. I thought these kind of days were behind us so it’s a massive wake up call to discover they aren’t. 

 

Honestly, I didn’t even give Luton a 1% chance of getting something from this game, and while you can say that’s on me, I stand by it and I’ll die on that hill. We should never, EVER, be dropping points to Luton Town. It’s not acceptable. 

 

Call that arrogant, disrespectful, whatever you like. I don’t particularly care. Virtually our full strength team (only Robbo is missing) in the form they’ve been in should not be failing to take three points against one of the worst top flight teams you’ll ever see. Yet they did and it was almost even worse as we were a couple o minutes away from actually losing. So what the hell went wrong?

 

A combination of things. Some are easy to quantify, others are somewhat speculative. I’ll start with the speculative. Some will say it was attitude, that we took Luton too lightly and weren’t as focused as we would have been against better opposition. Maybe that’s the case, maybe not. I don’t know and there was nothing specifically in the game that led me to think that. 

 

It’s not a completely unreasonable thing to wonder though given how regularly we have been dropping points to absolute shite. It’s over two years since we beat a newly promoted side away from home so complacency might be part of it, but who can tell for sure. 

 

I don’t think it was in this specific game though, so I’d rather focus on problems I can actually see clearly rather than speculate over ones I can’t, and there’s quite a few from this game. The easiest thing to do of course is to blame the finishing. That’s definitely part of it but in doing that we’d be glossing over other issues which are more important. 

 

Klopp was good post match in that he said that the bigger problem was how we played and that we should have created a lot more chances, and had we done that then eventually we’d have taken one. I totally agree with that, although his tactics largely contributed to it.

 

We had loads of shots, but how many were really great chances? Nowhere near enough I’d say. The keeper has made loads of saves but not one of them was anything I wouldn’t have expected a half decent goalie to make. Alisson actually made the most difficult save of the game.

View full article

[Anubis]

Actually, Mick Hartford did walk through the door as he was in the stands.

[Anubis]

I’ll just leave this here. Needs to be printed out and pinned to each players locker door the next time we play them. No mercy.

 

[piphomer]

Where your putting analogy breaks down, Dave, is that a golfer lining up a putt has all the time in the world for the Yips to take hold. Darwin had, what, half a second? He was fully expecting Mo to put it in the goal or for the keeper to make a save and never expected in a million years that the ball would come across to him. I'm not saying that he can be forgiven for the miss, I'm just saying that I don't think it's him overthinking things - his instincts aren't right, or quick enough, or whatever. I expect with coaching and experience he will improve this aspect of his game, but it's not a given.

[moin k]

I don't think we'll win the title this season because we will definitely have some more games like this away from home where we will drop points. Also, in the second half of the season City will go on their usual 10+ game winning run and we will not be able to match them / go toe-to-toe with them like previous seasons. In a way, maybe not having the pressure of going on a title run this season might help with the evolution of this team / squad. We should definitely make top four this season and get to one or two cup finals and overall it's going to be a fun ride. 

[dave u]

1 hour ago, piphomer said:

Where your putting analogy breaks down, Dave, is that a golfer lining up a putt has all the time in the world for the Yips to take hold. Darwin had, what, half a second? He was fully expecting Mo to put it in the goal or for the keeper to make a save and never expected in a million years that the ball would come across to him. I'm not saying that he can be forgiven for the miss, I'm just saying that I don't think it's him overthinking things - his instincts aren't right, or quick enough, or whatever. I expect with coaching and experience he will improve this aspect of his game, but it's not a given.

 

The yips happen in the actual stroke. You can be completely fine mentally and thinking you'll make it, and then your stroke gets all jerky and you miss. It's like a nervous twitch.

 

It's nothing to do with him having too much time, its a split second reaction where he panics or tenses up or something. 

[dave u]

1 hour ago, Moin K said:

I don't think we'll win the title this season because we will definitely have some more games like this away from home where we will drop points. Also, in the second half of the season City will go on their usual 10+ game winning run and we will not be able to match them / go toe-to-toe with them like previous seasons. In a way, maybe not having the pressure of going on a title run this season might help with the evolution of this team / squad. We should definitely make top four this season and get to one or two cup finals and overall it's going to be a fun ride. 

 

Agree with all of this, I was just beginning to think maybe, just maybe, it could be more, that's all. 

[rubble-rouser]

I don’t think it’s the yips in this case. I agree, he didn’t have time to think about it. It’s more a simple technique/concentration issue of keeping his eye on the ball.

 

I love Nunez but this is his biggest test so far. I back him to score double figures in November. 

[Kevin D]

It is great for the public here at Luton to see us. They must have been wondering what this team everyone is talking about are all about and now they’ve seen. We were wonderful.

[DalyanPete]

Darwin quite rightly will get some criticism but Mo? When he plays like that he needs subbing. It's almost like we're scared of his usual show of petulance when it happens. 

Luton fans in their shitty ground just reignited the hate I have for them. Cunt club from top to bottom 

[redinblack]

I still havent forgiven them for David Evans.

[Guest]

Numez’s miss - did the flag go up before or after he missed? 

[Barnesey]

What we lack is a “stock” goal. We don’t seem to have a plan in the last third - what are we trying to do? Citeh work hard to get a player behind the line of defenders before crossing to players attacking the six yard box (often haaland). We don’t get runners like that since Trent and robbo stopped making that effort (no doubt, under instruction). We need something to replace that if we don’t reintroduce it. 

[Bobby Hundreds]

39 minutes ago, Shooter in the Motor said:

Numez’s miss - did the flag go up before or after he missed? 

I presume it went up when the ball went out of play.

[Creator Supreme]

1 hour ago, redinblack said:

I still havent forgiven them for David Evans.

I remember that cunt, horrible fucker!

[redinblack]

28 minutes ago, Creator Supreme said:

I remember that cunt, horrible fucker!

He was. One of the band of twats that came crawling out of the woodwork when Thatcher came along and empowered them

[Creator Supreme]

1 hour ago, redinblack said:

He was. One of the band of twats that came crawling out of the woodwork when Thatcher came along and empowered them

Front and Centre of the football ID card scheme if I remember correctly.

[Total Longo]

4 hours ago, redinblack said:

I still havent forgiven them for David Evans.

Isn't that the guitarist out of U2?

[Chris]

"I know the non golfers among you are probably fed up of hearing this."

 

Yep. If you're missing two foot putts, you're shit at putting. 

 

If you're standing over multiple ten footers in every round, you're gonna hole some of them.

[Marcas]

For the sake of my sanity I’d rather have a guy who never misses a sitter over the guy who scores the odd 25yd wonder goal now and then. I’d echo some of the points here - in situations like Luton I don’t think you have time to have the yips: the ball’s on you too fast. You do have time to have a lack of concentration and shit technique though. 

[terry symes]

Will Darwin ever fix it or is this who he is? Obviously he has age on his side, but is he the archetypal 'scorer of great goals' rather than 'great goal scorer'?