PODCAST: Sheffield United 0 Liverpool 2 - Match Reaction

[tlw content]

It wasn't pretty but it's a win and three points that keep the Reds in second spot hot on the heels of leaders Arsenal. A first half goal from the imperious Virgil Van Dijk and a late strike by Dom Szoboszlai secured the win despite an uninspiring performance.

 

TLW Editor Dave Usher is joined by Julian Richards and Terry McDonald to look back over a largely forgettable evening and then look ahead to the weekend trip to Palace.

 

 

 

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[Jose Jones]

Bit too downbeat this one. Don’t let Terry back on!

[Jairzinho]

Enjoyed how downbeat it was. 

[John102]

Was not enjoying the Darwin bashing to be honest. Id also take issue with the bit about Goal Scorers being born. Darwin has a better goals per game record at his age than Mo did, who is about to score 200 goals for us.  Ivan Toney, who was suggested, is slightly higher (0.02 per game) but he played all of his games in Championship, League 1 and League 2.

[dave u]

Terry is blinded by his hatred when it comes to Darwin. 

 

I was going to throw in Lewandowski's name as he had a slow start, but I just didn't have the energy for the fight. 

[JohnnyH]

Downbeat you say?  Excellent; looking forward to it.

[TD_LFC]

Wasn't Lewandowski on his way to a 30 goal (40+ GA) season in his second year at Dortmund?

 

 

[TD_LFC]

1 hour ago, John102 said:

Was not enjoying the Darwin bashing to be honest. 

 

[TheBitch]

1 hour ago, dave u said:

Terry is blinded by his hatred when it comes to Darwin. 

 

I was going to throw in Lewandowski's name as he had a slow start, but I just didn't have the energy for the fight. 

Don’t let them grind you down, Dave. 
 

It’ll be us on the right side of history. 

[TheBitch]

48 minutes ago, TD_LFC said:

Wasn't Lewandowski on his way to a 30 goal (40+ GA) season in his second year at Dortmund?

 

 

Here he is. 
 

The Darwin signal’s gone up has it. 

[TD_LFC]

8 minutes ago, TheBitch said:

Here he is. 
 

The Darwin signal’s gone up has it. 

 

 

[Rushies tash]

Downbeat? Might swerve this one then. The last one was bad enough and we'd won 4-3 with four worldies and two of those coming to snatch victory in the last 5 minutes! 

[dave u]

The last one was defo not downbeat!

 

It was upbeat, I was even singing for fucks sake.

[Chris]

1 hour ago, Rushies tash said:

Downbeat? Might swerve this one then. The last one was bad enough and we'd won 4-3 with four worldies and two of those coming to snatch victory in the last 5 minutes! 

I thought it was mega upbeat to be fair other than the Kelleher focus. 

[Rushies tash]

3 minutes ago, Chris said:

I thought it was mega upbeat to be fair other than the Kelleher focus. 

 

And the Darwin bashing.

 

Actually, the last 10 minutes or so was pretty positive - the rest reminded me of the only time I ever sat in the Anny Road. And for what it's worth, I was listening to the coverage on LFCTv and the atmosphere actually sounded pretty good.

[Chris]

14 minutes ago, Rushies tash said:

 

And the Darwin bashing.

 

Actually, the last 10 minutes or so was pretty positive - the rest reminded me of the only time I ever sat in the Anny Road. And for what it's worth, I was listening to the coverage on LFCTv and the atmosphere actually sounded pretty good.

 

Normally I don't push back on this kind of stuff, but there wasn't any Darwin bashing. There was a discussion about the chances he had and whether he should have put them away. Not being sycophantic isn't bashing him. 

[Rushies tash]

12 minutes ago, Chris said:

 

Normally I don't push back on this kind of stuff, but there wasn't any Darwin bashing. There was a discussion about the chances he had and whether he should have put them away. Not being sycophantic isn't bashing him. 

 

Yeah, so you say. It's heart breaking hearing Usher having to defend our boy every week.

[dave u]

If you think that was Darwin bashing on Sunday then you defo don't want to listen to last nights.

[Rushies tash]

1 hour ago, dave u said:

If you think that was Darwin bashing on Sunday then you defo don't want to listen to last nights.

 

Just started now and to be honest, it's not as bad as I thought. Pretty much sums up what I thought having sat through 90 minutes of uninspiring huffing and puffing from our lads. I'm with Terry in that I think it's probably as much to do with attitude as it is tactics. I posted on the match thread that our attitude when playing bottom sides stinks. There's a definite drop off in intensity which always gives these teams hope that they can nick something. 

 

I stopped before you got onto Darwin, but I thought the energy from him after coming on made the difference last night and saw us over the line. I'd be happy to defend him to the hilt to anyone.

[JohnnyH]

I’m about half way through the pod and right in the Nunez “discussion”.  This came to mind so far….

 

[Chris]

8 minutes ago, JohnnyH said:

I’m about half way through the pod and right in the Nunez “discussion”.  This came to mind so far….

 

 

The bloke labelled Dave actually looks like Terry.

[dave u]

2 hours ago, Rushies tash said:

I'm with Terry in that I think it's probably as much to do with attitude as it is tactics. I posted on the match thread that our attitude when playing bottom sides stinks. There's a definite drop off in intensity which always gives these teams hope that they can nick something. 

 

See, last season I could have got on board with that. Even after Luton to some extent, but if you keep either dropping points or struggling to beat the shittest teams, there comes a point when you can't take them lightly anymore and for me that had to be Luton. We can't still be complacent when we keep getting punched in the face.

[Supremolad]

It wasnt a great performance from the team but the gloom is a bit much. I didnt go into this game expecting us to just roll them over. Sheffield Utd might be crap but they do put up a good fight occasionally. City only won with a late winner there. Spurs and Utd only managed tight wins over them too.

 

And for all the fretting over our dropped points at Luton, they scored 3 times against Arsenal and were a few seconds away from taking a point. Not sure where this assumption is coming from that we would perform to a high standard at away grounds every time against the shite teams. Even at our absolute peak in the title winning season with our fabled flying fullbacks providing width, we only managed a lucky one nil at Sheffield Utd. And we definitely had some other scrappy wins away at shit teams too.

[Supremolad]

This period of the season is when we need to manage energy levels. Beat Sheffield Utd with minimum fuss while not playing too well and move on. Uninspiring? True but I'd rather have the 3pts in such a forgettable game and I'll take another uninspiring 3pts at Palace right now. That's what title challenges are built on in this mad run of games over Christmas.

 

Our top performances would come at home when we face Utd and Arsenal.

[Dan Vito Corleone]

I personally was just happy to get out of Sheffield with 3 points. We would have beaten them much easier without the manager change I think. But they pulled the trigger at the right time for them, their fans love Wilder and their players were running their balls off for him. 

 

It wasn't a great performance though - we'll see if that's a problem tomorrow.