PODCAST: Liverpool 0 Crystal Palace 1 - Match Reaction

[tlw content]

It goes from bad to worse as a second home defeat in four days has put the Reds right up against it now in the title race. Arsenal's defeat softens the blow somewhat but City are the big winners this weekend and now sit top. We've seen how this movie ends.

 

TLW Editor Dave Usher is joined by Paul Natton and John Gallagher to try to make sense of it all. 

 

 

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[BeefStroganoff]

Fuck 'em.

[Planet Origi]

Feel more gutted after listening to that! Just proper pissed off at conceding so easily yet again, it's not realistic to keep turning it around especially on the back of a couple of disappointing results. That was the last thing we needed and it showed. 

[John102]

Just when I thought I was out, Dave's glimmer of hope pulls me back in.

 

Also good to see Dave and Goldbridges love affair continues, with another shout out.

[Dapower]

Looking forward to listening to this tomorrow and i didn’t think Dave would have a glimmer of hope after today but I’m intrigued good on ya Dave

[mike23]

Dave's talk of this all being part of the narrative is a lovely idea. If this was a Hollywood movie this would definitely be the part where everything looks bleak and hopeless for the protagonists. In the movie Klopp and the players would at about this point learn some important life lesson which would help them finish the movie triumphant.. There would be a joyful final scene in which they paraded the premier league trophy through the streets of Liverpool in front of millions of happy fans and then one final still of Klopp rising his fist in triumph to the crowd (with maybe a brief cut scene to chief antagonist Pep Guardiola miserably watching the scenes on TV at City's training ground  and then turning his fury on Howard Webb who stands quivering in front of his desk, demanding to know how Webb's PGMOL gimps allowed this to happen). 

 

Unfortunately, as we've seen before, the Premier League doesn't seem to do happy Hollywood endings. The only lessons ever learned are bleak ones. The bad guys always win and never face any consequences for their actions. This all just seems to be shaping up to be another really shitty ending in which, even if we somehow sort ourselves out again and win all our remaining games,  City just mechanically tick off win after win while friendly officials step in to help out if things are ever in danger of getting a bit dicey for them  

 

Football is really shit sometimes. 

 

Thanks for the pod. I feel pretty much the same. Not angry, just disappointed. This hasn't happened through lack of effort or desire, but the pressure has definitely got to most of the players. Sometimes strengths become weaknesses if not used wisely, and passion and desire just seem to have turned into desperation in the past week for this club. 

[The Midnight Rambler]

I'm with John. That non penalty at City has totally fucked us. Criminal that it wasn't given. 

[suzy]

Loved Paul’s ‘Pep’ rant! 

[Jairzinho]

It's just not an intelligent team. Matip, Gini, Fabio, Firmino et al had nous. Not enough of them with it now. 

[JohnnyH]

I'm on a flight to New York tomorrow so I'll leave this frivolity until then so if the plane goes into a nose dive over the Atlantic Ocean I won't mind as much

[Skidfingers McGonical]

Apple Podcasts giving a transcript these days. 
 

@Paul outburst captured perfectly. 
 

[dave u]

Wait until you hear my "maybe Xabi snubbed us because he knew something we didn't" take. You might storm the cockpit and crash the plane yourself.

[Skidfingers McGonical]

9 minutes ago, JohnnyH said:

I'm on a flight to New York tomorrow so I'll leave this frivolity until then so if the plane goes into a nose dive over the Atlantic Ocean I won't mind as much

Told you on Twitter, get back on the bus.

 

It’s been downhill since you stopped sitting at the front on the top deck taking notes. 

[BeefStroganoff]

Too easy on them.

 

We were in dire straits after Christmas and the young lads came in and propped up the side and gave everyone a boost.

 

Theres no excuse now with all the seniors back.

 

And then theres all the collective experience this side has, so im not having the pressure psychology angle.

 

Trent, Van Dijk, Robertson, Alisson, Gomez, Salah have all got League and Champions League winning experience.

 

MacAllister is a World Cup winner for fucks sake.

 

Diaz, Konate, Tsimikas all have experience of winning silverware.

 

What experience has Palace got? Nothing. Zip, Nada.

 

They've only got two fast wingers, they had a makeshift backline, some young kid playing his first season in the premier in midfield and that Watford and Derby reject.

 

Its about attitude and application which is this sides Achilles heel. We don't prepare right, we don't start right.

 

You can say what you want about City but FFS they approach every game with an ice cold mentality.

[JohnnyH]

17 minutes ago, Skidfingers McGonical said:

Told you on Twitter, get back on the bus.

 

It’s been downhill since you stopped sitting at the front on the top deck taking notes. 

 

I still sit on the bus, I've just been travelling for work a bit recently, and it has coincided with us turning to absolute shite. I'll be back on the bus for the Fulham pod.  And I'll be on an (Air)bus for this one.

[Carra_is_legend]

7 hours ago, Jairzinho said:

It's just not an intelligent team. Matip, Gini, Fabio, Firmino et al had nous. Not enough of them with it now. 

 

Agree. I was hoping that Virgil will stand up and instill some intelligence/thinking into this team but we have not seen it. To concede first in 22/23 games out of 32 is taking the piss whichever way you look at it. The football intelligence in the team is lacking and has been for a while, the determination & steel can only take us so far. 

[lebron]

I think something which is lost in a cople of pods (and on the forum in general) lately, is the fact that every other team give their 100 per cent against us. There are no teams in football that produce that level of effort week in and week out. I remember being properly mad at our teams of the 90s and 00s that they would raise their game against some teams and then produce stinkers the next, through sheer lack of effort.

 

Sport at this level is all about the margins, and as shit as you might think Palace, Atalanta and United (I largely agree) might be, they are still professional footballers. If they all decide that this is their cup final, we simply HAVE to match their effort to turn out clear winners. Otherwise it's down to chance (s), and we don't take any of them at the minute. 

 

I watched Utd's game against Bournemouth the other day, and the gulf in effort they put in against us and Bournemouth was huge. They ran about 90 pct as much, and had much fewer sprints. All of you were pointing to Atalanta's league position as a barometer of how good they are. I guarantee you if they had put the same effort in over the league season, they would either be closer to the top or having 10 players out injured.

 

It's the one little thing that might improve when Klopp leaves, our injury list will probably be reduced. I fully expect us to have more games where everyone isn't running as much as they need to though. This is not a criticism of either Klopp or the players btw. I just think we have expanded too much energy, and when we need to go back into the well one more time (as we will over the next few weeks), there probably won't be too much down there to squeeze out):

 

I have the same feeling with Arsenal, as they have been playing their key players even more than us, they simply won't last the distance. Injuries and/or fatigue will catch them as it did us two years ago. 

[aws]

It must be mentally draining to have to keep chasing a goal deficit as well as putting extra pressure on the strikers so I suppose it’s not too surprising we seem to have hit the wall.  And the injury crisis has hindered our chances of refreshing the team. How many comfortable league games have we had? 

[Paul]

3 hours ago, BeefStroganoff said:

Too easy on them.

 

We were in dire straits after Christmas and the young lads came in and propped up the side and gave everyone a boost.

 

Theres no excuse now with all the seniors back.

 

And then theres all the collective experience this side has, so im not having the pressure psychology angle.

 

Trent, Van Dijk, Robertson, Alisson, Gomez, Salah have all got League and Champions League winning experience.

 

MacAllister is a World Cup winner for fucks sake.

 

Diaz, Konate, Tsimikas all have experience of winning silverware.

 

What experience has Palace got? Nothing. Zip, Nada.

 

They've only got two fast wingers, they had a makeshift backline, some young kid playing his first season in the premier in midfield and that Watford and Derby reject.

 

Its about attitude and application which is this sides Achilles heel. We don't prepare right, we don't start right.

 

You can say what you want about City but FFS they approach every game with an ice cold mentality.

That you, Pep?

[JeanMichelFerriacrosstheMersey]

Just listened to this with my lunch (cheese sarnie and a yoghurt in case anyone is interested) and to reiterate a point I made after the Arsenal pod back in February, I appreciate the podcast more after a defeat than a win, and I feel pretty certain I'm not the only one. As a Red, you've got so many bad thoughts/emotions swirling through your body and you want to know if others feel the same and how they're coping/rationalising the pain - in part you get that through talking with you mates and in part you get that from listening to three fellas you don't know try and make sense of it all between themselves, and that always helps - so please Dave and the lads, always do post-defeat pods even if, quite understandably, you're not in the mood to do so. Also, please always litter than with fuming rants about Pep Guardiola - well in Paul!

 

Onto the team itself - I 100% agree that what we've seen in the past two games has been a collective mental breakdown, in part brought on by the natural stress of being in a title race but also in part brought by the pressure of knowing this is the last chance to be champions under Klopp. We've felt it as fans pretty much ever since the manager made his announcement that he was leaving and it's now got to the players, and the trigger for that was most definitely the 2-2 draw at Old Trafford last week. I was in the away end and it really struck me hard how gutted the players looked at the final whistle. Diaz collapsed onto the turf while others stood around looking like they'd just seen their dog been hit by a car - a mixture of shock and despair which immediately told me something had gone in their heads. They clearly recognised not beating United was a big opportunity blown and that carried into Thursday which, in turn, carried into Sunday. I'm simply not having anyone say these players don't care - if anything they care too much, and that's the problem; they've tensed up under the pressure of winning this title for Klopp which has led to anxiety and ultimately a total failure to do the basic fundamentals - pass, press, cross, shoot - correctly. 

 

Saying that, there's also their utterly infuriating knack of starting games slowing and  conceding the first goal, which, really, has been a problem ever since the tail-end of the 2021-22 season and for which the manager and coaching staff have to take a large share of the blame. I'm sure they prepare the team for every game but for too long now there has been a failure in that preparation, whether that be in training, or how the players are told to rest and recuperate, or in the final message they get before going onto the pitch - who knows, but something has definitely not been right for too long now. Equally, I agree with those who say the players have to take responsibility for their own performances and make sure they're 'on it' from the start of all games. All in all what we've seen for the best part of two years now in regards to how we start games has not been good enough and it needs to change. 

 

In regards to the title - yes, we're still in this and there could well be more twist and turns but personally I think yesterday was it for us. As said by the lads on the pod; once you get behind Man City in a title race, and especially at this stage of the season, it's near impossible to catch them. We've seen how this movie ends twice and the trilogy is upon us, sadly. Simply no way, given the team's physical as well as mental shape, that we're winning our remaining six games, which is what we'd need to do to stand any chance of being champions. Like Dave, I see Fulham on Sunday as a massive banana skin, and even if we don't slip up then we will somewhere else. Praying to God it's not Goodison.

 

All in all, this is such a sad state of affairs to find ourselves in. Like Chris said on the post-Atalanta pod - everything changed when Klopp made his announcement, and while the reasons for that were understandable, that doesn't stop me/others wishing he had not said anything and simply walked in the summer. That would have meant no sudden dropping of mood, no distracting chat about who replaces him (and subsequent, further despair when Alonso ruled himself out of the running) and no rising anxiety, in the stands and on the pitch, which led to Anfield being an utterly rotten place to be yesterday. My worst day there since the Gerrard-slip game almost exactly 10 years ago.

 

I'm gutted and, like Paul, massively pissed off with seeing the cheats prosper again. They've stolen glory for us and they're fans barely give a fuck about any of it. It's disgusting and, well, sad. 

 

 

[BeefStroganoff]

18 minutes ago, Paul said:

That you, Pep?

Peps a cheat and so are City.

 

But away from that - he sets his teams out to play in a way that doesn't require them to go hell for leather for 90 minutes, that maintains control and doesn't injure half his squad. You don't see City starting and conceding big chances within five minutes.

 

That mentality is on us and its something we've never sorted in the past few years. This is not a brand new team green in the gills, they have trophy winning experience.

[dave u]

44 minutes ago, JeanMichelFerriacrosstheMersey said:

Just listened to this with my lunch (cheese sarnie and a yoghurt in case anyone is interested) and to reiterate a point I made after the Arsenal pod back in February, I appreciate the podcast more after a defeat than a win, and I feel pretty certain I'm not the only one. As a Red, you've got so many bad thoughts/emotions swirling through your body and you want to know if others feel the same and how they're coping/rationalising the pain - in part you get that through talking with you mates and in part you get that from listening to three fellas you don't know try and make sense of it all between themselves, and that always helps - so please Dave and the lads, always do post-defeat pods even if, quite understandably, you're not in the mood to do so. Also, please always litter than with fuming rants about Pep Guardiola - well in Paul!

 

Onto the team itself - I 100% agree that what we've seen in the past two games has been a collective mental breakdown, in part brought on by the natural stress of being in a title race but also in part brought by the pressure of knowing this is the last chance to be champions under Klopp. We've felt it as fans pretty much ever since the manager made his announcement that he was leaving and it's now got to the players, and the trigger for that was most definitely the 2-2 draw at Old Trafford last week. I was in the away end and it really struck me hard how gutted the players looked at the final whistle. Diaz collapsed onto the turf while others stood around looking like they'd just seen their dog been hit by a car - a mixture of shock and despair which immediately told me something had gone in their heads. They clearly recognised not beating United was a big opportunity blown and that carried into Thursday which, in turn, carried into Sunday. I'm simply not having anyone say these players don't care - if anything they care too much, and that's the problem; they've tensed up under the pressure of winning this title for Klopp which has led to anxiety and ultimately a total failure to do the basic fundamentals - pass, press, cross, shoot - correctly. 

 

Saying that, there's also their utterly infuriating knack of starting games slowing and  conceding the first goal, which, really, has been a problem ever since the tail-end of the 2021-22 season and for which the manager and coaching staff have to take a large share of the blame. I'm sure they prepare the team for every game but for too long now there has been a failure in that preparation, whether that be in training, or how the players are told to rest and recuperate, or in the final message they get before going onto the pitch - who knows, but something has definitely not been right for too long now. Equally, I agree with those who say the players have to take responsibility for their own performances and make sure they're 'on it' from the start of all games. All in all what we've seen for the best part of two years now in regards to how we start games has not been good enough and it needs to change. 

 

In regards to the title - yes, we're still in this and there could well be more twist and turns but personally I think yesterday was it for us. As said by the lads on the pod; once you get behind Man City in a title race, and especially at this stage of the season, it's near impossible to catch them. We've seen how this movie ends twice and the trilogy is upon us, sadly. Simply no way, given the team's physical as well as mental shape, that we're winning our remaining six games, which is what we'd need to do to stand any chance of being champions. Like Dave, I see Fulham on Sunday as a massive banana skin, and even if we don't slip up then we will somewhere else. Praying to God it's not Goodison.

 

All in all, this is such a sad state of affairs to find ourselves in. Like Chris said on the post-Atalanta pod - everything changed when Klopp made his announcement, and while the reasons for that were understandable, that doesn't stop me/others wishing he had not said anything and simply walked in the summer. That would have meant no sudden dropping of mood, no distracting chat about who replaces him (and subsequent, further despair when Alonso ruled himself out of the running) and no rising anxiety, in the stands and on the pitch, which led to Anfield being an utterly rotten place to be yesterday. My worst day there since the Gerrard-slip game almost exactly 10 years ago.

 

I'm gutted and, like Paul, massively pissed off with seeing the cheats prosper again. They've stolen glory for us and they're fans barely give a fuck about any of it. It's disgusting and, well, sad. 

 

 

 

Great post that mate.

[dave u]

1 hour ago, lebron said:

I think something which is lost in a cople of pods (and on the forum in general) lately, is the fact that every other team give their 100 per cent against us. There are no teams in football that produce that level of effort week in and week out. I remember being properly mad at our teams of the 90s and 00s that they would raise their game against some teams and then produce stinkers the next, through sheer lack of effort.

 

Sport at this level is all about the margins, and as shit as you might think Palace, Atalanta and United (I largely agree) might be, they are still professional footballers. If they all decide that this is their cup final, we simply HAVE to match their effort to turn out clear winners. Otherwise it's down to chance (s), and we don't take any of them at the minute. 

 

I watched Utd's game against Bournemouth the other day, and the gulf in effort they put in against us and Bournemouth was huge. They ran about 90 pct as much, and had much fewer sprints. All of you were pointing to Atalanta's league position as a barometer of how good they are. I guarantee you if they had put the same effort in over the league season, they would either be closer to the top or having 10 players out injured.

 

It's the one little thing that might improve when Klopp leaves, our injury list will probably be reduced. I fully expect us to have more games where everyone isn't running as much as they need to though. This is not a criticism of either Klopp or the players btw. I just think we have expanded too much energy, and when we need to go back into the well one more time (as we will over the next few weeks), there probably won't be too much down there to squeeze out):

 

I have the same feeling with Arsenal, as they have been playing their key players even more than us, they simply won't last the distance. Injuries and/or fatigue will catch them as it did us two years ago. 

 

And so is this.

[Chris]

 

Me in 2064 when ol' Dave Usher finally give up hope...

 

 

[Chris]

5 hours ago, BeefStroganoff said:

 

 

You can say what you want about City

 

Think Paul covered that one off, Beef.