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First off, I really wanted us to win this game. Not because I’m arsed about the FA Cup this year, but because I just wanted us to win. I always want us to win and it would have been a real positive to win a game without hardly any of the regulars. Additionally it would have given us another opportunity to play some of the kids in the next round. Because make no mistake, I wouldn’t have wanted any of the starters playing. Not while we’re still in a title race. But we didn’t win and the truth is I won’t lose a second’s sleep over not being in the next round. Some will call that disrespecting the FA Cup or being a sky generation fan. That’s fine. Call it what you like. Presumably those who were so desperate to win the FA Cup feel Jurgen should have taken it more seriously and gone with a stronger side? Is he disrespecting the cup too? Personally I’d call it prioritising and being sensible, and if I were to criticise him for his selection (which I’m not) it’s that he didn’t go far enough and it cost us a starter for the weekend. In fairness to Klopp his options for resting players were limited due to injuries to both of the under 23s most experienced centre backs, and had Masterson and/or Phillips been fit then certainly Lovren and perhaps even Fabinho would have been given the night off too. Not everyone will agree with him but as far as I’m concerned his approach to the game was fully vindicated based on what happened with Lovren, who limped off with a hamstring injury after two minutes. Klopp didn’t want to play him but felt like he had no choice, and now he’s injured. Yeah, joke all you like about how “it’s only Lovren” or “at least it wasn’t anyone important” but we’re down to the bare bones at that position and this shows exactly why I didn’t want any first team players involved in the cup. Not this year. When one day we finally get that monkey off our backs and win the league, that changes everything, but now? This year? We’re better off out of it, with Klopp able to take his squad away for some warm weather training to prepare for league games while City and Spurs juggle cup commitments. Of course we need to win something but we’re in an exceptional situation here. We couldn’t be in a better position at this stage of the season to win the title, and we’re still in the Champions League. If ‘taking the cup seriously’ puts that even the tiniest bit at risk then for me it’s not worth it. That doesn’t sit well with some based on the flak that came my way on Twitter after the game. I don’t care. Sorry I'm not sorry. Going out of the cup doesn’t guarantee anything in terms of winning the title. I get that. We might end up empty handed and if that happens there’ll be people ragging on Klopp for not going all out to win either of the domestic cups. Personally I’ll be far too devastated at the fact we hadn’t won the title despite having a seven point lead at New Year to even think twice about the fucking cups. It would have been nice to win everything, but how likely is that? Very likely if we could field our best eleven in every game, but we can’t do that and therefore the key to any success we have this year is to keep our key players fit. Playing them in FA Cup games isn’t going to help on that front, just ask Lovren. So for me Klopp did the right thing. Yet despite everything I’ve just said about not being bothered about going out of the cup, bizarrely I was as angry watching this game as I’ve been all season. Especially in the first half. I couldn’t believe some of things I was seeing. Losing the game was never going to make me angry, but the lack of effort from some was inexcusable and there were things going on in that first half that I found hard to comprehend. I don’t know what the hell we were even trying to do. The formation was bizarre, I've never seen anything so disjointed, and the approach of some of the players left an awful lot to be desired. I’ll start with Sturridge, who was a fucking disgrace and was strolling around there like the whole thing was beneath him. Completely not arsed, and not for the first time either. He’s probably just counting down the days until he leaves now and hoping to get a few run outs off the bench to bag himself a medal if we win it. He's got the talent to actually make a telling impact between now and May and he's already made a big contribution with that goal at Chelsea, but when he's picked in games like this, he simply does not give a fuck. This is the problem currently though. The keeper, back four and front three more or less pick themselves now and the back ups know that no matter what they do they won’t force their way in. And THIS is the net result of it. Klopp speaks glowingly about the way these players work in training. Maybe he’s right, or maybe he’s just offering them a carrot to get something out of them. Based on this though… fucking hell. Moreno runs around and looks enthusiastic, I’ll give him that. But he jumped out of a tackle in his own box. IN HIS OWN BOX!! They call that a ‘business decision’ in the NFL. Where a player whose contract is running down will avoid taking hits in case it results in injury. That’s what I immediately thought when I saw Moreno’s bottle job, especially in the wake of his comments last week about how poorly he felt he was treated after ‘putting his body on the line’ for the club and getting injured last season. He wasn’t making that mistake again. Shame he doesn’t take the same approach to the other mistakes he repeatedly makes. Then there’s the Mig. I’d hesitate to say he could have done better as he probably couldn’t. Alisson saves both of those goals though, without question. The first goal is the prime example of what Alisson brings. Only his harshest critic would blame that goal on Mignolet because it’s not what you’d call an error as such. But his attempt at keeping it out was shit. One of the big differences Alisson has made is he makes saves that might not be in the running for ‘save of the season’, but they prevent this type of goal. So many goals we’ve conceded in recent years have been ones where you’d say “the keeper couldn’t have done anything”. Yet now we have a keeper who can do something and it’s highlighted exactly what we’ve been missing. I repeat, Alisson saves both of the Wolves goals in this game. The thing that annoyed me most about Mignolet though was how he played with the ball at his feet. I get that this is how our keepers are supposed to play and that he isn’t as accomplished as Alisson. It wasn’t his technique that was the problem though (his actual kicking was really good for the most part), it was the decision making. I lost count of the times he played the ball out to the edge of the box to a marked player. That’s not so bad when it’s an experienced pro like Milner or Fabinho, but when you’re giving it to a 16 year old kid on his debut and he’s immediately put under pressure by an opponent that smells blood, how fucking stupid do you have to be? It was just a mess all around though. Even Shaqiri looked thoroughly disinterested until Mo and Bobby came on and suddenly he was all bizz again. Disappointing that as I expect more from him. In mitigation though, he didn’t look as though he had any idea what his role was as there were times when he was 30 yards behind Camacho, who after a good opening 15 minutes at right back completely disappeared off the TV screen. Quite literally. He was so far forward the camera didn’t even have him in shot for most of the first half. Jermaine Jenas pointed it out a few times, mentioning on one occasion that he was in the centre forward position. You could put that down to inexperience and him naturally being a winger rather than a full back, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Klopp was on that side of the pitch in the first half and if Camacho was repeatedly out of position he’d have been talking him through it. The fact it continued into the second half tells me Camacho was doing as asked, but it sure as hell didn’t work as we were never able to get him into the game and I don’t remember him getting one cross in. He was nowhere to be seen in defensive areas either. This contributed to Milner trying to play about four different positions in the game. I felt for him. How come he was out there with the stiffs and the kids? What did he do to deserve that? He ran himself ragged at City the other day and he did it again in this game. It wasn’t a good game for him and he fucked up massively for the Wolves opener, but he’s only just back from a hamstring injury and sending him out there at all seemed an unnecessary risk to me, especially when he trying to plug so many gaps. I don’t even know if he was playing in midfield or as a third centre back. It looked like when we had the ball he dropped into the middle and the two centre backs went wide, with the full backs so far up the pitch they were halfway back to Merseyside. It was a bad night for Milner, who was booked early on and then tip toed around unable to put any tackles in. And what the fuck was he doing on that first goal? Getting caught in possession was one thing, but what happened after was unfathomable. I watched that in sheer disbelief. The lad in the middle for Wolves did a good job of blocking him out so he couldn’t go and close down Jiminez, but for the longest time it looked like Milner had no interest in going to him anyway. He went with the runner and completely ignored the lad with the ball, which was a terrible decision and something I’d have expected of one of the teenagers, not from the most experienced player in the squad. A bad night for him but he gets a pass because of the shift he put in. The biggest worry for me was undoubtedly the lacklustre display of Keita. Fucking hell lad, this was your chance to show you should be starting, and you come up with a performance like THAT?? Maybe one of the professional stat nerds can tell us what his "stepover to tackle" ratio was in this game, because I’d guess it’s around 50/1. Klopp must feel like Obi Wan with Anakin here. “You were the chosen one!!! You were supposed to bring balance to the midfield, not destroy it!”. He was the player I was looking forward to seeing most in this game and he was utterly wretched. His night was summed up with that scandalously shite overhit ball when he could have put Mo through for the equaliser. Get it together Naby because we need you, we’ve got a title to win here. And here’s something else I’m irked about. Where the fuck was Adam Lallana? “In the best shape since I’ve known him” according to Klopp a day or two before. And when we actually needed him on the pitch instead of warming the bench, just where the fuck was he? Injured. Again. Fucking hell. Must be the weight of that 100k a week salary weighing him down, because since he signed that he’s played about five fucking minutes. It’s become a trend now that whenever Klopp has to make wholesale changes like this, the squad players deliver a big old shit sandwich. Individually you can probably put most of them into the team with the first choice players and they’ll do alright, but any time the fringe squad are out there together they invariably deliver performances like this. The other top sides can make a lot of changes and still win but for whatever reason we can’t. It’s not a big deal this year for the reasons I outlined above, but going forward this is something that needs addressing. The poor showings from most of the senior players made things much more difficult for the kids. Curtis Jones started brightly but the longer it went on the worse he got, and he looked utterly lost in the second half. I’m a huge fan of his and he’s a special talent, but playing on the left wing probably wasn’t ideal for him and it might be a while before he gets another chance as he didn’t look anywhere near ready. No shame in that, he’s only 17 and has plenty of time. He’s an old stager compared to Ki-Jana However though. Fucking hell, that kid can play. He wasn’t perfect and there were a few difficult moments, but the composure and confidence he showed was absolutely incredible. Even his facial expressions showed just how relaxed he was from start to finish. Utterly non-plussed by the whole thing he was. Sometimes young players can look like a scared rabbit (Danny Ayala anyone?) but this kid just strolled out there and played as though he was in an under 18 game. You have to look at the circumstances here. Firstly, this is a kid who has barely even played u23 football yet. He’s only been here a few months and has gone from the u18 squad to training with the first team and then being picked in the squad for a game against Premier League opposition. Secondly, he didn’t start the game. He was on the bench but had no time to prepare for coming on because Lovren lasted only two minutes. That’s difficult even for experienced players as you’re not expecting it and haven’t warmed up properly. So he comes in cold. Not into a back four with Trent, Van Dijk and Robbo, or with Alisson behind him. No, he’s in a back four alongside a midfielder playing out of position, a teenage winger playing full back but who would go awol down the field for most of the game, and Alberto fucking Moreno. All things considered, Hoever’s performance was genuinely remarkable. Imagine how much better he’ll be when he has Big Virgil talking him through. No disrespect to Fabinho, who played well, but I’m not even sure he speaks English yet so communication with the kid was always going to be tough. I can’t speak highly enough of how Hoever played and his composure on the ball and ability to pass forwards suggests he’ll probably be used as a right back for his formative years until he fully develops. And that run he made past three players after dispossessing the winger in the box was fucking boss. The best part of it was the way he delayed his pass for a second while he waited for the space to open up. Absolute class. I might start watching the u23s again just to see this kid play. I haven’t mentioned Origi yet, and he deserves some credit for his goal which was a top quality strike. He also deserves credit for trying and for not looking like he thought the game was beneath him. He wasn’t good by any means, but he tried and was more than willing to chase back and help out. Fair play to him as it’s more than Sturridge was prepared to do. Maybe that will factor into Klopp’s thinking next time he needs to bring one of them on? His goal brought us back into the game and if we’d been able to keep it level for any length of time maybe we’d have won it. Unfortunately we were behind again after just five minutes. Good strike by Neves but Mignolet went down like a roll of lino. It wasn’t in the corner and it was only a few yards away from him. Yet not only did he not save it, he didn’t actually get anywhere near it. Impressive in it’s own way that. Shaqiri was within a whisker of levelling it again with a perfectly placed free kick, but the faintest of touches from John Ruddy diverted it onto the post. Hell of a save that. In hindsight maybe instead of starting with Sturridge Klopp would have been better just sending out one of the Academy lads in a Suarez mask to run around a bit and traumatise Ruddy? We never really looked like doing anything after that Shaqiri effort. Lots of possession but zero quality in attacking areas. It got better with Bobby and Mo on, as you’d expect, but I’m just relieved they both came through unscathed. Tell you something though, Wolves were fucking shit as well and this narrative about how well they’ve done to “knock Liverpool out” is pissing me off. We were horrendous but were within a centimetre of forcing a replay that on the balance of play we probably deserved. “Oh look at Wolves, they’ve had results against all of the top six”. No they haven’t, because this team was Liverpool in name only. We’ll never see that line up representing the club ever again, and hopefully some of the players in it are done now too, as if we’re in a position where we need to call on them between now and May then we’re in trouble. Star man is Hoever due to the exceptional circumstances he found himself in, but our best player was actually Fabinho I think. He should have done better on the opening goal when he dived in and didn’t win it, but otherwise he stood strong all night and will be a more than capable fill in alongside Van Dijk until Gomez, Matip and Lovren are available again. Two losses on the spin isn’t ideal but in my head it’s only one because this doesn’t count in terms of our situation. The important thing is we don’t lose in the league. Brighton away is a difficult game as they’re good at home, but we should win and it’s vital that we do. The City loss shouldn’t really cause the team to lose any confidence, if anything they should have grown in belief, but they must bounce back by going on another run, starting this weekend. Team: Mignolet; Camacho, Lovren (Hoever), Fabinho, Moreno; Shaqiri, Milner, Keita, Jones (Salah); Sturridge (Firmino), Origi: