Liverpool Football Club Thread

[Gabe]

Chelsea are really building a head of steam here, we can't get out or hold the ball up. We look like the away team at the moment.

[p b]

Is it me or is every decision going against us?

[Azrael]

Sterling getting elbowed in the face then booked for it. Nice.

Borini and Kolo should have started. Manquillo too. Brenden

[dogsout]

Sterling getting elbowed in the face then booked for it. Nice.

And Ramires is within his rights to do that according to Paul Scholes.

[hmm]

He's within his rights to run into the player but he definitely seemed to deliberately lead with his arm to me.

[rjpageuk]

I think chelsea have played really well and we can feel pretty content to go in drawing.

Chelsea pressuring high is causing our defence so many problems I don't know why we don't just clear long more.

[Gabe]

Sterling caught both arms, too.

After a bright start we've retreated deeper and deeper and have out-ball. If we could have held the lead until half-time (or even 10 minutes) we might have kept a bit more control of the match but. Balotelli needs any kind of service as he's had nothing. If that continues for 10-15 minutes he either needs to get a partner up top or be subbed as we know he's pretty ineffective on his own.

[Commander Jameson]

Costa makes it 1-2.

[Azrael]

Manquillo and Kolo would have stopped that goal.

Not sure about taking Couts and Can off. Two of the better players.

[Stig]

How Henderson is still on the pitch over Can is beyond me, he's been dreadful today

[Azrael]

Can was better than Hendo and Gerrard today.

[hmm]

Lovely final touch by Mig there.

[Stig]

As good as Chelsea are this season that was fucking shit. Shades of last December where we started well, went 1-0 up, lost the lead and then turned to shit with no clue what to do.

Rodgers has an interational break to come up with something new because whatever he's doing now isn't working.

At this rate not even top 4 is achievable.

Also we should have deffo had a penalty.

[dogsout]

Glad to see Gerrard having a moan to the ref at the end there. Hopefully Rodgers follows suit after the game because that was fucking ridiculous albeit typical.

I thought we played pretty well, on the whole. Need to get Skrtel out of the team but they all put a shift in and the desire was there. Hoping Can and Phil get a run in the team now and Rodgers sticks to this formation to let them gel.

[Azrael]

Shite.

Should have started with two strikers. Kolo and Manquillo should have been playing instead of Glen and Lovren or Skrtel . Henderson or Gerrard should have been taken off instead of Can.

Don't want him fired, but Rodgers is starting to annoy me.

[Adrock]

Can was clearly tiring, he was the only one who played midweek and he put in a very good shift in the first half. He looked a very good player today, by far his best performance since joining the club. So whilst he was definitely a better performer today he still needed changing.

Liverpool just didn't create anything. The goal came from a long distance effort and there was nothing at all for Balotelli to feed on and I think today he was very good, he was winning his duels with Terry and Cahill and thats all you can ask of him. Of course he needs to actually look along the line to not get caught offside but the reality is he had nothing at all to work on.

[Guest]

I don't understand how we keep playing just one striker. It doesn't work. And at home too.

The way things are going - has a team ever finished 2nd then been relegated?!

[Gabe]

It was a poor decision for the penalty, but I think it would only have temporarily papered over the issues with the side.

I actually thought we contained Chelsea pretty well for much of the match but, like against Madrid, we didn't really create anything and you felt it they put their foot down they could have scored a few more. I don't see too much positive in amongst everything, because once again we've lost, we've barely tested the opposition keeper, we've not passed the ball terribly well in advanced areas and have been woefully short of ideas. I look at our bench again these days and wonder who can come on and change a game?

dogsout, I recall we had an exchange at the end of the transfer window about Borini, and you felt he wouldn't get any game time and would be sold in January. Has he impressed you so far and do you think he's good enough? The only positive I can think to say about him is that he'll run around a lot and adds a bit of mobility, but doesn't look any closer to scoring than Balotelli does (in part because the service has been lacking all season.)

[The Fox]

Glad to see Gerrard having a moan to the ref at the end there. Hopefully Rodgers follows suit after the game because that was fucking ridiculous albeit typical.

Standard Anthony Taylor performance, God only knows how he got awarded a game of this magnitude.

[Keiths_Dad]

I thought we did alright today, we just came up against a very strong team in Chelsea. I have to say though, the ref didn't help our cause any, and the midfield wasn't doing enough for Balotelli, who looked good when he did manage to get into the game.

[larrydavidsanger]

dogsout, I recall we had an exchange at the end of the transfer window about Borini, and you felt he wouldn't get any game time and would be sold in January. Has he impressed you so far and do you think he's good enough? The only positive I can think to say about him is that he'll run around a lot and adds a bit of mobility, but doesn't look any closer to scoring than Balotelli does (in part because the service has been lacking all season.)

I find it really hard to judge our strikers at the moment because they just don't get any time on the ball. Balotelli did quite well today in linking up play, he tried to run channels more than he usually does, but other than the offside goal, I can't remember him having a strike on goal. Lambert and Borini came on and by that stage we'd lost our composure and had begun to play panicky, rushed passes or big, inaccurate punts and crosses. If none of them are really getting put through for opportunities how can we properly judge them?

[Commander Jameson]

Never mind our traditionally poor set piece execution, I was shocked at how bad our crossing was from wide positions; just floated in to no one in particular. Compare those with Marcelo's whipped in balls in mid-week.

[Gabe]

I find it really hard to judge our strikers at the moment because they just don't get any time on the ball. Balotelli did quite well today in linking up play, he tried to run channels more than he usually does, but other than the offside goal, I can't remember him having a strike on goal. Lambert and Borini came on and by that stage we'd lost our composure and had begun to play panicky, rushed passes or big, inaccurate punts and crosses. If none of them are really getting put through for opportunit

[dogsout]

dogsout, I recall we had an exchange at the end of the transfer window about Borini, and you felt he wouldn't get any game time and would be sold in January. Has he impressed you so far and do you think he's good enough? The only positive I can think to say about him is that he'll run around a lot and adds a bit of mobility, but doesn't look any closer to scoring than Balotelli does (in part because the service has been lacking all season.)

He hasn't changed my mind, although I'm kind of rooting for him now. I can't help but admire his determination. Ultimately, I think Rodgers is just being pragmatic and Borini still has no future at the club.

[Adrock]

I'd hope a player of his calibre isn't part of the plans the club have, he just simply isn't good enough.

Lots of media people are pinning everything on the return of Sturridge. Will he really be able to lift the whole team to a much better performance? Can it be fixed with one player coming back from injury?

Be interesting to see how Rodgers sets the team up once Sturridge is back in the reckoning.

[Chewylegs]

I didn't watch any if the game, so could someone let me know how Skrtel and Johnson played as they were two players I thought need to be dropped/stay dropped.

Also, Sterling, where did he play, how and did he spend his time picking the ball up from deep?

What was so bad about the ref too?

[larrydavidsanger]

Johnson's positioning for the cross leading to the second goal

[Gabe]

I'd hope a player of his calibre isn't part of the plans the club have, he just simply isn't good enough.

Lots of media people are pinning everything on the return of Sturridge. Will he really be able to lift the whole team to a much better performance? Can it be fixed with one player coming back from injury?

Be interesting to see how Rodgers sets the team up once Sturridge is back in the reckoning.

No, he won't be our saviour. He'll help, of course he will, but the team aren't creating good enough chances at the moment, plus we still look nowhere near good enough defensively and we don't have the firepower to outscore teams. In fact in writing this post I'm trying to think of how many good chances we've created in the last 4/5 games that Sturridge might have put away - maybe a couple of Balotelli's at Hull? Maybe one at Newcastle? I can't recall too many gilt-edged opportunities.

I wonder if he'll now go 2 up top, and whether we might start seeing something from Balotelli goal-wise?

[lolly]

Didn't see the game but I've been banging on about Johnson for a while now- the man doesn't give a fuck and you can see in his desire to get forward, which looks half arsed these days, and his near disinterest in actually defending. Only in the 1st team on the basis of "experience" or the fading potential to rediscover the form that made him one of the best fullbacks in the league.

[dogsout]

To be fair, I've probably been one of Johnson's biggest critics on here and I thought he had his best game in years yesterday. He didn't get back fast enough to help Phil for their second goal but other than that he was solid and competitive throughout the game. He played at a much, much higher level than his usual standard. He still needs to go, obviously - and he needs to be properly replaced (preferably in Jauaury), but I thought it was promising in the short-term that he showed he is still capable of putting in a performance befitting of a professional footballer.

For the guys picking the performance apart: if the referee had not made a huge error at the death of the game, it is quite likely we'd have come out of it with a point. Can anybody really say that's 'not good enough' when you consider it was against the best team in the league and they were playing well on the day?

The last two games have raised my spirits about our chances of competing this season a little bit. The manager seems to have settled on the system, and found a way to fix a few of the issues. Yeah, it's far from perfect at the moment. But hopefully Flanagan, Sakho and Sturridge coming back will take us up a notch or two.