Liverpool FC vs Aston Villa: Post match grumblings

[bartman49]

I really don't go along with the team looking slugish, we were unlucky not to score a few goals before they got lucky with an OG, if we had scored first would we have lost, Villa had far less shots on target and off target, it was one of those days nothing more. We have to get over this quickkly otherwise these results have a habit of lingering, like the draws last season all happened around the same time, so we must show bolton no mercy and if we cannot beat them we shall be in trouble....

[dangargan]

Didnt we finish with 21 shots on goal? wtf thats loads, another day it would be enough. The penalty killed our momentum simple as. We should go to Bolton and play them off the pitch (although it will probably end up being the opposite)

[macca8]

3 games and we're already in the bottom half of the league but I don't think we should worry about things. Remember lads that after 3 games we got to face 2 of premier league's better teams out of big 4 while others got lesser teams to play. Look at Scum, they got easy 3 early games but lost out to Burnley on one. On the positive side we at last got to beat Stoke!

As much as we hate losing but I think we should look things in a positive manner. It's still early of the season. Hate to say this but look at Scum last season. They started poorly but managed to scrap narrow wins and won the league by a whisker. But looking at the entire performance last night, I say we are missing some sparks. There's no urgency in the game. When we were down by a goal, we still trying to play cool football with no right combination to attack. There's no width in attacks. While Glen has been trying hard to win balls and initiate attacks, some were just generously giving the ball away cheaply. Too much back passing when we should march forward cost us the game. Although I hate to admit it, Xabi's departure seems to be affecting our game. Not to say it was the main problem but we don't have a player similar to Xabi's mould. Lucas was the similar playing style with Masch and between them I might say there's no direct understanding because they posesses similar traits;defensive minded midfielders and thus lacking in creative flair of passing. Last season we benefited from Xabi's presence and thus freeing Gerrard to be more attacking minded and dictating games. Right now with both our midfielders are more defensive type, Gerrard has to assume role of midfield maestro while at the same time planning attacks with Torres. Look how uneffective Torres was when Gerrard has to adapt back to midfield position and attacking at the same time. I mean doing both midfield and attacking roles did some damage to his performance as well as Torres.

Last night, most of our players were merely just playing not dictating the game. There's a lot of mistakes and mispasses. Torres didn't look like his usual, while Gerrard has to do both midfield and attacking duties. Our left flank was totally out and there's many missed chances. Lucas by far was our worst performer in that game but to say he's not that good it's a bit too much. Maybe he didn't have what it takes to be as good as Xabi but at least he's trying but we're in dire need of a good one who can create diverse opportunities and passes. Maybe Aquilani is our answer to the problem but he's still out injured and I bet he's aching to have a shot right now.

Please don't gun down our players just yet. It's just 3 games and there's 35 games to be played. Let just hope this was just a glitch in our system and hope Rafa got it sorted once and for all. In Rafa we trust and in Liverpool we gave our utmost support!

[johnstop]

I'm not gunning down the players but dont you think that there seems to be something of a different feel about the team this season so far and I just dont mean missing Xabi. I cant put my finger on it but something just doesnt seem right.

[macca8]

I know what you feel johnnie...I felt the same way. It's like we're missing something and not just Xabi. I think we are missing the cohesiveness within the team. Lucas and Masch both have same style of playing. They are more defensive minded midfielders. Xabi on the other hand, are both defensive and playmaker. He could initiate moves, passes around the ball anywhere at his will, could link up with Gerrard and Torres and even score goals. While this season, Gerrard has to accomodate the role of a midfield, initiator, passer and attacker all together as both Masch and Lucas couldn't do what Xabi has done. He hasn't have to worry about this last season because Xabi had all covered.

I just hope this can be sorted out and it will motivates them. I mean 19 years has been too long for us. It misses the comfort of home while it has been wandering about the toilet house and foster homes for almost 19 years now. We need to get it back to the place it most fond of and that is Anfield. No more toilet house(Scum) or foster home(Chavs) for our 19th title.

[govinox]

Its still early in the season so I dont think it is time to panic just yet. My thoughts are that we should have played more attacking in the first half, and we didnt see that sense of urgency until the second half. 
We defend poorly from set pieces and yet we rarely score from our own corners and free kicks. Somehow Davies gets in there first from 5 yards out and yet two Liverpool bodies are right next to him. To me it is naive defending that we dont at least spoil his header on goal.

To be honest I am not going to be as negative as everybody else because although Gerrard made the ultimate mistake in his own box he was trying hard to set something up and at the other end he still looked our most dangerous threat. We played too central and without width, which against a team who defend as well as Villa did is difficult to break down. We are still missing another class striker to bring on in circumstances like last night, and Voronim & Babel are both average. If Rafa really does have any money left we need that extra striker so we can go more attacking when chasing games.
We were unlucky on 9 minutes when we had a double chance to score and incredibly the ball stayed out. We created quite a few chances and didnt convert, Like when Kuyt hit the post, but I thought the overall display was nothing near as bad as the Spurs effort. The own goal from Lucas was poor defending, and this player continues to be inconsistent. Two defensive midfielders is not the way to go especially at Anfield and there must be more width in our attacking play. 
I am confident this can be turned around, although I will start to worry if we give Chelsea much more of a lead because they look stronger than ever this campaign.

Good point there. Rafa often has a tendency to make his team set out for a draw first. The Tottenham game and the Villa game are examples, we didn't set out to attack from the start.It's get to halftime with 0-0 then let's see what we can do with in the second half. For 2 thirds of last season this was the case,but when we lost to Boro we began playing more attacking football and went on that brilliant run.

I hope the loss to Villa does make Rafa realize that we are truly capable of attacking right from the start.We have to go for every game now.

[arvindram]

Yesterday we had so many chances to score before and after they scored each goal. It means we are creating chances. We haven't got the right players at the right place to score them. Xabi Alonso would have been there to score them right? I understand that we did not play at the same rythm as last year, but we had chances. Right now I can remember Kuyt missing two chances within metres of goal, torres free header, Gerrard missing in front of the keeper who was on his arse, not to mention the numerous shots we had on goal. We also conceded 3 stupid goals from on goal, corner, penalty. It happened last season with Alonso, it will happen again! Thats football. We just need to reduce these to a minimum and take our chances at the other end. Yesterday could have been a riot of goals for us. Nobody can deny this.

[Brian78]

Yesterday we had so many chances to score before and after they scored each goal. It means we are creating chances. We haven't got the right players at the right place to score them. Xabi Alonso would have been there to score them right?

Xabi wasnt exactly banging them in for us now was he in his 5 years

[David Wright]

Very bad defending, Once again we cannot defend set pieces,not looking too good for the season at this rate we will struggle to finish in the top four. Never mind win the Premiership

[redkenny]

Didnt we finish with 21 shots on goal? wtf thats loads, another day it would be enough. The penalty killed our momentum simple as.

You're right, that pen was a sucker punch - just as the one against us for Spurs' winner the other week was too.

That's something we've got to learn from.

[chats]

One note, I'm not sure if it's been mentioned yet but yes we had a lot of shots last night, but was it just me or were a hell of a lot of them at Friedel or just above him?

The majority of long range efforts were straight at him as were any headers that we won. Needs work on in training.

[crouchinho]

One note, I'm not sure if it's been mentioned yet but yes we had a lot of shots last night, but was it just me or were a hell of a lot of them at Friedel or just above him?

The majority of long range efforts were straight at him as were any headers that we won. Needs work on in training.

I can remember a Kuyt and Torres header straight at him, a Gerrard and Mascherano shot straight at him and also Masch hit one to his left but it was a step to the side and he had it comfortably. Also when Gerrard missed from that scramble where Benny, Steven and Fernando should of scored. So 6 off the top of my head that went to him.

[JD]

Some people, myself included, have had a right good moan.

But stone of crows... http://www.anfield-online.co.uk/match-reports/premiership/2009/liverpool-1-3-aston-villa/#comment-11568

[chats]

Some people, myself included, have had a right good moan.

But stone of crows... http://www.anfield-online.co.uk/match-reports/premiership/2009/liverpool-1-3-aston-villa/#comment-11568

Wonder what he'll say when we win on Saturday. :

[aksh_jaj245]

All I can say is its not yet time to press the panic button.. ok so we had a slow start..
ideally even a tital winning team has atleast 2 bad months..
last year it was Feb n I guess Nov.. This year its August..
we cant always be off to a flier..its better to reach the peak into the season than in the beginning and lose our way by December..
ok.. pundits are claiming chelsea to be champions already.. n spurs are gonna be there in the top four..
if thats for sure.. then they'll soon relegate us.. but its not true

Again I am happy with injuries and lack of match fitness is in the beginning of the season than into it..
wen we are in the mix.. it'll be imp that the squad is fit n full...
our bench will suddenly show cavelieri skrtel lucas voronin babel riera aurelio with n'gog, colossus n dossena still available..(
 not even takin the youngsters into account)

its gonna be a gr8 season.. and the sqaud is good enough..am not the least worried...
and I'd rather lose 2 n win 2 than draw 4.. we still have 2 extra points that way...

am positive.. very positive. we're soon gonna see the best of this team....

just keep faith guys
we'll be there come may
YNWA!!!

[SaintLiverpudlian]

a question out of the blue. why does rafa have a fetish towards injury prone players? aurelio, degen, aquilani is been prone in rome, so you can't say he isn't! add agger too. all of these are supposed to be starting line up players. then we're too good for owen, so he goes to united and we all hate him. I just hope our medical team does better medicals at getting players in.

[aksh_jaj245]

a question out of the blue. why does rafa have a fetish towards injury prone players? aurelio, dossena, aquilani is been prone in rome, so you can't say he isn't!

dossena ain't injures..
Aurelio was his fav lad from valencia..
n Aquilani is a gifted player..(so is aurelio).. cant blame him in any of the three

[SaintLiverpudlian]

im not blaming him, it's just that he doesn't care if the player is injury prone, and we pay the price. sorry, I meant degen not dossena.. im going to edit it!

[PJMAN]

Referees expect abuse from the dirts up the road, but when it is Liverpool FC it is not nice, nor professional. That is what upset me more than anything. Total lack of control. Whinging for everything and half the time wrong. Not the Liverpool way and should never be. I did not read anything today from Rafa condemning  the abuse and probably because he had a dig himself. Now do we want the refs on our case or do we go and sort it and win the league the proper way? We are LFC not them shitbags with the judas touch.

[JD]

I don't think Rafa did mention the ref did he?

[PJMAN]

I don't think Rafa did mention the ref did he?

 

No but he had a go at the fourth official and that is not the way we should be doing things. He was wrong as well. The season is but young and we are showing other teams that we can't handle a bit of pressure. What will they be like if we need to win our last two games?

[YANK_LFC_FAN]

I think most of the anxiety coming from the posts is we already have (2) losses and last season we had (2) the entire season. 

So, now what?  I think LFC are playing in a giant fishbowl and the stress shows...Everyone expected them to top last season and win the league.  The only way to be better than last season is to go undefeated and win the league. That is a huge amount of stress on Rafa, Gerrard, Torres and the rest of the squad.

I expected Villa to play all out. Villa will finish the season in the top 4 and get a CL spot. They have a great squad. Thats why I posted last week saying Villa is going to be a huge win, if we won. We didn't. So, lets move on.

First. They dont need to top last season to win the league because Man U. are not what they were last year and LFC are just as good if not better than last year.. So relax. We had an AWESOME season last year and didn't win the league. They need to regroup, and just play good solid football. We can still lose 2 more games and win the league as long as we dont draw 7 times at home...

Everyone. RELAX.  Let them play and feel it out. 

[BLEED_RED]

I swear, most of the people on this forum would leave a perfectly good day at the beach because they see one cloud in the sky.

This is no longer knee-jerking responses, we have some people in full blown mass hysteria. Everyone needs to calm down and take a realistic look at the math; JD mapped it out in an earlier response. We can lose two or three more games and still come out with more points from the games we didn't win last year. When we get our 20 million pound signing (Aquilani) on the field instead of Lucas, and the team has had some time to breathe and gel together instead of being crushed under the stress of seemingly every Red expecting a 38-0-0 season we will be fine. 

[JD]

Tommy Smith, the professional LFC critic in the Echo.

(About Gerrard) In fact, the only area he caused trouble in was in his own when he gave away that penalty.

He is an attacking midfield player so what is he doing in the box making a tackle?

Where you watching the game Tommy? We had switched to 4-4-2 by then with Lucas subbed off.  Villa attacking. Should Gerrard have been on the half way line playing with himself?

In midfield, we were crowded out and couldn’t do anything expect pass sideways or backwards. Lucas was standing there dong nothing most of the time – I’ve got two bad legs so I could do that!

No offence Tommy but I'll stick with Lucas if that's allright.

[johnstop]

I felt for Gerrard as he hasnt played in that position for some time and his challenge was a bit late. I think most people and pundits agree that the gap between the front two and midfield is too big. The difference may be that Xabi could still pick people out from back there a bit like a quarter back were as Lucas and Masch simply dont have his vision or range of passing. I think poor old Lucas couldnt think his luck could get any worse until that goal went in.I also think we suffer when we dont have naturally wide player. I know some people dont rate Riera but for me he hugs that touchline and keeps our width whereas Kuyt and Benayoun come inside far to much leaving overlapping fullbacks facing two defenders. Apart from the above I still think there is something not quite right with the players attitudes. I think Rafa has a big enough job to do without having to constantly dodge bullets from the Yanks as they continue to treat him very poorly.

[JD]

I think Mascherano was very protected by Alonso.  Mascherano didn't need to do the pretty stuff because Alonso did it for him.  We all know Lucas isn't Alonso - hence the reason Real Madrid didn't want to buy Lucas for £30M, but we need Mascherano to step up to the plate a bit more - because the amount of pressure Lucas is under to seamlessly replace a £30M galactico is immense.

We missed someone like Agger against Aston Villa, somebody who would drive forward with the ball and pull their defence and midfield all over the place - freeing up Gerrard and Torres.

[johnstop]

I agree if you put Agger,Aurelio,Aqualini and Riera into the side it does look so much better. I think such is the negativity surrounding Lucas the lad will never make it here despite doing well until the own goal when his heart must have sunk.

[JD]

I hope I've provided critical analysis of 14 pages of this thread on the site

http://www.anfield-online.co.uk/editorial/2009/welcome-to-anfield-home-of-the-knee-jerk/

[vtorres]

Good article JD really putting the result in to perspective, the season cannot be over we could win all our games till the end you never know.

[CRK]

Tw*t of a result but the season is extremely young.

Watched it in a bar in Malta and needless to say, I was disappointed. We need to up our game if we're going to anywhere near the title this season.