Stoke 1-0 Liverpool: In game and Post Match debate

After a little time to reflect I don't think the game was quite a bad as it seemed a couple hours ago. Had one of those 5 attempts by Hendo and Adam went in we may be having a completely different conversation. That was just our luck today.....just about everything that could go against us did and yet we were still pressuring for a late equalizer. As bad as our midfield played, and as poor defending as Carra seemed to do we still should have won that game with a break or two here or there. Let's just get our Captain back and put this thing back on the right track next week.

Stoke shut down saurez no one else seems to be able to score,carra should be benched to slow ,so he fouls a liabilty. We arent top four material  lots of posession but no goals.Very sad see the two manchester teams walloping s a lot of clubs, we need to pick up our game or we are mid table club.

Saw a quote from Dalglish saying it was his worst 1-0 defeat ever.

Stoke shut down saurez no one else seems to be able to score,carra should be benched to slow ,so he fouls a liabilty. We arent top four material  lots of posession but no goals.Very sad see the two manchester teams walloping s a lot of clubs, we need to pick up our game or we are mid table club.

The Manc teams have had longer to build their teams, and far more money to do it.

The top 3 teams don't have an ageing center back who is now prone to mistakes like Carragher.  love the guy he's a legend but his time is up on my opinion.   Would Carragher get into any top team at this stage of his career. One trait of Ferguson is he always knows when it's time to retire players from playing in the first team. 

I have been at work today, do not know much about the game except giving away a penalty, obviously a bad result for the Reds.

The ref killed the game with the penalty. After that Stoke didn't want to know about a football match.

Here Here !!!!

^ very true, but credit to Stoke, they were given the pen and they took full advantage of it.

^ very true, but credit to Stoke, they were given the pen and they took full advantage of it.

To be honest, I don't really want to give them any credit - but they are due some.

They defended like F***ing demons, got a bit of luck and rode it for all they were worth.

We had our chances and we didn't take them, regardless of the sh*t ref.

sh*t happens - won't be the last time either.

^ very true, but credit to Stoke, they were given the pen and they took full advantage of it.

We would've too if we'd have been awarded the letter of the law...alas it cost us a frantic yellow card to our top striker who went ballistic and rightly so..!!

I'm not a man to cheering "In... we trust" and such, if I'm not watching REALY results - and I don't mean wins, I mean "gameplay".

We all - and I - saw, what great inspiration & "puss" Kenny gave to our team. We were almost doomed last Xmas and we almost won the place leading to the Europa League. That's great, indeed...

But!... We were waiting to see trully GREAT CHANGES in our team; and we didn't. Kenny personally choose and bought/signed, players that he believed they're suitable and fine for our club..., but each one of them, players from lower level clubs than us (like Sunderland or Newcastle), hoping & believing they're going to be great for our HIGH LEVEL team.
Well... to me... it's that all about: this is what we'll get from these players. I'm not sad or pissed from our players, because what you see it's what you'll get from them - maybe a bit better.

Trully, we all can understand how SUPERB & GREAT QUALITY player, Suarez is, right?
Do we, honestly, have ANYONE ELSE with Suarez's quality??? Maybe Reina & Stevie G. of course, when (and if!) he'll come back - and he'll be FINE & GREAT as he was, naturally! Except Stevie G. & Reina (mayby Kuyt too), we DON'T HAVE equal good quality's players like Suarez - and that's about it, that's the bottom line.

Now..., WHY KENNY didn't signed (as much as a sign like that would cost!!!) a quality player as great as SNEIJDER (for example) is, I don't know, ask Kenny. But obviously, our dearest Suarez isn't... Harry Poter to making "magic" all the time and winning by HIMSELF, is it? Football isn't... basketball! In basketball, you may see often, a team winning with A SIGLE GREAT PLAYER, by scoring himself 40-45 pts per game!... In football, there isn't often such a thing, unfortunatelly.
We saw today, a HOPELESS Suarez, asking and waiting a F*CKIN' GOOD ASSIST to do something good... and there wasn't any. I believe, I didn't saw the stats, we may had ONLY... 35% possitive assist during the whole game! The middle line (Adam, Henderson, Lucas), they gave ALMOST ALL the passes to... the opponents or they didn't knew what to do with the damn ball and they were looking for Suarez to... get rid the damn thing (ball)!!!

Sorry lads, I may speaking HARD, but that's the awful truth: even if we spend over 120.000.000 from the last January, we own ONLY A GREAT STRIKER (Suarez), a good goalie (Pepe), a good defender (Agger), a good winger (Kuyt) and a SUPERB INJURED leader (Stevie G.)... The rest, are "promising talents" AVERAGE quality players. Well, that's fine... but you're not getting champion or any tittle winner, with a roster like that.

Just take a short look back in time. Not in... '80s. Not that far. Just few years ago, in 2005-08. Take a look to our roster:

Riise, Hyypia, Finnan, Hamman, Gerrard (in his good "era"), Alonso, L.Garsia, M.Baros, Cisse, Traore, Sissoco, Morientes, Sinama Pongol... and later... Mascherano, Torres, Pennant, Crouch, etc.

THESE ABOVE PLAYERS' QUALITY, have ANYTHING to do with our present roster's quality... after the spending of... 120.000.000 pounds???

Holy sh*t, google translate has a lot to answer for.

I really love how you mentioned T R A O R É, Sinama-Pongole, Morientes, Sissoko and Pennant as top-quality players, there, Lupus.

Folks another major problem today which noone seems to mention is Carra. He gave away the penalty right infront Clattenburg and everytime he got the ball he was booting it up the field to probably the strongest biggest defence in the Prem. Thats one thing I think Kenny noticed with the corners why in the @nd half we kept going short to just try something diferent and try and draw the back line out. I love Carra but his team as a starter has come to an end. He cost us the goal against Bolton last weekend and he cost us the pen today. Everytime Agger or Skrtel got the ball they were looking to bring it forward or go short which is what we need, especially against STOKE " park the bus" City. I wish I knew Stoke supporters so I could just tell them how much of a bad, anti football side they are!!! Very frustrated. Looked so forward to this for 2 weeks and now have to deal with that result. Kenny needs to make his changes quicker I feel as well and play the strongest side. Henderson apart from his run and multiple misses was completely useless and ineffective today. Also Adams selfishness and the want to make the perfect pass really need to be addressed by KK. I know he is Scottish Kenny but let him know how it is!!! We really missed Gerarrd in the middle today. My strongest lineup after these 4 games now as follows:
                Reina
Johnson/Kelly   Skrtel Agger Enrique

                Lucas
Bellamy      Gerrard      downing

          Kuty        Suarez

Folks another major problem today which noone seems to mention is Carra.

A lot of people have mentioned it.  Here and in the Carra player thread.

Many team's will lose at Stoke... I still think we will win more than we lose! Well played all the red men

 It was one of those things. In football matches where you have the ball 3/4 of the time, and have 8 times as many shots on goal as the other lot, you usually win. Just once in a blue moon, the team which is getting outplayed has one of them days, gets all the luck and wins, that's what happened for Stoke today.

 Collectively we weren't that bad, individually I thought Adam, Henderson and Kuyt can play much better, while Carragher can defend much better than he did for the penalty. Incidently I thought it was a penalty, but equally I thought we were desperately unlucky not to get one of our shouts, in particular the Suarez one where Upson slid in and blocked the cross with his arm. 

 All in all though, it's not an easy place to go to and although it's painful to admit it, the result was hardly the hugest upset in the world. We've hardly had a good record against them Away over the last few seasons.

We played a good passing game, that's not how Stoke play.

Not in the final third of the pitch, and that is what matters ... Too many hopeful crosses against a defence that has no problem dealing with those ... We are still lacking a proper creative midfielder ... Hopefully, Gerrard will be back soon to take over the role ... This way, we will always struggle against packed defences ...

Aquilani was never really here, so I don't think he can be quoted in a "What If" comment.

Still, his passing in the final third is awesome ...

AC Milan vs Lazio [2-2] All Goals & Full Highlights 9/9/2011 - HQ |AC Milan vs Lazio 2011/2012|

It was definately a penalty for Stoke, you can not have your arms all over a player in the box and not get penalised.

Obviously there is the question of the foul that occured before teh penalty but it was a stone waller.

As were two of the handballs commited by Stoke and that challenge on Skrtel was also a stonewaller for me as it was a late challenge regardless of whether or not Skrtel got his shot away.

So on another day we could have won that game 5-1 had we got those penalty decisions and Suarez and Henderson put their chances away.

Never a pen.  Not in a million years.

Stone waller mate, if it was the opposite way round and some one was man handling Suarez like that we'd have been screaming from the roof tops about it.

But the ref applied the letter of law about contact in the box and the foul on Skrtel for me was a much worse incident than that and was a definate penalty, never mind the handball appeals too.

I agree on the pen for Stoke, no complaints personally but if he gives that he has to give the other and that's where it's a joke.

Just seen the highlights

Ridiculous

Had to give us one out of two of the penalty shouts, the first was so much more of a clear-cut penalty than theirs

There was MINIMAL contact on theirs, he can go down and the ref will give it, it's just unsportsmanlike, gone are the days of gents like Fowler