Liverpool 2-3 Udinese: In game and Post Match Grimace

Disappointed with Borini and Assaidi tonight. Thought the rest were great. Shame Shelvey didn't put us 2-1 up.

I thought Assaidi started off great (again) then just faded as he has in his other games.

Im going to go against general opinion in here and say we got it wrong tonight. Will probably be shot down but its a forum and its my opinion!

Yes we played ok and did not deserve to lose. But we took liberties with team selection and I didn't care for BR's team selection tonight.

This is european football ffs not the f*cking carling cup. I wish they had left half their first team out including di natale.

What did the selection achieve....another home defeat and now we go into the weekend on the back of another defeat.

Leaving Suarez, Sterling, Gerrard, Skrtel and Sahin out tonight was taking liberties in my opinion. You cannot constantly be worrying about players getting injured for the next game. We are Liverpool ffs and we take each game as it comes. We still should have won the game however but that is not the point. The point is that if we had picked our strongest 11 we would have won...made it 3 wins on the bounce and extended our unbeaten run to 3 and got confidence up further.

What we ended up with was a fit first team for sunday and another defeat.

Although I don't like it I can live with a weakened side in the league cup and even the FA Cup...but this is europe ffs...we want to be in europe every season and do well. The league and europe should be our priority this season...the other 2 are opportunities to mix it up.

Our defending has been a joke all season...and it was poor again tonight.  We had a chance to put ourselves in a strong position in this group tonight and we have not taken it!

Not having a go a BR but in europe especially early on in the group in the big games you have to play your strongest 11 

Rant over!

Well we'll play our strongest 11 every game possible then. Genius. Regardless of the capable reserves we have to mix in for this kind of game, we'll play them. And watch them burn out. That'll be fun. Yeah, top idea!



EDIT: I forgot to mention, FA Cup an opportunity to mix it up? I have two words. 'F**k' and 'OFF' - you can't say Udinese in the Europa group stages is "OMG FIRST F***ing 11 OR BUST MOFUCKAAAAS" but the FA Cup is "ehhhh whatevs" for fucks sake. That squad was perfectly capable (as evidenced for much of the game) to take it. You're just clutching at obvious (and weak) excuses. Yes first 11 is always better, but we could have won that easily without Suarez and co.

The reason Henderson was the one replaced by Stevie is we wanted to attack more and that we coudn't afford having two controlling CMs out there. It's as simple as that.

Well we'll play our strongest 11 every game possible then. Genius. Regardless of the capable reserves we have to mix in for this kind of game, we'll play them. And watch them burn out. That'll be fun. Yeah, top idea!

FFS read my post again lad  . I said we should go all out in the league and in europe and mix it up in the league cup and fa cup. Now that imo would be a good idea. Where in my post did I say play our best team every week. Get a grip of yourself!

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers: "I thought the team worked very well but we can't have to score three, four or five goals to win games. That is the area we have to work on. We concede goals too easily."

But I thought you pushed up your wing backs and left two centre halves high up the halfway line? A pacy striker can destroy you singlehandedly. Two forwards, one spraying the ball to the flank with the other bringing it down the byline and getting the ball behind your two centre halves will allow your opponent to score easily isn't it? But why?

Wouldn't hurt to position three defensive players when we are attacking. We don't need eight in attack as Luis has proved it.

FFS read my post again lad  . I said we should go all out in the league and in europe and mix it up in the league cup and fa cup. Now that imo would be a good idea. Where in my post did I say play our best team every week. Get a grip of yourself!

Yeah, check my edit. I still completely disagree and think it was full of BS though.

  Same old story no plan B can't change anything s he doesn't know how I did warn you it's not going to get better believe me!

Disappointed with Borini and Assaidi tonight. Thought the rest were great. Shame Shelvey didn't put us 2-1 up.

I'll say the same. Assaidi should do better. Ok, he took on defenders but he need that extra confidence and commitment to beat defenders. He has an average game and will only improve in future while Borini had plenty of running but no results to show for. His positioning in the box is poor, I struggle to find him anywhere inside the box most of the time. If he doesn't put himself often enough inside the box, he's simply not going to score goals.

On the positive note, happy to see some of the through passes into the opposition box that we hardly get to see before BR.

The reason Henderson was the one replaced by Stevie is we wanted to attack more and that we coudn't afford having two controlling CMs out there. It's as simple as that.

It was only 1-1 with half hour left - bring on Suarez then and the Sterling.

We lost the midfield and any shape when Henderson went off.

Lucas has being an enormous miss.

Yeah, check my edit. I still completely disagree and think it was full of BS though.

If we want to get out of this group and be in europe after christmas then we need to ensure qualification by getting results against the other strong teams in the group, especially at home. Maybe rest a few against Young Boys but we were not playing them tonight.

Im disappointed with the result tonight. It was our toughest game in the group imo and we should have played a stronger team. It was noticible the difference Suarez and Sterling made...60/70 mins of them the game would have been won imo and we could have rested them for sunday. Thats not including sahin, gerrard skrtel and others!

And do me a favor and don't be so aggresive. If you don't agree then fine but you can still be respectful!

It was only 1-1 with half hour left - bring on Suarez then and the Sterling.

We lost the midfield and any shape when Henderson went off.

Thought Stevie's impact (excluding the lost ball for their goal) was very good. The manager cannot predict a player of Stevie's quality will lose a ball which will cost us a goal. He was playing in his preferred position too.

It was only 1-1 with half hour left - bring on Suarez then and the Sterling.

We lost the midfield and any shape when Henderson went off.

Haven't watched the game yet, just got in from work but i can see where this post is going.

I've even said myself that Henderson is an important part of this side while Lucas is out. He does all the dirty work, all the cleaning up. All the work that goes unnoticed by some.

Somebody has to do it and while i understand Henderson is very much a work in progress he is very important when it comes to working hard off the ball. I don't know who started in midfield yet as i've been in work but the only player i see capable of doing Henderson's role is Sahin at the moment.

If Masch is not getting any game time with Barca, maybe we should get him on loan till the end of the season. Robinson is doing ok, and since we can't get Lucas to come back soon enough perhaps we should get Enrique to take up Lucas role. Desperate times requires desperate actions.

Thought Stevie's impact (excluding the lost ball for their goal) was very good.

In what way ? He didn't contribute anything of significance ?!

I'm sorry but it may be wrong to say it but Gerrard coming on helped us lose that game.

Would have taken shelvey off instead of Henderson he disappeared in the second half when they started picking him up.

This is all Charlie Adam's fault!

If Masch is not getting any game time with Barca, maybe we should get him on loan till the end of the season. Robinson is doing ok, and since we can't get Lucas to come back soon enough perhaps we should get Enrique to take up Lucas role. Desperate times requires desperate actions.

The midfield was doing fine until a big gap appeared in it tonight

Didn't take long to undo 45 minutes good work. 20 seconds in fact. Just lazy half arsed stuff from Johnson for the first goal. Sh*t touch, sh*t attempt to get back and sh*t attempt to block.

Second goal Coates should have headed it high high high over his own bar

and the 3rd goal was just awful from captain fanastic. Gives the ball away and walks about head down while the guy who he could have got back to put pressure on thumps it bottom corner.

Just general lazyness and sloppiness which in this system cannot happen. Players have to be calm on the ball but they also have to be focussed all the time. At times I think Johnson in particular needs a rocket up his arse. Just seems to be in a world of his own at times.

Shelvey had a shocker second half, surprised it wasn't he who come off rather than Hendo who was a controlling presence. When Gerrard came on he didn't have a care for doing any donkey work and it cost us dearly.

Our defending from set pieces was sh*t all day. At HT I aid we had to defend well from set plays and not be sloppy at the back. They didn't do either and we lost.

Different style of play, same results. Same reason. Sloppiness. When we have a team down we need to be ruthless. Sides know they are always in the game against us because they can either cut us open or wait for us to lose the ball in dangerous areas off our own back.

Infuriating watching that second half. I hope the players are tearing into each other, because some of them, their attitude was f**king sh*t.

Have to agree with all of that. Individual errors have cost us all season long and we will not win many games until our failings at the back are addressed. Thats not to put all the blame on the defence. The protection infront of them at times is nowhere to be seen.

We need to get a settled back 4 and leave it alone. And we need Lucas back big time!

Why wasn't Sahin playing?

Would have taken shelvey off instead of Henderson he disappeared in the second half when they started picking him up.

Agree but Shelvey can't play on Sunday and Hendo can maybe?

Thought Stevie's impact (excluding the lost ball for their goal) was very good. The manager cannot predict a player of Stevie's quality will lose a ball which will cost us a goal. He was playing in his preferred position too.

I don't think losing a ball in the opponents half of the field should be costing us goals. We were awful at the back tonight. Only Robinson had a decent game. For the 3rd goal nobody was busting a gut to get back in and that is unacceptable!

But we have seen it all season. Teams are getting into our back 4 too easy too often and most of the time with only one pass!

We wanted to win the match, we'd dominated them in the first half and we wanted to re-establish our lead. The boss thought Allen could handle the 1-2 role and could afford to take off Henderson and switch it up, personally don't think he was too wrong, if you look at their goals it's hard to say it was the midfield at fault. Gerrard offers a better goal threat than Henderson, a massive amount more, if you saw how he linked up with Suarez immediately and we pinned them back for large periods.

The simple fact is that we conceded 3 shocking goals and didn't covert enough of our chances, the performance as a whole was very good and the substitution makes perfect sense when you want to win the game. Taking Shelvey off and replacing with Gerrard would of simply been like for like and the boss wanted to win our home game in Europe, which I agree with that mindset personally.