Liverpool v Spurs - Post Match Discussion

From the limited highlights I've seen of the game, the thing that springs to mind for me is 'ball watching'. The two goals we conceded combined, all four defenders were guilty of it. That's criminal.
For our first goal, it was totally the opposite. The only person who wasn't ball watching was Voronin. Great anticipation to knock the rebound in.

It seems to me that we passed the ball a bit better today compared to Wednesday - I think I seen more than four passes strung together. But that smell of uncertainty and lack of confidence still lingers. Not only from the players but from the crowd too. The passage of play leading up to Torres' brilliant headed goal, I couldn't hear a thing? Attacking the Kop end? Or was it the microphones were turned off?

I'm hopeful that this international break is going to do us good (for once) - I'm not glad of it but I'm not as gutted as I usually would be for it breaking up a run of 'form'. And what better way to 'kick off' back into gear after the break than a derby game? If that doesn't get the passion and belief back up to levels where they belong, then I'll start thinking something's not quite right.

On reflection of todays game, I think it's two points lost and a shame we couldn't get that game on Wednesday out of our system. Years ago if we'd had a performance so bad as Wednesdays one, the next opponents would have been stripped naked and taken apart!!
But at least we had the guts to get a point out of it when it so could have easily been a defeat. The team that was put out had quality in it and once they pass the white line, it's up to them to produce. If our defence wasn't ball watching today it could have easily been a good win.

It's going to take one game at a time for me, rather than thinking this is the year for winning the league. Hopefully we can get this bad form out of the way now, rather than over the Christmas period.

I hope we lose big margin today....get rafa sack...get us number 18 or you can pack your rotation policy back to spain....

:| u sound alot like a fella who everytime benitez came on the telly said "f*ck off u fat c*nt"    in hargreaves are you him :|

It looks like Hyppia is over it.
Sign a CB in the January period. A veteran with experience who won't cost too much.

Anyway ,Gerrard was pretty bad today. As was Carragher.

Mascherano was phenomenal.

Anyone else agree with me that we should go with a Masch/Alonso midfield with Gerrard on the wings when Alonso returns, if Gerrard still struggles against Everton/Arsenal?

:| u sound alot like a fella who everytime benitez came on the telly said "f*ck off u fat c*nt"    in hargreaves are you him :|

He can't be a Liverpool fan.  Notice he's said get number 18

Mascherano was phenomenal.
Anyone else agree with me that we should go with a Masch/Alonso midfield with Gerrard on the wings when Alonso returns, if Gerrard still struggles against Everton/Arsenal?

Mascha phenomenal?? What game were you watching mate?? He was far from it, he's alot slower than i though, and he too, lacks alot of creativity. He also lacks the skill of constantly presenting himself to the defenders, and  having the ability to spread the ball wide...That's why our defence knocks the ball long to nobody, as we dont have a proper defensive midfielder to play as that link man....
Gerrard has to be as much involved in the game as possible...playing him right midfield is not a good move, he's better off sitting behind the strikers as an attacking mid, just to add more push and fire to out attacks when needed.

Okay, I haven't seen the goals cause I was on the train back to Uni, but all I can is is we are never gonna win the league if we just about draw with Spurs who were in the bottom 3 not so long ago!! Disgraceful. REMEMBER I'm only commenting on the score and time of us scoring (ie Torres in 92nd min!) because I have seen zilch of the actual game.

This team is not good enuf to win us #19.as long as rafa is still coaching there'll be no #19 tbh.what a crap player he's buying?pennant arbeloa babel lack confident.no penetration.why cant rafa coach them properly.or did rafa know how to coach them.doubt he can now.dropping points against side we can beat is silly.hope the owners will sack rafa soon.and get someone who know how whip the players arses. NO #19

This team is not good enuf to win us #19.as long as rafa is still coaching there'll be no #19 tbh.what a crap player he's buying?pennant arbeloa babel lack confident.no penetration.why cant rafa coach them properly.or did rafa know how to coach them.doubt he can now.dropping points against side we can beat is silly.hope the owners will sack rafa soon.and get someone who know how whip the players arses. NO #19

Why dont you coach them champ??
You werent bagging him when he one us NUMBER 5 CL to keep and the F.A cup.....its a work in progress this season with many new additions to the squad, and the team is still learning about one another...

give us #19 and he can rotate....this squad is no good...every season always like that...new player..trying to play together..still learning..what is that..c'mon...play ur best 11.players get paid to get tired..thats what they shud do.the fan who go to stadium also not helping...just sit n watch with mouth shut..hey this is not tennis game...sing your heart out...i must admit..LIVERPOOL will not win the league as long as BENITEZ here.u all can shoot me...but i've been the true supporter for past 30 years but i give up on benitez policy on rotation...make me sick...

Mate, it doesnt sound like you're a liverpool supporter at all....you dont have the true spirit of a liverpool fan....how can you be so negative and cynical??
How can u say this squad is no good?? At this point every season we have lacked goal scoring ability and we would be sitting 11th on the table....At the moment, we're sitting 4th with a game in hand, we can move to 2nd if we win that...
Why dont you go coach them mate, seriously....the players get paid to win, give their best and work hard....
Do you know what a work in progress means??? This team has to gel together before they start playing good football...We have world class players in our team, so our squad is clearly very good...
Stop talking out of your a** buddy.....

just sit n watch with mouth shut..hey this is not tennis game

 

You make me laugh. Did you think Rafa would never win us number 5 as well? I hope so. Then I really will believe he can land us number 19.

Mascha phenomenal?? What game were you watching mate??

I had to rely on the radio for commentary (saw first half, not second) and they said at one point he was being constantly applauded. Also, again, he is a defensive midfield player. He wins the ball and makes simple passes to more creative players. He is in effect a creative player by virtue of his winning the ball and being the first passer of it, which is also what Momo does, except for the passing at times  : .

Sounds like Scouser 90  wants an all creative midfield at the expense of a defensive capability?

Wouldn't argue about what people said about Voronin's performance. He did his job well today and is pushing his case to be started more often.

How can we improve our squad? the only way in which we can improve is our defending, it can be so much better. I know there is still a long way to go however i do believe that the draw will cancel our title chances "THIS YEAR" each year from here on our players will get better, Gerrard will be Peaking next year. The only way we will get back into an awesome position is if we knock off Arsenal late this month, followed by Man utd which is December. I think this lose will do one of two things, 1. be a confidence booster, or 2. ruin our confidence completely. Don't tell me that it is still early days....i'm aware

if...if...if...if....if. ..if......if...if....if. ....if.......if...if.... ..if....if......
us winning the league 

at this time i just hate rafa....sorry mate...just hate him...draw at home brum..

hate is a pretty strong word mate....i suggest you seriously watch how you talk about this club to the supporters on here who love the club and the people involved no matter what...

Im just happy we came out of taht witha point in the end. It wasnt looking good but at least the boys kept going to the end.

Carra looks likd a different player dont know if the rib injury is still effecting him or not and at times yesterday Gerrard seemed to drop the head if he came out 2nd best in a tackle and not chase back which is very unlike him.

As ive said in other posts i dont think as a unit we are attack minded enough and sometimes play stupid passes instead of just keeping it simple. Fo me only Masch finnan and voronin came out of yesterday with real credit Torres was ok and subs had a decent impact. Overall im not going to panic because I truly believe we will get it right.

One final word about he support. T times yesterday when we could have got behind the lads more we were very quiet cant understand this lack of vocal support. And the worst was with ten minutes to go 3 lads 3 rows in front of me in the Anny road got up to leave 2 of them threw there scarfs on to the pitch one shouting f**k off Liverpool or something to that effect why and how do these knobs get tickets and i hope they never get tickets again 

This team is not good enuf to win us #19.as long as rafa is still coaching there'll be no #19 tbh.what a crap player he's buying?pennant arbeloa babel lack confident.no penetration.why cant rafa coach them properly.or did rafa know how to coach them.doubt he can now.dropping points against side we can beat is silly.hope the owners will sack rafa soon.and get someone who know how whip the players arses. NO #19

arbeloa crap ? :O
he has been one of our best players this season (maybe the best after torres)!!

as for babel, he needs time to settle in...u cant expect a young player to straightaway make his mark in the premiership.he has the potential to become a very good player for us.

JP had a very good start but his performances have gone down a bit recently,but u certainly cant say that he doesnt provide any penetration.

at this time I just hate rafa....sorry mate...just hate him...draw at home brum..

If you are going to be so dismissive of our team and Rafa you should go and support another team.Whilst I accept constructive critiscm of the players and management I think such ill though childish comments are better posted elsewhere.

Most fans this morning are dissapointed as the players should be but we must SUPPORT them team and not knock them at every opportunity.

ive said it before and i'll say it again.

our squad is still very much a work in progress, theres alot of new faces trying to fit in and it will take time to gel and for rafa top see who can cut it and who cant.

i believe hes probabaly already starting to realise hes needing a couple of faces already but the time to panic is not now.
too many people are on here are too impatient.

i.e centre back and maybe left back cover, as well as a left winger and maybe even another decent striker to partner torres or replace crouch!

arent pennant, babel, benni, masch & torres a massive massive improvement to the previous regime.
did you lot forget who we had before.

shall we bring back smicer, zenden, cisse, traore etc etc.

do me a favour !

so its slow progress but its not bad with the cups weve won since rafa has been here is it?

lets not forget we are not chelsea and cannot over haul a whole squad in one summer.
get real will you!!!

Bloody good post Marc, too many people on here seem to want everything instantly & need to realise that it's not gonna work that way. We've been trailing financially behind Utd & Chelsea for years, and we're not gonna close that gap in the space of one season. All I ask is to see progress each season, which I have done every year Rafa's been here. I also make my judgements on how we've done a bit closer to the end of the season, as the table & performances at the moment give no indication of what will be happening in May.

completely agree with there eddie, weve made huge strides in recent years,
plus theres also the fact that the top three have significantly strengthened their squads making it look like we havent done much, plus theres also teams like pompey and man city enjoying good patches. this league is damned tough this year!

spurs have always had dangerous players, that was quite evident yesterday.

theres nothing wrong with Max but i'd be happier with an assistant manager to help him out a bit more.

I also think like Eddie said in post 158 that we actually played alright, definitely wasn't like Wednesday night against Marseille. I liked the look of the side when they first came out...I was only worried about Riise , thought Babel should have been given a start. I thought in the first few minutes having JP on the right wing gave us abit of zip but as the game wore on he couldn't stop messing up...especially the one where he kicked it out for a corner from the halfway line when he was being hemmed in.

I thought the crowd especially up until that 1st goal was fantastic....didn't hear the Tottenham supporters at all, and I was singing everything with gusto in my loungeroom. That 1st goal knocked the stuffing out of us but I thought, even though we conceded our first goal from open play this season, that we still had enough quality to come back and win it. Geez we had a few chances in the 1st half to kill it off but once again we fluffed our chances.

When there 2nd goal went in I was stunned....how could Sami miss 2 headers like that against Berbatov when we all know that's one of Sami's greatest assets. I'm just glad that JC obviously stepped in and said enoughs enough, I'll take him...I don't remember him getting another clear header after that. 1-2 but I honestly thought we could still win, plenty of time....but I was begging, screaming at the TV for Rafa to get Riise off and Babel on.....what does he do?, he takes Aberloa off and puts Babel on....Riise for me just isn't upto scratch and didn't give us anything at all going forward. When Babel came on, he looked dangerous, but more than that he looked like a brute, tough and strong and most importantly quick....He needs to start more games.

The one thing that stuck out most for me was Stevie G. He's back in his favored position but I just don't remember him getting forward at all. It was like Masch was doing that job. How many times did we get a cross in, they headed it out and no one was there to slam it back in....I'm so use to seeing Stevie doing that and pummeling his way into the box but that toe break must be more serious than we thought because he just hasn't been the same since and I can't remember the last time he was in the box.

For me our best player was quite easily Voronin, he looked dangerous up front and he defended well a couple of times when we really needed him. Thank goodness Torres was still on the pitch at the end of the game, a beautiful header to save some of our blushes. Definitely two points lost at our Sacred ground but at least a better performance then what we witnessed against Marseille. That team that Rafa put out was good enough to get the 3 points against a struggling Tottenham side, we didn't get it done but to call for Rafa to get sacked is just plain f*cking ridiculous...you shouldn't support LFC for starters and you should be on the Official LFC website forum if you wanna talk sh*t like that. It's because of Rafa that we have a permanent Champions League cup sitting in our bulging trophy cabinet and don't ever forget it.

Let's hope the boys have a nice break and come back and start winning again and show that we are and will be a great team for a long time, led by a Manager who we've all loved before and hope will take us to what rightfully is ours.