Watched the full game on tv. Then came on here to read a few post and see quite varied opinions on different players. Interesting reading. My opinion for what its worth, Not much I guess, is that this was always going to be a difficult game. Bournemouth aint setting the Championship on fire by any measures, but they do try to play good footy and keep the ball on the ground. Our players must have been a bit nervous, regarding our past results agains lesser sides. It isn't great and they must have known, had it gone wrong, they would have been slaughtered. As it happens, we did have a nervy start, gradually got on top, mainly due to Bournemouth knowing they had to keep the midfield packed to crowd the game down. That succeeded for a while at the expense of their non event in the final third, apart form a couple of early half chances. Poor pitch compared to prem standards, but we overcame that. We didn't take full control of the mid field, in my opinion, because once again Gerrard was too deep. Henderson does lots of running but with limited positive input. Most of the time when in possession, he looks for Gerrard, so once again most of his passing was sideways and backwards. Moses was better than usual, but still not top quality, Decent goal, but if Mignolet had let that in he would have been hung out to dry. Coutinho was not on his best form again, Sissokho very poor again, Toure not overly convincing, but done the basics, Skrtel, usual 100% but not terrific playing it out on the deck. Kelly looked like he was still trying to get back to his best, and in Mignolet we have a keeper who gives the back 4 the jitters. Sturrigde and Suarez a level above the rest, in the country that is. Overall, tough fixture, but job done and into the next round.
I think our problem is our defence is put under pressure too often, due to the midfield lack of cohesion, which means we give the ball away to often in dangerous areas of the field. Our own half, and individually our defence is just not good enough to cope. Our fluidity from mid field to the forward line is sporadic at best, and it seems that the thinking is not sharp enough. There are often runners and passes open, only for the ball to go square, or the hesitancy lets the opposition get too close, so it has to go sidewards or back. Screaming my lungs out, how the F**k didn't you see that ? Second half, Stevie started to fire a few decent passes around, but if we don't improve vastly for Tuesday, second half performances might just be a bit to late.
This is pretty much what we've been like for the last few games, yet we still seem to field pretty much the same starting 11, with the same tactics and set up. It obviously isn't working, and we are relying on scoring more goals than them, whoever they might be, but we're too shaky at the back, and to disjointed in mid field to rely on that against better sides. Think Brendan needs to do better. MOTM for me was Skrtel. It could easily have been Sturridge or Suarez, but he was our best defender and we are looking vulnerable there, so he has a lot to do. Oh, and just a mention about Henderson's shooting. Schoolboy errors.
Logged