I'm going to agree with Holywood Balls in terms of passing to players under pressure. While I don't think we should over emphasise on this, one particular football team play this way for 90 minutes and barely see less than 70% of ball possession (Barcelona). If our players are unable to play under pressure then they are not good enough. We need that composure and arrogance on the ball - those key ingredients that we have been missing for the past two decades.
As for the performance today, I thought we were relatively good. Yes, we allowed Villa to pile pressure on us at times but the end result was different. Mignolet, as crap as he usually is, actually managed to show some decisiveness today by coming out and collecting crosses from the opposition - it's something we rarely see from him, and if he does, he flaps at it.
Defensively we were fine. We are starting to work more as a unit and thus intercept their passes before they can enter the danger areas. This is something we were incapable of only a month ago. Many Liverpool fans will not want to agree with this but dropping Steven Gerrard is the correct choice right now. He is too immobile on the field and leave gaps in the midfield for the opposition to exploit. Lucas' superior positional awareness enables him to be two/three steps ahead in terms of defending. His passing is also more intricate and therefore helps us maintain our rhythm. He is more compatible with the system Rodgers likes to use.
I thought Lazar Markovic did especially well today. The kid is on good form and is starting to prove his doubters wrong (I was one of them). He put in a tireless display today and pretty much showed young Raheem up.
As a whole, I thought today was another good performance. We have seemingly turned a corner but if I were BR, I wouldn't want to take our recent run of good results for granted. I would still be looking for a GK and a ST in the January transfer window (if the option is out there for him).
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