I thought we were desperately poor, and complaining about a refereeing or linesman decision only seeks to fudge the fact in my eyes. Everyone connected with that performance from the manager through the coaches to the players ought to be ashamed of themselves. We were confused and without a coherant gameplan which has to be the fault of the manager, and added to that we failed to take responsibility and show character individually which has to be the fault of the players.
My ratings:
Mignolet: Did little wrong but also did little which was better than average, so therefore was one of the better players. 7/10.
Moreno: One suerb tackle where he was able to make use of his turbo charged pace, other than that absolutely awful. He may improve out of all recognition, but then again he may not. My hunch is that we've done our money. 5/10.
The future captain: Too easily sold for the second goal but in fairness it wasn't a bad piece of play by Delph and there wasn't a midfield player of ours in sight. The same applies to the first goal as Delph not only set the play up by taking two or three of our blokes out of it with a body swerve, but then ran past all of them to break onto our back four with none of our midfielders in view. Other than that, some solid defending and some timely interventions by the big man. Awful decision to go for the shot at the end, and on the two occasions that he muscled himself some room from corners ought to have headed it on target. There is obviously a player in there, but like many of ours today the mental strength and belief was lacking. 6/10.
Skrtel: Not his usual commanding self but was his first game back from suspension and was having to deal with a sieve like midfield shield. 6/10.
Can: Was targeted a bit in the first half but all in all I think he did OK. Not great by any means, but tried his bollocks off and by virtue of the fact he wasn't absolutely sh!te, my MOM. 7/10.
Markovic: Brutal. He may improve significantly, but then again he may not. My suspicion is that he will improve markedly, even to the extent where he may even be worth half as much as we paid for him one day. 3/10.
Allen: Inneffectual and utterly pointless display from Allen, and he was our best midfielder on the day. 5/10.
Henderson: He should take a video of this game home and watch what Fabian Delph does. There's a huge difference between "running around a lot" and actually running around with a purpose, with zip and penetration. It seems incredible to me that when we werelinked with Delph a few months back people scoffed and said we didn't need him because we had Henderson. jordan was awful today, and put in one of his hermit performances. Is this lad good enough? Really? I'm not so sure. 4/10.
Gerrard: Very poor on the day but at least he tried to put a tackle in now and then which was a bit of a rarity. 5/10.
Coutinho: Looked our most likely player all day but in truth utterly unlikely, which just about says it all really. 6/10.
Sterling: His contract situation has completely turned this lads head into a mush. Whether that's his fault, his agents fault, Brendans fault, Ayres's fault or anyone elses fault I don't know. It is a fact nonetheless. Poor today. 5/10.
Subs.
Ballotelli: Go home.4/10.
Lambert: Did as much as you could expect in three minutes.
The management team:
Brendan: Poor effort today. The team weren't up for it sufficiently, and it's the managers job to create a culture where that doesn't happen. 5/10.
Pascoe: I noticed him nodding his head at one point and unless Brendan was saying "Jesus we're sh!t aren't we?" I can't see what he was agreeing with. On a positive note he'd gelled his hair back a bit and dispensed with the centre parting, and as we all know no assistant manager worth his salts should have a centre parting (name me one who did? See what I mean?). Given the hairstyle change and the way he flourished the clipboard at Glen johnson (it had "play right back, keep it tight, if you can see your way to scoring a goal it wouldn't go amiss" written on it, I'm going to have to give him a 6/10.
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