Just got in, was high up in the kop today, seen no highlights or replays so giving my opinions on what i thought and saw from where I was.
Firstly I was very happy with the starting 11. Thought it was strange that he went with the Fab Four today and not on Sunday though.
Game kicks off and from what I can work out WBA are playing a 4-1-4-1. They are sat very, very deep and it was obvious five minutes in what sort of game we were in for.
The football we played was again slow and it was again very predictable. I've criticised Henderson so much over the past few months but I thought both Wijnaldum and Can were passengers today. We badly lacked a CM on the pitch.
WBA kept their shape very well to be fair to them and they weren't interested in attacking just like Everton weren't. Whenever any of the Fab Four touched the ball they doubled up on them and made it very difficult.
I thought we played far too narrow and even though Trent and Robertson offered support at times, salah and Mane should have drifted out wide more.
First half we had a couple of half chances. Firmino should have scored even though his chance was in a very tight position. Trent also whipped in a great cross or two that we should have made more of.
They hit the bar in the first half though. Foster comes into our half to take a free kick for them. The ball ends up in karius's arms and the whole ground is screaming for him to launch the ball because foster is miles out his goal, but instead he rolls it five yards to can. Can try's to take a few on but gets tackled. Eventually the all falls to their lad outside the box who placed his curling shot that looked like it was going in the top bin. Karius is scrambling but luckily it hit the bar and went out for a goal kick.
Very boring half. Dog sh*t actually.
Second half was pretty much the same. First five minutes they had a couple of really good chances from set pieces. Then it was all us but we just couldn't break them down. We had a few good half chances and salah should have scored from yet another great all from Trent but he somehow put his header wide. We also had a goal disallowed but to be fair it looked like a clear handball from where I was.
I was disappointed klopp didn't change anything really and we had no plan B. He did bring the ox and solanke on but our style etc didn't change in any way. With big Dom on maybe we should have gone route 1 and played a few long balls or put some high crosses into the box.
Karius - had a couple of jittery moments and was slow in distribution at times. However, he made a couple of excellent saves too.
TAA - my motm. Best player on the pitch for me. Put some beautiful crosses into the box and supported the attack well. He also defended superbly too.
Klavan - I thought he did very well, one of the best games I've seen him play to be honest
Lovren - yeah he did ok, didn't have that much to do
Robertson - defended ok but his attacking side wasn't great today. This is partly because the man infront of him was absolutely awful perhaps so he had no link up play. When I've seen Robertson previously he's put in lots of dangerous crosses but none of that today.
Wijnaldum - passenger
Can - passenger but worse. Constantly gives stupid fouls away when he doesn't need too. The opposition are boxed in, they're going nowhere, there is no reason to foul them and give them a free kick but this dope constantly does it. Gets booked for repeated fouling and then moans to the ref.
Mane - worst player on the pitch. Everything he touched went to sh*t. Really struggling for form at the moment.
Coutinho - huffed and puffed a little bit. Got on the ball as much as he could and he was trying his best to create something but didn't come off.
Salah - quiet today. WBA did their homework and really doubled up on him the second he touched the ball.
Firmino - had a few half chances but wasn't his day.
Ox - did well when he came on I thought offered us a bit of a spark and he had a shot or two.
Solanke - goal disallowed but it was handball in my opinion. Did little else because he had no service.
One last thing, the ref was a c**t. Gave so many soft fouls for them that broke the play up and he never got a grip of their time wasting. What's worse, when our players were hacked etc he gave us F**k all! Horrible manc.
Disappointing night for the reds, two points dropped.
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