Derby County vs. Liverpool FC - Match Thread

Let's not allow that goal to paper over the cracks of today's performance. Yet again by the skin of our teeth.

Very true Reepicheep. We will not win anything if we don't shake that sort of play out of our team. Lucky three points today.

We turned into a complacent team as the game progressed and one or two players really did show that they are NOT Liverpool players. Really disappointed but over the moon we got the three points. Think a few lessons need to be learned from todays performance. One of which is for Rafa - if you're putting Riise in a position that he's woeful at, he needs protection in front of him. I can't see how much longer Riise can carry on. And thank goodness Voronin was free. Think he's showing why now.

very lucky today.

sell voronin in january and bring in david villa and david silva. at the start of the season he looked like a good signing but he just cant play well any more, remember when we lost to besikta and he missed from basically on the line. kuyt needs to sort it out too, he needs to start putting away his chances. good to see we have got another brilliant number 9 snce fowler and rush, going to get the 20+ goals

Shocking performance by a couple of players but 3 points is all that matters.

What is worrying me though is where the goals are going to come from (apart from Torres and Gerrard)?
Voronin has had a poor scoring record throughout his career,Kuyt hasn't been in form this season at all.
That leaves us with Crouch,who Rafa prefers to bring on as a sub.

IMO,its time Rafa tries Babel up front for a couple of games.

Well, 3 points in the bag not a good second by any stretch of the imaginations, but champions will always get such games in the course of a season.  Chin up everyone we won, even though it should have been truely over in the first half with 80% possession and total domination, we should have put the game out of reach.  It could have been Birmingham mark 2, but the captain did what he does best and that is break oppositions hearts.

I thought that was one of the best performance for Riise this season, I thought it was one of Babbel's poor games, and also Veronin.  Anyway,  Man City are next a better performance is the doctor's orders!

3 Points at the end of the day and thats what matters most at the moment, but we really need to sort it out for the games to come!
All i can say is thank you Gerrard for digging us out of this one yet again!

Come on the reds we can do better than this!

I haven't seen the game yet, I'll give my proper thoughts after watching it on lfc.tv tomorrow, but by the sound of things we picked up all three points whilst playing badly. When any of the other big teams do this it's 'the mark of champions', so what makes it so different for us? Much as we'd all love it we can't play brilliantly all the time, the best we can do is make sure we still scrape it when playing badly, like we have today by all accounts.

Gerrards goal here: http://www.lfcreds.com/reds/index.php/topic,3320.msg80170.html#msg80170

Shocking performance by a couple of players but 3 points is all that matters.

What is worrying me though is where the goals are going to come from (apart from Torres and Gerrard)?
Voronin has had a poor scoring record throughout his career,Kuyt hasn't been in form this season at all.
That leaves us with Crouch,who Rafa prefers to bring on as a sub.

IMO,its time Rafa tries Babel up front for a couple of games.

I think Babel will definately score goals, I thinks in this his first season he will score double figures and expectations of him hitting 15 goals is a realistic aim.  Benayoun has goals in him also, not mensioning Lucas even though this season maybe very early but he again has goals in him.

Babbel up front is inevitible, however, I just feel that Benitez is going to leave that till the business end of the season.  As a master tactician, he always wants cards up his sleeves.

I haven't seen the game yet, I'll give my proper thoughts after watching it on lfc.tv tomorrow, but by the sound of things we picked up all three points whilst playing badly. When any of the other big teams do this it's 'the mark of champions', so what makes it so different for us? Much as we'd all love it we can't play brilliantly all the time, the best we can do is make sure we still scrape it when playing badly, like we have today by all accounts.

Just said the same thing to my sister Ed, when Chavs or Mancs scrape a win its the 'sign of a good team', when we do it, its because we're crap !!   Bloody Sky, they were gloating 5 mins from the end, thought we'd dropped points.  Even Jeff Stelling in his round-up of the games mistakenly said 'Liverpool have dropped points', then corrected himself, ar*ehole !!    Phil Tommo would of ate him alive !       

Glad we got the 3 points though, but not good enough in my opinion against the likes of Derby.

ManU is 9 points in front of us...again this early in the season...I'm just pissed off.

ManU is 9 points in front of us...again this early in the season...I'm just pissed off.

Don't be so negative !!  As you state ' this early in the season' - we got loads of time to catch up, wait until their injuries start   

Nice to see Rafa's nocked it on the head straight away.

LINK


RAFA: WE NEED TO BE MORE CLINICAL
Steve Hunter at Pride Park 26 December 2007



Rafael Benitez admits Liverpool made hard work of their 2-1 win at Derby County and has warned his players they must be more clinical in front of goal.

With Manchester City not playing until Thursday night Steven Gerrard's last gasp strike moved the Reds up to fourth place in the Premier League, but the boss felt his team should have wrapped up the points before his skipper's moment of inspiration.
 
"The first half was really good because we were in control, had plenty of possession but you must finish the game," said Benitez.
 
"I don't know why but we couldn't get the second goal. In the second half they were more physical and aggressive and when we conceded a goal we became a little bit nervous.
 
"We still created good clear chances, though, through Xabi Alonso, Fernando Torres, Dirk Kuyt and Andriy Voronin.
 
"Gerrard won the game for us at the end and we know how good he is at getting from box to box, but as I said we should have had the game won a lot earlier than what we did."
 
The Reds boss revealed that he will have to assess the fitness of Sami Hyypia at Melwood on Thursday to see whether he will be available for Sunday's trip to Manchester City.
 
"Sami had a problem with his ankle and we will need to see how it is. I will need to talk to the doctor," added Benitez.

After having read through some of the posts here, I would totally agree that we did not perform on par today, not by a long shot. The reason for this is we did not give Derby enough respect and some of the players performances showed this. Some players looked lazy after Torres scored and tried making it look like a training game, because to all intents and purposes this is how they saw it and it looked like a wave of "I cant be botherd because we are gonna get another hatful" attitude was running amok especially in the second half. Having said that though its fair to reflect on championship performances by teams who have won the premier league, and those teams have often come along to a side they beat quite easily only to pull out a result with a dreadful performance, we did that today got the 3 points when we did not play very well at all, and its times like that when you can look up and say we can win this premiership title. The scum and the gooners will slip up sooner or later and the chavs did so today but if our luck rides, we can win games like that one today, Im telling you this we can win this league.

Starting to get a bit frustrated with our 'not playing up to standard'.  Okay so we got the result today - but when you see United go away and hammer a sh*t team like what we should be doing then it is very very worrying.

I don't know how many more of these Rafa has left....



..but he can't have too many more.

well i for one have seen us play well and lose so its a change to play piss poor and win like a fellow poster added when the mancs do it its a sign of champions ok we were sh*t today but 3 points are all that will be remembered we cant be brill every week come on you red men we still in the hunt well i believe we are anyway ynwa

I Know most are moaning, and I can not comment as I have not seen the game, but that win actually means we have the best away record at the present in the EPL.

Starting to get a bit frustrated with our 'not playing up to standard'.  Okay so we got the result today - but when you see United go away and hammer a sh*t team like what we should be doing then it is very very worrying.

I don't know how many more of these Rafa has left....



..but he can't have too many more.

My thoughts exactly while watching this one! Pretty woeful considering the opposition! I think Paul Jewell's team talk at half time must have been pretty good!

I'm happy with the final result of course, but making hard work of a team we thrashed 6-0 at home? It shouldn't be happening! If we play like that against City then we've no hope of taking anything from it!

Enough negativity though! 3 points in the bag, Chelsea dropping points spectacularly against Villa! Not a bad day! And very good point Andy, us playing badly and still winning is better than playing well and losing!

After the goal, we definitely switched off and we almost paid the price against a spirited Derby County who, truth be told, looked dangerous when they ran at our defenders. We were lax, uninspired and just not up for it and the goal provided the much needed wake-up call. Torres's goal was again sublime showing brilliant skill and composure in the buildup and finish. Decent service then dried up and a few below-par performers contributed to Derby grinding their way back into it, honestly, much to my annoyance. We made it hard for ourselves and count ourselves fortunate to have escaped with all the points in the bag. A disappointing display bar the opening goal but three points are three points...this is how title contenders always seem to find a way out of likely draws...

We live to fight another day and will need to up the tempo against Sven's men...

We were pretty much awful today but won. Hopefully we can kick ourself up our asses and get back to full potential.

Well the gooners have been held by pompey, so that's two points closer to the top for us.

Arsenal have drawn 0-0 with Portsmouth, not a bad day afterall.