Espanyol 3-0 Liverpool: Post Match Annoyance

Funny as it sounds, I did see a number of positives in the performance lastnight.

1) Gerrard - His brilliance is still evident. The only problem I see with that is that if he's miles better than the majority of our team, are we going to be relying on him too much like we did previously.

2) Torres - Showed some fantastic skill. Unlucky to have had more proper clear cut chances but he kept their defence busy enough for a friendly.

3) George's Development Plan - Lucas played comfortably. I feel the faith we need to have in him less and less frightening the closer we get to the start of the season. He's no world class midfielder, but he's improving steadily.

A couple of negatives from it too, barring of course getting tw*tted 3-0. :

1) Babel - Still has a first touch of a mugger, not looking increasingly like the world class player we expected. Hope that his improvement becomes a little more evident, otherwise I feel we should be strengthening on his side of the pitch.

2) Defensive Cover - While Johnson had a few minor slips, I feel that he played well. But Degen and San Jose were caught short a couple of times in the lead up to goals. With Arbeloa gone, I'm praying that Johnson stays fit because Degen is either going to be injured, or not up to the job.

I've purposely waited until this morning before making any comment simply because it's easy to get carried away when one's feeling hurt at losing. I don't think that any of us like to watch the Reds get beaten and easily beaten at that so i can understand some of the comments on this thread.

Our performance looked jaded and the lads looked tired. Perhaps the pre-season schedule had taken it's toll; remember that we've been bouncing about the world for just over three weeks now. Just how a globe-trotting P.R. exercise helps in the build up to the new season, F**k only knows. How much time can the lads have actually spent together, as a full squad, in full training? Not much, eh?

In Espanyol we were playing a team that were 'up for it' and needed to put on a good show in their debut game in a new stadium. Remember too that this was the first time Rafa had started with his strongest available team; offering less and less chances to players on the fringe of the squad. We can expect, (with less time spent in the air), a sharper, more coherent team in the remaining two pre-season games. If we're still tired looking and still unable to hold possession against Atlético, then i'll worry.

Shocking result!  Credit to Espanyol.  Going by pre-season its going to be super tough to challenge for Prem.  Come on Liverpool its time to wake up.

 I did not see the match so cannot comment on it,naturally any defeat is hard to take.Lets hope we get any defeats out of the way before the season proper starts.

Didn't see the game but the scoreline is sh*t enough.

La Liga starts later than the Premiership so fitness is no excuse. The owners need to put their hands in their pockets.

My sentiments exactly, we had a terrific chance in this window to strengthen the squad, nothing stays still and expecting the same group of players to do the same thing again is a bit naive, It can happen but you have to take into consideration that maybe other teams will have sussed certain players out and make it a lot harder for the team. That's where three to four new players would have pushed us on this year, I may be totally wrong in this and we shall push on to the title. I hope so.

Watching last nights game showed me that again our main players gave them a game but once we put on our the backup players we couldn't stop their movement, all their players would look for space when in possession and as soon as they lost the ball they would get close to our players, not rocket science, in the second half when we made four changes our players just couldn't get to grips with their movement and by the end they could have had a hatful.....

Where was Nemeth?

Where was Nemeth?

He and Pacheco were playing for the Liverpool XI against Notts County. Thats's why they weren't included in the squad to travel to Spain. The Liverpool XI that faced Notts County was like that:

Liverpool XI: Martin Hansen (Dean Bouzanis 45), Stephen Darby (captain), Steven Irwin (Emmanuel Mendy 45), Daniel Ayala (Robbie Threlfall 65), Chris Mavinga, Victor Palsson, Nathan Eccleston (Andras Simon 65), Vincent Weijl, Krisztian Nemeth (Ryan Crowther 30), Daniel Pacheco (Nikola Saric 65), Gerardo Bruna (Alex Kacaniklic 65).
 

Lucas did okay last night but if Xabi goes like it looks like he will we definitely need a replacement. Lucas is decent back up but there is no way he is a first eleven player in a Championship winning team. He plays the safe ball way to much and if we have Masch with him in centre midfield we will get very little creativity from midfield next season. Lucas gets a lot of good will on here he really needs to start justifying it next season.

 The performance in general was awful last night and it should sound the death knell for Degen, Voronin and Dossena but I'd say that is only wishful thinking on my part.

RIERA: FITNESS MORE IMPORTANT THAN RESULT

James Carroll in Barcelona 03 August 2009

Albert Riera believes Liverpool fans should not read too much into Sunday's 3-0 friendly defeat to Espanyol.
Goals from Luis Garcia and Ben Sahar (2) condemned the Reds to their second loss of the summer.
 
However, Riera insists the fitness of the squad is more important than results at this stage of Liverpool's preparations for the 2009-10 campaign.

"I think this kind of match is all about being ready for the start of the season," the Spain winger told Liverpoolfc.tv.
 
"It was a fantastic game for them and they played better than us. They have trained for around 10 days more than us and I think you saw this clearly. When you are in pre-season, 10 days is a lot.
 
"Some of us came back from our national teams a little bit later and have only had 10 or 12 days' training. We need a little bit more before the start of the season, but we will be ready.
 
"Of course we are disappointed because we lost. Even if it's a friendly match, you always want to win, but as I said, it is all about being ready for the very first game."
 
Despite having spent three years at Espanyol before moving to Anfield last August, Riera was subjected to loud boos from the home support after being introduced as a second-half substitute by Rafa Benitez.
 
"I spent three very good years at Espanyol, but of course fans want players to stay at their club and are not happy about it when they leave," added the No.11.
 
"But now I am playing for Liverpool. I am very happy here and the fans are supporting me. This is the most important thing."


http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N165283090803-0851.htm

I've purposely waited until this morning before making any comment simply because it's easy to get carried away when one's feeling hurt at losing. I don't think that any of us like to watch the Reds get beaten and easily beaten at that so I can understand some of the comments on this thread.

Our performance looked jaded and the lads looked tired. Perhaps the pre-season schedule had taken it's toll; remember that we've been bouncing about the world for just over three weeks now. Just how a globe-trotting P.R. exercise helps in the build up to the new season, f**k only knows. How much time can the lads have actually spent together, as a full squad, in full training? Not much, eh?

In Espanyol we were playing a team that were 'up for it' and needed to put on a good show in their debut game in a new stadium. Remember too that this was the first time Rafa had started with his strongest available team; offering less and less chances to players on the fringe of the squad. We can expect, (with less time spent in the air), a sharper, more coherent team in the remaining two pre-season games. If we're still tired looking and still unable to hold possession against Atlético, then I'll worry.

Very good point about the travelling.  That has to take some kind of toll on the players and not making that as an excuse for how sh*t we were last night, but I hadn't really thought about it.  I know its great for the fans in the countries that the team has visited but I don't see what purpose it serves to fly to Switzerland then Austria, back to England then off again to Thailand and Singapore, back to Liverpool again then off to Spain, ohh and another stop off at Norway then back again to the start of the season.  Don't think any other team in the Premier League has done as much travelling as that.

I'm not as worried now as I was last night.  I know everybody talks about only looking at our own fixtures and not to give a F**k about our rivals, but looking at their pre season results...none of them are setting the world alight and there have been alot of mixed results for all Premier League teams.

Agree with the point on travelling. I actually rather if we want to fit our schedule to Asia, then we should not even have agreed to fly to Spain to play just a friendly, and then fly back again. Clocking a lot of miles in 3 weeks just tire the players out.

We have globe-trotted 7 countries in the space of 3 weeks, and that is including the flight to the Far East. It isn't going to be easy on the lads, but when we settle down back at Liverpool for a week or so, get the players more rest and of course match fit then we would be definitely ready for the start of the new season.

The pre-season results have an impact on our start of the season results so it is important to get the confidence back at Anfield vs Atletico.

Didn't see the game but the scoreline is sh*t enough.

La Liga starts later than the Premiership so fitness is no excuse. The owners need to put their hands in their pockets.

part timer!

Theres nothing to worry about here, seldom are pre season results linked to league performance, quite the opposite normally.

But we need confidence in the team and to me the only player with confidence that night was Lucas.

Didnt see the game I was travelling. Sh*t result.

Anyone reckon that the whole Alonso "transfer circus" disrupted the player preparations ?

Didnt see the game I was travelling. Sh*t result.

Anyone reckon that the whole Alonso "transfer circus" disrupted the player preparations ?

Yes, I just posted my view in the Xabi Alonso's (Real Madrid) thread.

Certainly his constant moaning to the press have caused unwanted distractions and disharmony among the squad.

Doesn't matter anyway we have wrapped up a deal with Aquilani and saying adios to Alonso.

What i always find solace in is that we always have our backs to the wall in pre-season yet somehow manage to be competitive.

... Wow so we don't have a backup defense then

Basically. Offense was sloppy, but a 3-0 scoreline comes down to shitty defense more than anything else. Yeah, Agger and Skrtel are injured, but that's no excuse. Agger's injury-prone and Skrtel's not going to be back for a while, so we can't fall apart like this without them, especially during league matches. And yeah, it's preseason, and sometimes it's hard to care (especially for the players), but losing 3-0 will always be ugly.

I think Rafa has to decide to either put in more players who are usually reserves or at least not on the first team and risk losing, or put in the first team players, give them match fitness, and go 5-0 again. It's preseason, so he's prolly inclined toward the first one.

It may well be tiredness as they are probably on an overload phase at present and may well have had a decent training session before hand. I'd much rather get tonked now and get it right in two weeks time.This was also their big night in their new stadium and we did not seem to up for it.

Yes, it would be nice to see us roll them over but dont read too much into this one. As Rafa said they were up for it more on the night and that can be put right easily. Pre season hasnt been pretty but us older reds have seen it all before .. even when we were the best team in Europe, its all about fitness and minutes on the pitch.

Gutted at being beaten so convincingly !! is Lucas gonna be our saviour this season ? team needs stability in the dressing room and at all levels ,this needs sorting now !