Portsmouth v Liverpool Match Thread

This was never going to be an easy match for a few reasons.

Pompey aren't Derby, no 6-0 here.
They have tried and tested, seasoned players.
We lost the momentum due to the international games.

Think about this, 1 point gained is 2 points lost but not 3. Remember this at the end of the season, we might not have won but we didn't lose on the road, that's worthy of a bit of credit!

That Pompey crowd was pretty decent too, fair play.

3 wins out of 5 doesn't look half as good now does it.

Still top but only just and United have turned their season around by sheer hard work and perserverance and playing to the final whistle - something we certainly didn't do today.

Agree mrtommo. We were winning the ball in midfield a lot, especially early on. Had the likes of Torres been on from the start, we could have had a field day. Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

Absolutely piss poor performance. I don't agree that team selection was at fault, the team we started with should've been able to win this game, we just played sh*t.

Disappointed with the result, but like previous posts, its better then a loss. I also agree we should have started our stronger team today, that is if we want to win the leauge. A lot of fans may disagree with me, but the champions league just isn't as important to me as ending this drought of not winning the league. Typical Man U today, pulling out a win in the last 10 minutes. I've said before, playing hard in the last 10 minutes, and not settling for the draw will bring us the leauge title.

Agree with JD and Tommo about fielding a stronger squad. Get stuck in and get the game won then you can take certain players off. Crap game but a draw isn't the most worst result and I think we all knew that this game was going to be a testing one for us.
I'm disappointed at the way we were so easily reverting to playing direct down the middle of the pitch as the game progressed. There's a whole pitch there - use it and play some football on the floor!!! That's what Pompey were trying to do in the second half and you have to say Pepe was more busy than James. James didn't have to make a save in the second half until the 80th minute!! That's pretty poor and that's pretty much usually an outcome of playing direct balls down the middle. Their defenders will lap it up all day long.

Great save by Pepe for the pen. Great to see Carra come back and command the back four as usual. Can't really be overjoyed about much else apart from the fact we got something rather than nothing out of the game. I think with the changes made, we missed that extra bit of quality to break a determined and disciplined Pompey down.

Lessons to be learned from this game.

1) Alonso can pass a ball sweetly, but he can't take a free kick. He is not going to score them for us, let someone else take them.

2) Crouch is a great player, but the team seem incapable of playing with him. Whenever he's on we resort to long balls, we should keep him as an impact player from the bench.

3) If you spend £20m+ on a player, play him FFS. I can understand Gerrard getting a rest as he's had a busy week & played on an injury, but why the F**k wasn't Torres playing? The difference both he & Gerrard made was obvious when they came on.

In the end, we were very lucky not to have been 2 - 0 DOWN...
in previous seasons this would have been a loss...
Torres seems to be better at creating chances than Crouch, and
I thought that they were able to provide a better delivery to their strikers in shooting positions..
and David James didnt have to make a 2nd half save till the 80th minute...

but like I said, it isnt the loss that it might have been

Lessons to be learned from this game.

1) Alonso can pass a ball sweetly, but he can't take a free kick. He is not going to score them for us, let someone else take them.

2) Crouch is a great player, but the team seem incapable of playing with him. Whenever he's on we resort to long balls, we should keep him as an impact player from the bench.

3) If you spend £20m+ on a player, play him FFS. I can understand Gerrard getting a rest as he's had a busy week & played on an injury, but why the fu*k wasn't Torres playing? The difference both he & Gerrard made was obvious when they came on.

Absolutely!

What makes me laugh about the 2nd lesson is that we could actually play with Crouch in the side, but we have to use all of the pitch and move the ball about as best as we can on the floor to stretch the play. But it usually does just resort to us being more direct. If he was on the bench today and we played Torres instead, I honestly believe that we could have kept possesion a lot better than we did and moved the ball from side to side to create space for Torres or Voronin to run in to. In turn the possiblities of more chances coming our way.

Absolutely outraged by the result and the performance today.  I couldn't believe the team selection from the start.  We have come across problems with picking the weaker team against weaker sides but Portsmouth shown they were no push overs. 

We can't have this attitude coming into a game, I know it was International duty for most of our players, but F***ing play them.  I don't care if we are playing Porto away, the Premiership is priority.  Should of had Gerrard and Torres on from the start. It was obvious when they started combining.  Maybe even Babel should of started.  Benayoun didn't show too much enthusiasm to play in the Red shirt, and another average performance from Crouch.

The bonus to this is that we did get something out of the game that we really didn't deserve to be fair.  Portsmouth had about 3 sitters and a penalty to put us to bed.  And they didn't take those chances, thankfully.

Reading through everyones posts, I think we are all upset that the frigging Mancs got a win in the last 5 minutes, and we only managed to grab a point.  Poor effort from our boys today.

Oh and I must add, my razor is going to be collecting more dust if you get what I mean

ola from tenerife  I think most of us agreed in the "next 5 matches thread" that this would be tough. Especially after the international break. We arent going to play brilliant week in week out the truth is we could have been beaten but werent. Sky sports are almost writing us off now after a bleedin draw which i think is good we dont want to get build up by them too much

Team selection was right i felt as crouch pennant finnan carragher arbeloa didnt play and i dont think voronon pla yed twice for the ukraine

heads up people its a point at a tough place to go

Why an earth did Rafa leave Torres on the bench? He is on fire scoring goals and he leaves him on the bench, crouch for me didnt do enough we tested James very few times! My team, would have had Gerrard ,Torres and Babel in it!

Told you to send me and Ms Gerrrard away   

And agree with whats been already said on here, Torres and Gerrard should both of been out from the start.  If it wasnt for Pepe then we would of been in sh*t street

Very poor performance today. I don't fully agree that the team selection was totally to blame as I feel the team selected should be well capable of winning the game, I just feel the players selected didn't perform. We lost the high tempo attacking game that we have been playing since the start of the season and seemed to go back to the unimaginative and frustrating football that was evident in a lot of our performances last season. When Crouch plays the team seem to automatically switch to playing the long ball all the time even though he is capable of playing to feet just as well, if not better. I don't usually like to single out players but for me Crouch and Benayoun( who have been most outspoken about the rotation) didn't show enough desire and quality to say to Rafa that they should be starting more games. But in saying that none of the team played well today as there was too many misplaced passes, sloppy mistakes all over the pitch and no real penetration up front. I know its early days but I was looking for another three points to build on the start we have made to the season and was quietly confident of winning this game comfortably. But at least we didn't lose and this point may seem a lot better at the end of the season than it does now.

RAFA: POINT WAS PROBABLY RIGHT



Rafa Benitez admitted both sides could have walked away with all three points after the goalless draw at Fratton Park on Saturday lunchtime.

The Spaniard made four changes from the Derby demolition, with skipper Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres consigned to the bench after featuring heavily for their countries in midweek.
 
The Reds threatened without their influential duo but had a Pepe Reina penalty save – as well as glaring misses from John Utaka and Sulley Muntari – to thank for a clean sheet at the other end.
 
Benitez said: "After an international break it is very difficult to pick the team because you don't have any time to train with the players.
 
"Mascherano, for example, was in Australia playing in a very important friendly!
 
"In the first half I thought we were the better team and controlled the game. In the second half it was very open and we both had very good chances. We could have won it, they could have won it. In my opinion we deserved at least a point.
 
"They had a couple of clear chances but they were from our mistakes and not from open play. I think we were better than them in the first half and were controlling the game. Our substitutes came on in the second half and helped us, it was just a pity we couldn't score.
 
"I'm not sure if it was a penalty for them or not, certainly for this country it looked a harsh decision. But it's okay, I'm not going to complain about that."

Come on Rafa.  We got battered out there today, just admit that you made a mistake fielding a weaker side against Pompy.  I thought we learned our lesson with these years ago!

Harsh, Court. Rafa's being philosophical - and I can't say we were battered.

I agree with the view expressed earlier in this thread that some players could have started and been brought off, but that's barring problems or injuries to others, at which point that plan goes out the window, and becomes a burden with tired players on the pitch. It's a gamble, but with a game like this, I think it was worth trying.

I think Rafa was just a bit too safe here, and sent the wrong message before the game about the team, although these days it must be murder trying to keep all your game plans and tactics under wraps; so he was honest about it.

Apart from hiding my disappointment before with the rallying "Chin up lads!" I too was a little pissed at the team selection. We did not start with our strongest 11  today.
Seeing Crouch in the starting 11 was strange considering his total minutes in 1st team football, for club and country. He wasn't as sharp as Torres would have been. Veronin was offbeat today and wasteful with chances that fell his way.
Pennant and Yossi did nothing too fantastic today and Sissoko and Alonso looked average too. Alonso can hit a ball but it would have had to have been something special to beat a dogged Pompey defence. The back 4 used all their 'Get out of jail' cards today thanks to some sloppy shooting from Portsmouth. Pepe actually put in the best performance today, doing everything that was asked of him which, in real terms, was too much for comfort.

Rafa has to acknowledge his team selection wasn't correct, start with your strongest 11 not finish with it. It was either give the bench warmers a chance to prove their 1st team credentials and let the big guns finish off a weakened side or believe the opposition would crumble against a tough 2nd eleven. Neither worked but like I said before - still a point away is better than loosing 3. Would we still be so damning if the same starting 11 actually won the game? Obviously not.

2nd with a game in hand and a better goal difference. Could be better, could be much worse.

Well, personnally, I think today performance is not bad, The team controlled the game in the first haft and 25 first minutes of the second half, the strategy, the speed, the skill, all, not bad at all, I don't know how to say, but when I watch LiverpoolFC playing, I feel that thier level is cleary higher than Portsmouth's level, just that they are not really lucky today. I think Portsmouth don't have any star but they have the coherence and they played defense really carefully, they don't give LiverpoolFC any place to shoot so the chance can't turn in to goals. But the way LiverpoolFC create chance is really more professionnal than Portsmouth, passing the ball really quickly, move reasonnably and great personnal skill. Portsmouth's chance was created just when LiverpoolFC's defense lost thier concentration. After all, from now on, LiverpoolFC have to forget about this match to prepare to a bigger battle next tuesday, they're still undefeated after all! 

We're still doing better than at any time at this stage in the last five seasons
http://www.anfield-online.co.uk/stats/2008/lfc-season-comparison.html

but two years ago it was around this point that we went on a fantastic run of victories.

It goes without saying that our next two Premiership games against B'ham (home) and Wigan (away) should be 6 points banked.

I'm fecking discusted with our performance today...and that's 100% down to the sh8t management of Rafa today.

He got the the team selection totally wrong, and delayed making the crucial substitutions.

If Gerrard and Torres had started the second half, we would have won this game, against a very poor Pompy team.

AND PLEASE - Let Crouch go.  And drop Alonso - how cack is he playing.

Really disappointing performance.The team that started today wasnt our strongest 11 by some way.I can understand this team starting against Birmingham next week but not Portsmouth away(no disrespect).
I really cant understand Mascherano not playing regularly.

One of the most disappointing aspects of today's game were our set pieces. We had so many free kicks outside the penalty area but none of them worth talking about.

A draw is a decent result as the best chances of the game were created by Pompey.

Mascherano didn't play because he played in a friendly for Argentina in Australia, probably jet-lagged.

Personally would of preferred Torres to start instead of Crouch, the difference in the two stands out a mile, I think Crouch actually slows down the way we play.

Still we're unbeaten, 2nd in the league and another clean sheet for Reina. Glass half full for me

A draw is a decent result as the best chances of the game were created by Pompey.

Personally would of preferred Torres to start instead of Crouch, the difference in the two stands out a mile, I think Crouch actually slows down the way we play.

Still we're unbeaten, 2nd in the league and another clean sheet for Reina. Glass half full for me

Two very good points, totally agree.

Just watched the game again there and if playing Crouch slows our play down and encourages a natural long ball game, then you need Gerrard in the middle to follow things up. Otherwise possesion will be easily lost and you'll see our wide players being drawn inside.

Should really have played better today though when it came to being offensive. But true, we're still unbeaten and second in the league at this stage of the season. Another clean sheet for Pepe, when it so could have easily not been. So time to leave this one out to dry and learn from it. It's not all doom and gloom......