Liverpool 0-0 Stoke City: In-Game & Post Match Uninspiration

Just watched the game. The result sounds more depressing because we had already drawn way too many games at home already. Played 11 games at home and drawn 7.

In reality, this was one drawn game that actually didn't make me feel that bad. We never stopped piling the pressure, we did everything possible. Stokes defended with a minimum of 8 players at any time. Their game plan was to come and pack the bus and catch us on a counter. Their formation was either  8-1-1 or 9-0-1

Like I said, we had drawn way too many games before this game, which makes this result worse than it really is.

Agreed in a 'normal' season yesterday would have been one of those days. It hurts/frustrates even more due to previous failures to win at home.

I also think Andy Carroll is the new Lucas. Soon enough he will be blamed for the Eurozone crisis.

Agreed in a 'normal' season yesterday would have been one of those days. It hurts/frustrates even more due to previous failures to win at home.

I also think Andy Carroll is the new Lucas. Soon enough he will be blamed for the Eurozone crisis.

I dunno muck - I think Charlie Adam is the new "Lucas". Pretty sure he was spotted near that cruiseliner by some posters

Adam is not good enough. Every ball that goes trough him is a waste of time. He is slow, predictable, and does not think fast enough.

As for Andy, he gets pushed around a lot for a lad his size...

Henderson and Downing are replaceable, meaning the team would function just the same with their respective subs on the team. Not good

Gerrard cant always win the match alone. His passes are so brilliant, but the average players he has aroud rarely understand WHERE THE F**k they should run to

Bellamy, pure effort but his crosses and corners were below par today. Still had more fire in his blood than most of the team

The defense did their job well. Its actually harder to defend when you are rarely attacked than if you are attacked all match. Yes they didnt go forward as efficiently as usual, but if we reached the point where we have to rely on defenders for creation, well, we are fu**ed.. Side note: Coates was very solid, Enrique a beast

Kuyt had a nightmare of a match

We need a playmaker more than a striker, cant you see that?? A young Romario would struggle to score in this team!

To be fair I think Adam was also struggling to find someone making a decent enough run to play in, I've not been the biggest fan of him since he signed (partly because I feel he's a bit too arrogant) but credit where credit's due I think he gave a good account for himself yesterday.

I dunno muck - I think Charlie Adam is the new "Lucas". Pretty sure he was spotted near that cruiseliner by some posters

Thought that was Adam's best game in a month, though that doesn't say much.  Henderson has something, just waiting for him to piece it all together.  Carroll is getting it worse than Lucas did, I seen people say it's Andy's fault, when he hasn't played. 

Looking back at the game, I think it's very worrying when our best attacking outlets are or full backs.

To be fair I think Adam was also struggling to find someone making a decent enough run to play in, I've not been the biggest fan of him since he signed (partly because I feel he's a bit too arrogant) but credit where credit's due I think he gave a good account for himself yesterday.

He is usually (not always) too slow, and im not talking about phisycall speed. Passing the ball around with 90% (im just guessing a number here) accuracy does not mean you are a good passer...i expect him to try the "dangerous" pass a lot more often.

 Dont you just LOVE when a player signals to his team mate where his going to place the ball (just body language) and then put the ball into the empty, just for the other to burst there? Well, i just have not seen Adam do that as often as i expected (he HAS done it). He has players that can understand a pass, and that have the mobility and intelligence to move to where they should. Luis is almost always running to where the pass should be placed, and tell me how many brilliant passes has he placed? Not nearly enough

He is our creative midfielder, and i judge him by that standard . I come from a different footballing culture than most of you, and I see football different , maybe thats why I still believe the strikers will come good. Liverpool does not create as many "clear" chances as most people in this forum think. A forward shooting between 4 defenders is NOT a scoring chance, and possesion is not dominance.

We are fortunate to have Gerrard in the team, but he has to "lower" his game because his midfield is nowhere near (im not talking level, because its hard to be on his level) his Galaxy.

That said, this is not playstation football, so we have to work with what we have, and right now, Charlie is our man. Ill get behind him, but I think Liverpool deserves, needs, should and will find someone better.

Agreed in a 'normal' season yesterday would have been one of those days. It hurts/frustrates even more due to previous failures to win at home.

I also think Andy Carroll is the new Lucas. Soon enough he will be blamed for the Eurozone crisis.

Carroll isn't the new Lucas. Far from it I think. I think everyone who supports Liverpool wants him to do well here. When he comes on the pitch everyone is willing him to come good.

He deserves a bit of criticism at the moment, not just because of what he's doing with the ball but also for his seeming lack of motivation to want to get in there and score.

He is usually (not always) too slow, and im not talking about phisycall speed. Passing the ball around with 90% (im just guessing a number here) accuracy does not mean you are a good passer...i expect him to try the "dangerous" pass a lot more often.

 Dont you just LOVE when a player signals to his team mate where his going to place the ball (just body language) and then put the ball into the empty, just for the other to burst there? Well, i just have not seen Adam do that as often as i expected (he HAS done it). He has players that can understand a pass, and that have the mobility and intelligence to move to where they should. Luis is almost always running to where the pass should be placed, and tell me how many brilliant passes has he placed? Not nearly enough

He is our creative midfielder, and i judge him by that standard . I come from a different footballing culture than most of you, and I see football different , maybe thats why I still believe the strikers will come good. Liverpool does not create as many "clear" chances as most people in this forum think. A forward shooting between 4 defenders is NOT a scoring chance, and possesion is not dominance.

We are fortunate to have Gerrard in the team, but he has to "lower" his game because his midfield is nowhere near (im not talking level, because its hard to be on his level) his Galaxy.

That said, this is not playstation football, so we have to work with what we have, and right now, Charlie is our man. Ill get behind him, but I think Liverpool deserves, needs, should and will find someone better.

Saw Charlie Adam play some blinding passes into space yesterday to set off attacks. Particularly remember one to Enrique at Kop end right down at the corner flag, was a wonderful pass. I think our problems at home stem from lack of movement in the box and our final ball, rather than our passing from the middle of the pitch.

Having said that, I'd like to see more runs into the box from our midfield.

A couple of Hollywood balls for the camera doesn't mean uve had a good game.  Does look good on match of the day though

A couple of Hollywood balls for the camera doesn't mean uve had a good game.  Does look good on match of the day though

Wouldn't know, haven't watched match of the day for over a year.

A couple of Hollywood balls for the camera doesn't mean uve had a good game.  Does look good on match of the day though

Thats the point. He doest not place those match winning passes as OFTEN as i expect...dont mean he can do it, just that a CL team NEEDS a player who does it regularly. not just "i remember one time" or "i saw him play a couple".

Agreed Andy is not the most mobile of forwards, but Bellamy, Kuyt and Suarez are some of the best in that area, and Charlie had plenty of time in the field with them for a year, and I only saw him place a handfull of deadly passes.

Anyway, its just an opinion, and as mentioned i see football trough a different glass than most of you for what ive read on the forum. Just tought id add a different view on the subject. A brazilian (cue Diego) would probably tell you they can play with 5 playmakers on the pitch, and they have on many occasions (ahhh 1970s Brazil, the best i saw on a football pitch)...thats is almost impossible but id settle with just 2 and a pitbull behind them!!

All his long passes are long diagonals look great but dont really get us anywhere

All his long passes are long diagonals look great but dont really get us anywhere

So what do you suggest, a long ball through the middle?

The only place that's going to end up is in the goalkeeper's hands.

Very disappointed with the result and the performance. Probably ranks almost alongside Spurs as our worst performance this season. Not many positives to take from the game..... clean sheet and good possession. Sadly any team that has Kuyt or Carroll as their main striker would struggle to score against Stoke (or anyone!), but when you add the total lack of genuine chances created by the rest of the team it becomes a major problem.

Defensively we are sound, our approach play is as good as any, without Suarez the final third has become a mystery..... it's a mystery how we ever score.

Even when Suarez returns I believe we will still struggle for goals unless we bring in a clinical striker.

 

A couple of Hollywood balls for the camera doesn't mean uve had a good game.  Does look good on match of the day though

No it doesn't - thought he put in a decent shift and knocked several very good balls. Was still trying to make things happen throughout. He has had a few poorer games but yesterday wasn't one of them.

Not the root cause of yesterday

Cant see the point of Charlie being there if Gerrard is fit as soon as spearing is fit id get him back in there

Cant see the point of Charlie being there if Gerrard is fit as soon as spearing is fit id get him back in there

Sure we'll debate it further over the months in his player thread Corballyred - I just think he gets disproportionate level of criticism when we have a disappointment.

Yesterday was frustrating and I am dreading home games a bit just now. We almost look like we're trying too hard and getting tense after 15-20 mins if we've not scored. 

Post match comments from Kenny suggests that we need to be more innovative or creative in our attack but honestly do we have the quality of players  to do so, the only one that I can think of at the moment is Stevie and maybe Adam, definitely not Kuyt when he spent most of his time with his back facing the opposition goal and drifted to the sides instead of heading towards goal. There were pockets inside Stoke's box that can be exploited but our players did not notice that (they did I believe) or chose not to have noticed and not doing anything about it in fear of loosing possession and did not track back fast enough and got blamed if the opposition scores at our end. I'd believe, apart from a proven striker a fast defensive tough tackler midfielder ala Hamann is equally important at this very moment, so that Adam and/or Stevie can roam more freely into those pockets of space. We have seen many times before how Adam did it when he was a Blackpool player and he also did that very often when he played against us and had caused us so much problems before. No reason why he can't do it here if we can get a defensive midfielder to cover for him as he's not the fastest around to track back for defensive duties. If we can't get a striker in January, we need to get that all essential defensive midfielder so that Stevie, Adam and Bellers can move into the box and all of them are capable of scoring goals.

Honestly, we can't fault Stoke for putting 9 players in their own half, no rules to say they can't. In spite of so many drawn games against them before we still haven't found a way to break them down. Ok, trying to break down a team with 5 maybe 6 players inside their own box while the rest were distrupting us in midfield and the wings is no easy task but did we attempt to shoot more often and more accurately from outside the box at every given opportunity? Maybe not in this game, we have spent a big portion of game time knocking the ball around trying to look for the opening. sadly the openings will not be there if we don't care to look for it and exploit it, maybe that's what KD is referring to.

How many times we have seen the scums won such matches by solitary goal, a result of a shot deflected into goal or a trip resulting in a penalty or an odd own goal, simply because they chose to shoot MORE OFTEN and MORE ACCURATELY from outside the box, or putting enough bodies inside the box to allow goalmouth meelee and confusion resulting in mistakes and opportunities. Against such teams that park the bus, we need to score the first all important goal early to draw them out of their own half while we camp in our own half to give them a taste of their own medicine and we work on counter attacks.

Very disappointed with the result and the performance. Probably ranks almost alongside Spurs as our worst performance this season. Not many positives to take from the game..... clean sheet and good possession. Sadly any team that has Kuyt or Carroll as their main striker would struggle to score against Stoke (or anyone!), but when you add the total lack of genuine chances created by the rest of the team it becomes a major problem.

Defensively we are sound, our approach play is as good as any, without Suarez the final third has become a mystery..... it's a mystery how we ever score.

Even when Suarez returns I believe we will still struggle for goals unless we bring in a clinical striker.

 

This all day.

We struggle when we are expected to win.

Now that the dust has settled... a few observations:

* In my opinion, far from being 'negative', the team was set up to provide extra width and extra threat from both Enrique and Johnson. There was, at most, only three at the back and not the usual four with the three only really defending set pieces and Skrtel, in particular popping up in an advanced role.

* With the two full-backs under very clear instructions (to my mind) to play wide and high it was only natural that the majority of both Stevie's and Charlie's passes, in particular, were diagonal balls to the wings. Again (in my opinion) this was a tactical decision.

* It did deliver total dominance in midfield. It did deliver another clean sheet and a defence which never looked threatened but... when the end result is a nil-nil draw I guess it fair to suggest that the 'tactic' was wrong.

* Ball after ball were played into the box from the wider positions but apart from Dirk's sitter and (maybe) Skrtel's header very few of those balls actually produced a goal-scoring chance. This was down to, in my opinion, a combination of a very well drilled defence, ordinary or poor delivery and lack of any real presence in the box.

To be honest I'm more disappointed with this showing than any other of our draws this season - down purely to the lack of goal-scoring chances created. It goes without saying and doesn't take a genius to see what we need - the sooner the better. 
 

For me, they can't take all the blame but I think Downing and Henderson contributed little to the attacking advance. I say advance because we couldn't break them down.

Rather than pass it square or hit it against the man to get a corner. We should be seeing these players have a bit more endeavor and maybe then will we see a little more opportunity in front of goal.

Of course, I don't think you're gonna get many goals with Kuyt up front on his own - especially against a well organised defensive Stoke. Credit to them. He needed a lot more support than he got though.

A fair result. Definitely not a good result for us though.

* It did deliver total dominance in midfield. It did deliver another clean sheet and a defence which never looked threatened but... when the end result is a nil-nil draw I guess it fair to suggest that the 'tactic' was wrong.

A clean sheet against Stoke at home should be a given. In the four meetings we've played them at Anfield, you could probably number the amount of shots on target from them on two hands, or close enough.

A clean sheet against Stoke at home should be a given.

Indeed. Especially the way our defence has being playing this season.

Like I 'wrote' we "never looked threatened" and the Stoke 'nil' column isn't where the game plan failed or where the tactics went 'wrong'. I'm glad you agree.