Liverpool 2-3 Udinese: In game and Post Match Grimace

That mindset cost us the game - Gerrard offered pretty much nothing going forward. We had no shape in the midfield - no tempo - Allen was isolated

Gerrard is not the same player anymore and he certainly can't play in that role next to Allen .

It was the wrong sub and the proof is what happened afterwards. It was a mistake from our manager

Fair enough George, I'll have to agree to disagree with you. I saw it as more a misunderstanding from Gerrard and Allen where they lost possession and you could physically see Gerrard's disappointment in Allen. I also feel Allen had one of his weakest halves for us in that 2nd period and even questioned him being injured near the end of the game in the thread somewhere.

I also believe that all 3 goals were conceded more through poor defending than loss of possession in midfield. Johnson for the first, Seb for the 2nd and the whole defence for the 3rd, you should not have 3 on 1 and allow the pass across the box and the shot should never be allowed to come through unchallenged from the edge of the box when you out number the opponents so strongly. I also believe that Gerrard offers much more offensively than Henderson and linked with Suarez quite well when they came on, so I guess we see things differently.

That mindset cost us the game - Gerrard offered pretty much nothing going forward. We had no shape in the midfield - no tempo - Allen was isolated

Gerrard is not the same player anymore and he certainly can't play in that role next to Allen .

It was the wrong sub and the proof is what happened afterwards. It was a mistake from our manager

Think that's a ludicrous statement, to write off our captain who was recently man of the match against Manchester United, scored against Norwich and actually had a good impact on the game today. As don said losing the ball that deep in the opponents half is hardly giving away a chance, it only shows our vulnerability on the counter attack. I thought he put a lot of drive in to our midfield when we were chasing at 3-2, his link up play with Suarez was superb. How you got that opinion from tonight is beyond me.

And to write off our captain based on that is ridiculous and franky disrespectful, he's improved quite a lot recently.

Think that's a ludicrous statement, to write off our captain who was recently man of the match against Manchester United, scored against Norwich and actually had a good impact on the game today. As don said losing the ball that deep in the opponents half is hardly giving away a chance, it only shows our vulnerability on the counter attack. I thought he put a lot of drive in to our midfield when we were chasing at 3-2, his link up play with Suarez was superb. How you got that opinion from tonight is beyond me.

And to write off our captain based on that is ridiculous and franky disrespectful, he's improved quite a lot recently.

This!!

As the mid-field goes i was ok with Gerrard coming in, I agree with Corbs in thinking it should have been Jonjo coming off and not Henderson. Shelvey looked sharp in the 1st half but reckless and reaching in the 2nd; as plain jane as Hendo's game seems to be thought he did fine in helping the midfield maintain shape.

We have been very poor defensively all season regardless of who we have had at the back. It's a bit mind boggling as we have effectively two midfielders who are there to protect the defence. Joe Allen alone tonight doing that job was not enough we badly need Lucas beside him. Henderson was good tonight and it was a mistake taking him off inplace of the ineffective Shelvey. I made a comment towards the tail end of last season that Shelvey is not really good at creating space for himself especially in the final third of the field and this has been evident every time a man has closed him down.

As mentioned by some too sloppy and lazy at times by various players at different stages of the game. Agree also with FOAR the system we try to play requires concentration and focus and lapses lead to catastrophic outcomes. It does not help our cause that when these lapses occur our keeper is not there to come up with anything to lift the defense or the rest of the team with. It's almost like what is hit at our goal goes into our goal. Thought we created plenty of chances to at least get a draw out of this one, difficult to see how Brendan will approach this now as we are in a fight to get out of the group stage and he mentioned at the start that this competition was not a priority.

Another home game which we should have won and although we played well first half the second half belonged to the Italians and they showed us how to finish and how to keep a lead(rugby tackle the man if you have to but give no-one a look at their goal), it worked but I know if we had done that we would have had a player sent off. Another ref who is blind as a bat.

Think that was Allen's worst game for us to be honest, his passing was no where near as accurate as usual and had no understanding with Gerrard at all when he came on. Johnson had a poor game in truth too, his defending wasn't great and his attacking certainly wasn't either, did he even make a successful cross?

We really should have won this game but again it was stupid mistakes that cost us and I can't even remember the last time we kept a clean sheet!

Suarez, what a free kick that was, perfect strike! Sterling done well when he came on, was unlucky not to bag a goal too!

As for the ref, he should have sent that player off who tried to throttle Downing, absolute disgrace and no place in the game for that, guarantee if it was Suarez that done that he'd have seen red.

Another home game which we should have won and although we played well first half the second half belonged to the Italians and they showed us how to finish and how to keep a lead(rugby tackle the man if you have to but give no-one a look at their goal), it worked but I know if we had done that we would have had a player sent off. Another ref who is blind as a bat.

That was a definite red card. Some strange decisions tonight by the ref.

Had to watch on a blurry stream and a packed out room full of talking so it was hard to comment on individual performances really.

We should have scored more while on top, but that one of football's oldest cliche's. Stupid defending was the reason we lost it. We're obviously taking to the attacking side of Rodger's system a lot longer than to the defending side of it.

Ah well. At least we have 3 points already. All's not lost in the group.

That was a definite red card. Some strange decisions tonight by the ref.

Think it would have been a harsh red, even though it was pretty ridiculous. Not exactly sporting of him though!

Think it would have been a harsh red, even though it was pretty ridiculous. Not exactly sporting of him though!

I agree, very cynical but not a red card in my book. We've only ourselves to blame for coming out of this one empty-handed.

We have only ourselves to blame, first half great, second half conceded a sloppy goal and our heads dropped, fought back in the last 20 but not enough to get a result, but it will come together.

Wish we had Di Natale.

I thought we played well in first half we dominated Udinese but we must take our chances before we get punished which that happened today. Concentration was very poor and before we knew it we were 3-1 down. The last 20 minutes was very good but it's too late by then. I thought we were lazy. Lazy in our play, loose and sloppy. Defensively, as a group, we need to be better....

We don't have good enough attacking options to rest Suarez against bigger teams.

That's the main conclusion I got from that game along with the fact we can't F***ing defend right now.

78% possession first half, if we had our first team playing we'd have easily converted that into a 3-0 lead at the very least. Lets face it, our defending needs major work or revamp and Di Natale had a superb game, hats off to him.

Agree about Di Natale what I would give to have a striker of his calibre in our ranks. You could tell he was quality he hardly touched the ball but whenever he did you could anticipate something was going to happen.

What a lousy game considering we outpassed them outshot them. Then shelvey stops one of our goals, he has now gone from hero to villian twice this year.Our defence is a joke and giving up two goals a game is regulation football..Luis is in top form thats our ace in the hole, but brendan has got to get the defence  to keep there concentration levels up.

If we want to get out of this group and be in europe after christmas then we need to ensure qualification by getting results against the other strong teams in the group, especially at home. Maybe rest a few against Young Boys but we were not playing them tonight.

Im disappointed with the result tonight. It was our toughest game in the group imo and we should have played a stronger team. It was noticible the difference Suarez and Sterling made...60/70 mins of them the game would have been won imo and we could have rested them for sunday. Thats not including sahin, gerrard skrtel and others!

And do me a favor and don't be so aggresive. If you don't agree then fine but you can still be respectful!

I apologize for being a little aggressive. But I don't like the attitude that the FA Cup is okay to experiment but this is not? If we went out to lowly opposition you'd say the same thing. But we most likely wouldn't because as evidenced by the team we had out there, besides scoring we hammered them. Unfortunately we just lost our heads a little which happens in a team finding its new identity. I'm not making excuses, this is simply the process. And having watched the game i can see that the starting team had the stuff to get it done. So using the "strongest 11" argument is a weak excuse for me as if you'd watched the game (as i assume you did) you should have seen that. Yes we were better with Suarez out there, of course we were. But if we wanna go back to the "one/two team" insults when we had Torres then keep banging up that road. Otherwise accept the fact we will rest here and there, and that most teams try to do it in group stages of European competition at some stage. Having that as your main gripe from this game just doesn't sit right with me.

I think like Don we should field a stronger side against the Russians next week at home.  This competition has been good to us bringing in some youngsters and think it will give them more playing time if we can progress.  In the away fixtures we should field more squad players, but next home game we need a stronger side probably with Sahin, Suarez and Sterling.  Wouldn't start with Gerrard but the others without the travelling should be OK.  I think the line up tonight was good enough as we won last week, but understand where DON is coming from.

I think Rodgers plan was to get us into a good position in our group  so we could keep using the youngsters. That's why he had a strong bench. However you can't legislate for human error and great finishing. Two of the Udinese goals were fantastic strikes. You don't expect that. I think we play pretty much the same against the russians and then get Udinese on their home turf where  they will be expected  to take it to us.

Looking at our last few games I don't think it is just our defence we should be blaming. I think our midfield has shown it has a soft centre when we lose possession. Teams appear to be able to run through our midfield much too easily putting pressure on our defenders and capitalising on any loss of concentration or error by our defenders.

I thought like many that taking Henderson off was a mistake, or perhaps just a calculated gamble to make us more effective going forward. Sadly whichever it was we paid an excessive price.

Considering how dominant we were (especially in the first half) I thought we created very few genuine chances and rather than passing Udinese to death, passed ourselves to sleep. Too happy to just keep possession without trying to build on our lead.

I think we are still struggling to get the balance right and until we do we will continue to have all too many days like yesterday.