A performance that felt like watching an ugly woman scratch her nails on a blackboard for almost the entire game.
We've supposedly brought in a psychologist to improve the mentality of the group, well it appears his work is showing no progress so far, I have rarely witnessed a weaker, more easily bullied and out battled group than the one we put out there against Stoke. You can invent all the excuses regarding Christmas pudding, hangovers or whatever equally ridiculous festive reason you like but that was simply not good enough on absolutely any level you wish to judge it.
Physically we were out fought, out ran and the determination in our challenges was like watching Men with brittle bone syndrome trying to challenge Men made of stone, the commitment in the challenge was nothing short of pathetic. This gave strength to the mentality of Stoke and they used this strength to bully us all over the pitch, whenever there was a 50/50 our players just accepted it was a challenge they couldn't win and for me this was the most painful thing and disappointing thing to witness in the match. Only Suarez, Enrique, Reina and Gerrard on one occasion didn't succumb to this mentality and this lack of strength of character will mean that this group of players can come back to the Britannia as often as they like, but until they grow a pair of bollocks, realise the responsibility, privilege, duty and honour it is to wear that red shirt they can expect nothing more than they got tonight, which was completely dominated.
Jonjo Shelvey had possibly the worst performance I've witnessed by a Liverpool player this season, I cannot comprehend how he came out again in the second half and why Rodgers felt he deserved to continue in a game he was having absolutely no impact on. I agree with the substitution of Suso who simply shouldn't be starting games for us at the moment, he had one decent pass to Suarez and is technically very good but looks so lacking of pace it's frightening how in yards of space he is so easily closed down. Moving him into the hole instead of Shelvey would perhaps have been a better option on the night, simply because Shelvey was having such a nightmare and bringing Sterling onto the wing but I would have rather seen Cole and Sterling brought on and put Joe into the hole. Shelvey simply isn't technically strong enough to play as a foil for Suarez, his talents don't lend themselves to playing intricate football and until he works on this side of his game he is unlikely to make the impact he would like.
Downing went back to being a player who didn't want the ball and doesn't know how to play his position in this system, every time he had someone support him he simply allowed them to run past him and assumed their position. The idea is to add men to the attack not to rotate positions, to create two v's ones and to get men into the box, he simply doesn't understand the attacking nature of this system or perhaps more likely is he's simply too lazy to apply himself to it, which is why we should look to offload this waste of space at the first given opportunity.
The substitution of Henderson was baffling to say the least, when you're two goals down and you look to Henderson to make an impact you're already asking for miracles and why he was introduced makes me question Brendan's tactical awareness. The level of impact this lad has can only be likened to a gnats fart on the Richter scale. What was Brendan expecting this change to do to the team and like a poster earlier who said his Dad was infuriated by him doing his hair on the sidelines while preparing to be introduced, I can only agree with this. When he did come on it felt like any air that had filled in our chests, any strength that we'd begun to muster just drained away with watching this abject, careless, passionless husk of a player drift around the pitch with not a single emotion or semblance at the situation at hand.
While our defending was undoubtedly abysmal for our second and third goal it is almost an insult when Brendan comes out afterwards and uses this as our only negative. Fair enough if he's hiding his true emotions and the truth of our complete abject performance from the grips of the media, because I've been calling for him to give them less tit bits to feed on but I hope to god he roasted the hair off their faces in that dressing room because no players, playing for the club I love should ever put in a performance so bereft of any passion or belief than we were subjected to in that game.
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