This is easily one of them games where we could have been lucky to escape with a draw, our record against them since their return to the Premiership hasn't been good at all. They don't really have any great players IMO but they have a team that knows how to work well together. Our shape was all wrong today and if it was against a better team then we would have been punished. They were exploiting us out wide massively in the first half, switching it from side to side and having time to look up and build a half decent attack. They were looking to get Chambers in behind Johnson and it was working, very easily because every single game Johnson seems to think he is a Centre Back, far too often when the opposition are attacking us he is far too close to our Centre Back and the man attacking down the wing is in so much space and has so much time. Then it got to the stage where he is no where to be seen at all and Agger was having to go across and cover where he should have been. Not good enough. Flanno on the other hand seemed to have it under control, he wasn't perfect but he had a handle on things.
When they hit the post we were an absolute mess, for some reason Skrtel led with his foot instead of trying to head it when Lambert headed it down and Skrtel could easily have caught Lambert and cost us a penalty, it was another piece of poor decision making by Skrtel.
The only real decent bits of play we had in that first half was when Sturridge tried squaring it for Suarez to have a tap in but was vitally intercepted by Fonte and the goal itself which I though Suarez took excellently. A lot of players would have tried to take a touch and then shoot but Suarez hit it first time and found that bottom corner with ease.
Coutinho had a mare all game once again, his passing was atrocious and I only remember him actually pulling off one pass and that was when he slipped it through to Henderson to then put in a cross. He was even failing to make the simple 5 yard passes and gave no effort into tracking back at all. Sterling came on and showed him out it was done, scoring with his first touch I believe and was very impressive, I expected him to go out wide but instead he just played where Coutinho did; he was a threat going forward and was breaking up a lot of the Saints' play in the middle of the park with some clever interceptions.
The second half after Sterling came on was when we started to grow into the game, Suarez should have gone for goal himself but tried to find Sturridge that then led to a bit of a scramble where he then clipped a nice ball over to Sturridge and the play was eventually finished with Hendo blasting over. Though that is probably one of the few things Hendo done wrong, thought he had a really good game today. He didn't do anything spectacular but he kept things ticking over nicely and linked our play up well as well as providing Flanno with good support and had Shaw in his pocket defensively for a lot of the game. He wasn't trying to bomb forward too often and held his position well. Likewise Allen, he struggled at first, especially in the physical sense but he really grew into the game and especially in the second half I think the midfield three of them two and Gerrard played well together. Gerrard was very good defensively, often making amends for one of our defenders losing their man or just sweeping up the lose ball. He then put that penalty away brilliantly like we all knew he would.
This wasn't a great performance by any means and I think the scoreline flatters us, especially if you are basing it on the first half. We had the usual stand out performance by Suarez as well as some other players doing well but if we play like we did today against a better team I fear the points outcome wont be the same. The way we were set up wasn't right for us but we made it work and although we won 3-0 we managed to grind out the result. It's games like this that usually cost us come the end of the season but we made the most of our chances and showed that we can once again win when not playing well. The Fulham game, the Swansea game and this game are easily ones where we often throw away points by simply taking them for granted and although we only scraped a win against Fulham and Swansea we still managed to get the 3 points.
It's incredibly refreshing to be able to take knowledge in the fact that although we weren't at our best, we still managed to come away with not just a 1 goal win but a 3 goal win and a clean sheet.
Well in Reds, now push on and beat the Mancs.
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