From my perspective we played very well indeed up to a point. I thought Clyne let us down all night in an attacking sense, he was given so much strong possession on his side and time and time again he produced nothing. Lallana also failed to get involved enough and we need much more out of him than we got.
Positives were without doubt Joe Allen, who despite should have scored he was superb on the night, Lucas was also excellent in a midfield that controlled the game more than I thought they would. Ibe produced absolutely nothing on the ball and I think he lost it almost every time he received the ball. Firmino I thought had a decent game, produced the best interplay of all our forwards and put, as ever, a very good first line of defence in. As is his biggest weakness though did lose the ball too easily on occasion.
Toure was having a great match until he played their man on that got the assist for their goal, felt gutted for the defensive unit as they'd really surrendered very little after it was clear we went there for a draw or just to nick the odd goal. Moreno seems to have come in for some stick but I thought he had a decent game too and was our most potent threat in wide areas and very unlucky not to quite get clear of his man on the breakaway, had he got another half yard I think he could have gone across goal with his effort.
Overall we looked the better of the two sides without question and despite going into this feeling we might just have ran out of legs I think back at Anfield we can definitely turn this around. There will definitely be questions as to why Sturridge didn't start or at least get the last half hour, from my perspective Jürgen was perhaps a little too happy to take the 0-0 than go to grab that crucial away goal that could end up costing us in the end. Not the worst result, right in the tie and everything to play for in a week.
Logged