Southampton 0-0 Liverpool: In game and Post Match discussion

One or two positives, a clean sheet and another game unbeaten, certainly nothing to be down hearted about. Still for now, top of the league.

I think the United game and today have shown that right now Lallana's our most important player. We don't have anyone in the squad that does what he does IMO.

As important as Lallana is, I actually think our biggest personnel concern is having to rely on Can as the 1st off the bench in midfield.  The way he plays is "clunky" and he just doesn't seem to be on the same wavelength as the rest of the team -- he takes too long to turn on the ball, misplaces passes far too often, and constantly gravitates towards the ball rather than peeling away and finding space to occupy.  Compare him with Wijnaldum who is always making quick double moves to lose defenders and find space to receive a pass and you can see why Jürgen sanctioned such a big money move for him -- he's a smart player who reads the game very well and has the skill and athleticism to match!!

Studge is a great option to rotate in up front.  Lucas and Moreno have done well rotating in at the back.  I just think we need a better option than Can to rotate into midfield....

At the moment I reckon Firmino, Couts and Mane with get 15, 15 and 10. We are asking players to get us enough goals to win a league, who don't get that volume of goals usually. 

If Sturridge isn't the man then we need to find a striker who is. Luis definitely nt coming back, but there are other players out there that work hard and score 20+

I don't really see what you're getting at here.

Are you saying you'd rather have 2 strikers that bag 25 a season each than have 3 interchangeable forwards that score 50 goals? Not including the goals that will come from midfield.

What is your point?

I don't really see what you're getting at here.

Are you saying you'd rather have 2 strikers that bag 25 a season each than have 3 interchangeable forwards that score 50 goals? Not including the goals that will come from midfield.

What is your point?

I was thinking the same thing

Sturridge and Origi up front today = 3 pts.

Real missed opportunity. Especially with Chelsea going top tomorrow.

Still top of the table tonight.
Sturridge and Origi, what is this 2015?
Only downside, and cost, was Lallana.
That's the F***ing truth of today's performance.

Sturride, we may accept, doesn't fit Klopp's mobile front 4.
Origi and Sturridge best as a front 2, which we don't play now.

The point I have made is given today's scenario where Firmino and Coutinho were facing a match having travelled back from South America and were always going to be out of sorts, the best option was Sturridge (for Firmino), and then Origi to come on for Coutinho after part of the game.

Firmino and Coutinho wasted some great chances today, and Coutinho in particular was always being done for lack of speed. Both were completely out of sorts, and playing them cost us the 3 points. Sure Lallana was a big miss, but we still could have grabbed those points today. It was poor finishing and movement up front.

The movement, the pace, the sharpness all weren't there last night for Cou and Bobby but the substitutions came too late to upset Southampton's plan. Our plan B came on too late, far too late.

Agree with most sentiments and comments, trouble is that Citeh, Chelsea and Tottenham aren't going away and I feel our advantage of 7/9 points at Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs has been negated.

However our momentum has been stopped twice now with two 0-0s after the international break so now we have a great opportunity to go again.

It wasn't really meant to be taken seriously, but whatever. Pointless, yet true.

We need the goals when it's 0-0 and while Firmino is trying to emulate Luis with his outside of the boot finishes, Luis would have buried it and we'd be loving life.

My wider point is that I think we could do with someone like Sturridge if its nkt going to be Sturridge. Someone who will get the goal from 1 chance when it matters.

At the moment I reckon Firmino, Couts and Mane with get 15, 15 and 10. We are asking players to get us enough goals to win a league, who don't get that volume of goals usually. 

If Sturridge isn't the man then we need to find a striker who is. Luis definitely nt coming back, but there are other players out there that work hard and score 20+.

With teams sitting deeper against us we need to take chances and it would sit better with me if it was a striker on the end of them rather than all the falsies we have running about.

Suarez missed plenty of sitters esp in his first season when plenty on here thought he wasn't really a striker!

Another day and Firmino and Clyne bury their sitters and we are talking about how we keep winning despite not being at our best............small margins.

Suarez missed plenty of sitters esp in his first season when plenty on here thought he wasn't really a striker!

Another day and Firmino and Clyne bury their sitters and we are talking about how we keep winning despite not being at our best............small margins.

Firmino is going to be a monster for us.

Firmino is going to be a monster for us.

Fixed

Agree with most sentiments and comments, trouble is that Citeh, Chelsea and Tottenham aren't going away and I feel our advantage of 7/9 points at Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs has been negated.

However our momentum has been stopped twice now with two 0-0s after the international break so now we have a great opportunity to go again.

What on earth? How does that work? How is it that after 12 games (particularly after that tough start) we are on a points per game average that has us on a trajectory to get 86 points? Unless you think that those were only going to be the 7 points we'd drop this season then that's a crazy thing to say.

Firmino is going to be a monster for us.

The improvement is amazing, game on game he seems to step up in confidence and skill, it's almost frightening to contemplate the levels he will reach.

The improvement is amazing, game on game he seems to step up in confidence and skill, it's almost frightening to contemplate the levels he will reach.

Absolutely.


Like the new avatar  Stu.





14,000 mile round trips certainly is going to take it out of them
Some of the players were a half yard off the pace today.

Karius - Had nothing to do. 6

Clyne - Think he doesn't get the credit he deserves most of the time, but today I felt he could have offered a little more width to stretch a packed Southampton defense. He a good chance with header and should have got it on target. Solid defensively. 6.5

Lovren - Similar to Karius didn't have too much to do apart from sheppard the lone Austin, no real brain farts this week. 6

Matip - Fast becoming a favourite of mine, a good defender who really reads the game well. Love the way he brings the ball out from the back. He did have an opportunity from a Coutinho free-kick IIRC where he could have threw himself at the ball, any contact and it would have been net bound. 7

Milner - Shades of Burnley. Mr. pro kept going as he does but didn't really have the pace or the foot to open their flank up. Like many of a players he's been in good form and works tirelessly for the team, similar to Clyne he came up a bit short in the offensive department. 6

Henderson - Thought he had a decent game ticking things over in midfield. Chased back made his challenges and got through his work without much fuss. Probably one of the easier games he'll have as a '6' as Southampton were happy to offer nothing. 6.5

Can - Some days I like him, others not so much. Today, he never did really anything of note other than to drag a half decent chance wide. He battled well throughout and offered us muscle which by rights helped us to dominate possession, but he doesn't have the nimbleness and touch of Lallana to help open up an organised defense. 6

Gini - Similar to Can. He had decent first half with a good sighter on goal but faded as the game went on. At one point in the second half I forgot he was on the pitch. Then towards the end of the game he tried to involve/force himself into the game more but to no avail. 6

Mane - First half I thought he looked our most promising of the three pronged trio. And the few times he did have a bit of space to attack (in the first half), I was willing him to attack and open his legs up and be direct. Thwarted by a good Van Dyke challenge in the first half and forced a decent save out of their keeper. In the second half we didn't seem him build on the solid start he had, and his game petered out somewhat - like many of his team mates it turned out to be a frustrating afternoon. 6.5

Firmino - Been in good form as of late. But today was pretty much in Van Dyke's pocket all match. Worked tremendously hard as usual but failed to add anything on top of that. The only time he did evade Van Dyke he found himself with the best opportunity of the match and wasn't clinical enough to take it - he should have scored. Frustrating afternoon for him. 6

Coutinho - The effects of international football and his slight hamstring injury ensured his afternoon was a tough one. Bundled over most of the time in the first half, Cout's dropped deeper in the second to work some magic which evaded him today. 6

Klopp - Made the substitutions way too late today, should have made the Can/Sturride sub about 10-15 mins prior to what he did and he may as well have left Origi on the bench.The boss has done a remarkable job so far this season, but with hindsight he could have used a fresher Sturridge possibly earlier, or even started him over one of the two of his jet-lagged Brazilians.

Had we have grinded out the 1-0 win we'd all be talking about this being the stuff of champions etc. Not today. Frustrating day, with 2 pts dropped.

Today's game mirrored the Manchester United game who had a game plan to do nothing other than defend. 3 teams: Burnley, Manchester United and Southampton have managed to squeeze points from us doing this, while the likes of Watford and Leicester capitulated trying to do the same thing. We will play many teams doing this and our next batch of fixtures will probably see the opposition set out to stall us, whether Sunderland, Boro and whomever have the wherewithal to do this for 90 mins I highly doubt it - but we need to be clinical and grind these games out.

I just think that match showed just how important Adam has become to us. He dovetails so well with Gini, Sadio, Couts and Bobby that not having him in the side really affected our movement. It just felt like Emre and Gini were more focused on staying in their lanes and not getting in each other's way that I can't really remember them combining much during the match. We also missed the role Adam plays in triggering our press, Emre (even though he looked tidier yesterday than he has in previous matches) can't offer that.

Oh well 1 point is better than 0 points and it's more than most teams will get from St Mary's this season.

P.S. next time we go shopping on the South Coast can we please come back with Van Dijk please? Thanks.

Absolutely.


Like the new avatar  Stu.





14,000 mile round trips certainly is going to take it out of them
Some of the players were a half yard off the pace today.

The old ones are the best Skip.

That 14,000 mile figure is something to contend with, flying abroad to most holiday resorts takes some recovery time, to expect optimum physical performance in that recovery time is not realistic.

The old ones are the best Skip.

That 14,000 mile figure is something to contend with, flying abroad to most holiday resorts takes some recovery time, to expect optimum physical performance in that recovery time is not realistic.

Avatar.
If that is when I think it was Stu , I would have been a face in the Kop that day .

Difficult to judge a MoM, from the brief highlights, shown on BBC last night.

Avatar.
If that is when I think it was Stu , I would have been a face in the Kop that day .

Happy daze mate.

Had we have grinded out the 1-0 win we'd all be talking about this being the stuff of champions etc. Not today. Frustrating day, with 2 pts dropped.

Today's game mirrored the Manchester United game who had a game plan to do nothing other than defend. 3 teams: Burnley, Manchester United and Southampton have managed to squeeze points from us doing this, while the likes of Watford and Leicester capitulated trying to do the same thing. We will play many teams doing this and our next batch of fixtures will probably see the opposition set out to stall us, whether Sunderland, Boro and whomever have the wherewithal to do this for 90 mins I highly doubt it - but we need to be clinical and grind these games out.

Totally agree mate...
Never thought I'd see the day that teams set up their extra large buses AT HOME against us, which is exactly what Southampton did.
If I was a Southampton fan taking my two sons to watch that I'd be well pissed off with my teams display, they didn't even force a save out of Karius for the entire game..
We did miss Lallana's penetration through midfield but hey, we had enough chances to seal the win.
If Firmino would have stopped and raised his hands immediately after his shirt got pulled instead of falling over we might well have got that penalty..

I'm surprised Jürgen could see the game the amount of times his glasses got steamed up with the torrential rain pouring down.

Bollox to it.. we move on still right there in the mix..

Considering how F***ing jaded some of our lads were after the internationals and the refusal of Southampton to venture beyond the half-way line the result on the day was fair enuff.
Southampton are nobody's pushover at their own yard and on another day the chances we had would have been slotted and we could have walked away 2 or three goals to the good.

We go again. 

Totally dominated the game, kept a clean sheet, didn't even concede a shot at goal, and are still top of the league after it due to the "extra" point we earned from all those earlier thrashings of the opposition.

It's important not to lose the plot after it. Its not a disaster, nor is it armageddon. We got a point, we're still top. Forget it and move on with thrashing Moyes next week.