Liverpool 2-2 Sevilla : In game and Post Match discussion

Covers many people's comments really.  You can be nearly men - edge into top four, get to quarter finals/semi finals but it's very hard to go all the way when you can't defend.

Noticeable now for me that the midfield is not offering enough protection to the back four, who (Matip apart) aren't particularly good.  Lovren falling over for their first was pretty standard.  Their second they picked up the ball from the throw under absolutely no pressure - not sure what Henderson was doing there.

Silly initial yellow card as well from Gomez for the shirt tug.  Just so needless - highlights his immaturity really (and probably the unconscious belief he had that Lovren wouldn't help him out).

Doesn't look like we're getting a defender anytime soon - can't imagine us doing anything of interest in note in January. 

I'm fairly positive though in the sense that I think just changing Henderson and Lovren could make a fairly significant difference.  Keita will be next summer and hopefully a quality centre-back to join him.

Also, I'm struggling to see the reason behind the purchase of Oxlade Chamberlain.  We've paid £35M for a player who we could have signed for free next summer and he's playing 3 minutes of a game at Anfield.

This. But I'll take it a step further. Fundamentally teams get worse in certain areas under Klopp defending. Numbers support this with us and Dortmund. He doesn't put presidency on that side of the ball. So unless we just outscore everyone this happens. So..... What do you do? I'm literally asking! Your ceiling is only so high when you can't defend.

Is it a player issue? If that's the case why weren't more players pursued during the window? People say he didn't want to settle on a plan B at CB. It was VVD or no one. Well a plan B type player has to be better than Lovern. Hell at this point plan I'm up for a plan Z option. How do you not clear that ball? Who is charge of player personal BTW???

Is it the system? Set piece D has plagued us under Rodgers and then got worse when Klopp came in. His wide style is awesome in the attack but puts so much pressure on CBs on the counter and we have already discussed who one of them is. Why wouldn't you set him up with more help, instead of making him worse with the style of defending.

I really do like Klopp a lot, he brings passion and charisma to the team. But those things don't win you trophies. And with him at the helm you will be great on one side of the pitch and mediocre on good days and a liability on the others. That's a recipe for being and under achiever. What do we do? Can we defend better?

Missed the game as I was working. Came into this thread, saw the video of Lovrens F**k up and leaving here shaking my head.

He epitomises the issues with our defence. He's absolutely F***ing useless, you'd expect a kid playing in the C team from the local primary school to clear that and that F***ing idiot falls over himself.

Must be a nightmare to play alongside him.

Curious as to who you think should be the replacement for our Lovren, Mignolet, Henderson, etc.

Every time they play, I see people slam them. In this case Lovren's attempted clearance was shocking.

But, without them? Just as bad.

Lovren did not play in our last game of course and we conceded 5 goals then (and no, the Mane red card is not an excuse).
We had TAA. He had a bad game. Tonight we played Gomez. He had bad game. We played Klavan instead of Lovren. He was awful. You can take Henderson out, who do you replace him with? Can and Gini are not consistent.

We had Karius play instead of Mignolet, and conceded 2 weak goals. Moreno gets slammed a lot, but he had a great game. Firmino was up instead of a Striker, and whilst great in parts was also wasteful.

 

No doubt he should have buried it, but a missed penalty is not indicative of our issue. The main problem to me is, as good as our attack is, they are still extremely wasteful with their chances. And the final passes are terrible. Couple that with our sh*t defense and we're in for many more upsetting results this season.

I think we're agreeing here mate!

Do find it slightly odd that a someone who misses a penalty gets sympathy while others get abuse, yeah managers have favorites but so do fans

The irony is that it's such misses that result in the difference between the cup and the lip. And, it is exactly these players who come out at the end of the season commenting about the lack of trophies and building up a story of that being the main reason for them wanting to move on.

Man...

Just wasn't good enough.

We were definitely the better team and deserved to win but Lovren fu**ed us over at the back and Firmino was toothless at the front, took his goal well but wasn't in the game other than that. Can was sh*te, Gini and Henderson showed no urgency at all.

Poor show overall, not end of the world bad... But gives me no confidence that we can kill a game off.

Moreno was good though...

Bertie is the human embodiment of our team at present.

I described him in the match thread at Kim Kardashian out in front and Kim Philby in behind - not to be trusted!

I think we're like that across the back 6/7 just now.......Bertie is getting game time because he's improved.......so (swallows hard) there is hope for the rest.

That said. I still prefer Robbo like

Two points dropped

But I don't see it making any difference as we will qualify for the knock out round

First CL pen miss in 10 years .

Last one v Marseille    by Stevie   12/2007.

We basically switched off after the penalty miss

Should have won that easily

Quiz
Finish off this well-known phrase for a bonus point:

"Sevilla had 2 shots on target and..."

Two points dropped

But I don't see it making any difference as we will qualify for the knock out round

....with more chances of finishing second....

If the Europa loss didn't motivate this bunch to beat the sh*t out of Sevilla and win the game, I am not sure what exactly will motivate them.

Cue more interviews from players on "how they are going to work hard", "learn from the mistakes" etc...

Two points dropped

But I don't see it making any difference as we will qualify for the knock out round

And this mentality is what is wrong with our players and some fans.

Same old same im afraid. The team had to reflect on the City thumping and put in a performance against a Sevilla team who stole our cup glory, however we werent clinical enough.
When you dont take your chances to score, inevitably the focus shifts to the defence. As we all know, the defence cannot be relied upon, when they get it right its more of a bonus than the norm.
I voted Bobby motm, i thought he played his heart out and worked his socks off, his only blemish being the "costly" penalty miss.
So effectively i will lay the blame at the door of our attackers, since JK has clearly built this team to mainly attack, they need to ensure that they become alot more clinical.
When JK decides to buy another CB and play a proper LB and DM, then i will start to believe that we are looking to play a more balanced game.

Overall the team played well in patches and deserved to win, but couldnt. If we improve our sharpness in front of goal, then we will have more than enough to get past all the teams in the remaining matches.

i'm fuming with this performance.

and to see 'MOTM' voting and no option for 'no one at all' is also wrong.

there are many matches when no one plays well, so we should have the 'no one at all' or 'someone from the other team' as options

i'm fuming with this performance.

and to see 'MOTM' voting and no option for 'no one at all' is also wrong.

there are many matches when no one plays well, so we should have the 'no one at all' or 'someone from the other team' as options

Thought Salah had his best game for us. But I understand what you're saying.

At 2-1 it was going one way for me and it happened.

Liverpool leak goals and it's an absolute joke if you ask me.

Klopp needs to sort this out F***ing pronto or it's another nearly season yet again.

About 10 minutes before they scored I said to my son "You can see it now, 2-1 up, coasting, dominating, and bam! It's 2-2."

It's getting so predictable.

i'm fuming with this performance.

and to see 'MOTM' voting and no option for 'no one at all' is also wrong.

there are many matches when no one plays well, so we should have the 'no one at all' or 'someone from the other team' as options

Then you were watching a different game. Our defense, as usual, cost us the game.

But I saw a very encouraging performance against a very good European side who basically parked the bus for large parts of the game. We should have won that 5-2, so it's a testament to our excellent approach play, creativity and attacking. We need to be more clinical, granted, but we rebounded from a devastating capitulation with a very good performance.

I'm not as angry as some are, I though there were a lot of positives, all without Couts as well. My biggest anger is directed at not strengthening defense when we clearly could have done and needed to have done.

i'm fuming with this performance.

and to see 'MOTM' voting and no option for 'no one at all' is also wrong.

there are many matches when no one plays well, so we should have the 'no one at all' or 'someone from the other team' as options

F**k off with that sh*te.

Our attack was scintillating at times.

Do they get no credit because Lovren and Moreno can't defend??

Then you were watching a different game. Our defense, as usual, cost us the game.

But I saw a very encouraging performance against a very good European side who basically parked the bus for large parts of the game. We should have won that 5-2, so it's a testament to our excellent approach play, creativity and attacking. We need to be more clinical, granted, but we rebounded from a devastating capitulation with a very good performance.

I'm not as angry as some are, I though there were a lot of positives, all without Couts as well. My biggest anger is directed at not strengthening defense when we clearly could have done and needed to have done.

I saw team who come to us and did not need to do much to get a result.

I saw a lack of creativity from us in the final third

I saw Mane and Salah skip past the defenders and then not be able to find a team mate

I saw there keeper sitting on a deck chair

I saw us panic after they ran through our defence to equalise, and even after the panic they still fashioned the best chance to score at the death

I saw team who come to us and did not need to do much to get a result.

I saw a lack of creativity from us in the final third

I saw Mane and Salah skip past the defenders and then not be able to find a team mate

I saw there keeper sitting on a deck chair

I saw us panic after they ran through our defence to equalise, and even after the panic they still fashioned the best chance to score at the death

You clearly didn't watch the game then 

Same old same old really wasn't it? We play well and we should have gotten the win but as usual our defending lets us down and we drop points. We're back to where we were under Rodgers in the sense that we need to score 3 or 4 goals to make certain of the win because we know at some point we are likely to concede.

I've not seen any replays of the game so I am going off memory from last night and where I was sat.

Karius - I thought he did well. Instead of all this nonsense and putting us under pressure by passing it out from the back that he previously did (and what mignolet still does) he just got rid of it whenever it came near him and I definitely prefer that. He wasn't tested much though, I don't remember Sevilla having many shots on target, and he could do nothing about either goal.

Gomez - Defensively ok but at times going forward you can see he is a natural CB and not an attacking RB. Thought he was unlucky to get a second yellow but I'll have to see it again. Played well though.

Lovren - Definitely a big reason why we conceded the first goal and I'll have to see the replays of the second but I remember thinking he was all over the place for that one too. In general he was awful too, decision making dreadful, positioning all wrong, rash at times and the icing on the cake was when he was kicking the ball out for a sevilla throw when he was under zero pressure but still couldn't find a red shirt with a pass. He is just awful.

Matip - He was doing well for most of the game, bringing the ball out from the back and defensively solid too. Then towards the end he put us in all kinds of danger and had we faced better opposition then I think we would have been punished.

Moreno - A steady performance. Our equaliser was a great goal and most of it was down to Moreno. He is still rash in a tackle at times and i thought he was a red card waiting to happen. His positioning is still horrendous at times too. He has, however, improved somewhat and overall, it was an ok performance.

Henderson - I've had enough of this whopper now. Never known anybody to captain Liverpool with very few qualities and who is just a massive shithouse with no bottle. What do people see in him? I think he's f**king crap. Without the ball, he's actually decent. He covers a lot of ground and he has tons of energy. With the ball though he is so basic, so average, his decision making is woeful, he constantly puts the responsibility onto other players which is incredible considering he is skipper. Nobody was ever going to live up to Stevie but f**k me, Henderson isn't even a 10th of the captain he was. He is an absolute shithouse in a tackle as well, proper girl.

Can - He has improved a lot in the last few months Can but last night he was sh*te. Everything he touched went to plop.

Wijnaldum - Was by far the better of the three in midfield, he had a good game. He frustrates me Gini because he plays very well in certain games and then away from home at WBA or some sh*te like that you won't notice him. He did well last night though, really battled, worked hard, got involved in our play.

Mane - Electric first half and then second half they seemed to handle him a little bit better. What a player this lad is though, i think he is world class.

Firmino - Typical Firmino performance, battled throughout and showed tons of quality at times too. In the right place at the right time to score the equaliser and you can't get any more unlucky than hitting the post on a penalty either. Another good game.

Salah - My motm. The only criticism I have of Mo is his end product can be a little bit better, he can improve on that. Everything else is spot on though and i thought he was superb last night. Got lucky with his goal when it took a big deflection but if you don't shoot, you don't score and he deserved goal from his all round play anyway. Very good performance from Salah, best player on the pitch.

To summarise, neither Henderson or Lovren are good enough for LFC. We were the better team but didn't take enough of our chances. We limited Sevilla to very few chances but unsurprisingly they still scored 2.  I've come to accept now that until we sort that shambles of a back five out, we won't win anything.

You clearly didn't watch the game then 

no, im making it up for your amusement