Aston Villa 1-4 Liverpool: In game and Post Match discussion

The entire team is playing like sh*t the last few weeks apart from Thiago's appearances off the bench not just Hendo. He is forced into making poor passes from deep as the movement from our forwards is piss poor lately and he doesn't have the world class passing range Thiago has. With no creative player in midfield Hendo will always look poor like when he plays next to Milner and Gini.

Put him next to Fab, Thiago, or Naby it takes away the pressure of having to create from deep, and allows him to concentrate on dominating possession and spread the play out wide.

With a fully fit Thiago next to him we will see what Hendo does best for us.

You are blaming our strikers for Hendo's poor passing from deep? because of their movement? and nothing to do with the team we are playing are defending deep with many players behind the ball giving our strikers less room and all his crosses were way to high in the box for their U23 goalkeeper to catch but Thiago passes reached our front players and many others so surely there is nothing wrong with our strikers movement because Thiago is not making poor passes.It's called game intelligence/reading the game which Hendo doesn't excel at. Hendo does struggle with the bus parkers when teams sit deep but when teams come at us that's when he can play his game that suits him.

With no creative midfielder Hendo will always look poor?Wow interesting comment. Didn't we get to a champions league final with Gini,Milner and Hendo in midfield in the 2017-18 season?I don't think Hendo looked poor then.You build Hendo up then say he will look poor in a midfield without Fab/a creative midfielder.

Technically, he is a very limited and average footballer. It’s his professionalism and athleticism that has got him to where he is today. Along with a world class coach and world class team mates.

There is literally nothing factual about anything you just wrote. Weird.

I would simply like to say glad we are through to the next round of the competition. I cannot comment on individual performances, as I did not see any of the game.

That shouldn’t stop you, plenty of posters supposedly watched the game and they comment complete and utter bullshit.

It's not sarcasm. The reason being given is that cash is short BECAUSE of CoVid, so when you say it's the same argument, well it's not.

But OK, moving on to just money, the leadership of the club either feel they can responsibly spend at a given time, for a given need, or they can't. They obviously felt they could spend on Thiago and Jota, and unless Jürgen is just blowing smoke up everyone's ass, then they don't feel they can do that now after another half a season of (almost) no gate revenue and no assurance of it resuming any time soon.

If there are financials available that disprove what they are saying then let's see them. I'll take Jürgen's word for it at this point (and if we do buy someone this month for the kind of money you'd need for a top defender - then I'll know it was BS).

If I was fsg I'd be worried about the lack of CL money set to not come into the club if they don't buy a defender and the chaos that would cause with the current playing staff.

Surprised to see how strong our line up was but I was delighted. I hope klopp takes the fa cup serious this year.

Tragic first half though. We really do struggle breaking teams down and it doesn’t matter if they’re premier league, league 2 or an academy side. Put ten men behind the ball and sit on the edge of their box and ask us to break them down and we really do struggle.

I don’t want to focus in too much on any individuals tonight but I thought Henderson was really, really poor. And I find that quite often in these sort of games and you see that he isn’t particularly a very good footballer. You see it when he plays for england too because most of the sides they play sit in as well. He gave the ball away several times and I was happy klopp pulled him at half time.

I also don’t think neco williams will ever be good enough for us either. I don’t think he had a really poor game or anything but he’s had several opportunities now and he doesn’t really do or offer much. He just plods along and I think we’ve moved on now where every player who features for us has to be a top player who contributes and he doesn’t for me.  That goes for minamino too. He doesn’t do anywhere near enough when he plays and because our standard is so so high now, they stick out like a sore thumb.

Second half I thought we were much better. The introduction of Thiago definitely made a difference and we started to pass the ball a bit better. Villas kids clearly got tired too.

well done for nit focusing too much on individuals anyway 

That shouldn’t stop you, plenty of posters supposedly watched the game and they comment complete and utter bullshit.

this case happens more than usual

Well done to Shaq too. Another player who's doesnt just try and run or kick it into the brick wall

Him and Thiago 2 players who slow it down and speed it up at the right times.

Without those 2 it looked like more of the same.

2 players there with some craft.

Should be on the next teamsheet for me and work from there in midfield.

Was a pleasure to see some forward movement of the ball and thoughtful football for a change coming out of the middle.

So winning is no longer enough for people not to bi*ch. F**k sake.

Did that feel like a win last night? Those kids made mugs of us for an hour. It was a continuation of the poor form we have seen lately. We win because their legs went. Against anything resembling their full team, playing like that we would have lost. But if you have a spring in your step after that statement victory last night more power to you.

Thiago in that last 1/2 hour against tired inexperienced kids was always going to do that. He can do that to the best. Nice to see shaq, and mane scoring 2. But not many positives to take.

They need to get out of this slumber. Slow plodding predictable play. Long aimless balls forward. They need to stop faffing in the final 3rd and be more clinical and with thiago in the team be more creative in midfield.

There is a hell of alot to work on. If teams below win their games in hand we will be 3rd when we could have been clear. Another month like this and we can forget the title. City will be away and gone.

With no creative midfielder Hendo will always look poor?Wow interesting comment. Didn't we get to a champions league final with Gini,Milner and Hendo in midfield in the 2017-18 season?I don't think Hendo looked poor then.You build Hendo up then say he will look poor in a midfield without Fab/a creative midfielder.

Our midfield was rotated in the CL with Hendo/Ox/Gini/Milner.

Ox was the creative technical outlet that season. After Ox was injured in the semi final we then played a Hendo-Gini-Milner midfield and I believe we lost 3 of our last 4 games including the CL semi final second leg and final.

Hendo is always at his best when he has a technical footballer in midfield with him as it takes away the pressure of him having to press, switch play, and also be the creative presence in CM. He is the motor in the engine of our team.

Our midfield was rotated in the CL with Hendo/Ox/Gini/Milner.

Ox was the creative technical outlet that season. After Ox was injured in the semi final we then played a Hendo-Gini-Milner midfield and I believe we lost 3 of our last 4 games including the CL semi final second leg and final.

Hendo is always at his best when he has a technical footballer in midfield with him as it takes away the pressure of him having to press, switch play, and also be the creative presence in CM. He is the motor in the engine of our team.

I'm commenting on your post that Hendo looks poor with no creative midfielder yet your saying he's undroppable because he's our captain even though he has looked bad for a while and couldn't perform against villa's kids,come on.As for the CL in 17-18 again did you think Hendo looked poor in the midfield with Gini and Milner?i don't think he did,Ox came off after 18 minutes injured in the Roma CL game and Gini came on came on the score was 0-0 at the time,the final score was 5-2 and the second leg we had already got to the final so it was all about holding what we had getting the job done,as for the final we all know what happened to our best player in that game.

I'm commenting on your post that Hendo looks poor with no creative midfielder yet your saying he's undroppable because he's our captain even though he has looked bad for a while and couldn't perform against villa's kids,come on.As for the CL in 17-18 again did you think Hendo looked poor in the midfield with Gini and Milner?i don't think he did,Ox came off after 18 minutes injured in the Roma CL game and Gini came on came on the score was 0-0 at the time,the final score was 5-2 and the second leg we had already got to the final so it was all about holding what we had getting the job done,as for the final we all know what happened to our best player in that game.

So what point are you trying to make exactly? Drop Hendo after a poor run of recent games? Should we not just drop most of our first team in this case?

Hendo won't be dropped so this is all moot.

There is literally nothing factual about anything you just wrote. Weird.

To be honest mate, this forum has several divvys on it, loads of people who talk sh*te, but you’re right up there in the top three and it’s people like you why other people can’t be arsed and swerve it.

Because if you supported Liverpool for longer than the last three weeks you would know how important Hendo is to this club, and what a brilliant captain he is, and wouldn't call for him to he dropped.

And no Jürgen won't "probably play Hendo anyway", he will absolutely no doubt play him because unlike you he along with the majority of Liverpool supporters value what Hendo brings every time he steps out on to the pitch with the armband on.

Out of interest what did Hendo bring to the game yesterday or the previous three games?  I generally like Hendo he had a great season last term and he's good at keeping the ball moving etc but lately he seems to have returned to the kind of form of earlier seasons. I think a big reason for this is the absence of Virgil and also the absence of Fabinho next to him in midfield. Whatever the reason is we should look at other options as we need to have more creativity in midfield, just look at the impact of Thiago and Shaq yesterday. Yes it was against tired Villa youngsters but they were going for the low block yet with a bit of cleverness from Thiago and Shaq we finally broke through, would that have happened with Hendo on current form, not in my opinion.

I disagree that he is both limited technically and an average footballer.

He has well above average range of passing, and very high game intelligence.

Not Thaigo level passing of course but then Thiago could never press and win possession like Hendo does.

If they can form an understanding together over the next few games I think they will make a brilliant midfield partnership.

Sorry but I call bullshit on this, Thiago has high game intelligence, Hendo does not. This does not mean that Hendo does not have a very important role to play, he is the heartbeat of the midfield, constantly chasing and pressing but and it is a bloody big BUT he has almost zero creativity in him, he has no eye for goal, occasionally he delivers a good pass but not on a regular basis, he is an out and out enforcer, in the mold of Roy Keane, Vierra etc.

In a normal game of end to end football Hendo is very important to the team but in the recent games where we have lacked creativity against more defensive teams he is a big part of the problem and Thiago and Shaq are the solution.

So what point are you trying to make exactly? Drop Hendo after a poor run of recent games? Should we not just drop most of our first team in this case?

Hendo won't be dropped so this is all moot.

Are you like Hendo's number one superfan or something, this is getting a bit weird now, you are so defensive about this! 

Even if the whole team is underperforming it can still be mostly due to one player, quite often the midfield captain in fact. I remember several time Stevie G having a sh*t game and because every ball had to go via him in any move it therefore affected the entire team. 

At the moment Hendo is not playing well, or are you arguing against that, if you agree then why not try someone else in midfield, you saw yesterday the immediate effect of swapping Hendo for Thiago, that wasn't just down to the Villa kids getting knackered, it was creativity, new angles, more energy etc

Hendo's going through a bad patch like a lot of others in the team but he'll be back.

Definitely has to start next weekend where United will be very dangerous going forward.

Oh ffs another Hendo is not a good footballer sh*t talk post.

Hendo the captain of the best Liverpool team in a generation is not a good footballer.

Arguably our player of the season in our first league title win in 30 years is not a good footballer.

10 years later and he still has this utter nonsense sprouted about him it's so f**king laughable.

There must only be two footballers who are good in the history of football then. Pele and Maradona. The rest are rubbish. This is me judgement upon all professional footballers past and present. I can’t help but laugh at meself as well.

There’s only one good golfer and one good basketball player in recent history. All other professional sports athletes who earn much more than me are... hopeless. Yes I’ve passed a judgement.

Sorry but I call bullshit on this, Thiago has high game intelligence, Hendo does not. This does not mean that Hendo does not have a very important role to play, he is the heartbeat of the midfield, constantly chasing and pressing but and it is a bloody big BUT he has almost zero creativity in him, he has no eye for goal, occasionally he delivers a good pass but not on a regular basis, he is an out and out enforcer, in the mold of Roy Keane, Vierra etc.

In a normal game of end to end football Hendo is very important to the team but in the recent games where we have lacked creativity against more defensive teams he is a big part of the problem and Thiago and Shaq are the solution.

Absolute nonsense. If our forwards weren't blowing 20 plus chances they get every game no one would be bemoaning our lack of creativity from midfield.

Take Hendo out of midfield and you'll quickly realise how important he is when we start shipping goals again at an alarming rate. He is not in the team to provide creativity that's the reason we signed Thiago. But to say he has zero creativity is rubbish.

Standard victory - much needed as well! Keep on Redmen!

Funny.

"New" members who immediately start shitposting about the captain, with the same tired old shitposts that have done the rounds since Henderson came to the club.

If I were cynical.....

Hendo's going through a bad patch like a lot of others in the team but he'll be back.

Definitely has to start next weekend where United will be very dangerous going forward.

Why does he have to start?

To be honest mate, this forum has several divvys on it, loads of people who talk sh*te, but you’re right up there in the top three and it’s people like you why other people can’t be arsed and swerve it.

Nothing factual in this post either. You seem to have an issue being genuine bud. Maybe try working on that and don’t worry so much about what I’m posting.

Absolute nonsense. If our forwards weren't blowing 20 plus chances they get every game no one would be bemoaning our lack of creativity from midfield.

Take Hendo out of midfield and you'll quickly realise how important he is when we start shipping goals again at an alarming rate. He is not in the team to provide creativity that's the reason we signed Thiago. But to say he has zero creativity is rubbish.

I never said he had zero creativity, but as you correctly point out his main job is to act as a DM and pass the ball to the FB's, but why is that necessary against a low block team, against a low block team crossing the ball into the centre is a very poor option, especially when you don't have tall powerful forwards. In that case you need to go through the middle AND the flanks, which is what we did when Shaq and Thiago came on yesterday.

Hendo is a good player, but he is going through a bad spell and we need creativity in midfield, now against Man Utd there is an argument for playing him as Man Utd will play a more open game, but against low block teams we need to be more positive in midfield, we have Fabinho who can play the DM and CB role against low block teams, so we don't need Hendo as much.