Said it in the pre match thread:
It was a turd. Flush it and move on. Anyone thinking this is us “bottling” anything needs to have their heads examined. Long long way to go with a lot of football left to play.
We have four very winnable league games with a very winnable cup final before we play Citeh at Anfield. Win that match and the title race begins proper.
One has nothing to do with the other.
For the record, Alisson and Van Dijk were the main culprits but it was an awful performance collectively. Mac Allister was the only one that was close to his standards.
For the first, Havertz pulled Konate’s shirt initially, then then were both holding on for a long time.
But having said that. Konate has all the attributes to deal with a long ball against Havertz without resprting to that, so he didn’t need to do it.
It looked to me more like we had no idea where our positioning was supposed to be for much of it, and that our passing was disjointed. I like Gravenberch but at the moment he’s not on the level of Szoboszlai in terms of presence, especially considering he didn’t have the benefit of preseason with us.
No you don’t. Especially that far from goal. That ball should never have been allowed bounce. It’s something I’d expect from an inexperienced defender.
VVD does things that you would be told not to do when coming through the youth teams. He’s earned the right to that as he more than often gets it right. MIstakes will occur.
VVD should’ve been stronger sheilding - the Haverts push was timed perfectly when VVD’s feeet were not grounded and that pushed him onto Allison. It was compunded miskes.
But on the bright side, this was out first loss since “that” Spurs game. Need to pick up points starting from this weekend.
It was 50 yards from goal when it bounced. We are not conceding a goal because he chose to do that and instead try to play it out. Virgil routinely deals with situations like that in that way, knowing he has a goalie back there he can use to play around the harrying attacker. The challenge came when he saw Ali flying out of his area to intervene on a situation that didn’t need it, and at the point virgil sees that then he has to leave it to Ali.
Ali made a decision he didn’t need to make and then catastrophically fucked up. Virgil will. Stick his hand up for his role in it because that’s what he does but he’ll make the same decision over and over again
Standing up, taking the flack, as a captain should
I think the problem was that he was sure that Alisson was coming out because Alisson did in fact come flying out.
Tbf’ Lucho’s goal was their giveaway. So the first giveaway goal by Ali just evens it out (the final goal did not really matter anyway). Sure, without it, we could have somehow taken a point. But without the Gabriel handball goal, we never even half-troubled their goalkeeper. We played shite and deserved nothing - and for a change this time it was not the ref who fucked us over (despite being inconsistent).
Shake the dust off ourselves, use the full week to rest and recover - and then put Burnley to the sword. Nothing is lost yest.
POST MATCH REPORT:
I woke up feeling lethargic hoping that the reds would sort me out, but little did I know that they too would be lethargic.
Was tracking my lad who made his way to the match. He got there safely.
And eventually the match started after some gap filler matches beforehand.
We just never got going, not up to the levels we have set recently. Somehow 1-1 - karma that Gabriels handball ended up in the net - I wonder of var would have given that as a penalty if it didn’t go in?
But deserved what we got. Nothing.
Dust ourselves off and ready for the next set of games. Burnley next. I hope @GermanRed is ready.
Thoughts to Connor Bradley too - just put it all into perspective.
League over.
Poor team selection, Gravenberch vying for the worst player ever title
Dreadful lack of heart and resilience.
Outfought in all areas.
Allison thinks he’s Ederson.
Virgil way too casual too often.
Thank fuck the golf season is up and running.
Virgil deals with the ball if Ali doesn’t come out and make a show, Virgil is focused on the ball…Ali can see Martinelli and rushes out…just stay put and give a shout “man on” or “little fucking brazilian cunt in pursuit”. I promise anyone that was all that was needed from Ali there. As to what he was doing for the 3rd goal…can only imagine his mind was somewhere else.
League over?
You gotta be taking a piss!!
Calm down bro
My problem with him his that he is so good offensively, we’ll tolerate what he struggles with defensively.
These days it seems like he knows this, so he doesn’t even bother trying.
Wtf is this shit? 
We were poor, put it to bed and move on to Burnley.
He ran past Gomez 3 times too. But unfortunately this doesn’t fit into the Trent bashing narrative.
Yeah, but Gomez actually tries to get back and make a nuisance of himself. He doesn’t just act like ‘ah fuck it, someone else can deal with it’
