Thanks, I just needed reassurance, phew! 
I am bracing myself for Mourinho’s wind up comments next week. 
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Frustrating not to win today.
Henderson really should have scored.
True but as for this game…Regardless of our injuries. We are a better and still more talented team than Fulham. And should have won this.
Yeah, it was a bit worrying he immediately rolled his sock down like he was going to grab his calf, but luckily he did it to his other sock as well indicating it wasnt necessarily a reaction to his recent injury.
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Was it not our 21st game and only Fulham 12th.
“Was it not our 21st game and only Fulham 12th.”
I understand that… But what I saw was a team that played to what they thought was the level of competition. We came out flat with no urgency. And expected Fulham to lay down and roll over. Guaranteed we will play much better and try harder from the start against Tottenham. Whether fatigued or not.
But given that we knew the other results beforehand. Could of put in a better effort. Especially in the first half. At least like they did in the 2nd.
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Deliberate? 
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Well, it wasn’t all that bad, was it!!!
We got a point that we barely deserved.
We had a favorable VAR decision (now that alone is worth writing a poem, we are looking at Mr. @cynicaloldgit)
We got a soft penalty, things usually our opponents monopolize (another poem @cynicaloldgit! nah, let’s @Lowton_Red do this)
Arsenal lost!!! 
sorry, wrong thread
They had a bundle of chances gone begging (sigh, even that didn’t happen to us this time)
Thing is, there will be bad days and we just have to take those with our chin up. Yeah, we were dire and I wish I could scratch my own face. Yeah, with a bit more energy and focus (things we often have in abundance) we could have bagged three points. But yeah, we had an awful day. Much like the one we have in our life/work, but we move on.
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Seems to be what is different is not the highs but the lows. Last couple of seasons we have become accustomed to seeing poor performances where work rate was high, but the side just wasn’t clicking - more often than not, the result would 3 points ground out in a not great to watch match. Seems like this year, every 5-6 matches we have one where the side just doesn’t show up. This was one of those for at least the first half.
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What needs to be remembered on the last couple of seasons we didn’t have this sort of hectic workload.
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Poor game from us. While the first half was truly abysmal, the second half was already nearer to our usual standards in terms of effort and commitment, without creating too many chances. So, the 1-1 is ok I guess.
The problem is these f… injuries, not only those happening in-match, but also the other ones. Keita crumbling again, why? We simply can’t get a break. And the already injured ones take ages to come back, which is a bit strange. Shaq? Thiago?
I’m starting to wonder if the players are still looked after in appropriate manner. We changed the club doctor this summer, didn’t we? This guy has had a torrid start with us, and it is really not a success so far, to say the least.
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Watching some highlight shows tonight we are already being written off against Spurs, which is fine with me. That seems to be when the Boys do their best work.
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Some clowns still saying we got away with One here. https://twitter.com/theanfieldtalk/status/1338165343999709184?s=21
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Spurs hardly were the bees knees tonight.
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Fulham played much better than what they’ve shown for most of this season. So credit to them. On the balance of play and chances created, they can consider themselves a little unlucky not to win.
On our side we were well below par. We looked so sluggish for the first half an hour. It started to improve but we still lacked a real cutting edge. The passing wasn’t crisp enough, the movement not sharp enough. We relied too much on the long ball and many of them seemed too speculative, where we were relying on the secondary possession after losing the header.
The penalty we won was a bit fortunate. It was right to the letter of the law, and Mo smashed it under the goalie, but I’m a bit nervous with him as penalty taker.
We will keep going round in circles on the CL team. I’ve said my piece on that one. Too many senior players in a dead rubber, as we had already won the group, then we were sluggish against Fulham and also picked up another injury to Jota.
Still, no point fighting with fellow reds - good reds, who might see it differently.
The story of the season has been, and will be, a long hard slog. I still think we will finish top of the pile but today wasn’t very good. Not the first such display, and won’t be the last.
Onwards and upwards. Joint top on points, hopefully we beat Spurs to go clear.
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Random thoughts on that.
It is inexplicable, absolutely fucking inexplicable, how a team as good as this one, current English and world champions, can churn out performances like the one they did in the first half. Nobody expects perfection every game, but a level of assurance and general competence isn’t too much to ask. And it’s not the first time this season as we saw pretty much the same thing at Villa and at home to Midgetland and to a lesser extent the first half against Sheff Utd and at Brighton. But today was as bad as anything I’ve seen in recent years. Long periods of play where we cannot string 2 passes together and are hanging on for dear life against absolute fucking dross.
We can blame injuries and the schedule to an extent but there’s more to it than that. Complacency?Arrogance? Bad attitude from certain players? I don’t know and I don’t understand how we can put performances like the Leicester and Wolves games in one week and then put in one like today the next.
Our reliance first half on the long diagonal, and let’s be honest, the long ball, is baffling. When we got it on the floor 2nd half we started looking like a football team. It was the root of our problems first half because we were unable to get any control as the midfield was by-passed completely when we had possession. Lumping long balls up to Salah and Mane is pointless, and quite frankly embarrassing to watch.
Salah was fouled for Fulham’s goal. Clear as day. Marriner, who was otherwise decent, was looking right at it from a few yards away. No matter how shit we were I just want to see the laws of the game adhered to and they weren’t, so yet again we have dropped points because the officials haven’t done their job. Marriner even gave us a free-kick just before HT for a push that was less of a foul than the one on Salah. Baffling.
It is becoming more and more apparent that the VAR officials are looking for any reason whatsoever to find infringements against us. Take the ‘penalty’ today. 3 fucking minutes and yet not a moments consideration to the Mane incident on the stroke of half-time. I’ve no doubt if it was at the other end Mason at least tells the ref to look at the monitor. That’s what we’re dealing with week in week out.
Same with Lookman’s foul on Henderson. Red card for me but hardly a word said. Then again assaults on our players seem to have become an acceptable part of the game.
Divock Origi is as done as it is possible to be done at this club and he needs putting out of his misery asap. Surely there’s a young lad in the U-23’s who can be thrown on for 15 minutes who can offer more than Divock does these days?
Minamino offered almost as little. Ran around a lot as he tends to do but every time he got possession in the first half of the 2nd half he played a safe ball backwards or sideways. What’s the fucking point? Until we get Ox back up to speed and hopefully Shaqiri back on the pitch there is genuinely no back-up for the front 3 and it’s a massive issue given Bobby’s drop in form - one that has lasted 12 months if I’m honest.
The next 2 games are all about damage limitation and I’d take 2 draws in a heartbeat. I think the best thing we can do against Spurs is surprise them by sitting back and trying to hit them on the break. They really aren’t that good when asked to break anyone down. Palace will be another slog, the only saving grace being they have a game Wednesday night as well and aren’t used to playing 3 games in less than 6 days. Hodgson didn’t make use of his subs today so hopefully he’ll run his starting 11 into the ground.
It’s mad to think we’re joint top of the league and into the CL knock-out phase and I’d be quite happy if the season ended tomorrow. It’s been a complete shit-show, stressful as fuck with the constant bad luck and injuries. We had a week where we all thought great, a chance to rest everyone and recharge the batteries and yet we’ve lost another 4 players in that period for varying lengths of time. It’s enough to make you weep.
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tired and leggy, not at the races, VAR, injuries, injuries, injuries, which in essence leads to an unsettled team week in, week out.
can’t complain about VAR for this game as it worked in our favour
Just hope our lads can plough on considering the odds stacked against them.
We let Fulham play football and they took that in the first half hour of the game. Hoping for miracles so our injury list can diminish quickly
still joint top, a major positive fact for us
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Must have been away with the pixies! On the face of it it should have been a regulation win,but of course that didn’t happen and were probably a bit lucky to leave with a point.
Injuries are killing us,they all made of marshmallow now?
However,although disappointed look forward to give Moaninho a masterclass come Wednesday.
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I’d still like to complain about it because what on Earth was going on with it? I think it was just the Fabinho tackle that was referred, wasn’t it? It looked like a fair tackle in real time (the ball dramatically changed direction). There was what should have been a quick check to see if there was any contact prior to the ball being played. There obviously wasn’t. And yet the clip was played backwards and forwards over again. They asked the ref to take a second look. There was no “clear and obvious error” in any way and given the awful camera angles, the on pitch officials had a far better view.
I saw someone say, I am assuming jokingly, that VAR is a betting scam. However, I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that there must be something in this because it has all the properties required for a swindle - prior knowledge of the result of an event - and they appear to be adding the one missing ingredient: time.
I am still in favour of technological assistance for the match officials because it works so well in other sports but I think we all secretly knew that in football they would make a hash of it.
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A performance like that against a Scott Parker team doesn’t exactly exude confidence going into the midweek game.
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