I personally thought the Shrewsbury game was poor, and tonight’s was just as bad. I think we’ve hit a mid season slump, everyone does. Let’s hope ours doesn’t last to long.
They’ll have 11 men on thie pitch, we’ll be fine 
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Disagree. You’ve got to give credit to Arsenal for their rearguard action.
It’s a proper problem.
Not good enough.
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This is what happens when the thread is named incorrectly. Can we learn our lesson ahead of the second leg?
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17 shots…1 on target. Not sure if painful or funny.
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whomever started that matchday thread is getting the fucking boots.
Also, last time I saw a miss that fucking shocking, he was gone soon after:
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That midfield starting three is becoming the new Milner, Hendo, Gini three.
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More like Hendo, Lucas and Allen
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What is it with our corners by the way? They get worse game by game, we may as well give it to their keeper so at least they don’t get a chance on the counter.
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Said it before the game. Messed with the cup juju 
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weren’t exactly great in December either.
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Poor game from us, but at least we have a template of what not to do on Sunday against Brentford.
Dire. Or abject. Dire and abject. Whisper it quietly but Henderson is having a stinker of a season. He’s scored a few but generally been poor all around, Milner is fit as usual but slowing down dramatically and Fabinho has always been slow. So without Thiago and. Keita and Ox not being trusted ‘steady’ is about best speed possible for our midfield these days and it’s showing in our play from back to front.
That said, missing sitters and having brain farts at the back is pretty unforgivable and that’s where the points have been dropped and results like this made possible. I said a few weeks ago that some of the lads needed a rocket and I’m standing with that. Andy and Alisson against Spurs, Mane missing a sitter against Leicester, Milner brainlessly giving away a foul against Chelsea, Minamino missing a sitter today… We have really fucked ourselves up, nobody else.
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BS, we did not create a proper chance in those first 25 minutes, half-chances at best
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I’ve got a real soft spot for Milner but I think it’s safe to say he shouldn’t start any game against a top division team now - he’s 36 and you can tell from his speed and the fact he usually looks behind the play no matter which direction its going or how close he is to it. Knock on effect of that is Hendo tries to cover both sides meaning he cant help drive the tem forward because he’s running side to side.
Fab-Hendo-Thiago/Fab-Hendo-Keita/Fab-Thiago-Keita/Hendo-Thiago-Keita. Any of those line ups looks massively better and a lot less pedestrian. You’ve got choices there for games where we need to control the possession and games where we need to exploit the space. Ox as well has had a fairly decent season and could do the Keita role (although not as well).
It’s sad to say because he’s been such a big part in helping this team go from where Brendan left it to where Klopp has pushed it, but Milner’s gotta be on the way out of the playing staff. If he wants to stay as a member of the coaching staff that would be briliant and he’d have a great impact on the youngsters, but his playing days feel done - at least at the level we’d like him to be at.
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Really feels like the squad has gone stale, fringe players going through the motions. Needs a shake up.
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January isn’t it. We always do this in January.
Saying that, ten men behind the ball for us has always been a challenge. Our creativity comes from out wide and the deeper they sit the harder it is for the fullbacks to bring that. Add in the loss of our two main attacking threats who also operate out wide and that’s a recipe for a stodgy attacking performance.
Have said for a while now that more of a ten option for midfield would be nice. I know the midfield tends to be more workman like but we don’t really have anything like a tricky creative type that can beat a man and pick those tight passes. Or that gets beyond the forwards and into the box more regularly.
Just feels a bit samey in that unit at the moment and it often shows in games like this.
But they’ll have to come out a bit more in the second leg so we’ll have some more space and hopefully a few lads will have shaken off the cobwebs after a weird 7-10 days for most of them.
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I guess players must go out with the idea that they can’t be arsed, and if a half chance comes their way their gonna blast it wide. It’s only natural.
Three times Firmino was an inch or two away from touching in a ball across the 6 yard box/face of the goal. Plus Jota probably would have scored had Xhaka not been Xhaka. Might feel like half chances in retrospect but we were all over them and carving them apart. Spaces were there and we were using them. Arsenal were being run around the pitch and were struggling to cope with us. That changed once the red card came.