0 voters
Unused subs: Adrian, Keita, Shaqiri, Origi, R. Williams, N. Williams.
62’ Alex OXLADE CHAMBERLAIN on, Mohamed SALAH off
62’ Diogo JOTA on, Curtis JONES off
80’ James MILNER on, Thiago ALCANTARA off
Well, that was shite. I’ve typed that line more this season than I had in the previous three years and, yes, it is getting fucking annoying now.
A fifth consecutive home defeat- something that has never previously happened in the long and illustrious history of this great club. Record breakers; where’s Roy Castle when you need him?
Two changes for the Tricky Reds tonight, with that shirker Alisson being forced back to work by @Klopptimist and Fabinho returning to the heart of the defence in place of the injured Nat Phillips. The return of Diogo Jota to the bench was a welcome sight; hopefully his return will give the front three a much-needed kick up the backside.
A fairly even opening twenty minutes with Werner possibly having the two best early chances, blazing over on the ten minute mark and then just failing to lift the ball over Ali a few minutes later. At the other end, Robbo dragged his shot wide after a lapse by James, while Sadio might have earned a penalty had he gone down under a challenge from the same Chelsea player… or if he had played for a team from Manchester.
Werner appeared to have beaten the offside trap in the 24th minute and, having beaten the onrushing Alisson to the ball, managed to tuck it home milliseconds before Robbo could clear. Fortunately, VAR applied the same forensic detail to its check that it usually does for our goals and the score remained 0-0, with Werner’s arm being adjudged offside.
Five minutes later, Mané fluffed a good chance after being played in by a glorious ball over the top from Mo, the Senegalese forward not quite able to connect with just Mendy to beat. Curtis hit a speculative effort well wide on the half hour mark; the home side were yet to find their feet.
With four minutes of the half remaining, a long ball from Kanté into the space behind Trent saw Mount cut in and gore low past Alisson and into the bottom corner. Nobody closed the Chelsea midfielder down particularly quickly.
As the players trudged off for their halftime oranges, the visitors definitely deserved their lead. Their game plan was obviously to exploit our high line and it worked on several occasions. The Reds were on the ropes and rocking.
The Reds started the second stanza more brightly and should have been awarded a penalty three minutes into the half. Firmino’s cross clearly hit Kanté’s hand; the Chelsea midfielder’s arm was clearly raised at an unnatural angle. An identical offence by our own Joe Gomez against Manchester City earlier this season resulted in a penalty; needless to say, this didn’t.
Mo was mysteriously taken off just after the hour; while it was great to see Jota back, it was perplexing to see Firmino and Mané both stay on instead of our top scorer. Ox replaced Jones, who had had a quiet game, at the same time.
Alisson spread himself to thwart Werner after Mount had played him through in the 76th minute; other than that, the second half consisted almost exclusively of Liverpool playing the ball around in front of the massed ranks of Chelsea’s defence.
Thiago was replaced by Millie with ten minutes left, after another disappointing performance by the Spanish midfield maestro. He’s unquestionably a class act but it just isn’t happening for him at Anfield. Yet.
Liverpool finally had their first attempt on target in- get this- the 85th minute. Good work by Bobby saw him dispossess Kanté and cross into the danger area but Gini’s header lacked pace and was straight at Mendy.
Seven home games since our last win at Anfield in the league… and even that came courtesy of Bobby’s late header against Spurs. We have scored two goals in that period, and one of those was a penalty. Crisis? What crisis?
Next up is the visit of Fulham on Sunday afternoon. Scott Parker’s men have improved of late but are still the sort of team we should be battering, especially at home. Still, this season has shown time and again that nothing can be taken for granted.
MOTM: the late, great Ian St John. The Anfield legend passed away at the age of 82 on Tuesday. A magnificent footballer and a wonderful human being, he will be sorely missed by many. I had the good fortune to meet him at hospitality and fundraising events a couple of times; he was a true gentleman and always had that famous sparkle in his eye. May he rest in peace.
Absolute fucking shite.
Should have had a pen though.
There is something not right at our club
That was real wank!
This “offense” is a joke. Someone needs to shoot the freaking ball. Didn’t deserve to win.
I’ve never criticised Klopp here or on TIA before. Love the man. But WTF is he doing hooking Salah at 60mins. Pretty much our only goal scorer since Christmas. Tonight he wasn’t brilliant but was at least trying to make things happen. Absolutely the last player that should have been subbed
Woeful. Clueless.
But during Covid-19 I have gained a whole lot of perspective towards losses in my own personal life and for Liverpool, my beloved club, we will just keep going and even if we were ever to hit bottom, we will come back stronger again. I don’t know when that will be, but we will.
When you have your 3 best defenders out it’s time for the midfield and attack to step it up. Not sit in a corner wanking!
So, have we ever lost five games in a row at home?
Anyway, as written in the pre-match thread: an empty Anfield is not home. It’s a scary place full of ghosts. Not a place you want to be.
Can’t wait to see the back of that pseudo-season.
No MOTM, they were all shite.
Everyone concentrates on our defensive problems where we’ve lost so many CBs but i still believe it’s 100% our loss in midfield that’s the biggest problem. Whenever we’ve lost Hendo in midfield we just havent been the same team, i especially remember losing him the year City beat us to the title, losing him was one of the reasons we lost the title that year. On top of that this year we’ve lost Fab (where hes been CB most of the time).
That’s 2/3rds of our main midfield that don’t just make our attack work but also our defense. It would be hard without 1 of them but without both (and our 3 main CBs out) we over performed at the start of the season and now its settled to where it should have been. Imho we’re missing our midfield more than our defenders. It also explains how our strike rate has gone down too.
With all of that in mind i’m not in the least surprised by tonights result (or many of the others). We’ve lost 4 of our 11 positions (in main players starting where they should) and our backups just aren’t near enough the quality (or also injured like Matip and Jota). This season is a write off unless we fluke the CL, other than that i can’t wait to see us back and firing next season where i think we’ll return to last seasons form but with more ruthlessness because of what happened this year :).
I’m speechless.
No goal from open play at Anfield in 2021. It’s March FFS!!!
Dortmund 2.0 all over.
Playing the same out of form favourites to no effect.
Playing the same tactics being easily countered by the most basic of counter-plans.
No team moral, Salah ignoring his manager.
Not fighting for eachother, not fighting for the ball.
Lazy, walking all over.
We have no heart, we have no mentality.
So soft, no snide.
The players and coaches should be ashamed, 5 lost in a row at home. It’s utterly embarrasing.
Jones was ok but he isn’t helped by the others.
So fed up of moaning about officials in this forum. Yes we’ve been robbed a few times. This is one factor but not even close to being the main factor in our demise
Its also mot the time to play a high line but we keep doing it.
If villa and spurs win games in hand we’re 9th and deserve to be.
Posting here to say I voted for Kabak, and now I’m putting this thread on mute. It’s not even worth venting anymore with the same story(lineup) game after shitty game.