Post Match: Liverpool v Leeds Utd (EPL 12/9/2020 5.30pm

what a performance. when i’m old and grey i’ll be telling my grandkids about that midfield display keita put on for the first 60 minutes. can’t believe leeds scored 3 when we looked so solid at the back. there’s no need for any signings imo. we’ll batter chelsea and all their new signings next week,nothing to worry about.

2 Likes

You’re off to a cracking start here.

7 Likes

There is a universe in which Mo Salah scores a hat-trick next game too goes to a 100 club goals, and you’d still not mention him.

6 Likes

The defence is a serious, serious concern. It would be fine if it was just a couple of matches, however it has been weak for about 20 games now.

Mo looks like he is really looking forward to the new season.
Bobby off the pace when it comes to decisive touches and decisions making.
Joe is struggling, Matip will take his place when completely fit.
Allison on current form is going to be third choice For Brazil.
Robbo doesn’t need competition.
Trent was average.
Virgil being affected by his buddies transfer situation.
Thought Naby had a decent game. It was obvious that his duties were not defensive in nature.
Glad Hendo is back, needs a few games.
Mane continuing last seasons form.
Gini was his regular self, hard working, unspectacular and solid.

Leeds should be fine this season, unless they don’t learn their lesson of over extending financially.

Chelsea will be a disaster if we play this way.

5 Likes

I’ll take this comment back. Apologies @Heighwayman You just posted praise for Mo elsewhere. I think we all get hot under the collar when things go wrong defensively.

I think we’ll be better. We have to be. I don’t see VvD making another mistake like he did today. But his overall game needs to be better as well.

I think Fabinho’s introduction helped after he had settled. We had that solid midfield base.

At some level Leeds forced us to make our game quicker than we would have liked. Our usual games till we practically won the title last season was to score a goal, sit back and see the game out. When a team comes gung ho on you like Leeds did, we’ll need to up our tempo as well, which led to such an open game. Having said that there’s definite scope of improvement in defense, and it starts with the midfield. Some positioning has been real questionable from few of our players, Fab and Gomez mostly the ones guilty. Sort that and we should be good IMO.

22 shots from us, 11 blocked, 6 on target and 5 off. They had 3 on target, 1 off and 2 blocked. We should be converting more of our chances and Alison should be making the odd save in games. :joy:

2 Likes

Think Alisson was very close saving that third goal, it went just below his hand, if my memory serves right. Usually he saves those.

A lot of thoughts.

Great to win our first game as reigning title winners (didn’t count last year as “reigning” as we were still in the season it happened); great to win our first game in our smart new Nike kit; great to get four goals and be able to see some wonderful attacking play. Could have scored six or seven. I know we scored three goals from dead-ball situations (which isn’t a bad thing, in and of itself), but, even so, some of our passing going forward was absolutely fantastic.

As for the not so good — and I say this while believing that we still have the best defense in the League — the defending was shocking. I don’t think we’ve been ourselves defensively since February. At first I chalked it off to Alisson being out; then when he came back I figured it had to do with us inevitably dropping off after the title; now, however, it is slightly more concerning. This isn’t to say that this will be a problem for us all season — our defenders are too good to have so many letdowns consistently — and, as mentioned I do feel that we still have the best defense in the League by some distance, but we need to be more switched on. All three goals were highly preventable, even if they were all well-played by Leeds.

A good learning lesson for us, though, and, in addition to the scoreline, quite similar to the 4-3 against Salzburg last year. Great to know we still have the bottle to win when it’s level late on.

Additionally, and not just because they rolled through the Championship last season, I think Leeds will be one of our toughest opponents of the year. Even if teams that play us deep pose more problems in terms of us creating chances, Leeds’ willingness to play us straight up causes more problems defensively.

Last of all, it’s fun to hear all the fume from rival fans about our two penalties…just tell them the karmic balance from our lack of penalty awards last year is shifting. :joy:

1 Like

It’s not all bad news. I reckon we only need another 35 points to avoid relegation.

4 Likes

I don’t think it’s physical…Mental, yes, it easily can be. Being a bit too arrogant or “over confident”, is a form of a “mental fatigue”. The oponents sence that and want to get you off, of your perch

Hold on. His game at set-pieces couldn’t really have been better. He did exactly what he’s supposed to do at corners. His long passing to Trent for instance was squandered by Trent who really had a rare stinker tonight.

There’s proportion though. Lad was ranting about Keita and slagging off posters who though he did alright in the match thread.

We had plenty of games last season where we didn’t play well but managed to find the result. This was no different.

People are acting like we were shite because we were just shite. Football doesn’t work like that. Leeds got right in our faces and didn’t give an inch, and forced the mistakes. Credit should be given to them.

Bottom line is we made it hard for ourselves but we were worth the win. We had the better players and we did enough. I’ll take it, and back Klopp to give everyone a thorough kick up the arse over the next week.

8 Likes

Yeah but I was wrong factually in implying that he hadn’t praised Mo in his posts and I wanted to admit to my own jumping to conclusions about his posts. Otherwise I completely agree with your post

Bwahaha

7 Likes

Almost worth a sweep stake.

I think he has serious stylistic issues about passing back to Ally. It’s not arrogance but self-image. He’s precisely that great a player that he knows he can afford this stance.

It’s not surprising, I suppose, that the edge is off our play since the pandemic began. All of humanity is rattled to one extent or another. Difficult to get and retain that focus. The whole game looked like an undisciplined free for all to me. Leeds will be happy because they put three in at Anfield. They didn’t look scared at all after the first five minutes. They scored two nice goals and Bamford’s finish for the gift was okay, too. Hard to judge because Norwich looked pretty exciting early on last campaign, too; then bye-bye. Guess we’ll see.

Anyway, glad we got the three points, and I’m sure we’ll be better against Frank’s Freaks next week.

EDIT: Oh, my feed showed Klopp clearly say “Wow” wide-mouthed as he left the pitch. Was pretty funny.