Big surprise then there was VAR and officiating controversies in the PSG/BARCA match…Anthony Taylor was on field ref with Stuart Attwell on VAR.
I’ll assume Klopp got his team selection and tactics right last night.
Our season now depends upon Europe. If we win the next one, we are three games away from another amazing season. But obviously that is a big if given our depleted squad
I really believe that much of our problems over the past few months are not only having no CBs, but having players playing CB who otherwise would be much more influential in the middle of the park. One has to remember that Henderson came in second last year for player of the year, and Fabinho is the best DM in the PL and maybe the world. So it was great to see Fabinho back into his role today.
I know Nat Phillips is not a Liverpool player, but he was good against Leipzig. He didn’t put a foot wrong, and he was powerful in the air. I love the ball-playing CBs, but it’s good to see an old-fashioned CB in our back line. We are far less vulnerable to set pieces when he is on the pitch.
But for me, MOTM was Thiago. That was his best performance for us in a long time. He commanded the park, he got stuck in, and he was a domineering presence. What a beautiful ball be played through to Mo, which should have been slotted away.
After 60 minutes, when it was still 0-0, I had planned to come on here and say this is the best we’ve played in awhile, but it seemed that there was this invisible force field that wasn’t allowing the ball to go into the net. Or that our strikers’ boots suddenly turned into 20 lb shoes once they entered the penalty box. So it was great to see two very well taken goals.
Hopefully, this carries over to the Wolves’ match on Monday.
Yeah the goals were nice to see just simply because they were well created.
Though what we created up to that point has been missing in the league, 7 or 8 shots on goal, only the 3rd time that’s happened since Palace (one was Villa and we won the other two in Spurs and Sheffield United)
unfortunately didn’t get to watch the game, but gleefully delighted with the result. Hoping the boys can feel their winning ways back in the League
Don’t give up, all is not lost
YNWA
Saw an interesting comment last night following Fab’s dominance in the midfeld.
Something along the lines of it is obviously better to play with an inexperienced defence than it is to weaken both midfield and defence.
Wut??
People just couldn’t wait to crawl out of their holes for a kick.
Let’s take it one match at a time and a lot depends on who we draw, I would not like to see Mpappe and Neymar running into our back 4.
Agree.
Disagree.
Yeah, the prospects of Mbappé or Haaland running at Phillips and Kabak are terrifying. But on our day we are just indomitable.
Completely different football and they had to attack us.
To be fair, some of us have been saying that all along.
Phillips looks good against the weaker sides but imagine him playing against City.
What was the score when we played them them last month?
Doubt Phillips could have done much worse.
A hell of a lot, sometimes with City you have 2 or 3 players running at you, even once last night they had about 5 in against our two or three at the back. Should have the same lineup at the weekend.
Certainly way before Henderson was injured. We lost so much playing our best midfielders at CB. Odd that. But then Klopp presumably didn’t fancy cricket scores every match. Build from the back and all.
I agree, Phillips was excellent last night, but only because they played to his strengths… I.e. Long flat balls to head. Anytime they got behind or out wide he was at sixes and sevens!
He is a solid no nonesense defender and RB were silly to put him in a first half battle against Poulson in the air.
The only reason we’d do better against a City type team with him in defense would be more down to Fabinho playing. Rio was correct that having a midfielder who stops the ball to the strikers feet meant the center backs could drop a little deeper and watch the ball over the top. Again this is Fabinho and his ability as the no.6.
Let’s hope this can be the impetus to bring our season back to life.
Looked at our fixtures this morning and if we can rediscover 75% of our normal mojo then we can win every game. The only real tester will be United away.
He did and I have been saying he needs someone whp creates 2nd balls in the midfield area and that’s What Fabs does (also benifitted Thiago). There was such a much better balance there. Also with Fabs there the 2 young CBs seemed to increase in confidence as there was decent central cover for them (not relying on TAA coming in from the wing (which also benegitted him).
What a difference 3 minutes makes!!!
We went from looking like we couldn’t score if we played 20 hours against a pub team whose goalie was on his 7th pint, to clinically tucking 2 lovely goals away an strolling into the next round.
Up until that point, I think we’d just have to sweat out a crap draw or 0-1 defeat to claw our way into the next round. It’s a knock out so it doesn’t matter as long as you advance, but boy was it nice to see a couple minutes of Liverpool looking like Liverpool after a couple months of watching a historically blunt and frustrating attack and wondering where the amazing skill and combination of the front three had suddenly vanished to…
Hopefully we’ll get the chance to see that in the final!