Post match: Liverpool v Newcastle (ELC 16/3/25 4.30pm)

[Nobluff]

@Flobs

Did we know it was a cup final?

Slot literally said 3 cup finals in a row, and all we could do was beat the bottom of the league Southampton.

[legalalien]

At the risk of repeating what’s been said dozens of times already, yesterday’s performance and the the two games against PSG are the result of Arne not rotating players enough, particularly the midfielders who have been really below par of late.

I just hope Arne isn’t the sot of manager who sticks to his way of doing things instead of learning from his mistakes. By finally, and belatedly, using Elliot and Chiesa perhaps he has learned to trust the back-up players more.

[dalglish]

@Sweeting

Still don’t understand dropping Alisson for a final especially just to placate a GK who has publically said he wants to leave anyway. The team just never looks confident with Kelleher in goal and he had a few dodgy moment. (I know I know I’m a hater and “he’s never let us down” but we have one of the best GKs in the world and we drop him for our only final of the season to stop the backup from having a strop. Don’t like it.)

Absolutely. Especially as we don’t play again for 2 weeks

[dalglish]

@Mascot

We’re all armchair managers,

Speak for yourself. I can do it lying down.

[gasband]

Kelleher started because he played every single game that got us into the final. I think that is fair and always the unspoken rule.

[Sweeting]

@gasband

Kelleher started because he played every single game that got us into the final. I think that is fair and always the unspoken rule.

No he didn’t.

[redalways]

@Sweeting

So we are saying that we decided Alisson needed rest today instead of playing in a cup final? That doesn’t make sense to me especially with an international break coming up that Alisson isn’t guaranteed to play every game in.

I’m suggesting it’s a possibility. Need I remind you that it was a muscular injury that kept Alisson out for 8 league games earlier this season?

@Sweeting

I’m not blaming him, I’d have the same criticism if Jaros played, why are we rotating pur GK for a cup final? Imagine being a Newcastle player and seeing the teamsheet. You’d be absolutely buzzing to see Kelleher (or anyone) there instead of Alisson. Conversely it has to be in our heads, especially the defenders that they have to cover a bit more than usual because they don’t have a world class goalkeeper behind them.

I think there’s a massive difference playing a goalkeeper who’s had 2 appearances for us, and a goalkeeper who’s played 23 league games for us, 8 this season keeping 3 clean sheets. For reference, Alisson’s had 8 clean sheets from 21 league games, or 38.1% compared to Kelleher’s 37.5%

Perhaps Newcastle might have been buzzing for that, but I don’t think our team would be worrying about it.

@Sweeting

I said above I’m not blaming Kelleher personally. I’m blaming the decision making process that led us to starting our backup GK in our only remaining KO game of the season. It sends completely the wrong message. In previous years we have had other trophies (except the league) left to go and win. This year it came down to the LC and the PL but we’ve decided to not play our strongest XI when we are 90 minutes away from a probable league and cup double. It boggles my mind.

It’s mind-boggling because we’ve been doing this for years, it’s nothing new. You can’t dismiss my suggestion that it would be better to not risk Alisson because of recovery times and his recent injury history, and yet suggest that it was okay in recent years because we were chasing other trophies. Either we don’t need to rest/rotate goalkeepers, or we do.

@Sweeting

Put it this way, if this was the CL final and we started Kelleher leaving a fit Alisson on the bench would we all be happy enough just to say “ah well he’s a good lad he deserves the odd game”? To me today was essentially our CL final. I don’t care that it’s “only” the League Cup it was our only chance of cup success this season and we had a mid-table PL team to beat to win it. We didn’t approach the game like it was important to us and the first signal of that was rotating out our starting GK.

Twice we had Chelsea in such cup finals, who were in a similar if not better position than Newcastle this season, and twice we beat them with him in goal. It’s a massive mountain out of a molehill and feels completely agenda-driven since it’s not even necessary that Alisson would have reacted any differently or prevented any of the goals we conceded.

There’s a long list of issues that prevented us from winning, before we even get to Kelleher v. Alisson.

[redalways]

@RedArmada

Funny how their lack of training with the first team,. didn’t matter tonight when he was desperate.

Well, no shit?

I’m guessing his point about the lack of training with the first team is about chemistry and familiarity with the game plan and with each other.

All that went out of the window when we decided to throw 5 forwards on and hammer Newcastle that way. I was wondering about that tactically as well, but it’s quite clear it’s just the approach that so many clamour for, just throw on all the forwards we can and let them do their thing with their talent, rather than try to control too much tactically. Not that I agree with that approach, but I can see his point.

[redalways]

I disagree. I wouldn’t be surprised if next season, and most seasons moving forward, we see the backup goalkeeper (if they’re of sufficient quality) playing in such a game.

I don’t think it’s a personal agreement, I think it’s just the general decision the management team have. It’s not as though we’re unique in this way.

[redalways]

I don’t know if it’s luck or not, but we’re averaging 2.42 points per game, which is around 91 or 92 points over a whole season. It’s not as though it’s just a short streak either, it’s 29 games now.

At this pace, even if it was last season, we win the league. Season before, we win the league. 2020-21 we win the league. It’s only those other seasons where we have been ridiculously good that 91/92 points wouldn’t be good enough. For reference, even in 2021-22 we had 92 points, losing out by just one point.

[redalways]

@HugoTheHorrible

The bean counters need to realise we can got through a hard season without backup.

Arne needs to realise that not “the bean counters”. This was a team that went further in all competitions last year, even if they only won the League Cup. We have the quality, he just doesn’t want to use them, and to be fair, his team has been wrecked by injuries too.

For all the talk about Arsenal’s injuries, we’re not far behind. I think between them Alexander-Arnold and Bradley have racked up more than a full season’s worth of games missed due to injury. Gomez at right-back would have been better than Quansah for all his limitations but he’s injured too. Elliott missed good chances available to him because he was injured at the start of the season, and if Chiesa was in the right shape at the start he probably would have gotten the chance to play a lot more. Let’s not forget Jota, Konaté, Tsimikas, etc.

The impacts add up to additional strain to the healthy players. If I remember correctly, Alexander-Arnold was effectively rushed back from his earlier injury because Bradley got injured, Konaté rushed himself back because of Gomez’s injury, etc.

[SBYM]

So what you’re saying is…

We need three players for every position?

[Istanbill]

@jaffod

I’ve been fortunate to see us win countless cup finals and have never once felt the need to abuse opposition fans in the street after the game.

When I was walking away from Old Trafford after the 2-1 win over Chelsea in the FA cup semi final in 2006, we’d just got onto something of a main road but it was still shoulder to shoulder full of thousands of Liverpool fans leaving the ground.
Some poor twat in a Chelsea shirt must have took a wrong turn cos he’s trying to drive through this sea of red and when the crowd realised he was a Chelsea fan it was brutal. People just stopped walking and surrounded his car, shaking it, banging on the bonnet and windows, chanting fuck off chelsea fc. Poor sod was trapped.

I think I was 16 at the time and if I’m being honest, I thought it was hilarious.

[Walshy07]

Didnt Ali play the semis? He defonplayed the away game

[Walshy07]

Is this Slots first back to back defeat?

I think the players just need to get away from lfc for a couple of weeks.

1 game a week will be much better going forward

Winning the league will be what it’s all about but remember that going out the Fa Cup would be great for us?
We’ve gone out of 3 competitions in as many weeks
The squad needs a major revamp.
We burn out every year around March.

[Retro_Helix]

Not trusting squad players like Endo, Elliot and Chiesa has come back to bite Slot. Being his first season, I’m sure he’ll take lesson from here on. Well deserved Newcastle for executing their gameplan. And to the ref…

[RedArmada]

@redalways

Well, no shit?

I’m guessing his point about the lack of training with the first team is about chemistry and familiarity with the game plan and with each other.

I could understand the lack of familiarity for someone who had lost a lot of time, or was just brought up from the youth team, but both Chiesa and Elliott have been fit and part of the first team setup for months. We’ve played a number of games in this time frame which were won well before 90 minutes. Both Elliott and especially Chiesa hardly got a sniff in those even though they presented ideal circumstances to get them more actively involved. He played an unfit Gakpo against PSG rather than give a chance to Chiesa.

If every top manager thought like Slot, none of them would be rotating. It’s a lame excuse and his post game comments, rejecting fatigue, feel awfully like gaslighting.

[Walshy07]

Agree. If he didnt rate them he shouldve sold them in the summer and brought players he did like.

[aussielad]

He did play 1 game just after he returned from injury, so I believe it was purely to help him build match fitness.

Other than that, the LC games have been used to give the No.2 keeper games as when ALi was out injured and Kelleher was playing in the league, we used Jaros for those LC games.

[sandsoftime]

Re the goalkeeper thing. For all we know, AS is still trying to convince Kelleher to stay put for another season, and leave Marshmallow out on loan… maybe.! - When it comes to the league cup, Kelleher has always excelled himself, I had no problem with him playing in the final… like I mentioned, might be specific reasons why that happened.

Re the lack of rotation thing. Right or wrong, good or bad, this core of players has put the points on the board, so to speak. We are going into the final furlong, but we still have fences to jump… Yet, we can still afford to stumble here and there and get to the finishing line first…

It looks like we are running out of gas quickly, due probably, to the most recent ‘slog’ of fixtures. These players are capable of getting a second wind, especially as the workload will be reduced… If not, I am sure AS will decide ‘now is the time’ to rotate the players, to secure the points we need.

We lost a final, not the end of the world when the horizon going forward is looking quite bright… We WILL be PL Champions in a few weeks… In the whole of the footballing world; which includes this forum; not one single person would have predicted that…!
PL Winners 24/25 - Liverpool Football Club :0)