I just didn’t feel threatened by anything that Newcastle did apart from set pieces. Gomez had a weird second half, agree on that, almost like he didn’t know where to be because of our man advantage. I still don’t remember any of these clear one on ones so maybe I looked away from the TV for some reason.
I was fine with it tactically, to be restrained and tell Newcastle to break us down, even if some of the execution could have been done better.
The sending off changed the game. The intensity dropped, two goals up vs ten men is a recipe for taking the foot off the pedal. If Newcastle scored the temp would have increased, I was never a bit nervy about the result.
The Cody goal was probably the best moment of the season so far ( Salah vs City is up there)…it was precision, pace and everything we want in Liverpool.
There are a few annoying things:
Darwins injury is a worry, hopefully its not serious.
The lack of action on the tackle on Salah is disgraceful. If we cannot see the agenda against him we are blind. Last Monday Everton pulled, dragged and chopped Salah without punishment. That tackle yesterday was the worst in the game, but SKY were all over Milners late effort. This is beyond a joke now.
And
Lesson learned (again)…stay away from the In Match thread, its like a Rashomon Effect…
Someone’s going to have to send me a clip of the Wilson 1v1, I’ve just watched the extended highlights on NBC’s youtube page - 14 minutes long and they didn’t show it. I’m drstined to never see this one I guess!
Its the way we play Newsandcastle kept two players up front we more or less play with 2 at the back so they were bound to have chances but they failed to score and Virgil was just back from injury and about 70% fit.
For me our main problem was Fabinho, on occasions it was like being a man short, he couldn’t get near players to tackle and already on a yellow it was a good thing, with one sub still available not sure why Naby was left on the bench.
At half time I was screaming to drop Baj into DM and get Keita on. After a little upturn against Everton, Fab looked like he’d dipped again. Terrible performance.
Yes, but the opposite? Invite danger and needing Ali that much? Why not just play the same as we did up to that point? We were dominating and up until the red card looked more likely to score another one. Then it was just quasi cautious play from us, against 10.
Anyway, all good in the end, Ali delivered and we ended up with a clean sheet. No complains there.
Agree 100%. At some point someone will break him and Salah will get the yellow… we will lose him for half a season to boot!!
I think the concern is, and in my opinion a valid one, we may step off the gas but when we do we hand control and momentum to the opposition.
Perfect world we should kill the game and Newcastle / whoever simply don’t get a sniff.
With regards to opportunities for Newcastle Isak blazed over from a good position. At the very least he should have worked Ali.
It’s been a small concern of mine for some time but when you combine it with being wasteful in front of goal then it’ll bite you in the ass sometimes
I’m not sure we were dominating up until that point. First 10 minutes Newcastle looked much brighter than us, then we have a good 10 minutes in response and during that period we got two goals and their keeper was sent off.
We didn’t go for the jugular after that and arguably we allowed more chances (some of which are being exaggerated in their danger) than we planned to but it’s ok to have a good goalkeeper and expect him to save shots every so often. Equally we could have scored a few more ourselves but Jota was a bit wasteful, especially with that free header he put wide.
At the end of the match Alisson had only four saves to make in total.
What was noticeable for me yesterday was the amount of time their players were allowed on the ball with no pressure whatsoever, they were able to do whatever they liked with it. On the other hand our lads were hassled into a poor pass or had it nicked off them as soon as they got it.
We need to change that on Tuesday or we’ll be in trouble.
Could have easily broke his leg with that flying tackle. I wonder if Salah will say anything to that idiot who thinks he is a referee the next time.
Didn’t mean throughout the game, meant in that brief period with the 2 goals and the send off, as you state in your next sentence. Then it seems like a deliberate drop off, because of the red card, instead of just keeping playing like that. Not suggesting which should change anything either, just to keep playing like that and have one less player to prevent us.
If the argument that their fast forwards could punish us would stand, then it would be have been the case before the red card too. I mean it stands if we are talking about actively putting more bodies forward to look for a third goal to kill it off (I agree with that, that it was wise not to), but it doesn’t really stand if we would keep playing like we were in the short spell up to that point.
It was only a short spell because we seemed to actively dropping off because of the red card…
I think there is an inevitable mindset change when the other team goes down to 10 men. If you’re losing the game it gives you hope that you can score and go on to win the game, so you tend to see those teams go on the attack etc.
However, going up 2-0 (lets admit it, unexpectedly) and then having the opposition goalkeeper sent off, the mindset probably isn’t “now we can annihilate them”, I think it’s natural for the brain to switch to a preservation mode and think that we don’t have to take risks anymore.
To be honest I think we did keep many of the same principles. We were still looking to hit them on the counter attack which is what we did to get the lead in the first place. I don’t think either side carved out a bunch of great chances after the red card but probably the best one fell to Jota when he missed a pretty simple header at the end of the game.
It’s fair to argue if we were too defensive or too withdrawn after the red, I just personally didn;t feel like it was much of a problem. I’ll take ASM hitting shots with his weak foot while falling over and be confident that Alisson can deal with it.
i think if it had stayed 11v11 we would have won by 4 or 5.
we started poor - great save by Ali after a few mins then we took control, scored a quick 2 then the red card somehow made us worse and them better.
it doesnt suit this lfc squad playing slow and trying to kill time - there was about an hour left when they lost the keeper. we handed them a chance back in the game.
thought gomez was awful again (check out what he does when wilson goes through 1 on 1 - its like he is being attacked by a wasp!
So what you all are saying is that we manage to win even when we are nowhere dominant. Sounds alot like our title winning season. I will take it.
Agree with much of that, also with the unexpected part (reflected in my in game comments too).
I think we became more dangerous only after the changes, and I was basically referring to the spell between the red card and the changes. Definitely not suggesting we go and annihilate them after the red card though, wouldn’t be realistic and could backfire, as in that case the longer it would take us to score that third the more dangerous it would be to concede and get them back in the game.
But yes, thanks to Ali it paid off. It was a massive win, both in terms of our season in general and as a statement that will hopefully affect both us and our main rivals. Also going to the CL game with back to back clean sheets and our new boys scoring, will hopefully help. Just hope Nunez will be ok.
Waddle says we were lucky Pope was sent off !
If he had stayed on the result would have been different.
He is right ! It would have been three nil.
If Pope hadn’t deliberately handled the ball Salah scores and we would have been three up.
I think a big part of our defensive chaos was Van Dijk, he clearly was rusty and our backline is always changing which makes it hard to nail down a shape. There is a huge difference in Konate or Gomez and their pace alongside you for Robbo v’s Van Dijk who looked very slow out there. Van Dijk is usually a dominant defender at set pieces and he hardly jumped. Physically he’s got a long way to go.
It’s a good result as it allowed Van Dijk and Bobby to rebuild fitness and their poor performances didn’t actually lead to anything.
More minutes in the legs for Jota who again showed he is has a natural ability to ghost into goal scoring positions.
The bigger concern for me was Fabinho and Henderson regressed again to this season levels, which leads me to believe they physically can’t meet the demands of a team with objectives like ours.
