Jone for Gini imo!
Often when we play Man City we leave DeBryne in acres of space, what is this tactic of leaving the oppositions best midfielder with space?
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Not only that we passed the ball straight to them. There was a incredible lack of effort on our part and I just can not get my head around it.
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Fuck sake, that was hard to watch. We got outplayed, didn’t even look like getting a shot on goal. Lucky to get one goal saying that. Gives us a glimmer of hope…
This club never does things the easy way. We seem to love giving ourselves a mountain to climb. Nothing less than 110% effort in the return leg from Klopp and the boys and these fuckers can be beat.
If we rock up again next week with no intensity like today and play like they can’t be fucked being there then the whole team might as well get sent to AFCON as travel companions so the club will finally be forced to get decent replacements for the lot of 'em. Time to buckle up.
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I could complain about the defense but we have our fourth choice who should really be our 5th choice CB and a loan. We were just kidding ourselves thinking we could win the CL with that. Even our first choice RB was terrible. TAA has always been weak defensively. We’ve known that for a long time but he does not seem to have improved that much. He is still young though. He is not world class because of this. Going forward, yes, he’s world class but defensively, he is barely average and that is being charitable. But, it wasn’t all on him tonight. Mane was utter cr@p yet again. Maybe, it’s just a case of playing too many games this season but he hasn’t been his usual self. We need another miracle this year and to be honest, lightning doesn’t strike twice.
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I will be amazed if we somehow manage to progress in this tie. Even with a full Anfield this might prove beyond us. The fact is that for all the talk of a weakened and ageing Madrid side there for the taking , they gave us a proper schooling last night and the gulf in class was embarrassing at times.
I’m not sure what has happened to our boys but this year just seems to have had a profound psychological effect on too many players. From the first minute we looked scared and hesitant , , unable to string two passes together and inviting them to run rings around us , which they duly did. After such a footballing lesson by technically superb players , I just don’t see our already fragile team being able to respond in a manner sufficient to turn this tie around. After last night they are well and truly ‘in our heads’.
Of course , an early goal changes everything , but does anyone really expect Madrid not to score over the ninety. Going through for me would now be an even bigger achievement than knocking Barca out. At least then we were at the top of our game and had a full house behind us. Now we have neither.
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If we get a quick goal next week…something that is eminently possible with Salah, Mane and Jota on the pitch…RM will tense up like my arse after my mother-in-law’s rendang, that is, ready to turn into a river of shit at a moment’s notice.
Get one early, put more pressure on their midfield, and this mofo is on like Donkey Kong.
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We dont press any more.
35 year old modric and an ageing kroos had so much time and space.
How is a 35 year old winning the midfield? Fairly easy when no one closes him down or tackles.
That midfield 3 that started for us were a shambles.
Keita is finished here. Don’t play him anymore as we need him fit so we can sell him.
I’m not Thiago biggest fan but to start Keita head of Thiago is an awful decision. No matter what he’s doing in training this is our biggest game on season so to throw someone in who has done nothing in 12 months and not much since he’s been here has cost us massively.
What’s happened to Jones?
I think ox needs to be moved on but I’d start him ahead of Nabby as well.
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No, but they themselves were passing well, pressing, showing for the ball…and targeting our weak spots. They aren’t shit no matter how many times you say it
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My first shudder came when I saw the team sheet. Naby, who does not defend , in front of Trent against the pace and quality of RM ? Frightening, especially with tow inexperienced CBs.
Then there was the fact that we seemed to be trying to slow the game down from the first whistle , or was it just lack of confidence? To dictate the pace of the game first you need the ball and you do not win that by walking when the opposition is running. Speed = power which is needed to win challenges.
Overall a very disappointing performance with no one coming out with serious credit. I know we have come back from worse results but I do not think the current squad can do it. Can but hope that on the day we perform to our best and RM are crap. 
The away goal was crucial.
We can win 2-0 at Anfield.
Key will be still being in the tie going into the last 20 mins
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I’d be hopeful with a big European night atmosphere at Anfield. Not hopeful at all in an empty stadium.
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It was the complete lack of effort that got me last night and still winds me up now.
They knew what was needed. Don’t let Kroos and Modric have time. We came on the pitch and did exactly the opposite.
Fuck, still pissed. A lack of effort proper pisses me off
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Outfought and outdone. We were second best all night long. Some players had shocking performances Keita, Trent, Mane. To a lesser degree Wijnaldum.
The first half was a real shitshow, 2nd half we were much better but against this calibre, it was not enough.
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They were flying into challenges and we were pussyfooting. Every time a Liverpool player received the ball in their half he was almost instantly under pressure. On the contrary, the amount of time and space the Spaniards had in possession must have been bewildering even for them. Our own pressing and defending in general was a bad joke. They scored their third from a throw-in against a supposedly organised defence having 2 players closer to the corner than the goal, one at the edge of the box and one near the penalty and all of them were left virtually unmarked.
Klopp has often come under unfair criticism this season but this time there’s no defending him. It’s not just Keita’s inclusion or to put it better Keita’s inclusion is a symptome of his poor preparation. Keita was an outlier of what was happening to the entire team. It was more prevalent with him due to his lack of games but the rest weren’t much better. It was clear from the beginning that no one was ready to compete and his two late subs offered nothing. The game was screaming for Jones but he left Wijnaldum’s wandering corpse complete another 90 minutes.
Over the years there have been some absolute stinkers but it was rarely due to Klopp’s choices. This time however he is one of the biggest culprits. I never thought that he would mismanage a crucial match as badly as this.
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Thoughts on the game; well it was a bit of a shit show from top to bottom with a really poor selection in midfield by the addition Keita instead of Tiago. Most, if not all, of our issues then stemmed from him getting totally bypassed and almost zero pressure being applied to the play makers of Madrid. What on earth Klopp was thinking when he made the team selection we will never know, the commentators and some seem to think its because of energy and physicality which is something he has never shown for us and if that is the reason Klopp picked him then, well… fuck. Yesterday was the first time I personally lost patience with him and was truly happy to see him subbed off. Three years and many million pounds later and in a massive game to look as truly unarsed as he did then he can gladly go off to the loving embrace of Didier Six never to return. We don’t really need to wonder what might have been if Thiago had played because the 2nd half, while not being stellar, at least matched Madrid in most aspects and with some better decisions, both from the ref who was diabolical and our players, the score line might have had a far better feel. It’s incredible how one missing cog in such a vital area can disjoint everything. Not to absolve the shoddy defending but our defense was exposed to Kroos and Modric running the midfield while we could get no momentum going the other way either. It turned out to be a shambles all round with nobody covering themselves in glory at all.
Much better second half but another sloppy goal to concede, Philips is statuesque as the ball comes across when he really should be stepping up to challenge and Alisson really has to do better as well. We messed that up big time. Real is a good team but they can be got at and we were just too passive when it mattered and made the wrong decisions both on and off the pitch.
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Yep we did it with Jorginho against Chelsea as well. He and a few others had the run of the game to pick long balls over the top all game.
I honestly cannot believe Klopp is sending them out not to press some of the best ball players in the game… If I start to believe that it would mean he is clueless tactically, and he clearly isn’t.
So it must be the players just not doing it. The Keita sub would indicate that.
I listened to Rio after the game and he made some good points that our problem seems to be we simply don’t trust our center defenders so our midfield is too deep covering them leading to a huge disconnect to the front 3. He also said the players look burnt out, which I can’t disagree with… Robbo, Trent, Mane, Salah, Trent have all played ridiculous levels of minutes. As others have said Robbo looks spent both mentally and physically, he has no bite, he just looks a broken man running on less than fumes.
He should have played Milner, no way he would have not snapped into a few tackles from the off. We were so so sluggish which has been happening all season.
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We had 4 players in the box to their 1 player. Some of the worst defending I’ve seen for a long time, it was such basic stuff.
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Trent was poor 1st half but him and Mo were fighting hard in 2nd. Same couldn’t be said for our left side
Make no mistake about this: we were outplayed, especially in the 1st half. They pressed us agressively and had so much time on the ball it was insane. We couldn’t string together more than 3 passes together and we had ZERO shots in the 1st half. Not even on target, I mean ZERO shots in total. Our front 3 did nothing but that was because we couldn’t pass and our midfield was losing against their midfield and they pressed us.
Also, they played without Varane and Ramos and they didn’t even need them.
2nd half was only slightly better but we couldn’t create any clear cut chances. We only scored from a lucky deflection. Jota didn’t pass to Mo but Jota had a shot which was blocked and it defelected to Mo who luckily was played onside.
Us winning 2-0 next week? Yes that’s the theory but we haven’t won at Anfield in 2021 and it’s bloody April already. I’m usually an optimist but with no crowd, our current team selection and with Madrid upping their performance usually in this competition, I’m not feeling good.
We better do something different next week such as new tactics or new blood (like Curtis perhaps) but we need to do better… ok rant over.
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