Things could always be worse…
We could be Utd fans and the feelings we’re having this morning could be the normal state of affairs.
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And they woke up this morning to find Ollie is still ‘at the wheel’.
I had this weird dream last night that I watched United get stuffed 6-1 at home but that then we played like a pub team and let 7 in…
Ouch. That was a lesson in humility, wasn’t it?
I’m trying to look for the positives. There aren’t many and I’m just hoping that this is the kick up the arse that the team have needed for quite a while. I’m not going to pin the blame on any one player as they simply failed to play as a team and kept making the same errors over and over again. I don’t think it would have been any different had Alisson and Mane been fit. We did have some outrageously bad luck with deflections but we allowed players to get in a position to make that a possibility.
I put Salah down as MotM simply because he did score a couple and I wanted to click on anything to see the results. Robertson and Jota started to link up as the game progressed and Jota looks to be a class act. That’s about it, really.
When teams adopt new tactics it can take a while for teams to counter them. We have played a very high line with wing-backs and only two centre backs. That leaves buckets of space and Villa’s tactic was simply to leave us with possession and wait for a stray pass. I can only see that being fixed on the training ground but now we have the international break followed by a match against the one manager who has caused us real grief over the last few seasons.
Probably the biggest concern now is to keep the confidence levels of the players up. It’s just a pity that there are no fans because there’s no wall of noise to get behind our players and if there is one thing that will drag Everton down it’s their own fanbase.
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Significant that almost everything came down our right and the centre where we had no help or cover from midfielders.I would like to see us keep Grujic . Would not care if I never see Keita play again.
Klopp said Adrian was only responsible for the first goal but I felt Alli would have done better on a few others as well and the first one was the most important one.Our reaction to that one seemed to be to stand around and watch the opposition. To be fair Villa were very good, they had done their homework and have brought in some very good players with the right attitude. They were so much quicker and more competitive than us and were confident enough to shoot from outside the box and lucky enough to get some deflections go their way.
It is going to be tough to get over that. Frankly Villa look more like league champions than we do at the moment.
Ok, have cooled down and watched the goals over and over again.
1st goal, Adrian has all the time to pass to either VVD or Gomez yet passed horribly to Gomez, entirely his fault.
2nd goal, i think Gomez did pretty well to recover and challenge slide the shot but it was just a great shot, nothing Gomez or Adrian could do much, maybe Allison would have saved it, but a huge maybe, fault of defense line to fail to execute offside trap and midfield fault as a whole to fail to pressure the through pass.
3rd goal, pure luck by the ball deflecting on VVDs feet, nobodys fault.
4th goal, now this particular goal bugs me, we got 10 men back with around 5 or 6 on the wall with only 3 Villa players among the wall attackers. All the players know it aint gonna be a direct kick at Adrian, yet, as soon as the kick was taken, all our players were behind 4 or 5 Villa players with the unmarked Villa players easily crossing amongst themselves easily for a goal. No marking, no awareness, no fight whatsoever, its pathetic.
5th goal, Again pure luck, ball deflecting on Trents block to the top corner, again Allison may just stretch enough by his good positioning to save it, but a big if, nobodys faults.
6th goal, again, just not our night, deflection on Fabinho, pure luck, nobodys fault.
7th goal, this pisses me off too, with such a high line and Fabinho between the split CB and Trent on the right, the players, especially Trent should have caught Grealish offside if he had more defensive awareness, totally a freakin joke, not helped by the lack of pressure in midfield either.
So thats just 1 Adrians fault personally, 3 very lucky goals and 3 very bad goals by defense fault.
So i think defense needs to seriously work on offside traps if we are playing such a high line, and no more switching off in set pieces, things which can be worked out in training pitch.
As for personal performance, Firmino needs to be dropped period. He needs to earn his next start. Trent will bounce back, 1 game does not define him after 2 seasons of great performances. Matip should start ahead of Gomez if fit to wake up Gomez from his sleep too. And Adrian aint perfect, but he is 2nd choice after all, not 1st choice, so, its hard to get a quality GK with good distribution and shot stopping to be 2nd choice, so we need to be realistic of our expectations of him, seriously.
And i still think a new CB next Jamuary or Summer is still pivotal to our needs as well.
Lets keep YNWA in our hearts, and stop the abuse of our players too, especially those twitter fans, and resort to constructive criticism, not plain right abuse and insults.
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First time I’m happy there’s an international break. It’ll be good for the players to get away from this defeat and focus on something other than Liverpool for a while.
Also it’s good that the derby will be without fans otherwise the nervousness of the crowd would make the defence lose confidence again.
I don’t think the “lucky” goals are just lucky. Sure, some luck is of course involved in a deflection but normally we are much tighter on the attacker in those circumstances. Midfield and defense were not alert enough and we gave the attackers far too much space to operate in.
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For TAA and Andy to have complete freedom, requires Gini patrolling left and our captain Jordan patrolling right. They work their bollocks off in tandem with Fab clearing up behind them. With Keita playing, we need to adjust our style. TAA would need to check at times, and Keita needs to take some of the creative responsibility.
Alternately, we need to go back to a year back when we changed play within games often. Play keep ball for a few minutes, then switch to fast play, deep line, drop back, etc. Get a goal, manage the game.
Since Phil abandoned ship (his mistake), AOC had a blinding six months, but since his injury we’re still waiting for Keita to click (in long run of games, rather than here and there).
As for this game, Klopp and co will sit down, analyze and make a few tweaks. We just need gradual evolution, no need for a revolution (see Barce getting rid of all men and their dog).
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I see the second goal as poor defending to be honest. Gomez gets caught square, half recovers but to easy to come inside. Lack of midfield cover as well.
With regard to @Mascot’s observation on our right side being the weakest. That’s absolutely right and has been recognised for ages. Mourinho targeted that side when he was at United. It’s a still a problem area. Salah doesn’t cover like Mane does on the other flank and if the midfield doesn’t do what it’s supposed to Trent and Gomez (or whoever) are in for an awkward ride.
I think Klopp’s answer to this is 4-2-3-1. You basically have the two midfielders that can cover those flanks.
Other than that THere’s not a lot I can say about last night. Really weird how collectively awful we were. That was not normal.
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Of course its luck. But i agree in that our midfield and defense marking, pressure, haggling and positioning, etc were not on par at all too.
What can Adrian do with the deflection on VVDs feet, or the deflection off of Trents block, or the deflection off Fabinho, he was angling for a dive towards the shot but it deflected in the opposite directions, so nothing much he can personally do at all.
That was me and after sleeping on it I am even more convinced this is reason.
Ironically one of the worst culprits in Van Dijk, people kept laughing off the end of last season as “ok” because we’d won the league, but he became so laxidaisical at times… When the anchor of a defence becomes like this the rest follow… He was meant to be the captain last night, where was the leadership? Where was the ingame shift that after allowing 2 easy goals to tell everyone to drop 10 yards, consolidate, regain composure and then go again? We used to be brilliant at adapting ingame to the opponent, now we just play the same way, I can’t think of any other reason than arrogance…
People very quickly forget we won lots of games last season by 1 goal after playing pretty poorly for 80minutes… “mentality monsters” was only forged on the back of a water tight defence, we could spurn a bucket load of changes because we always had faith we’d not conceed… That “air of invincibility” has gone, teams have worked out that if you beat our high line just once you have a big chance to score, do it twice etc…
This is the big challenge for Klopp, he needs to re-install the humilty and teamwork which has gone… Trent was completly out of the game and even worse kept leaving his position, combine this with Keitas complete lack of tracking back or Fabinho never shifting across to pick up Grealish (who basically had the run of the park)… Yes Gomez was poor, he lost all his 1 v 1 duels but ultimately he got little to no help from team mates who were far more concerned with attacking than defending. It was a big mistake not playing Milner, he would have shut down Grealish (likewise Henderson but he wasn’t fit).
Our midfield press was none-existant, Fabinho reverted back to being a yard behind everything and 10 yards away from anywhere, his inability to track runners coming from deep is becoming a huge concern.
Feels like Klopp needs to spend 2 weeks beasting them going over and over how to press and how to raise the intensity to the levels of last season.
Henderson is such a huge miss in so many ways, that performance doesn’t happen with him on the pitch and thats a crying shame as he won’t be around for ever, others need to step up and do it quickly. The irony is this is what happened when City lost Kompany, a complete void of proper leadership and for all individual talent you need that 1 person to drive the others one… Van Dijk should be doing this, Mane does this… We need more leaders which is funny I didn’t think of it before now.
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The worrying fact is there was no fight. At the start of the season, the only thing I was unsure about was whether this team would have the same hunger of the previous seasons, having won everything in the last 2 years. So far so good until this game, but yesterday we didn’t just lose, we gave up completely. Maybe we believed the hype, as someone said, with a lot of “Who will stop Liverpool” after last week.
Alisson’s long term injury makes things even worse…
I’ve always felt we need one of Henderson/Milner on the pitch, not both, but one. While many people love the Fab-Gini-Keita midfield, I feel there’s not enough leadership there.
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Yeah, i aint saying Gomez was faultless, but imo, he recovered pretty good and pressured the shot till the shot was released, but it was just a good goal imo. But the defense should have executed offside traps properly in such cases. Its just too poor overall.
And yeah, Henderson was sure missed imo at that right midfield. Keita and Gini were so bad last night when out of possession, it totally destroy the high line imo. And yeah, Trent aint no great defender personally, but his weakness gets exposed because other players didnt execute their role of properly covering and helping, but his attacks are so good, that when it clicked back,we will soon call him the best right back in the world soon enough again.
I for one would really like to see more of the 4231 when key players like Thiago, Mane, Hendo etc are unavailable.
Yeah, once the shot goes off it is luck of course. But we can do better before the shot goes off for sure. Normally when someone is just outside our box trying to find a shot we have 2-3 players really close, trying to block the shot.
I think the luckiest goal was the TAA deflection, because he was actually quite close but the ball got a really nasty trajectory from his block.
The VVD and Fabinho blocks were further from the attacker, Adrian had already reacted to the shot but it changed trajectory after travelling some distance.
We were mauled. No other explanation.
Lost as it is we should be aware, Atkinson and Fat Boy Moss cheated Mo out of a penalty. Game changing moment? Probably not, but it may have settled the team at that point.
That said, no excuses, this was a shit fest and a wake up call. No more fucking arrogance or cantering about like show ponies. Liverpool can win the league, no doubt about it. Only team that can realistically fuck it up for them is…Liverpool.
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We sure can do better, that i agree on. Why was the shot before VVDs feet deflection not pressured and challenged, giving such space ? Why were all the wall players behind 4 or 5 Villa players after that free kick, why cant they execute offside traps properly for once in this season, why didnt the midfield press at all and give free reign to pass a through ball time and time again, ?
Despite the lucky goals, we would still lose 4-2 last night. Its unacceptable.
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Major worry for me is how we looked completely lost and the heads just went completely to pot. The performance was very uncharacteristic, but the capitulation was equally as bad.
I’m still shocked by it to be honest.
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taking lessons from Lampard? 
Nah man, fuck fat Frank, i am just sooo pissed we blew a chance of 8 point lead to City.
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