Liverpool's 'Diddy Men' Earn Replay
Article by Red Phil
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Would I swop places with Chelsea, City, Southampton or Spurs? No, but that’s as far as it goes, I’m afraid. I don’t know where Ken Dodd was tonight but I saw plenty of his Diddy Men seemingly attacking the Bolton defence and it gave a message to the Bolton defenders that the only trouble they would be caused during the game would be below knee height.
Tony Hately and John Toshack it most certainly wasn’t! Plenty of crosses hurtled in but before our five-foot-six inch attackers could launch themselves up to the arm-pit level of Bolton’s six-foot-four inch defenders the result of such pointless crosses was a foregone conclusion. The ball was NEVER going to be won by anybody with a red shirt on but that didn’t stop us hoping, did it? Too many hopeful balls!
Plenty of excellent close control and quick inter-passing but we needed more than this one attacking measure if we were going to break down Bolton’s defence and, sadly, it was sorely lacking tonight. Most of the time the defenders knew how each and every move would build and, hopefully, sooner rather than later, a hopeful ball would be sent out wide and then be hoofed in towards smiling defenders wearing white shirts and with somebody there or thereabout in a red shirt who looked old enough, and big enough, to be a ball-boy who had strayed on to the pitch.
I’m old fashioned in that I can’t see much point in sending in crosses towards lone strikers a good six inches shorter than any of the three defenders and goalie eagerly awaiting the cross.
Other than that apparent weakness in the forwards the only other thing that I noticed was that some of the squad players getting a game did nothing to make me think they should be moved on. If anybody thinks we will win a league title with messrs Johnson, Enrique, Lucas, Sakho or Borini in the team then perhaps they need my therapist’s phone number! They looked as if playing Bolton was about their level!
We should still win the replay, of course, but additional fixtures are perhaps the last thing we need with the Europa Cup games about to start shortly, meaning we’ll be Thursday-Sunday from now until the end of the year. It looks as if the January transfer window is going to come and go without any business being done but I doubt the wisdom of that even though we are playing much better now than we could hope to do only a month ago.
With our one-dimensional play giving defenders the certainty that we’ll play along the ground, or hoof hopeful balls into the middle as a last resort, it is a major weakness that other teams don’t seem to have. I’d love to see a breakdown of how many headed goals we’ve scored compared to our major competitors?
We need variety in our approach play and, without any strikers worthy of the name currently available for selection the only hope we’ve got is that Sturridge returns very, very soon and remains injury-free. If you believe that is likely you probably believe in fairies and Santa as well!
That is why I pray we’ll announce that we’ve agreed terms for Berahino or anybody else capable of making tall defenders sweat a bit at the prospect of meeting him as a high ball hurtles towards the penalty spot. In the old days, the days of Tony Hately or John Toshack, we would win the high ball without a doubt and other players, such as Kevin Keegan in the team with John Toshack, would relish the knock-down.
Sterling, Coutinho, Lallana and Markovic are excellent players but are too similar in build and style. We didn’t pose Bolton enough problems due to being too one-dimensional!!!!!
Mind you, we can still laugh at Chelsea, City, etc., and hope Chelsea play that badly on Tuesday . . . but are we going to approach their defence with only one game-plan, as we did against mighty Bolton??????
© e-Football 2014 All rights reserved no part of this document or this website may be reproduced without consent of e-Football
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Would I swop places with Chelsea, City, Southampton or Spurs? No, but that’s as far as it goes, I’m afraid. I don’t know where Ken Dodd was tonight but I saw plenty of his Diddy Men seemingly attacking the Bolton defence and it gave a message to the Bolton defenders that the only trouble they would be caused during the game would be below knee height.
Tony Hately and John Toshack it most certainly wasn’t! Plenty of crosses hurtled in but before our five-foot-six inch attackers could launch themselves up to the arm-pit level of Bolton’s six-foot-four inch defenders the result of such pointless crosses was a foregone conclusion. The ball was NEVER going to be won by anybody with a red shirt on but that didn’t stop us hoping, did it? Too many hopeful balls!
Plenty of excellent close control and quick inter-passing but we needed more than this one attacking measure if we were going to break down Bolton’s defence and, sadly, it was sorely lacking tonight. Most of the time the defenders knew how each and every move would build and, hopefully, sooner rather than later, a hopeful ball would be sent out wide and then be hoofed in towards smiling defenders wearing white shirts and with somebody there or thereabout in a red shirt who looked old enough, and big enough, to be a ball-boy who had strayed on to the pitch.
I’m old fashioned in that I can’t see much point in sending in crosses towards lone strikers a good six inches shorter than any of the three defenders and goalie eagerly awaiting the cross.
Other than that apparent weakness in the forwards the only other thing that I noticed was that some of the squad players getting a game did nothing to make me think they should be moved on. If anybody thinks we will win a league title with messrs Johnson, Enrique, Lucas, Sakho or Borini in the team then perhaps they need my therapist’s phone number! They looked as if playing Bolton was about their level!
We should still win the replay, of course, but additional fixtures are perhaps the last thing we need with the Europa Cup games about to start shortly, meaning we’ll be Thursday-Sunday from now until the end of the year. It looks as if the January transfer window is going to come and go without any business being done but I doubt the wisdom of that even though we are playing much better now than we could hope to do only a month ago.
With our one-dimensional play giving defenders the certainty that we’ll play along the ground, or hoof hopeful balls into the middle as a last resort, it is a major weakness that other teams don’t seem to have. I’d love to see a breakdown of how many headed goals we’ve scored compared to our major competitors?
We need variety in our approach play and, without any strikers worthy of the name currently available for selection the only hope we’ve got is that Sturridge returns very, very soon and remains injury-free. If you believe that is likely you probably believe in fairies and Santa as well!
That is why I pray we’ll announce that we’ve agreed terms for Berahino or anybody else capable of making tall defenders sweat a bit at the prospect of meeting him as a high ball hurtles towards the penalty spot. In the old days, the days of Tony Hately or John Toshack, we would win the high ball without a doubt and other players, such as Kevin Keegan in the team with John Toshack, would relish the knock-down.
Sterling, Coutinho, Lallana and Markovic are excellent players but are too similar in build and style. We didn’t pose Bolton enough problems due to being too one-dimensional!!!!!
Mind you, we can still laugh at Chelsea, City, etc., and hope Chelsea play that badly on Tuesday . . . but are we going to approach their defence with only one game-plan, as we did against mighty Bolton??????
© e-Football 2014 All rights reserved no part of this document or this website may be reproduced without consent of e-Football
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