An Inevitable Dip For Liverpool?
Article by Red Phil
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I suppose it had to happen, a slight dip in form by almost all of the players after a fair number of games when everything went well. Did we take it for granted that we’d win, hence one or two players were rested? I’d like to think not but most of the players dipped in form by a few percentage points and, the way it went, we couldn’t have scored had we stayed on the pitch after the final whistle and Blackburn had gone back to Ewood!
A lot of huffing and puffing but the final ball was always a bit off target or Blackburn, resolute throughout, defended stoutly. Did we deserve to win? Probably, but this was not a second tier performance from Rovers who must look back with great pride at their performance.
It was hard to point a finger at what was awry but nobody played really well and nobody played really badly with Coutinho, yet again, standing out for his work-rate and invention even though even he couldn’t conjure up much.
I’m not overly worried about the replay as we SHOULD win there if they open up a bit and leave a bit more space for our attackers to make use of. Rovers certainly got the ball into our box quite a few times so I hope that Skrtel is available for us after his very bad fall in the first couple of minutes tonight.
We could certainly have had a couple of spot-kicks, at least, but it just wasn’t our day and I wasn’t surprised when the ref refused to give them on that basis. Our ability to ping the ball around between the midfield players was, as always, a sight to see but nobody can keep playing at the top of their game and we aren’t exempted from the occasional less than inspirational performance.
I think most LFC fans would settle for getting to Wembley after a replay – hopefully – rather than having had our inevitable bad performance being in the league when we are still trying to make up lost ground on the teams still tantalisingly just above us in the league table. We daren’t have many errors on that front or our hopes of finishing in the top four could be lost on the basis of a league performance similar to the one we witnessed tonight.
Chelsea got tonked by Bradford yet still managed to get over that disappointment and we must do the same, even though we’ve got a chance to make up for tonight’s relatively poor performance in a week or so with a replay . . . which is more than Chelsea had! If we win the replay will anybody care that we drew at Anfield when they are boarding the coaches and trains for Wembley? We’ve not exactly got European games to distract us as we approach the business end of the season, have we?
With United still not playing all that well and their next six games consisting of games against Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs and Villa (not in that order) we can but hope the wheels fall of their mini-bus rather spectacularly during that time! Mind you, I can think of places I’d rather visit than Swansea, for us, next week!!!!
Hopefully, we’ll have Stevie G back, Alberto Moreno back, Joe Allen back and Martin Skrtel back for that game!
A philosophical RED PHIL
© e-Football 2015 All rights reserved no part of this document or this website may be reproduced without consent of e-Football
Subscribe to the e-Football Podcast on iTunes (Click Here)
I suppose it had to happen, a slight dip in form by almost all of the players after a fair number of games when everything went well. Did we take it for granted that we’d win, hence one or two players were rested? I’d like to think not but most of the players dipped in form by a few percentage points and, the way it went, we couldn’t have scored had we stayed on the pitch after the final whistle and Blackburn had gone back to Ewood!
A lot of huffing and puffing but the final ball was always a bit off target or Blackburn, resolute throughout, defended stoutly. Did we deserve to win? Probably, but this was not a second tier performance from Rovers who must look back with great pride at their performance.
It was hard to point a finger at what was awry but nobody played really well and nobody played really badly with Coutinho, yet again, standing out for his work-rate and invention even though even he couldn’t conjure up much.
I’m not overly worried about the replay as we SHOULD win there if they open up a bit and leave a bit more space for our attackers to make use of. Rovers certainly got the ball into our box quite a few times so I hope that Skrtel is available for us after his very bad fall in the first couple of minutes tonight.
We could certainly have had a couple of spot-kicks, at least, but it just wasn’t our day and I wasn’t surprised when the ref refused to give them on that basis. Our ability to ping the ball around between the midfield players was, as always, a sight to see but nobody can keep playing at the top of their game and we aren’t exempted from the occasional less than inspirational performance.
I think most LFC fans would settle for getting to Wembley after a replay – hopefully – rather than having had our inevitable bad performance being in the league when we are still trying to make up lost ground on the teams still tantalisingly just above us in the league table. We daren’t have many errors on that front or our hopes of finishing in the top four could be lost on the basis of a league performance similar to the one we witnessed tonight.
Chelsea got tonked by Bradford yet still managed to get over that disappointment and we must do the same, even though we’ve got a chance to make up for tonight’s relatively poor performance in a week or so with a replay . . . which is more than Chelsea had! If we win the replay will anybody care that we drew at Anfield when they are boarding the coaches and trains for Wembley? We’ve not exactly got European games to distract us as we approach the business end of the season, have we?
With United still not playing all that well and their next six games consisting of games against Arsenal, City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs and Villa (not in that order) we can but hope the wheels fall of their mini-bus rather spectacularly during that time! Mind you, I can think of places I’d rather visit than Swansea, for us, next week!!!!
Hopefully, we’ll have Stevie G back, Alberto Moreno back, Joe Allen back and Martin Skrtel back for that game!
A philosophical RED PHIL
© e-Football 2015 All rights reserved no part of this document or this website may be reproduced without consent of e-Football
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