Firstly great piece of business getting Jose Enrique. At last a decent leftback not seen at Anfield since the departure of Jon Arne'Hammer of Thor' Riise. Warnock,Insua,Dossena,Arbeloa, Aurelio and Konshesky. The amount of money wasted on those players. I still don't understand why we sold Riise in the 1st place. He is now doing the business at Fulham and from the games I have watched he still looks like the real deal.
Welcome Jose lets hope this is is a long and fruitful stay with God's Team.
Well, to our opening day performance. Couple of suprise selections, Flanno getting the nod ahead of Kelly at righback. No Dirk!! Henderson on the pitch instead. . No Aquilani despite Kenny comments about him being our best pre-season player.
We started really brightly and when Suarez mugged Richardson of possession on the halfway line there was only going to be one winner. Well that was until Phil Dowd stepped in. Did Richardson bring down Suarez in the box? YES Was Richardson the last defender? YES By fouling Suarez did he deny a goal scoring opportunity? YES. Right so penalty, send Richardson off. Get on with the game. NO Instead we have a yellow for Richardson. I am sorry when did FIFA change the rules of football?????? No you are right they didnt, Phil Dowd just bottled yet another big decision.
If that was Fat Chav Shrek bearing down on the Stretford End it would have been a red card. We all know that. If everytime this season a player is clean through and in rounding the keeper is brought down by a defender and punishment is yellow and pen, then I have no problem with that whatsoever. But we know that wont happen. To add further insult to injury Suarez sent his penalty into orbit and was last seen passing the international space station. I have no problem with him taking the pen instead of Chucky Adam. El Pistolero is a confident chap and despite the miss was on the scoresheet not long after from a great Adam freekick. We were the only team in the game in the 1st half and should have been further ahead.
In the 2nd half the tempo dropped and as is always the case so did our play. Henderson continued to do nothing thankfully he was replaced by Dirk Kuyt . But by then the damage was done. An outstanding volley by Seb Larsson after Flanno got sucked under the ball was a worthy equaliser. The game petered out into a damp squib.We seem to be falling back into this pattern we had under Benitez of going all out for 20-30 minutes and if we havent scored then give up and try not to lose.
Anyway a draw was probably right We didnt caplitalise when we were on top and the Black Cats didn't deserve to lose. Yet again Steve Bruce thwarts Liverpool. Think we have only beaten him as a manager about 3 times which is quite impressive from him considering he has been in charge of Wigan, Birmingham and now Sunderland, hardly the elite.
Thankfully things did improve today. To be honest if there was a day you were going to put Arsenal to the sword it was going to be today. Their talisman sold to Barca, Nasri on his way and an injury list full of defenders and midfielders it was always going to be hard for them. Again King Kenny had a few selection suprises.Gone was the 4-4-2 of last week and back to the 4-2-3-1 formation we seem the most comfortable with. Kellyy restored to rightback, Dirk back on the right and Carroll on his own up front.
We started brightly and it got better when Koscielny hobbled off. I was suprised they let him walk off rather than put him on the streacher as it was a back injury. Hopefully he wil be OK it looked like a nasty injury for him to pull up like that.
We had the better of the 1st half but lets be brutally honest it wasn't the usual high quality, pacy game you normally get when Liverpool and Arsenal meet. There seemed to be an edge to Arsenal typified by Frimpong silly booking for having a go at Henderson. I said to my mate at the time that he wouldn't finish the game, how right I was. He is a full blooded player which they certainly need but he can have no complaints about that tackle on Lucas, it was a shocker. Its a shame that the sending off turned the game decisively in our favour. We should have been out of sight by then anyway.
After 10 minutes of the 2nd half I was screaming for Carroll and Henderson to come off and to get Meireles and Suarez on. Not sure why Kenny waited until the sending off and 71st minute to make the changes. It was blatantly obvious that Carroll wasn't getting any change out fo Vermaelen and Miquel . Carroll looks very ponderous and slow. Sure he is huge weapon at set pieces (expect when you keeping doing the same corner routine over and over in the 1st half) however I dont think he holds the ball up well and he is constantly looking for contact with centrehalfs rather than looking for gaps between them.
Our midfield play was generally good when we had the ball but we seemed to overcommit a lot of the time and leave the back four and Lucas exposed at times. Sorry to harp on but Henderson doesnt track back at all, several times he allowed various Arsenal players to drift off him into space and made no effort to chase back. He has had 3 games against good quality opposition and I am know he is still learning but he doesnt deserve a starting place. Certainly not ahead of Dirk on the right or Meireles centrally.
Thankfully the Arsenal malaise continued. Arshavin and Nasri would clearly rather be elsewhere and when Bendtner came on I knew the game was won! Other than looking like Ian Poulter I am not sure what he is all about!!
So back to us and the instant impact of both Suarez and Meireles . their link play was great. We were slighly fortunate for the 1st goal but even the most diehard Gooner cant say we didnt deserve it. There was a suspicion of offside but for once I agreed with Alan Smith it was tight so the attacker should get the benefit.
The 2nd goal was Arsenal-esque Lucas bursting forward, clever pass out to Meireles and the inch perfect square ball for Suarez to bag another goal. So our 1st ever win at the Emirates and our first away win over Arsenal for nearly 12 years. Excellent stuff.
Rather odd choice for man of the match I thought. I know we won but was Enrique our best player, possibly. I would rather have seen it go to Szczesny in the Arsenal goal he made some key saves and came for the ball well and generally kept Arsenal in the game.
So onto St James Park on Wednesday for the League Cup game against Exeter City. I am sure Kenny will again us this as an opportunity to blood some youngsters and give some of the fringe players a run. I would like to see us line up as follows.
Pepe or Jones in goal - I dont rate Doni at all.
Flanno-Skrtel-Wilson-Aurelio
Spearing-Shelvey
Henderson-Cole-Maxi
Ngog
Subs - Meirles,Sterling,Soty,Carroll,Pacheco,Coady.
Then after we have greased the Grecians mighty Bolton await!
For that game I would go with
Reina
Kelly-Carra-Agger-Enrique
Lucas-Adam
Kuyt-Meireles-Downing
Suarez
That team to me looks right. There is pace,workrate and balance to it. Yes, so 2 of our most expensive players are on the bench.They are young and have taken a huge step up coming to Anfield and by giving them 5 year contracts we are not expecting them to produce right now. We have a tough start and we cant afford to drop too many points. By utilising them as subs the pressure is off unless we are chasing the game. Carroll and Henderson arent doing it for me just yet. Plus would you really want to see Andy Carroll coming off the bench to torment you after you have spent 60-70 minutes trying to keep Suarez quiet, I think not!
Looks like Aquilani is on his way out, AC Milan and £14mill are being quoted. Be nice to get some money in!
YNWA
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