About Me

I have been a Red since I was about 6 or 7. My boyhood hero was Kenny Dalglish and I have an autograph from him while he was still at Celtic. Thanks Gran! As such I gravitated towards the team he played for. So I have been Scottish-South African- Scoucer for about 30 years now! I am extremely passionate about our club, and have felt the need to start this blog in the face of the abject nature of our performaces under Benitez and the Hicks/Gillett ownership.

Sunday 23 October 2011

Sick as a Canary

What a painful week to be a Liverpool fan. Firstly to lose to a second string Rangers team with your own second string on Tuesday with a totally uninspired performance is not good. Admitedly a midfield containing Maxi,Lucas,Spearing and Aurelio is unlikely to provide much ammunition for Carrol and Bellamy.

We were lucky not to be further behind after 25 minutes, only a combination of great keeping from Doni and wasteful finishing from Rangers. As an exercise we got 65 minutes out of Glenn Johnson. Agger and Aurelio played longer and its good they are back to fitness. Only player who impressed other than the keeper was Bellamy. He was rewarded with a starting position on Saturday against Norwich.

What a game that was, I have no idea how we didnt score 10 never mind only get a draw!  We were completely dominant except for almost the whole game except for 10 to 15 minutes at the start of 2nd half.

I looked at our starting line up and thought Wow that going to be hard to stop. So it proved a combination of Ruddy in goal and Barnett a one man defensive wall, he seemed to be everywhere blocking and tackling, and the woodwork kept us at bay. I know its hard to be critical of a team that has had 29 shots in a game but tellingly only 9 on target. Norwich had 12 shots and  had 7 on target.

I said we werent ruthless enough against ManUre and we repeated the wastefulness here. I believe Suarez had 12 shots, a Premier League record for a single game, but only about 3 or 4 of those were on target and only 2 the keeper was forced into proper saves and what saves they were!!! I am not having a pop at Luis he was certainly our man of the match and you cant ask for more from your topman other than a bit of luck.

I do think some of our decision-making was poor in the last 3rd, too many times we shot when we should have passed, and passed when we should have shot and sometimes we didnt really pick out team-mates who were better placed. Too many crosses were hit in aimlessly without checking who was where. We need to show more patience. Illustrated In the 1st half  when Bellers could have cut the ball back to Kuyt and in the 2nd when Suarez shot from an acute angle after some great build up play when Stevie G was square and in position for a tap-in.

There goal was a shambles, yet again Pepe was at fault. He spilt almost every shot Norwich had at goal and then for some reason came  out for a hailmary punch that he was never going to get to and only succeeded in clattering Carra and Johnson, neither of whom was getting to the ball either . Mr Holt wanted it more. We almost fell for the same trick a couple of minutes later but thankfully this time Pepe stayed his line and made a decent save from another Holt header.

We almost snatched it at the end with Carroll and Suarez having great chances. ManUre and Chelski both struggled to put Norwich to bed but did so late on. That unfortunately is the difference between contending and ensuring a top 4 finish and being an also ran. We are a quarter of the way through the campaign and after the glorious slaughter of his knighted smugness by City today are 10 points off the pace. Extrapolate that out for the remainder and we finish 40 points behind.

We havent had the toughest start to the season. We have played 2 of the top 6 away, win 1 win and 1 loss. A draw against ManUre which was a disappointing result but not performance. We should have beaten Sunderland on the opening day, more points dropped there. I would say we are probably 6 points off what our performances have deserved. The defeats at Spurs and Stoke were always going to be tough games.

So where are we? 6th according to the table. Steve Clarke said before the International  break we have had an average start. With 2 subsiquent draws I would think that has to be moving towards below average. Remember our new owners have spent over 100 million to get us to the right place and in general we have seen a vast improvement in style and energy in our performances. The results arent quite there yet but on the whole we are definitely moving forward but I think we are stalled at the moment.

Arsenal have had a horrible time of things and yet they are only 2 points behind us and have scored more goals.........

Kenny has tinkered with the line-up after giving most of the new arrivals 5-6 games to bed in. Enrique,Downing and Adam have certainly done that. I think Henderson is showing that this a bit of a step too far at the moment and I am glad Kenny is using him as a sub instead. He has made impact in both games in that role.

I think we have 14 quality players we can use at the moment, basically the starting 11 plus Kelly,Lucas and Agger. The rest are works in progress. I hope that over time Carroll, Henderson and Shelvey will make the grade.  

We have 4 tough game on the bounce now. Trips to Stoke, The Hawthorns and Stamford Bridge and Man City at home. Brittania is obviously a Cup game but we really need to get a win. West Brom are proving to be tough nuts to crack under out former boss. Pity we werent the same under him! Chelski is always tough as an away fixture for us and after what City did at the Legions of Doom today not looking forward to that game.

Lets hope we can put 2 wins together and then take what we can from Chelski and Man City I imagine we will need to win one of those.


YNWA


P.S. Ballotelli burnt his house down during the week, not a bad idea if you are going to score 2 against ManUre!!!    

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