15 Sept 2012

Sunderland 1-1 LFC: Post-match discussion. Good performance...?

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has named a strong starting XI for this afternoon's must-win clash with Sunderland.

It's good to see Jonjo Shelvey get a starting berth, but what's happened to Sahin? If he's not injured, dropping him after just one game seems harsh, especially when he's probably in a fitter state than Steven Gerrard, who starts the game despite playing twice for England recently. Jose Enrique is also out.

FULL LINE UP:

Reina, Kelly, Skrtel, Agger, Johnson, Allen, Shelvey, Gerrard, Suarez, Sterling, Borini.

SUBS

Jones, Enrique, Sahin, Assaidi, Henderson, Downing, Carragher.

It looks like we're going to see square pegs in round holes again, with Johnson almost certainly playing on the left, and Borini probably playing out wide. I hope to see the following formation:

----------------------- Reina

Kelly --------- Skrtel ------ Agger ---------- Johnson

------- Gerrard ------ Allen ---------- Shelvey

--------- Suarez ---- Borini ---- Sterling.

Hopefully, we'll get a first glimpse of Assaidi in a Red shirt. Liverpool legend Gary Gillespie praised the inclusion of Shelvey and Sterling:

"You've got to give credit to Shelvey. He makes things happen, and he's performed really well. There's no surprise that Sterling starts either. I'm not quite sure playing Johnson on the left is a good idea. It's a strange one that".

Jaimie Kanwar


43 comments:

  1. Dude, suso is not on the bench. Verify before you post such things.

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  2. suso is not on the bench

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  3. I hate to be negative but that team looks so patched together considering its only the fourth game of the season.
    Not confident...

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  4. No suso on the bench according to LFC TV

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  5. Even i am disappointed that Suso didn't make the cut but hopefully he gets chance in another game.

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  6. Ahhh we need to play Borini in the middle, not wide!

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  7. easy sunderland goal ...that's what happens when you have a right footed player at right back ....without sounding pessimistic its game over........nothing at all to liverpools attack i can see us losing 3 nil

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  8. Johnson has made the regular mistake that has results in another goal. Rather have young Robinson there instead of this useless player.Another game thrown away. Brendan Rodgers will not last until Christmas if he does not have the guts to drop Johnson and Steven Gerrad.

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  9. I wondered why this back four was chosen and bang 1 down .....oh lord this midfield lacks steel

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  10. im sure rodgers will be gone at christmass ....why sell your tallest striker and have the goalie punt the ball down field ...we just dont have the players for this system ...Im sorry but Borini is garbage ..whats funny is our two best players are the ones which we where going to loan out in shelvey and stirling ...i genunily think the powers that be and staff at livrpool are clueless

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  11. worst start for 100 yrs, dominated the game and failed to score, exactly the same problems as last yr.

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  12. I now feel convinced that Downing is such a waste of space , why on earth don't you even try Assaidi ....next game keep Morgan or Samed on the bench coz Borini is not working there at all.

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  13. Worst game ever. Our midfield in the centre are useless, too long keeping the ball, no idea where to pass. Kept passing the ball behind to the defenders. Should be playing direct football pressuring and keeping sunderland at bay. Playing to the width is the best choice with raheem yet again outshone the rest. Where sahin and assaidi? Rodgers should forget about the tika taka and stick to direct attacking football.

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  14. Too much to say. Allen did not play 1 meaningful forward pass. It is all good having 99% pass rate but if all of them are backwards or sideways then what good is it? This guy is in no way a alonso, I remember alonso playing balls forward and having the odd shot at goal.

    The defenders are too busy concentrating on what the midfielders should be doing that they are forgetting to concentrate on defending. Agger and skyrtel have far too much of the ball for me. Johnson has to keep getting forward to try create or score. What is the point of having Allen and Gerrard sitting deep if Agger and skyrtel have to keep getting the ball. They are not covering the defenders well enough.

    I really am starting to think downing is better than borini. Now that is a sad day.

    Once again biggest problem is putting ball in the net. If we were scoring 2, 3 or 4 then all of the above would not be relevant.

    I know it will take time to adjust to this way of playing but for me our team is too young with lack of experience and too reliant on the few experienced players we have, forcing mistakes out of them all over the pitch. In the arsenal game Gerrard and Suarez kept giving the ball away which cost us. In this game e defenders have too much of the ball to be able to concentrate on their job. I feel for Reina, skyrtel, Agger and Johnson.

    Only good news is we are out of the relegation zone.

    Message for the Americans....keep you cheque book ready for January or get out.

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  15. what worries me is stirling was once again our best player in attack .....it really is time to put borini on the bench and try something new....special mention to shelvey who at least has a go

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  16. Yes but now we have
    a new manager
    a few new players
    a new way of playing
    And most importantly the lowest wage bill in the league

    ...look on the bright side

    Lots of profit for Americans :)

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  17. So what if Allen can't tackle or pass forwards or shoot, at least he got 99% accuracy. I mean who else can boast a player like that.

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  18. p.s our defensive structure throughout the team is paper thin ...any half decent attacking team will run riot against us there where massive gaps between the lines to run into i really feel for skirtal and agger every game must be like rourkes drift

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  19. Passed the ball okay,created so many chances.... We are getting better... We just need a win then we be on are way up. Downing? WHY! OH WHY! Brenden don't play him.... Why didn't you put on assaidi? O_o

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  20. Why should we blame the players, we should blame rodgers for instilling this brand of football. Agger and skrtel should not be trouble to start the move. Gerrard and allen should be the one to plan the attack. I belief we have the right players to challenge for the top 5 but the person who choose the tactics should be replace. From these few games i dont believe rodgers can do the job. We do need to find a replacement, whom have certain pedigree and better port folio. As day goes by, benitez still the only one who have bring liverpool closer to winning the bpl championship.

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  21. I think I have to agree. Rafa is still available. But we need to stick by Brendan and hope he can turn it around.

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  22. Johnson had a overall good game. e made one mistake yes that cost us but he is a better left back than enrique in my opinion. Our formation relies on our full backs supporting the attack.

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  23. Agree on our best two players, our managers problem is he is not flexible and has only one dimentional knowledge of how to play football.

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  24. we played better football last year in that game if i recall.

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  25. uve seen the light lol

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  26. u could also try my 8 year old son. Nothing wrong with the team selection or peoples positions just some players mainly senior lacked performance.

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  27. aww one who knows their footy. notice how many seconds it took sunderland to take the ball from us in their half and shoot in our half?

    i rest my case.

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  28. the manager likes the defenders to get involved in the passing to keep possession. its way not mine

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  29. Another pop at Stevie !

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  30. Fact is at the minute we are very poor. BR will no doubt get us challenging for 4th spot but at the min it will take prob 3 yrs. anyone wh says reina is shite, yes yuo may be right he is playin not to good but, if he goes, we will get a worse player in for him, that is fact. liverpool since benitez left has replaced world class with britains best and they are not good enough. we have gone from CL long runs to premiership relegation standard. we have played a mixture of all the league has to offer. lost against the worst team in west brom, drawn against the best team, lost against the 4th best team and drawn against mid table. to be fair, these 4 games tell me we are a mid table club at present and that is fact. title challenge is over in september, neve ever have i ever had that put on me. even when you did not think we would win the league ewas it over in the first month!!!

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  31. Criteria for the next manager, one with many winning medals and league championship under his belt. Not young, inexperience but old and full of experience managing world class team before.

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  32. Shelvey didn't have a good game yesterday. He was in an d out of the game throughout although he had some good moments. I think he needs more consistency. Johnson made some defensive mistakes but was good going forward and made some good defensive clearances, so it wasn't all bad. I think part of the problem is that the full backs have very little support from the players in front of them, especially from Stirling. Stirling is great, but he is not physically strong and needs to work on his defensive side.

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  33. I think Borini needs a goal. He was getting in good positions in the first half. Let's see what happens once (if) he gets his first once.

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  34. The things i noticed while watching the match:

    1. Sterling is a very good player and was by far our best attacking threat on the pitch.
    2. Shelvey is not a bad player but he sure does nothing extraordinary either. Why pay huge wages for a player of sahin calibre and instead play an average youngster like shelvey??
    3. Why is assaidi not being played?
    4. For the first time of my life i`m gonna praise glen johnson. I think that bar the sloppy defending that allowed the goal, he was pretty good the whole match.
    5. Borini is still young and is trying hard. He is not that bad a player as people seem to think he is. He had a few shots on target but unfortunately the keeper saved them. Lets not get on his back so early and give him some time.
    6. Reina again caused us to lose points. He had nothing to do the whole match but the only chance sunderland had he could not do sh#t and conceded the goal. Now i know its not entirely his fault since two players on the left side sloppily allowed the sunderland player to get into a dangerous position but for goodness sake, reina should have done better than that. it was certainly not a difficult cross to intercept. He jumped too late toward the ball like an amateur which left the goal totally opemed and unguarded which allowed fletcher to score.

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  35. Yeah ur rite , iwonder how many of those passes were assists or were they just 5-10 yards pass

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  36. We are playing decent football just like last season but we are lacking killer instinct. That killer instinct is a prolific finisher. If we had one this season and last season we would be well on our way into the top 4 and beyond that.

    Rodgers has one big decision to make regarding Gerrard. Gerrard is either struggling to adjust to the new system or just will not find form again. I am starting to wonder if it is the likes of Gerrard that is keeping the team from progressing to the next level? Will Rodgers have enough balls to send him to the bench though?

    It is clear that Reina needs some competition. He knows that nobody can take his place at the moment so one thing we need to do is get a replacement for him.

    We need to move on the likes of Reina, Carra and Gerrard in order for this team to flourish. These are the players who are holding us back and the evidence of that has been in front of us since the start of the 2009/2010 season.

    What us fans do not realise is that we are going to have to rebuild this squad in order for us to challenge for the EPL. That might take another two years though so patients is the one thing we all need to have.

    Rodgers is a great manager, give him time as he will get things right.

    Who are we going to replace him with? Please do not say Rafa as he will send us well into the dark ages if he had to manage this club again.

    Not many fans can see it but the club is finally heading in the right direction. Yes we have started the season with only two points and we will further struggle this season but everyone in life has to crawl before they can walk and that is exactly what this club is going through at the moment. Once we start walking though, we will be unstoppable.

    Keep the faith, we will get there.

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  37. I hate to rain on the doom merchants parade but here are some FACTS:

    Sunderland vs Liverpool 15th of September 2012

    Shots on Target: Liverpool 9 Sunderland 4

    Corners: Liverpool 7 Sunderland 2

    Possession: Liverpool 52% Sunderland 48%

    The problem is that we can't FINISH that's the major issue.

    Before the Andy Carroll brigade get typing here's an interesting statistic about him.
    Did you know that in the 44 LEAGUE GAMES CARROLL SCORED 6 GOALS?

    DO YOU THINK THAT IS ACCEPTABLE FOR A STRIKER? BECAUSE I DON'T.

    Andy Carroll record for Liverpool FC was appalling and he was not the solution isn't the solution.

    When we can get a striker beside Suarez and Borini who are actually number 10's we will be fine.

    Brendan Rogers, knows more about football coaching than anyone on these boards.
    He also stated that it would take time and we don't have a lot of money to spend.
    What more do you want?

    Did any of you actually look at how YOUNG that team is ?

    GET A GRIP!

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  38. MAX rafa had lil money to spent on players but he brot world class players Fernando Torres how much did we sold him, Alonso how much did we sold him, Masherano Hiz better becoz he doesnt blve in ths British Crap talent lets face it English is the best in the world but its aint British who would be dorminating its foreigners thus why you see England wil nver reach the World Cup finals or win it becoz they dont have the talent altho resources are there.....BRing Rafa bek with Rodgers blve u m we are going to be relegated if they dnt fire him in JANUARY.

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  39. I agree with your sentiments.

    Opta stats on Liverpool website actually put everything more in favour of Liverpool than you state.

    Possession 66 - 34
    Shots on target 6 - 1

    Carroll would still be good to have though, especially given that we are so thin on strikers, and with Sterling able to square defenders up, beat them and loft perfect balls in there. But we are where we are.

    Referee decisions decide more about games than anything else.

    Suarez went down easily but O' Shea stuck a leg in and made contact. Should have been a penalty, but Suarez gets a yellow.

    Compare that to Welbeck, blatant dive with no contact. No yellow and he wins a penalty.

    We did really well, unlucky not to win. We are getting there.

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  40. Mclauren Awuku Francis1:02 pm, September 16, 2012

    BR must be sacked. you drop sahin and assaidi and still play borini on the right flanks that is nonsense and stupid of him. HE MUST BE SACKED

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  41. You are my single hero in this comment thread. I think the game made it rather obvious that the thing we lack the most is a decent finisher. Mostly everything else, except maybe the poor defending for the goal, was rather satisfactory.

    What I hate the most about all of this is that Rodgers and Henry said that the club needs to put in effort to rebuild itself and that it'd be a hard journey of reformation for us. EVERYBODY agreed with that back then. Everybody went "Oh yeah, sure we need to be ready for hardships" and as soon as there are actually some, everybody forgets. These aren't empty phrases. Don't say "I'll stick by this club, this manager and these owners through the hard times" and then flee before they even begin.

    People should look at Dortmund. Jürgen Klopp is being hailed as an excellent coach, the players, of whom most are at the club for quite a while, are being lauded everywhere. Yet, when Klopp came in, in 08, they had just finished 13th in the league. He also promised a project that would eventually pay off. He finished 6th, 5th and then won back to back league titles. Because rebuilding takes time, but is eventually worth it.

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  42. all the lads who want rafa back werent you you the ones calling for his head a few yers back

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  43. You are right on! The problem was not the finishing (although it has been in the past). We just don't have creative midfielders who can be a threat and can create scoring chances. The scoring chances have to come from Suarez, who is also being asked to score. While he is at it, maybe he can stop some of the shots Reina let's in. Funny how I have not read anything about Reina's mistimed dive which took him completely out of the play on Fletcher's goal.
    Allen has proven to be a better Henderson so far. Even against Sunderland, his passing was poor. Worst part is that there is no intent to join the offense, just like Hendo.

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