When Steven Gerrard stepped up to take the penalty against QPR on Saturday, most Liverpool fans probably would've bet their life savings on the ball hitting the back of the net. Alas, Gerrard ended up missing the penalty, and after the game, the Reds captain explained why he failed to convert the spot-kick.
In his post-match interview, Gerrard slammed his 'poor' penalty, and shed some light on his thought-process prior to kicking the ball. He told reporters:
"I changed my mind on my run up and when you're taking a penalty, you can't change your mind.
"I was looking at Rob Green for as long as I could and I felt like he was going to go to his right, my left, which made me change my mind.
"I should have had the confidence that I could still score even if he went the right way".
Gerrard seems to have a reputation for being a world-class penalty taker, but that's not really the case.
He's missed plenty of times during his career, and overall, he barely scrapes into Liverpool's top-five penalty takes of all-time. Gerrard's stats:
* Penalties taken: 57
* Scored: 47 (82%)
* Missed: 10 (18%)
* Misses one out of every 5.7 penalties.
It was great to see Gerrard recover to score the winning goal, though.
I'm sure every Liverpool fan is hoping that he can go out on a hight, and after some recent personal disappointments (red card and FA Cup farce), a winning goal in a crucial Premier League game is a major boost for the club, and Gerrard himself.
That said, the QPR victory is marred by the frustrating reality that Liverpool have abjectly failed to capitalise on Man United's timely fall from grace.
The Mancs have lost three games in a row, now, and if the Reds had earned positive results in the last two games, the club would be one point of ahead in fourth place.
Instead, Liverpool are still FOUR points behind the Mancs, and the have to rely on the Louis Van Gaal's team losing at least two more games, which is extremely unlikely.
So close, yet so far...
Author: Jaimie K
In his post-match interview, Gerrard slammed his 'poor' penalty, and shed some light on his thought-process prior to kicking the ball. He told reporters:
"I changed my mind on my run up and when you're taking a penalty, you can't change your mind.
"I was looking at Rob Green for as long as I could and I felt like he was going to go to his right, my left, which made me change my mind.
"I should have had the confidence that I could still score even if he went the right way".
Gerrard seems to have a reputation for being a world-class penalty taker, but that's not really the case.
He's missed plenty of times during his career, and overall, he barely scrapes into Liverpool's top-five penalty takes of all-time. Gerrard's stats:
* Penalties taken: 57
* Scored: 47 (82%)
* Missed: 10 (18%)
* Misses one out of every 5.7 penalties.
It was great to see Gerrard recover to score the winning goal, though.
I'm sure every Liverpool fan is hoping that he can go out on a hight, and after some recent personal disappointments (red card and FA Cup farce), a winning goal in a crucial Premier League game is a major boost for the club, and Gerrard himself.
That said, the QPR victory is marred by the frustrating reality that Liverpool have abjectly failed to capitalise on Man United's timely fall from grace.
The Mancs have lost three games in a row, now, and if the Reds had earned positive results in the last two games, the club would be one point of ahead in fourth place.
Instead, Liverpool are still FOUR points behind the Mancs, and the have to rely on the Louis Van Gaal's team losing at least two more games, which is extremely unlikely.
So close, yet so far...
Author: Jaimie K
If its all ifs buts and maybes then maybe utd will lose some more and we will win, or (as I'm sure you are not suggesting) we could all just give up again and write the season off now and then when utd do lose we can all moan again about 'ohh, if only we hadn't given up'
ReplyDeleteI think in the last 3 years or so, Stevie G has a fantastic record as a penalty scorer. And yes, we should have taken advantage of Man Utd fall.
ReplyDeleteSame old same old. Silly losses costing us hugely. If we had beat Hull, 1 pt behind the Mancs who still have a very rampant Arsenal side to play. Silly point drops this season also include Newcastle, Villa, West Ham Leicester and West Brom. This needs to be eradicated as soon as possible.
ReplyDeleteCity was a good win.
ReplyDeleteSod it, in for a penny and all that, - why don't we have the conversation about abject failures after the event instead of before?
ReplyDeleteAs I'm off to bed I'll just cover this base in anticipation - No - we haven't failed yet, as someone pointed out yesterday, give some credit to the teams that we've lost to of late, utd have to play Hull too and maybe they will also lose. Yes it's a mountain but we may still climb it and people were writing our season off weeks ago and yet here we are, still in with a shout, so lets save all the moaning until it's really merited or better still not at all.
ReplyDeletethats because we have a soft manager who is not intelligent. against Arsenal and United if we just managed to get draws, not lose, we'd have confidence and be in the FA cup final and probably top 4. with Uniteds tough games, if we just drew with them we would have momentum.... against west brom and Hull theres no excuses for not gettin 2 wins. after that embarrasing loss to Villa, at WEMBLEY(how much more motivation you need), we should have gone out and showed Villa was a lapse in concetration and beat them hull and west brom comfortably.
ReplyDeleteSo happy for coutinho but this current team really digust me, especially sterling. we are a young developing team no where near the finished article but yet players like Sterling who miss sitters on a daily basis are getting big headed and ruining the club. sterling for me must be sold, dont care if he scores 10 goals in last 3 games. he not as good as he thinks he is and is a spoilt brat. if we lost yesterday he is at fault along with gerrard.
bring in Pedro Rodriguez(£25M), Memphis Depay (£25M), Alex Lacazette (£30M)
once. and city this year as poor as us. managala and fernando not good enough. not levels. we need to strt parking the bus, playing on the counter for a win or draw against the big boys and attack the smaller teams
ReplyDeleteIs it Brendan's fault for prety much saying it couldn't be done? Many argued that it was mind games, but doesn't look like our team believed recently. manu suprisingly won vs City but, it came back to normal against Everton and chelski- I was confident after lost to them knowing their strenghts(weaknesses) and schedule, how he didn't believe is beyond me..
ReplyDeleteThere are two (and probably many more) ways to look to tackle things when your back is against the wall..
ReplyDelete1. Think positive - no matter how bad the situation talk up the things that went well, and in some respect ignore the things that went wrong, hoping more than expecting the bad things will rectify themselves. This method essentially requires there to be sufficient quality to be already in place to naturally overcome the negative aspects over time.
2. Focus on the negative - by working on the things that go wrong, aim to fix things and improve the outcome. This method is aimed at excellence and making incremental improvement no matter how good you may be, with the aim of eventually becoming the best.
In my humble opinion BR adopts method 1, and the majority of managers with a winning mentality adopt method 2 (Moanio, Ancelotti, Fergy, etc al).
I am confident we can win Chelsea if they dont parking bus ! Who with me ? hahahaa
ReplyDeleteJK - Please can I make a suggestion regarding your mechanism to filter posts. I understand you need to maintain decorum, but equally I find it quite frustrating when innocuous posts get pulled up, only for you to OK them shortly thereafter.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, could you look to consider a system whereby you allow all posts initially, until such time as a poster is pulled up for something. Then that poster is put on the "dodgy" list, in which case all their posts must go through your current filtering process.
Now the downside is you may one or two who abuse the privilege, but at least you start with the assumption the majority of poster mean well and want to debate, even if others may not agree with their opinion.
Sounds great. But highly unlikely..
ReplyDeleteI think the difficulty may surround how easy or difficult it will be for JK to implement.
ReplyDeleteUnited are f***ing sh** without Carrick on the field.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is this man has lost too many games. That is why people don't trust him anymore.
ReplyDeleteLambert was very positive yesterday which makes me wonder why he's not played more games along with balo. But then again br is who he is. Also the way he arrogantly lift his hand after every goal is infuriating. I really hope he does the right thing and resigns regardless of how we finish.
The way he celebrates?!? Tell me you are joking...
ReplyDeleteI think che has been linked to lacazette so I think it's possible that's where he's going. Cause most times u hear that Chelsea are being intrested in a player they more than likely sign him. Plus it's being touted as a player plus cash deal with remy going the other way. Which would intrest lyon greatly
ReplyDeleteI'm actually not. It's the most arrogant thing I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteBut what has he done to warrant that sort of egotistical gesture?
The most arrogant thing...?
ReplyDeleteYeah all the credit LVG was getting about the team improving was more down to Carrick than anything. He did play him though so deserves credit for that. The get it to Fellaini tactic has also been figured out.
ReplyDeleteFor those complaining of square pegs etc at Liverpool and praising LVG. Him playing strikers as, midfielders,midfielders.As defenders, midfielders as strikers, wingers as full backs etc makes me laugh.
Egotistical gesture? Your a bit barmey aren't you?
ReplyDeleteDeserves credit for playing Carrick? Giving him credit for that...is like giving him more credit than he deserves?
ReplyDeleteoh god... someone calling himself cr7 is arrogant, BR's celebration is so predictable that it is funny at most..
ReplyDeleteCarrick is a bit unlikely starter with all thel payers they have?
ReplyDeleteOh and I was going to call moi-self Stuart C7
ReplyDeleteHe's not. As soon as he came back, they had that great form run. As soon as he was injured again, they've lost 3 games in a row. Carrick will be straight back in the team at least if he's back this season.
ReplyDeleteseems, pretty understated to me. This on the other hand......
ReplyDeleteMourinho celebration vs Barcelona and clash with …: https://youtu.be/rgX0StRq6zk
Utd are average at best, unfortunately, we are at the same level as them , only difference is they managed to win ugly more than we did. Its been a poor PL season, average teams average football and quite unispiring wrapped up by the poor performances of English teams in the CL.
ReplyDeleteLost too many games, to be fair to BR he has the second highest win percentage of any Liverpool manager in modern day football.
ReplyDeleteHaven't seen a worse title winning atmosphere.
ReplyDeleteAnd we have zilch to show for it
ReplyDeleteIt actually anoys me but everything he does irks me in some way,even his tie and jumper combos annoy me and the blackjacket he wears looks like it is off an old James bond props set
ReplyDeleteWell he could have used his own signings more instead but yeah it is a bit of a stretch.
ReplyDeleteyou never know, we might get lucky and get 4th
ReplyDeleteI was prepared to give him another year but I had not taken into account his sartorial limitations and for me that clinches it he should just go now.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope for an unusual(and unlikely) equaliser
ReplyDeleteLets hope the title goes to their head and we flog em.
ReplyDeleteNah, I wanted them to wrap it up today. If they didn't, they'd be more on their game next week
ReplyDeleteWell I suppose you have to be sporting about it and take your hat off to them .....spit on it throw it on the ground and stamp all over it.
ReplyDeleteYou can nail another one up to the oil barons we have to stop buying petrol that will stuff em.
ReplyDeleteUnder rodgers I don't expect 5 the best. Under him it's Like we waiting to lose or to be attacked and it's not as if we have a solid defence.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I am but also maybe he should win a couple of trophies before he behaves in such an arrogant manner.
ReplyDeleteWell cr7 has two champions league trophies and league titles in two different countries. Not to mention he's possibly one of the best players ever. His arrogance can be suffered I think.
ReplyDelete