Liverpool v Stoke

missingtime

mayordenis wrote: »

what are you on about?
every player he had that can kick a ball properly tried to take a corner that's hardly rafa's fault.
You know nothing about football, A player failing at delivering a ball is not rafa's fault, maybe if he decided on the wrong players , but alonso, reira and gerrard were the only corner takers all of which should be able to deliver.

Its rafa's fault too cos we always get so many corners and nothing comes of them. Rafa should have done something about this ages ago.

We should have scored 3 or 4 from all the corners.

roryc

What do you expect them to do? They clearly don't have the players to go and attack teams like Liverpool, so their main point of attack is defence... this was a great result for them, the way in which they got it doesn't matter.

The number one priority for teams like Stoke and Hull this year is survival. No one likes to see them playing with 11 men behind the ball, but either way Liverpool should be destrying teams like this.

The disallowed goal was ridiculous but it happens, 'Pool should have recovered and banged in three or four more.

mayordenis

missingtime wrote: »

Its rafa's fault too cos we always get so many corners and nothing comes of them. Rafa should have done something about this ages ago.

We should have scored 3 or 4 from all the corners.

The only thing you can say is that Rafa has not bought a david bentley type who specialises in set pieces,
but it's certainly not rafa's fault that alonso or gerrard 2 classy player, who can strike a ball aswell as most on the planet can't deliver a corner.
I'm sorry but honestly you sound like a six year old "Its rafa's fault too cos..."
nonsense

Mikeyt086

People having at a go at me because i said Stoke did well?

Get over yourself, no matter how bad they played, they got a bloody point at Anfield.

mayordenis

Mikeyt086 wrote: »

People having at a go at me because i said Stoke did well?

Get over yourself, no matter how bad they played, they got a bloody point at Anfield.

your actually bang on Mikey and I hate you (joke mate love you really ya **** house), but seriously whatever liverpool's strongest attacking line-up lacked stoke had in abunadance heart, desire and the effort to get something out of this game.

eagle eye

This is what I have been saying. You look at that Liverpool side and they can beat the best, but they suffer against defensive teams because they don't score enough goals week in week out. They are just not an attack minded side in the same vein as United, Chelsea or Arsenal.

Ardent

mayordenis wrote: »

it was hardly pathetic, elaborate.
was it the goal robbed or was it the pathetic fans who give up on the team? probably the latter, good thing they reside here and not in anfield.

We were pathetic as an attacking force.

I wonder does Benitez coach attacking football at melwood at all, or is it all defensive work. No ideas whatsoever. Our crosses and corners were a disgrace too.

Team selection and use of subs was poor again - Kuyt has a negative effect on our play and should not be selected for games like this.

Title contenders my arse. Can you see Utd or Chelsea dropping points against Stoke f*cking City and other teams like them?

mayordenis

eagle eye wrote: »

This is what I have been saying. You look at that Liverpool side and they can beat the best, but they suffer against defensive teams because they don't score enough goals week in week out. They are just not an attack minded side in the same vein as United, Chelsea or Arsenal.

most goals in all competitions last season.
so you have nothing to base that on, well you could go with this season so far where united have been freescoring . . . oh wait wrong again eagle eye, some things never change.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

mayordenis wrote: »

most goals in all competitions last season.
so you have nothing to base that on, well you could go with this season so far where united have been freescoring . . . oh wait wrong again eagle eye, some things never change.

...but all in the ame matches. Liverpool have a tendcy to go out and bang in 6 goals in one in game and then one in the next three, while dropping points dure to 0-0 and 1-1 draws.

More goals than anyone else yet still have 13 draws, or whatever it was, tells it;s own tale.

mada999

disagree with all the talk about the corners...some of the delivery was ok..
the problem I think is that we don't have the type of players that attack a corner a la Terry, Ferdinand, Vidic, Ronaldo, Santa Cruz...

no real creativity today...Torres doesn't look fit, Keane unlucky with his chances..no real pace on show on the counter attack

I've a feeling this will happen again this season as it did last year..
but we're top at the mo so all's not that bad!!

PiE

Ardent wrote: »

That display was another example of why will we never the Premiership under Benitez. Pathetic.

Yea clearly it's Rafa's fault that not one of the 386 chances we had today went in. It's Rafa's fault that the linesman is blind and doesn't know the rules. It's Rafa's fault that Keane didn't put his sidefoot shot 2 feet more to the left.

The only people to blame for not winning this game are the players for not finishing a single chance.

eagle eye

mayordenis wrote: »

most goals in all competitions last season.
so you have nothing to base that on, well you could go with this season so far where united have been freescoring . . . oh wait wrong again eagle eye, some things never change.

In the PL you didn't score more than any other team, and its the final third where the problem has been, not enough width in the team. We'll see as the season goes on, but again here a terrible team like Stoke come away with a draw. There is no good excuse for not hammering the bejaysus out of them.

witnessmenow

Xavi6 wrote: »

Undoes most of last week's good work though tbh

If we wanna be up there at the end of the season last week was a 6 pointer, I'd defiantly prefer to beat utd and draw to stoke than the other way around

mayordenis

eagle eye wrote: »

In the PL you didn't score more than any other team, and its the final third where the problem has been, not enough width in the team. We'll see as the season goes on, but again here a terrible team like Stoke come away with a draw. There is no good excuse for not hammering the bejaysus out of them.

You're right eagel eye.

Boggles

Looks like the Liverpool squad have come down with a bad dose of Robbie Keane disease.

Fair play to Stoke, they came with a gameplan and played to their strengths, delighted for them especially since alot of people had disrespectively written them off as whipping boys.

Chucky the tree

PiE wrote: »

Yea clearly it's Rafa's fault that not one of the 386 chances we had today went in. It's Rafa's fault that the linesman is blind and doesn't know the rules. It's Rafa's fault that Keane didn't put his sidefoot shot 2 feet more to the left.

The only people to blame for not winning this game are the players for not finishing a single chance.

Who picks the players? Who bought the players? Rafa did.


He spunks £20mill on robbie Keane and the only thing he can finish is a 5 course meal. You cant say it's not Rafa's fault, it is. And Ardent is spot on. It's been typical Liverpool under Rafa. One great win against United and the week later we **** it up at home to stoke city. the only difference is it's usually the away games we maanage to **** up.

Racing Flat

The worst thing about this result is it gives every other 'potential struggler' belief that they can get something from Anfield (and maybe a blueprint of how to do so). A solid 3-0 win here might have those teams coming expecting to get beat - beaten before kick-off which possibly happens when teams go to Chelsea or OT. Disappointed but not the end of the world.

jesus_thats_gre

fair played to stoke. They went with a game plan and it worked for them. Liverpool ran out of ideas in the end and were misfiring in front of goal. 9 times out of 10, the pool would have managed to pull something out of the bag but it wasn't to be this time around.

Drawing this match unfortunately renders last weeks win pretty much pointless but i wouldn't read too much into it just yet.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

fair played to stoke. They went with a game plan and it worked for them. Liverpool ran out of ideas in the end and were misfiring in front of goal. 9 times out of 10, the pool would have managed to pull something out of the bag but it wasn't to be this time around.

Drawing this match unfortunately renders last weeks win pretty much pointless but i wouldn't read too much into it just yet.

Wish I had your faith, but it's simply not a one-off. If it was, I wouldn't be too worried!

jesus_thats_gre

Ikky Poo2 wrote: »

Wish I had your faith, but it's simply not a one-off. If it was, I wouldn't be too worried!

I can understand why people are worried. However, when you look at the facts, we got virtually the same amount of points from teams outside of the top 4 as united did last season. We shouldn't be drawing there matches but it happens to every team - even the champions!

The last thing we need is for pool fans to be reacting hysterically in the same fashion that Fat Dolan and other portions of the media are.

In the same way that it was too early to suggest that we are genuine contenders after the united match, it is too early to say we are out of it.

gixerfixer

Lol at the clowns coming on and writing Liverpool off after todays game. Some people are unreal. If Gerrards perfectly good goal was allowed we would have battered them as they would have had to come out and play at least a little bit of football. Fair play to Stoke but enjoy your time in the big leagues lads,you are simply a shocking football team. All in all an average display and an improvement needed next time out.

LuckyLloyd

Good man jesus_thats_gre, people getting too low after today's RESULT is as bad as people getting too high after last week's RESULT. Hint: last week's performance was short of tremendous in as much as today's wasn't awful.

Also, I have no problem with the way Stoke approached the game and I think that Liverpool fans criticizing it would be just a little lol. We have done similar things away from home in Europe. The problem with their gameplan is obviously that you give the opposition all of the flow and leave yourself crushed if you make one mistake and don't execute well defensively. It is to their credit that they stuck to their task for the 90 mins. A good away performance imo.

There is a long way to go this year. IF we lost the league by two points then obviously we will be left to look at today. But, in all probability this result won't be the key. We move on, tis still a good start to the season.

gixerfixer

Ardent wrote: »

We were pathetic as an attacking force.

I wonder does Benitez coach attacking football at melwood at all, or is it all defensive work. No ideas whatsoever. Our crosses and corners were a disgrace too.

Team selection and use of subs was poor again - Kuyt has a negative effect on our play and should not be selected for games like this.

Title contenders my arse. Can you see Utd or Chelsea dropping points against Stoke f*cking City and other teams like them?

Yes they already have. Chelsea drew with last place spurs and united drew at home to a pathetic newcastle side...sure that means both of those teams have no chance of the title right?

Unearthly

gixerfixer wrote: »

Yes they already have. Chelsea drew with last place spurs and united drew at home to a pathetic newcastle side...sure that means both of those teams have no chance of the title right?

Arsenal lost to an average Fulham side, they are out of the race to.

RIP top 4

Mr Alan

some peoples reactions are so funny.

****e result.

simple fact is that a linesmans call has prevented this being a really great week for Liverpool. unfortunately **** happens in football. ah well.

people like EagleEye saying our problem is that we are unable to get the same sort of results as the other top 4 clubs against the lesser teams are for some very strange reason ignoring the fact that its simply not true, the top 4 all picked up similar points against clubs outside the top 4 last year.

we dropped a lot of silly points last season against lesser teams, we also didnt collect enough against the other top 4 teams. In order for us to close the gap against Utd/Chelsea, we need to do better in a combination of both, the massive games and the small games. we've already started better in the big games with a win against Utd, we just need to make sure scorelines like today are the exception, rather than the rule and we will be a lot closer.

anyway, bad day at the office, robbed by an official of 2 points. and it gives the knockers (liverpool fans and rival fans alike) an excuse to crawl out from under their rock and come out with stupid sweeping statements.

Chucky the tree

So far Liverpool have played this season excactly like we have played the last few seasons, which as we all know has left us out of the title chase by Christmas time usually.

I wouldnt really mind if about todays result if it was a one off, but it wasnt. We're still a team who lacks fire power, we dont have a decent right midfielder either. We beat Sunderland 1-0, needed a last minute winner against Boro drew with Villa and we were awful in that match and never looked like scoring. Not to mention standard Leige.

The united result was great and all, but we have played great against the top 4 sides in seasons before and still go no where near the league title and from what I have seen of this team it wont get much nearer the league title either.

United have 4 top class goal scorers who can bang in goals all season in rooney, tevez, Berbatov and rooney. We have torres and Gerrard.

Mr Alan

Chucky the tree wrote: »

So far Liverpool have played this season excactly like we have played the last few seasons, which as we all know has left us out of the title chase by Christmas time usually.

except of course the 6 point swing that occured last week between us and Utd.

darkskol

Bad result from an match we should of won but its not the end of the world, nobody wins 100% of their matches. The team just need to put it out of their heads and get on with preparations for their next game.

Mr Alan

Chucky the tree wrote: »

United have 4 top class goal scorers who can bang in goals all season in rooney, tevez, Berbatov and rooney. We have torres and Gerrard.

how come you're putting in Berbatov and not Keane? scored the same amount last season, both yet to get off the mark this season?

Bubs101

TBH, if I was a Liverpool fan I'd be optomistic about the season. You got one of the matches you traditionally do terrible out of the way with a win already, Man Utd and Arsenal have had a stuttered start so it's not like there are any potential breakaway leaders yet, even if we win it'll still only be two points between the teams. Most importantly, you've been playing some pretty poor football yet coming out with three points in alot of your matches (Middlescbrough in particular) which is normally a good thing. Eventually Keane will score and things will start to fall into place performance wise. I reckon you have a great chance this season

gixerfixer

Chucky the tree wrote: »

So far Liverpool have played this season excactly like we have played the last few seasons, which as we all know has left us out of the title chase by Christmas time usually.

I wouldnt really mind if about todays result if it was a one off, but it wasnt. We're still a team who lacks fire power, we dont have a decent right midfielder either. We beat Sunderland 1-0, needed a last minute winner against Boro drew with Villa and we were awful in that match and never looked like scoring. Not to mention standard Leige.

The united result was great and all, but we have played great against the top 4 sides in seasons before and still go no where near the league title and from what I have seen of this team it wont get much nearer the league title either.

United have 4 top class goal scorers who can bang in goals all season in rooney, tevez, Berbatov and rooney. We have torres and Gerrard.

Utd have two Rooneys shocker. Think you meant Ronaldo there bud. Anyways i have never and doubt i ever will see Rooney as a top class scorer. His goals per game record for club and country is to be honest pathetic. Actually out of those four you have mentioned Rooney is the least capable of scoring IMO.

mike65

Meh. Didn't see the game and I switched off the radio commentary at half time. Is Keane still looking like the answer to a question that wasn't posed?

Mike.

gixerfixer

mike65 wrote: »

Meh. Didn't see the game and I switched off the radio commentary at half time. Is Keane still looking like the answer to a question that wasn't posed?

Mike.

He has been shocking so far this season but no doubt he will come good. Better to get his sh*t spell out of the way now instead of the run in for the title games in April/May

Mr Alan

Keanes is getting better Mike, last couple of games hes been excellent and today he had a couple of chances and got them both on target, this time a month ago he was missing the ball altogether, its all about baby steps

Chucky the tree

Mr Alan wrote: »

how come you're putting in Berbatov and not Keane? scored the same amount last season, both yet to get off the mark this season?

Berbatov played 1 game this season hasnt he? And he looked good against. Certainly looked alot better then Keane has in all his games.

Mr Alan wrote: »

except of course the 6 point swing that occured last week between us and Utd.

I dont know how true this is, but I read somewhere that United have more points this season then they did this time last season. Either way I'd still expect them to finish well ahead of us points wise.

gixerfixer wrote: »

Utd have two Rooneys shocker. Think you meant Ronaldo there bud. Anyways i have never and doubt i ever will see Rooney as a top class scorer. His goals per game record for club and country is to be honest pathetic. Actually out of those four you have mentioned Rooney is the least capable of scoring IMO.

Yea Ronaldo. fair enough, I should of put top class strikers rather then scorers. I certainly much prefer rooney then Dirk the donkey anyway.

RasTa

I wouldn't say the Linesman robbed you of the 3 points. That was after 4 mins or so? Plenty of time to get a goal. Fair play to Stoke, great result for them.

Mr Alan

berbatov looked ****e against us.

Chucky;last season Utd finished 11 points ahead of us, already we have taken 3 points away that they won last season, and added 3 points to our own tally.

if both clubs do EXACTLY as they did last year, we'll finish 5 points behind em.

BUT i think we'll do better than we did last year. i cant say wat Utd will do, i dont know.

by the way, strongest team out today, still dropped points, wil people get off the rotation bashing wagon? doubt it.

you didnt answer my question how berba is classed as a goal scorer but keane doesnt meet your high standards, despite their records being identical nearly the last couple of years.

Utd have one real goalscorer more than us, i agree, BUT it remains to be seen if the 4 will be played together. it also remains to be seen if Babel or someone doesnt pitch in with 12 odd goals this season (thats the amount Rooney got last year by the way)....we have better centre halves though

eagle eye

Top four excluding those top four games last season

Chelsea 77
Arsenal 77
Man Utd 74
Liverpool 72

We all know that United won the league with an incredible return in top four clashes but you don't see teams getting returns like that every season. Liverpool had the worst top four record and the worst non top four record. To break that down further, its against the really defensive teams that Liverpool suffered. I think these stats give you a clearer picture.

You took 11 points from 18 against the three relegated sides.
Arsenal took 14 from them games
Chelsea took full points
United took 16

jesus_thats_gre

RasTa wrote: »

I wouldn't say the Linesman robbed you of the 3 points. That was after 4 mins or so? Plenty of time to get a goal. Fair play to Stoke, great result for them.

The linesman made the correct call anyway. I don't know what people here or setanta sports are talking about.

Torres was offside when the free kick was played in. He went for the ball right in front of the keeper and missed it.

It was clearly interfering with play and rightfully called offside.

Guy:Incognito

Mr Alan wrote: »

Keanes is getting better Mike, last couple of games hes been excellent and today he had a couple of chances and got them both on target,

:eek:

I thought he was terrible today. His hsot on target was all about his miss rather than his haveing a proper go at scoring.

The one that summed it up was the ball he layed off to someone (gerrard?) at the edge of the box when a player was coming up behind (gerrard?) . Even then he only managed to pass the ball to the Stoke player behind. We are talkign a simple 10 yard pass with no player near him. The worst part was that even if Gerrard (?) got the ball, he had a player getting to him the same time as the ball. The whole manouver just smacked of no confidence and lazily going through the motions.

His falling over while kicking the ball thing he does when normally the ball at least dribbles towards the goal just resulted in the ball going to a Stoke player. Until they concede that goal though they fight tooth and nail. Havign a goal like that dissallowed would have raised them a bit too.

I thought Torres tried some stupid runs that I could see a mile off were going nowhere. At one stage he ran at 4 players down the edge fo their box, clearly with the intention of then trying to go at goal. It just wasnt happening.

As for the result. The goal being disallowed made a huge difference. The key thing for a team like Stoke is to not concede, once they do they fall apart (against decent teams). I have no doubt we would have scored 2 or 3 more at least.

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

The linesman made the correct call anyway. I don't know what people here or setanta sports are talking about.

Torres was offside when the free kick was played in. He went for the ball right in front of the keeper and missed it.

It was clearly interfering with play and rightfully called offside.

The Stoke defender at the top was level with him.

eagle eye wrote: »

Liverpool had the worst non top four record.

Your literally talking a 1 goal difference (1 draw turning into a win) between Liverpool and Utd. Not exactly huge and easy to make up by beating Utd once (a la this season) . You just cant go losing twice to a team your hoping to finish above.

jesus_thats_gre

eagle eye wrote: »

Top four excluding those top four games last season

Chelsea 77
Arsenal 77
Man Utd 74
Liverpool 72

We all know that United won the league with an incredible return in top four clashes but you don't see teams getting returns like that every season. Liverpool had the worst top four record and the worst non top four record. To break that down further, its against the really defensive teams that Liverpool suffered. I think these stats give you a clearer picture.

You took 11 points from 18 against the three relegated sides.
Arsenal took 14 from them games
Chelsea took full points
United took 16

Interesting stats. Useful to know and keep an eye on progress this season.

tomred1

****Newsflash****
Torres rushed to hospital!!!!!
Doctors suspect a case of second season syndrome.Doctor's remain hopeful but admit it's full blown and one of the worst cases they've ever seen.

Dave!

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

The linesman made the correct call anyway. I don't know what people here or setanta sports are talking about.

Torres was offside when the free kick was played in. He went for the ball right in front of the keeper and missed it.

It was clearly interfering with play and rightfully called offside.

Controversial!

sitout

tut tut tut . Once again Liverpool go one step forward and two steps back. This is an absolute disaster of a result for the Liverpool no one wins the league by dropping points at home to stoke.

Chucky the tree

Mr Alan wrote: »

berbatov looked ****e against us.

Chucky;last season Utd finished 11 points ahead of us, already we have taken 3 points away that they won last season, and added 3 points to our own tally.

if both clubs do EXACTLY as they did last year, we'll finish 5 points behind em.

BUT i think we'll do better than we did last year. i cant say wat Utd will do, i dont know.

by the way, strongest team out today, still dropped points, wil people get off the rotation bashing wagon? doubt it.

you didnt answer my question how berba is classed as a goal scorer but keane doesnt meet your high standards, despite their records being identical nearly the last couple of years.

Utd have one real goalscorer more than us, i agree, BUT it remains to be seen if the 4 will be played together. it also remains to be seen if Babel or someone doesnt pitch in with 12 odd goals this season (thats the amount Rooney got last year by the way)....we have better centre halves though

I thought he played well for his first game this season. He got an assist and came close on one occassion. Better then what robbie did. :pac:


As I said I shouldnt of put better goal scorer I should of put better striker. Which he is, and he'll more aswell then Keane this I'd say.

If Babbell does well he might equal Rooney, but I dont see where we will pull the extra 13 goals United scored more then us last season.

Guy:Incognito

roryc wrote: »

What do you expect them to do? They clearly don't have the players to go and attack teams like Liverpool, so their main point of attack is defence... this was a great result for them, the way in which they got it doesn't matter.

.

They played well in the sense that they didnt lose. But if we judge everyone equally, which we do, they were ****e.

They are in PL now, so they are judged by PL standards.

Jazzy

terrible liverpool today. full on attack with no goals
Keane was invisible.

Guy:Incognito

Jazzy wrote: »

Keane was invisible.

If only. At least then he wouldnt have touched the ball.:)

ntlbell

sitout wrote: »

tut tut tut . Once again Liverpool go one step forward and two steps back. This is an absolute disaster of a result for the Liverpool no one wins the league by dropping points at home to stoke.

when did they go forward?

beating an off form united at home when they scored both goals for you is not a step forward tbh

i knew when all the hype started last week it wouldn't be long before the reality of the situation surfaced

normal serviced resumed, I can't understand why you're so surprised..

today wasn't the surprise last Saturday was

Guy:Incognito

ntlbell wrote: »

beating an off form united at home when they scored both goals for you is not a step forward tbh

How do you figure that? Defensive mistakes caused all 3 goals. The first Liverpool one was just the worst. For the Utd goal there was no one within 10 yards of Tevez. Thats a gift in my book.