Champs League Match:Atletico V Liverpool [All Pre/During/After Match Discussion]

estebancambias

also keane would have slipped in previous games so I guess thats a plus as well.:) His performances aren't looking as forced anymore and he seems to be settling in naturally now.

Jazzy

shocking 2nd half. full backs arent good enough and agger is still dodgy. thank god drogba isnt there for sunday. anelka can be tricky too tho.

im far more convinced with skrtel then agger. full backs are hopeless at times as well. arbeloa is okay at best. dossena is a waste of time

mayordenis

Jazzy wrote: »

shocking 2nd half. full backs arent good enough and agger is still dodgy. thank god drogba isnt there for sunday. anelka can be tricky too tho.

im far more convinced with skrtel then agger. full backs are hopeless at times as well. arbeloa is okay at best. dossena is a waste of time

It was carragher's fault for the goal. . . .
grow up - we drew away to Athletico Madrid. cop on.

~Rebel~

Thought Agger had a decent game, but was really out of position for the goal.

Arbeloa was pretty awful, Simao had the beating of him time and time again. im surprised he didnt get sent off, the way he kept fouling simao.

Yossi was pretty poor, besides his goal, he never took on the responsibility of a shot, always playing it off instead in good areas.

Dossena I thought actually had one of his best games, wasn't too troubled down our left and got forward well a few times, much more effectively and cleverly then in the past. Put in a few good crosses.

All in all, happy with the result, as others have said 7 points with the toughest game out of the way, and our best players rested for the weekend, happy days!

Keane, i screamed at the TV when I saw his little twinkle toes impression in front of goal. Wrong place, wrong time Robbie.

Jazzy

mayordenis wrote: »

It was carragher's fault for the goal. . . .
grow up - we drew away to Athletico Madrid. cop on.

cop on?
did u see the 2nd half? we were awful. and yeah its a good result, albeit a lucky one. and dossena has shown absolutely no reason as to why he was bought so far. arbeloa is decent... thats about it. nothing on sagna, boswinga or brown imo. and thats the standard of full back we need.
some very sloppy play in the 2nd half. agger is prone to "sauntering" back into position. he should wake up faster as to whats going on. he is young tho.

that 45 mins in the second half is one of the poorest ive seen liverpool so far this season. happy enough with the result tho. lets hope we are firing on all cylinders on sunday

kida

Don't seem to see it mentioned here but was Keane not offside for the goal?

ibh

In the half time analysisd i think they said he was clearly offside for the goal, but i thought he was level but i did only see one replay from a good angle.

Some terrible offside decisions given. Forlan was 2 yrds onside and Maniche the same when they were flagged. Yossi also had a goal ruled out when he was onside.

I though Alonso and Mascherano had good games. I thought Gerrard was quiet even though the goal came from his pass. I though Arbeloa was terrible and as someone mentioned, he could have easily got a second yellow for persistant fouling. Any trouble from Atletico came down his flank and think he looked a bit jaded. I thought Dossena was OK, but still not really good.
CB's were mostly in control but one mistake at the end was costly.

NabyLadistheman

Just read back through the thread - it's funny. There is so much nonsence posted in here a man couldn't start quoteing it!

First I thought Dossena is getting alot of unfair critisism. He did alright last night, don't remember him getting caught out and whipped in a great ball in the first half that could have resulted in a goal. From what I gather from most pool fans is that Dossena is crap and there opiniion of him ain't gonna change...that's very harsh. Arbeloa took a roasting last night - where this Degen lad? There doesn't seem to be any pressure on Arbeloa for that full-back jersey. Not with Stevie Finnan gone anyway.

Keanes effort was crazy. Cannot believe he did something like that. Critisisim is just - It was an act of a Ronaldo or a Cisse - not a Keane. At least we know it was out of character and I've a good feelin he won't try It anytime soon.

Another point which was of interest to me was Gerrard. He seemed wound up to the neck last night, I was afraid someone would mis-place a pass, he would murder them - as he did with Mascharano, just thought he was an unhappy camper.

Lets not lose sight of our goal - getting a result on Sunday against Chelsea and no one will even remember this game as we're gonna qualify regardless.

monkey9

Jazzy wrote: »

cop on?
did u see the 2nd half? we were awful. and yeah its a good result, albeit a lucky one. and dossena has shown absolutely no reason as to why he was bought so far. arbeloa is decent... thats about it. nothing on sagna, boswinga or brown imo. and thats the standard of full back we need.
some very sloppy play in the 2nd half. agger is prone to "sauntering" back into position. he should wake up faster as to whats going on. he is young tho.

that 45 mins in the second half is one of the poorest ive seen liverpool so far this season. happy enough with the result tho. lets hope we are firing on all cylinders on sunday

Watching RTE, i see

Boggles

Didn't get to see the match last night, but got back for the "analysis". 25 minutes of banging on about Keanes miss and they didn't even bother showing it, in fact the bits they did show were so confusing, I didn't know what context they were in. You can't blame the 4 boys, they are ovbiously crazy, but is saddens me that the producers of the show are benefiting from my license fee and quite clearly are have no idea what they are doing.

As I said didn't get to see the game, or any sort of meaningful highlights, but I think most Liverpool fans would have taken a draw when the fixtures were announced, next 2 games are at home, 4 points will do.

mike65

Degan is injured (to be honest I'm not sure he even exists), Dossena had a goodish game he and Riera linked quite well at times. I'm suprised no-one else has mentioned the pitch - didn't do anyone any favours last night - whole sections were lifting when a player put lateral stress on them.

Mike

Karmafaerie

*************Last call for the hating Dossena for no reason bandwagon.......the train is leaving the station.....last call.***********

:rolleyes:

Some people need to seriously kop on.

Dossena was quiet possibly our best player in the first half last night.
He was never once caught out in defence, and he was excelent going forward.
Taking on men and beating them, linking up brilliantly with Riera, and getting in some great crosses.
He looked better than he ever hs for us, but some people are going along the TV panelist way of posting, and are saying he's crap this week, cause everyone said he was crap last week.

Typical.

As for Keane and the flick attempt.
If he had made it, everyone of ye would have been hailing him, but he didn't so ye ridicule him.
How fickle can you get?!
He's scored two in three games in the CL proper.
He's doing well.

Karmafaerie

mike65 wrote: »

Degan is injured (to be honest I'm not sure he even exists), Dossena had a goodish game he and Riera linked quite well at times. I'm suprised no-one else has mentioned the pitch - didn't do anyone any favours last night - whole sections were lifting when a player put lateral stress on them.

Mike

True.
Parts of it looked like it had recently been used for the national ploughing championships!

Very flakey.

Paulw

Karmafaerie wrote: »

As for Keane and the flick attempt.
If he had made it, everyone of ye would have been hailing him, but he didn't so ye ridicule him.
How fickle can you get?!
He's scored two in three games in the CL proper.
He's doing well.

I never thought Keane was a good buy for Liverpool, but that flick attempt just shows what he is like. All he had to do was connect properly with the ball and it was highly probable he'd score. He wasted a good chance trying to be flash.

IF he has scored the flick, I think Liverpool would have gone on to win by 3-4 goals, so the flick may have been justified. They were running away with the game at that point.

But, he is a professional, and should have taken his chance. I can understand all the fans, players and management being unhappy with his actions.

Other than that, at that point, he was playing well - running, passing, making space, connecting with Gerrard. Just a shame.

LightningBolt

On Keane's miss, he's a footballer paid to score goals. What he tried you can do when you're crusing in a game, he should have just walloped into the back of the net. Like others I'd have taken a draw beforehand but feel we should have won. Once we took off Gerarrd and Alonso any creativity/go forward we had was gone.

jesus_thats_gre

kida wrote: »

Don't seem to see it mentioned here but was Keane not offside for the goal?

Not sure on it to be honest. The camera wasn't in line with play so it was difficult to tell. I assumed it was offside initially but the reply left me unsure.

The other 3 offside calls during the match were a disgrace though. Defo fortunate enough to come out of that with a point.

As for the whole Keane argument.. Give a break....

Boggles

Just watched the highlights, Reiras dive was very embarrasing, fair play to the ref.

Keane was offside for the goal.

monkey9

This Keane thing is getting annoying. Yeah, he should have scored or at least got it on target by volleying it. Bad miss, but i swear if RTE hadn't spent over five minutes discussing it, it wouldn't be as big an issue as it seems to be here.
Dunphy coming out with more sh!te like what Keane did was a 'mortal sin'. No Eamon, if Keane had caught the ball, produced a gun from underneath his jersey and shot the keeper up the arse with the bullet travelling up his body and blowing his brains out all over the pitch, then that would be a mortal sin. He said it would come back to haunt him. Something he says a lot about various things. As soon as he said that i thought 'how will it come back to haunt him?'. Bill then asked him that question and he flounders, fidgeting about in his chair, ruffling the papers in front of him. "Because it will be Bill". He then extends that finger in the air and says "it will come back to haunt him" still unable to answer why until eventually he comes out with "if, in January, he's still on two goals, he'll think why did i do that. It's a mortal sin Bill. It's the kind of thing that angers the Gods. You don't mess with the Gods, Bill!"
So does Dunphy believe in more than one God? Is he Hindu? Or was it a slip of the tongue or maybe just using the plural as an effective tool to cement his point. So maybe he just believes in one God. Is he saying God follows Liverpool? What would God have done in Keane's position? I'd say God would probably have just volleyed it in, two nil. End of story.
But i also believe God would be happy with the point. It's two points dropped for sure, a game we should have won, but still a decent point overall.
The lads start to criticise Rafa's tactics in the second half. Taking off Gerrard etc. When he prioritises the Champions League, Rafa gets stick. When he prioritises the League, he still gets stick. I for one was delighted to see these changes made. Giles saying that in football, you just don't know what can happen, why not finish the game? Well, we had chances to, but we didn't take them. Rafa made changes with Chelsea in mind, but also in the belief that the changes were good enough to hang on for a win which we would have got had it not been for a very rare Jamie Carragher mistake.
The RTE lads can't see the bigger picture. Chelsea is a huge game. I'll be delighted to get something from that. As for the Champions League, a win over Atletico at Anfield will see us through which we're more than capable of and we then will have two games left that we can relax in.
I saw Rafa's interview after the game and the bloke just talks so much sense. I thank the Gods that were so angered earlier on that Rafa is our manager and not a tool like Dunphy.
I don't believe God is angered anyway. I say he's happy to be still playing Premiership football, even if it is with Blackburn!

Melion

Boggles wrote: »

Just watched the highlights, Reiras dive was very embarrasing, fair play to the ref.

Keane was offside for the goal.

Maniche?

spockety

Boggles wrote: »

Just watched the highlights, Reiras dive was very embarrasing, fair play to the ref.

The Athletico player clearly stuck out his leg and made contact with Riera. He was hard done by getting a foul called for that never mind a yellow card.

The officials were shocking last night, but that's football.

ibh

Lads, why bother replying????

Melion

ibh wrote: »

Lads, why bother replying????

I'm bored and have nothing to do until about half 12.

ibh

Fair enough. I'm fairly sure that any relatively balanced person watching that game would have pointed out Maniche's dive before the Riena one.
Both incidents had contact, neither were peno's.

I do think the Keane thing got a bit out of hand. Probably because he's Irish, RTE etc etc.
I thought it was a crazy thing to try when he had other options but not much point slating him now. I'm sure he realised the magnitude of it at the end.
I didn't watch RTE after the match so i don't know what they were rattling on about this week.

I notice somebody (Mike, i think???) defended Babel by saying it was a tough chance. It was by no means the miss of the season, but it was a terrible miss from an easy enough header.

Boggles

ibh wrote: »

Fair enough. I'm fairly sure that any relatively balanced person watching that game would have pointed out Maniche's dive before the Riena one.
Both incidents had contact, neither were peno's.

As i stated, I only got to see the highlights, Maniche's dive was not in it, fair enough?

Reiras was a blatent dive, doesn't matter if the defender dangled his leg, Reira didn't even protest his card. In fact the only one that did protest was Gerrard.

Hobart

Boggles wrote: »

Reiras was a blatent dive, doesn't matter if the defender dangled his leg, Reira didn't even protest his card. In fact the only one that did protest was Gerrard.

It wasn't a blatant dive. There was clear contact. The defender stuck his leg out. He did not protest, because he doesn't. He laughed at the ineptitude of the ref. You're wrong.

monkey9

Boggles wrote: »

As i stated, I only got to see the highlights, Maniche's dive was not in it, fair enough?

Reiras was a blatent dive, doesn't matter if the defender dangled his leg, Reira didn't even protest his card. In fact the only one that did protest was Gerrard.

The reason it was showed on the highlights was that, though he made the most of it, it was technically a penalty!

NabyLadistheman

ibh wrote: »

I notice somebody (Mike, i think???) defended Babel by saying it was a tough chance. It was by no means the miss of the season, but it was a terrible miss from an easy enough header.

+1 It was a shocking miss...espcially considering there was only a couple of minutes left

DeadSkin

Yes there was contact with the Riera challenge and yes Riera went down easy.

shotamoose

When I saw the Keane chance on highlights this morning my first reaction was that the cross has curved back more than he expected so he ended up having to try and flick it in. And that's exactly what he has said happened (although he didn't try to use it as an excuse). So to suggest that he set out to backheel whatever ball came in out of sheer showboatery seems plain wrong. Now maybe a better striker wouldn't have got ahead of the ball, but maybe most strikers wouldn't have been able to adjust to a cross that curved that much.

Karmafaerie

shotamoose wrote: »

When I saw the Keane chance on highlights this morning my first reaction was that the cross has curved back more than he expected so he ended up having to try and flick it in. And that's exactly what he has said happened (although he didn't try to use it as an excuse). So to suggest that he set out to backheel whatever ball came in out of sheer showboatery seems plain wrong. Now maybe a better striker wouldn't have got ahead of the ball, but maybe most strikers wouldn't have been able to adjust to a cross that curved that much.

Exactly.

The ball curved back, he tried to adjust (mid air) and missed it.
As you said he even mentioned so himself i the interview afterwards.

Does Keane have a history or record of going for fancy flicks?
No.


Great post by the way Monkey.

Jazzy

monkey9 wrote: »

Watching RTE, i see

yes cos i cant make up my own mind.
i have a lot of problems with the analysis on RTE but sometimes they are actually right.
id like to see dossena get better but cant see it happening. arbeloa wont really get better then wat he is.

and yes... watch the replay and you see agger sauntering back at the time of the goal. how was Zaki's goal scored on the weekend? oh it wasnt agger sauntering when he has the ball was it ?


ah wat am i saying... i should get in the theme of this thread. agger is better then chocolate ice cream and dossena will become a world beating left back even tho hes 27. and arbeloa is absolute quality too.

boggles may be right about his theory of over sensitive types in here

DeadSkin

Aye there's a few tender souls about alright.

Dont be at yourself

I dunno, I thought Dossena played very well last night. Dunphy lambasted him for never passing the half-way line, but he was involved in a lot our attacking play and linked up well with Riera in the final third. There are still question marks on his defensive ability, but it's very rare for a defender to slot straight into an established defense. Look at the awful starts Evra and Vidic had at United!

Agger perhaps hasn't been as sharp as he could be, but he's not a serious liability. He has been out of the team for a year now, so it's going to take time for him to build up his confidence, fitness and concentration levels. I wouldn't lay any blame at his door for our conceded goal though.

Overall, the 1-1 was a good result. We've just played our toughest game, and we're unbeaten, joint top of our group and in a very good position to go through to the next round. We did all this without Torres, and we were able to rest Kuyt and bring off Alonso, Keane and Gerrard with an eye on the weekend.

ibh

Karmafaerie wrote: »

Exactly.

The ball curved back, he tried to adjust (mid air) and missed it.
As you said he even mentioned so himself i the interview afterwards.

Does Keane have a history or record of going for fancy flicks?
No.

Great post by the way Monkey.

As a regular at International matches over the past decade this is untrue. He regularly tries to overcomplicate situations and it often ends up with Robbie on his arse with his hands in the air.

Now i do like Robbie and i think this unpredictability is a great feature of his play but it is also the most frustrating feature of his game when he fcuks up.

I don't think he should have been subbed or any of that nonsense but i also don't think it was the only option when the cross came in. Even though it curled slightly there was loads of time to hit it on the volley with his right foot.

That particular backheel flick is unbelievable when executed properly but it should really only be used when it is the only option, Van der Vaart scored a class one a couple of weeks ago for Madrid a few weeks ago. Right situation to use it and totally sold defenders and keeper.

Did Dunphy slate Dossena for being too defensive.!! FFS his best attributes seem to be when he's going forward. Typical Eamo knowing fcuk all about the players he comments on.

~Rebel~

Jazzy wrote: »

id like to see dossena get better but cant see it happening.

Dont really need him to get better, just to be as good as he was in italy. Again as others have already said its not exactly a strange thing for players to suck in england for a while before recapturing their previous form. He may do that, he may not, we don't know yet. He did certainly look better last night then in previous games.

arbeloa wont really get better then wat he is.

Dunno about that...He's 25. Most would probably agree that Finnan's best years were 26/27 - 31 at which time he was significantly better then his earlier years.

and yes... watch the replay and you see agger sauntering back at the time of the goal. how was Zaki's goal scored on the weekend? oh it wasnt agger sauntering when he has the ball was it ?

Well no against Wigan he wasn't sauntering, he took an awful touch which let the ball get away from him and Zaki time to get on top of him. but yeah for the goal last night he definately should have been covering further back rather then taking a man on the wing. This sharpness will only come with games though, and its not something he was particularly guilty of before his 13month lay off.

boggles may be right about his theory of over sensitive types in here

its not so much this, its more out of the blue rash statements which in the cold light of day are probably not a true reflection of a team. Someone spouting things like "arbeloa - crap, dossena - rubbish, kuyt - donkey" can only put people in a mind of Dunphy, which is not a good place to start.

mayordenis

Jazzy wrote: »

boggles may be right about his theory of over sensitive types in here

yep the post you quoted was someone being overly sensitive, guy was almost in tears. He's really fragile now and comes across in his post..

You're post is nonsense reactionary tripe. :rolleyes:

Jazzy

it was also cos u said "cop on" in a post before when i was just giving my opinion... and it isnt like my opinion isnt unfounded. rebel was able to debate clearly with my concerns of the team.


hes generally right about most things. i still dont think that arbeloa will get much better then he is now. i dont think he works hard enough to show that he can be a world class right back. finnan definately put in a good shift in almost every game and one of the reasons stevie was able to work on the right was because of finnans work rate in providing cover.
Agger is young and he hasnt been back long but i would have much preferred if he came back a bit more fired up to play. i think after being first choice at the start of last year and now plays as the back up cb has hit his confidence a bit and therefore his motivation. i wouldnt be surprised to see him asking for a move in the summer if carra and skrtl stay injury free for the rest of the year. if we continue challenging for the league then each game will only get more and more important and in these games i dont think defences get rotated half as much.... maybe at chelski tho cos they have so f'n many full backs

monkey9

Jazzy wrote: »

yes cos i cant make up my own mind.
i have a lot of problems with the analysis on RTE but sometimes they are actually right.
id like to see dossena get better but cant see it happening. arbeloa wont really get better then wat he is.

and yes... watch the replay and you see agger sauntering back at the time of the goal. how was Zaki's goal scored on the weekend? oh it wasnt agger sauntering when he has the ball was it ?


ah wat am i saying... i should get in the theme of this thread. agger is better then chocolate ice cream and dossena will become a world beating left back even tho hes 27. and arbeloa is absolute quality too.

boggles may be right about his theory of over sensitive types in here

Over-sensitive? No, just disagreeing. The thing is with Liverpool threads is that they are the most popular in terms of posts. They always have more posts than other threads which means there's an awful lot of sh!t talked that needs to be rebuked when nessessary. I'm not saying it about you in particular.

Dossena has not impressed me at all so far, but i think he had his best game by far on Wednesday, so for Dunphy to be slating him is just his usual ranting. Absolute no structure to what he says. Dossena may well need a few months to settle in, maybe he's just gonna be sh!te, but eitherway he deserves time.
Agger is quality. I know he's been poor this season, but he's been out for a year. He just needs games.
Remember, Dunphy is the one who called Mascherano a donkey and that Skrtel will be 'found out'!
Those RTE lads spout so much sh!te that it's like the old saying, a broken clock will be correct twice a day.

sweetie

just arrived in from madrid in time for the chelsea game altho i'm not sure tvuplayer will be as good as the real thing Went down to the stadium about 6ish and picked up two tickets easily enough. Was in the middle of the atleti fans to the left of the corner flag in the second tier and they were sound out.
Was weird cheering when they were quiet and vice versa but we really enjoyed the game and the experience.