Liverpool's CL match

Chucky the tree

also, the ref was brutal. YOu'd swaer he was a basketball ref. Anyhing physical and he blow it up. The freekick for risse's second goal was shcoking. saw was the free against hamann.

eyerer

ding wrote:

on his present form I'd rate them as good saves.

says it all really

mike65 wrote:

Anyone think that Biscuit had a good game? Those defence splitting passes were exellent, so why cant he do that more often?. He and Hamman did a lot of quietly effective work.

Mike.

i heard he did, im confused about him, i heard he played really well preseason but seems to still play **** most of the time...
prefer him over diao anyway


in the end, i would gladly have taken 3-1 before the game started, but its so ****ing annoying, in the last minute as well

incidently has anyone got a clip of the goals?
there should really be a site for that...i never get to see the goals
anyway, hamann looked well pleased after he scored (pic on skysports.com), so it must have been good

mayordenis

in fairness to biscan,
everytime we asked anythin of him in europe he's delivered 100% the motm against deportivo and was in with a good shout tonight

super_furry

Biscan plays better with Hamann than Gerrard because he's not a defensive midfielder. When he plays with Gerrard, he's forced to site deep and link up with the defence while Gerrard gets forward. When he plays with Hamann, Didi does this, giving him more licence to get forward and link up with the attack - something he did brilliantly tonight.

eyerer

"Liverpool's chances were almost solely coming through Biscan"

fair play to him

Jivin Turkey

super_furry wrote:

Biscan plays better with Hamann than Gerrard because he's not a defensive midfielder. When he plays with Gerrard, he's forced to site deep and link up with the defence while Gerrard gets forward. When he plays with Hamann, Didi does this, giving him more licence to get forward and link up with the attack - something he did brilliantly tonight.

Hes very direct, he just gets the ball and runs at players. It was good to watch. He did well but I wouldnt be getting carried away.

ButcherOfNog

I keep saying it, when played in his best position, biscan is a good player, thats why hes still there and diao isn't. hes surprisingly good on the ball and can pass it about well. It also probably helps that the opposition aren't expecting him to be any use at all

The Insider

You can download the goals here...

ftp://lfc.org.hk/lfchk/2005_02/050222_league_h_leverkusen/

enjoy!

The Rooster

Biscuit was great in patches, but also disappears from the game for periods. He gets musceld out of the game too often - you never see him use his obvious strength. But overall he was very good last night, maybe getting towards an 8/10.

Riise was my man of the match. Good to see Garcia having a good game too, first time in months. Kewell was decent too. Goina be hard on the two men who get dropped for the Final this weekend when Gerrard and Morientes get recalled.

Dudek is a pure fookin embarrassment. I'm totally in agreement with Chucky. The one very good save he made - he might have got a touch, and it was probably going wide in any event. All his other saves where just his usual extravagance. Mostly straight at him, he punches them away and dives spectaculalry to try and make them look better. He made a big blunder in the first half, but was lucky there was no Bayer lad around to take advantage. His last second blunder was unforgiveable. Turns the tie, IMO, from 95% certain Liverpool victory to close to 50/50.

And things were going so well. First half, Liverpool were a bit lucky to be ahead, but second half they played realy really well. I just knew Hamann was going to score that free kick. And I loved Rafa's substitutions bringing on LeTallec and Potter before Smicer and Nunez. All going great and then that useless hoor goes and ruins it. I'd love him to be dropped for Cardiff, and I'd love to see his face when he's told.

p.pete

Dudek was to blame for the goal and looked similarly uncomfortable on one or two other occasions in the match (seeming surprised by shots that should be bread and butter), but did anyone think that Hypia should have been able to react quicker and get to the ball first after it bounced off Dudek?

Also, who was that new Croatian midfielder?

puntosporting

Its a good an unexpected result sneak an away goal and things should be ok.
Riise was excellent made some excellent runs and was up and down the pitch all day he was well worth his goal too which i do think was a free kick as the defender had his arms wrapped around the player.
Liverpool need a good 90 minute goalkeeper.

jesus_thats_gre

Igor was well impressive.. Kewell and Garcia worked their socks off for a change.. Some scary moments in the defence.

Overall a decent performance that sets up nice for the 2nd leg..

galwaydude

it was a good preformance overall, good to see him given a chance to young la tallac and darren potter.Wasnt impressed with what john toshack had to say afterwards about liverpool.
I gor played very well indeed.Anyone notice that smicer and baros are like twins now lol with the long hair exactly the same.

puntosporting

Speaking of baros he was poor last night.
Toshak is as ever negative along with lawrie both had nothing good to say about the pool even do it was a decent display.

The Rooster

Baros worked like a trojan, and held the ball up better than I've ever seen him do before. He was always available as an outlet, and rarely gave away possession. He did have 3 or 4 of his cul-de-sac runs, but you have to let him try those the odd time.

He should have scored when 1 on 1, but it was a good save. The ball bobbled on him when he received it, so he never really had it under control, therefore he had to shoot, rather than try and take it round the keeper which he might have done had he the opportunity. He hit it low and hard under the keeper, and it just failed to make it into the net. Sometimes those go in (e.g. Garcia), sometimes they don't.

Chong

Please someone settle my argument, if leverkusen get a 1-0 win at home dose the match go to extra time because of their away goal rule.

Dingatron

Willem D wrote:

Please someone settle my argument, if leverkusen get a 1-0 win at home dose the match go to extra time because of their away goal rule.

No. It works on the agregate score and away goals only coming into play if the agregate score is a tie. EG. The score would be 3-2 to liverpool therefore they go through.

kaimera

is that a new thing? pool would still win 3-2 on agg afaik. cant recall hearing anything different.

Impressed with the performance. Only saw the second half [real v juve was on when i entered the pub]. Biscan was solid, two good fk goals. Thought Baros was disappointing :: cant wait for a Morientas::Cisse::Baros attack.

As for dudek :: well...he just didn't get behind it, bad but it's not like we lost due to it soo..I'm not overly pushed. Lets not forget only Chelsea have a kepper who hasn't made a mistake this season [from the top 5 teams anyway]

zAbbo

no, away goals only come into play when the game is tied.

in your example liverpool would win overall 3-2

LizardKing

Before the match ..was very nervous , after the game a little bit freaked , but I think Bayer deserved a Goal over the 90 mins ... Sets Pool up nicely to go to Bayer and probably settle for a draw, I don't think its the way they should play but I think most managers would try to hold out having a 3 - 1 lead...

Roll on chelsea on sunday ( its poxy they have the Cup Final on @ 3 p.m same time as the Ireland Vs England 6 Nations game .. bastads )

thegills

but did anyone think that Hypia should have been able to react quicker and get to the ball first after it bounced off Dudek

Yep. The exact same thing happened against Portsmouth a couple of months back. 1-0 to 'Pool in 90th minute when Dudek parried a shot. Little Lomana Lua Lua reacted faster that Hyppia and got in to score. 1-1 final score. Hyppia is past it IMO.
thegills

p.pete

For a change I feel confident for the second leg (ignoring the fact that we start 2 goals up). Nowotny will again be out and thanks to yellow cards 2 of their central midfield will be ruled out - we'll have Gerrard returning in the same position.

I'd say it could largely depend on confidence levels and what momentum is there after the Chelsea match at the weekend.

uberwolf

LizardKing wrote:

Before the match ..was very nervous

when I looked critically at that line up - it's so poor, one player maybe two who have earned their jersey.

Gutted by Dudek. Leveerkusen have beaten some top teams 2-0 at home already so they could do it, but Liverpool should score over there when you consider how easy it was last night for them to make chances

Ardent

uberwolf wrote:

but Liverpool should score over there when you consider how easy it was last night for them to make chances

Agree, the Leverkusen defence wasn't up to much last night. There will definitely be goals in Germany. (Rafa should get them practicing free kicks, their keeper was all over the place!)

pickarooney

Goals here also.

laoisfan

overall am happy. before the match the most i thought liverpool would come away with would be a draw. anyhow, 3-1 ==== good result!!

downside.......

1. dudek, not a 90min goalkeeper. but then again, there are 1 or 2 players in front of him who are not either!! we are seriously lacking another 3-4 good quality players!!

2. should be putting more chances away....baros should have buried his!!


--laoisfan

Guy:Incognito

Bloody duek needs shooting. I was very dissapointed with Baros. Poor shooting. He did more hold up play but nothing came of ths because his crosses are poor. Corners didnt beat the first man. Fair enough he did do more overall play but it came to nothing and at the end of the day he's there to score goals and he's not doing that. he's not going to consistently be a 15-20 goals a season man. Theres a lot better we could get for his over inflated valuation by sellign him before everyone cops on that euro 2004 was not a true reflection of his form.

mike65

Baros has scored 12 goals so far this season (including nearly a month out injured) so he could hit 20 in all comp by the end.

Mike.

Dont be at yourself

I dunno, I think that the Baros/Morientes partnership should be given time, they should hopefully compliment each other fairly well. A lot of Baros' form in Euro2004 was because he had a big back-to-goal target man in the box knocking balls down to him, and Morientes can do that.

What's the alternative, Cisse/Morientes?

[edit] And hey, as Mike alluded to, 12 goals in an under-firing liverpool team, often playing as the lone striker, isn't that bad. [/edit]

Guy:Incognito

mike65 wrote:

Baros has scored 12 goals so far this season (including nearly a month out injured) so he could hit 20 in all comp by the end.

Mike.

Key word though is consistantly. I dont think he'll do it every season and I dont think he can be relied upon for important big match goals. the one on one with the keeper last night should be bread and butter for a striker of his supposed ability especially in a big game like that.

I think a player along the lines of mellor (only better if he doesnt improve to first team regular) that is a natural striker, kind of Ian Rush type to feed of morientes. Morientes will take the ball from the midfield and do the spectacular at times or set up strikers goals in and around the 6 yard box for the striker, I just dont think baros is clinical enough. Running blindly with yourr head down isnt what we need.


I do appreciate that he scores goals. But they dont seem to come at vital times. 3 of his goals this season were a hat-trick against Norwich. We need a big game player to scroe against Utd/Arsenal/Chelsea and he doesnt seem to do that. Fowler used to always be good for 1/2 goals against arsenal.

The Rooster

They had stats on Sky Sports teletext about 3 weeks ago.
Baros had a 33% strike rate. That is, he scored with 33% of his attempts on goal in the Premiership. I checked the stats at the time for 4 or 5 clubs including all the top ones. Nobody matched it. The next highest I saw was RvN with 26% - thats a big gap. That would suggest Baros is an excellent finisher - and he certainly looked it in the summer too.

Guy:Incognito

The Rooster wrote:

They had stats on Sky Sports teletext about 3 weeks ago.
Baros had a 33% strike rate. That is, he scored with 33% of his attempts on goal in the Premiership. I checked the stats at the time for 4 or 5 clubs including all the top ones. Nobody matched it. The next highest I saw was RvN with 26% - thats a big gap. That would suggest Baros is an excellent finisher - and he certainly looked it in the summer too.

Or it could just mean he gets a lot less chances to shoot than the rest, which must be true cos he scores less. If he got himself in more (potential) goalscoring positions he'd have a lower strike rate but more goals.