Topic: Liverpool 2-2 Birmingham

[Filler.]

I'll be honest with you, I'd prefer Voronin to play there at the moment.

No you don't. You're not being honest with me.

I should have my own telly programme me. Detective type on Channel 5.

[Linton]

We as far as I remember, we havent played two consecutive games with the same back 4. Our injuries have been massive, and that has been the reason I would say.

Blaming injuries, the owners and everything under the sun except players and management is starting the wear a bit thin.

[Carlito Roberto]

I actually feel proud of the way we played. Really do. Johnson, Ngog, Lucas, Riera immense all of them. Kuyt has played virtually everygame this season, what a professional, well in lad! We were excellent on the right tonight.

Doesnt matter, they had 2 fucking chances, and Jerome ffs! How many times will he ever score a goal like that. Atleast we managed to stop the rot, after the international break, we can have all the players back, Aurelio is still the key, that line up with Torres, Aquilani, Masch, Aurelio, Riera we will be immense.

Well done everyone, Rafa's been so unlucky, we should have won. Anyway, we have been desparately unlucky this season, and I am happy with the result given the circumstances.

And whoppers - FUCK OFF!

Agree we played well tonight and deserved more. I must have been at a different game to you if you think Kuyt played well tonight tho...

[geoffstrong]

just want to ask are these the same dick heads on here as .TV or are these idiots breeding! Penalty was lucky hell yes, were we lucky hell no! As the commentator said nevermind anfield this is more like the alamo, give credit as well to brums frenetic defending on a better day we could have scored double figures with our approach play, possesion and pressure! But didnt get the rewards we merited so chalk this one again under Shit happens!

[SirRyanGiggs]

But look on the bright side, you're one point closer to us

[joe bloggs]

I'm still raging over the game tonight. I feel like punching someone so if it's my wife or the wall I don't fucking care.

[Garsonite]

I suppose we should carry on with Rafa given Gordon Strachan's been snapped up anyway.

[firing squad]

Defence fell apart??? What? 2 goals, one set piece and one superb long range strike, and defence fell apart? No it didnt.

maybe he meant generally because we do concede a lot of goals as opposed to previous seasons under Rafa. This season we only had 3 clean sheets in the league(Stoke,Burnley and mancs).

[canuckkopite]

You could just tell how pissed Riera was.  Tough one for him.  Hope it's not too substantial.

[Theredc]

But what are you suggesting, even if you watched the game with one eye closed standing on your head you'll have noticed we battered them.

We did, and that is all well and good but the top and bottom of is that we drew a game we should win! I''m not stupid enough to think we should win every game but I'm also not stupid enough to believe we shouldn't be doing better. We are making simple simple errors and that costs you points. It isn't good enough.

[John C]

Think Rafa dropped the ball not playing Yossi centrally, he seems loathe to play him in the middle for whatever reason.

Kuyt being as ineffective as he is, and with Yossi drifting in from the wing, they were both out of the game for long spells. Whereas you put Yossi in the middle he's going to have so much of the ball, and Kuyt can still be the foil for Johnson no matter how woeful he is.

In terms of tonight's tactics I think that's a fair observation, we said it within 5 mins of the kick-off.

[DangerScouse]

I haven't back tracked at all. I mentioned even before that post that the attack was fine but defending is a team issue also. We are expecting to concede a goal every game and that cannot be construed as a good performance imo.

You said "We are not playing well." The performances against the mancs, lyon and tonights game tell me otherwise.

[Koplass]

We are lacking depth upfront.

Ngog - 4 goals in 5 games. We're not lacking too much depth, if that were Macheda everyone would be going mental about the 'wonderkid'. As it's Ngog and he's a Liverpool player it gets ignored.

It's our defense that's letting us down at the moment, massively.

[Franky]

Nope thats our own fault. But I still think luck plays a part in every match, with every team. For instance we can play shite, get the right decisions from the ref, get a lucky goal and win the game. And it can work the other as well. Even the pen today on a certain level was a bit of luck. That's just my view anyway, sorry if am making it sound like an excuse.

Ok, I see your point and you're right about the injuries.

[starfish]

I'm still raging over the game tonight. I feel like punching someone so if it's my wife or the wall I don't fucking care.

unfortunately she broke the wall

[macca888]

Absolutely, I never understood why he was so popular on here for a while. A shit bag who suggests we should have bought Cattermole.

I think it's because of all of his boss photoshop pics. And I think he wanted us to buy Silva in the summer. Oh sorry, I thought you were talking about Art Vandelay.

Henry Winter is a fairweather friend to us. It was cold and foggy tonight, therefore he's being a c*nt again.

[Voltaire]

The familiar gnawing sense of ennui is gripping me. Fourth place. For fuck's sake. Chasing fourth place in November.

Oh, my friends, the dreams we shared in August seem but a folly now.

Bring on Spurs, Man City and the mighty Villa! At least you wont win every game and get 5 minutes extra time as we chase your heels. At least you will slip up and allow us to triumphantly take fourth place on the final day of the season.

A FA Cup and Europa Cup double will be like getting a wank in an entry when you were a teenager. It'll do, but dreams of something bigger will have to wait until we have hairy plums. And can defend set pieces.

[fernandini]

The most disheartening thing about tonight is that we set out to completely destroy Birmingham. We were all over them, had complete control of possession and were playing at a ferocious tempo. 70% of the ball and 28 shots. But only 2 goals. This suggests that we're just not good enough. It wasn't one of those days where their goalkeeper played an absolute blinder. Once we'd gone 1-0 up that should have been it. But with us this season we have one of the worst defences in the league. This isn't helped by the constant, often forced, rotation of the back 4. Players need to stay fit, they haven't been.

Can't blame Ngog tonight he did everything he could so we could score a goal. Kuyt however. This man is a striker and was pinned to the touchline where Johnson was having an absolute stormer. Seriously that was Cafu-esque from Johnson. He didn't need Kuyt in his way on the right when we needed another body in the box. Countless times we got into great crossing or cut back positions but everytime nearly it was cleared. If Torres had been playing tonight he'd have about 10 more goals to his name.

Overall it was a manic performance by us. Great effort, great tempo and some good individual performances. The luck just isn't with us at the minute with all these ridiculous injuries - Benayoun and Riera could be out for weeks after doing some damage tonight. And also dare I say it the quality isn't there. Yes we dominated them like a rape victim, but we need this pressure to be converted into goals. More strikers really would have helped tonight. Glad Voronin wasn't available to bring down the tone a notch or two, but having only Ngog playing through the middle cost us. As it was him who got us the goals tonight.

Damn annoyed and disappointed. Tonight should have been a banker but this season has been the worst since Benitez has been here. No luck in the games, no luck with injuries and any mistake we make is getting pounced on. The squad need to stop getting injured, it is disrupting everything. There is a black cloud over this club at the minute and each game we play there are numerous challenges we have to deal with. We need January investment, we won't get it.

I know the vultures will be saying the pressures on Benitez again, but for me it isn't. No manager could do any better with our situation at the minute.

I am praying, yes praying that Lyon do us a fucking favour in Fiorentina. I would love to get through in the Champs League now so much. It could save our season. If that doesn't go our way, well then we have one hell of a shit rest of season to look forward to. We're nearer relegation than top at the moment and we're a third of the way through the season. Unfortunately I can't see things getting much better any time soon as the injury list piles up and up and up. No doubt Gerrard will have tweaked something tonight and Torres is out for weeks. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Oh well, wouldn't want to support anyone else so every other fan can FUCK OFF.

Peace all Liverpool fans.

[the divine ponytail]

lot of huff and puff from liverpool , nogo had a good game so did johnson , but questions have to asked about skrtel and young insua  . personally i think skrtel has lost his edge big time and insua a good lad but still very raw , but seriously how long can this go on in the second half joe hart saved once from gerrard and gerrard hit the post once again relying on a half fit gerrard to pull liverpool out the shite .

the centre midfield two create nothing yes mascherano defensively is good at that but did get robbed by jerome for his great goal , problem people and its not all down to the owners .

[killer_heels]

You said "We are not playing well." The performances against the mancs, lyon and tonights game tell me otherwise.

We had lost 4 games in a row prior to Utd and lost to Fulham after, which was not a good performance. We did well against Lyon and we did decent today but the defence has still been poor in all but 1 game. Until our defence's level matches up to the rest of the team then I cannot see how the team can be described as playing well.

[Thomas]

Well that was a quiet couple of hours in the car back home

Nothing seems to be going our way at the moment.

I'm about ready to fucking open up the next arm-chair scum fan who texts me with any more dross.

What's to be done for the best?! Do we sit tight and wait for our fortunes to change? Or do we change things to aid our fortunes?

[John C]

Didn't Riera get the assist for the first goal? Not bad in a half hour spell before getting injured.

I'd ask you to watch his whole contribution while he was on closely Neil. Dwelled a few times missed opportunity s for a good pass into space.

[Seebab]

I actually believe if Rafa were to leave now, we would win our next game, regardless of the manager. This isn't a dig at Rafa. I'm just saying nothing seems to be going his way. I could be the fucking manager for the next game and we'd probably win.

[Stussy]

I just laughed when Jerome scored his goal. I expect that kind of shit now. It is our norm this season.

Silver linings:

Glen Johnson is fantastic.

Ngog is fantastic.

David's dive - lets just call it quits for the beachball and move on.

[keeno8]

It's OK dominating games but not putting them to bed is always our downfall. I'm getting pretty sick of this, plain and simple it is not good enough. I'm not blaming the owners or the board or Rafa, the players on the pitch (United aside) aren't doing the job and haven't been for 7 weeks. Knuckling down and grinding a result out is what's necessary and with the yellow streak running through our squad it's hard to see where that's coming from. Players like Dossena and Voronin are not at the level we need for squad players? We always too much of the team in comparison to resources of the other big teams but what we're getting now is below par. Man City and Everton are awful fixtures to have next and I'm resorting to prayer to get through them.

[xerxes1]

The familiar gnawing sense of ennui is gripping me. Fourth place. For fuck's sake. Chasing fourth place in November.

Oh, my friends, the dreams we shared in August seem but a folly now.

Bring on Spurs, Man City and the mighty Villa! At least you wont win every game and get 5 minutes extra time as we chase your heels. At least you will slip up and allow us to triumphantly take fourth place on the final day of the season.

A FA Cup and Europa Cup double will be like getting a wank in an entry when you were a teenager. It'll do, but dreams of something bigger will have to wait to you have hairy plums.

Ouch.

[Theredc]

I'd ask you to watch his whole contribution while he was on closely Neil. Dwelled a few times missed opportunity s for a good pass into space.

Spot on.

[Kashinoda]

The most disheartening thing about tonight is that we set out to completely destroy Birmingham. We were all over them, had complete control of possession and were playing at a ferocious tempo. 70% of the ball and 28 shots. But only 2 goals. This suggests that we're just not good enough. It wasn't one of those days where their goalkeeper played an absolute blinder. Once we'd gone 1-0 up that should have been it. But with us this season we have one of the worst defences in the league. This isn't helped by the constant, often forced, rotation of the back 4. Players need to stay fit, they haven't been.

Can't blame Ngog tonight he did everything he could so we could score a goal. Kuyt however. This man is a striker and was pinned to the touchline where Johnson was having an absolute stormer. Seriously that was Cafu-esque from Johnson. He didn't need Kuyt in his way on the right when we needed another body in the box. Countless times we got into great crossing or cut back positions but everytime nearly it was cleared. If Torres had been playing tonight he'd have about 10 more goals to his name.

Overall it was a manic performance by us. Great effort, great tempo and some good individual performances. The luck just isn't with us at the minute with all these ridiculous injuries - Benayoun and Riera could be out for weeks after doing some damage tonight. And also dare I say it the quality isn't there. Yes we dominated them like a rape victim, but we need this pressure to be converted into goals. More strikers really would have helped tonight. Glad Voronin wasn't available to bring down the tone a notch or two, but having only Ngog playing through the middle cost us. As it was him who got us the goals tonight.

Damn annoyed and disappointed. Tonight should have been a banker but this season has been the worst since Benitez has been here. No luck in the games, no luck with injuries and any mistake we make is getting pounced on. The squad need to stop getting injured, it is disrupting everything. There is a black cloud over this club at the minute and each game we play there are numerous challenges we have to deal with. We need January investment, we won't get it.

I know the vultures will be saying the pressures on Benitez again, but for me it isn't. No manager could do any better with our situation at the minute.

I am praying, yes praying that Lyon do us a fucking favour in Fiorentina. I would love to get through in the Champs League now so much. It could save our season. If that doesn't go our way, well then we have one hell of a shit rest of season to look forward to. We're nearer relegation than top at the moment and we're a third of the way through the season. Unfortunately I can't see things getting much better any time soon as the injury list piles up and up and up. No doubt Gerrard will have tweaked something tonight and Torres is out for weeks. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Oh well, wouldn't want to support anyone else so every other fan can FUCK OFF.

Peace all Liverpool fans.

Great post mate sums up how I feel.

[Paul JH]

How we didn't win that game is beyond me. They scored two, but really only even had ONE chance (which was the first goal). Reina has absolutely fuck all to do all game. God knows how people can come down on the team after that tonight.

Our luck isn't in at all. A settled, injury free team would be getting results. But we don't have that.
Thought we were great tonight, and Johnson was excellent again.

Oh, and the crowd? Maybe our players would start performing less petrified sometimes if they weren't being screamed at the minute they touched the ball. Riera got it a few times, fucking SCREAMING at him to pass as soon as he received the fucking ball. No wonder some of them look terrified to try anything this season.
 

[FryBaconFace]

Much of what enables top teams to get wins against bottom sides especially at home, is intimidation.  Look at Man U last year!  Bottom table teams would go there and sleepwalk through a 1 - 0 or 2 - 0 loss without Mr Alex Ferguson's lot having to do much of anything.

No one is scared of us this year.  Why would they be?  So it's much harder to string together wins.

As to the question of whether we played well today, I think most of the team did play well.  Kuyt was meh, as he has been all season, as he was for the first half of last season.  He needs to get back on whatever crack he was smoking at the END of last season that turned him into a goal scorer.  The defense wasn't that bad, either. 

The two things I really don't get are:

1) WHY are we getting so many injuries?  WHY did we have such a crappy preseason and slow, ultimately abortive ramp-up to match fitness at the start of the season?  Surely something needs sorting-out as far as getting players ready for 90 minute matches goes.

2) WHY can we neither capitalize on nor defend against set pieces?  Anyone know what our net +/- is this season?  I really don't understand why they can't work on these things in training. 

Those are the two areas where I'd criticize Rafa.  I do think he did a phenomenal job last season, getting the absolute most out of the players.  Johnson was a great signing; Aquilani, so far so good.  Just fecking sort out the set pieces!

[Ливерпул]

Ngog - 4 goals in 5 games. We're not lacking too much depth, if that were Macheda everyone would be going mental about the 'wonderkid'. As it's Ngog and he's a Liverpool player it gets ignored.

I was not talking about Ngog and the lone striker position specifically. When I say upfront, I mean all 4 attacking positions on our team. Today, Rafa was forced to play 2 players who were just coming from a month on the sidelines due to injury. In the case of Riera, it went wrong. And now, with Benayoun's injury (hopefully, it is not something serious), we could be in an even bigger trouble. Rafa would need to use his imagination in January and pull another ''Arbeloa'', only this time in the attacking department.

[Billy The Kid.]

Bah, what a wretched result. Performance wise it was encouraging, we certainly deserved more than 1 point from this game, much akin to Lyon away last wednesday. We're just not getting the rub of the green at the moment. Lady luck seems to have turned her back on us for the time being. Fuck it, thats the cruel side of this game that visits the door of every team from time to time, we just have to ride it out.

We're almost a third of the way into our league campaign, and we've yet to see the first choice 11 fully fit and fully functioning. When that day comes, whoever we may be playing, they are likely to be in for a hiding. Im slowly starting to concede the title, but one thing I wont concede is that Liverpools first choice 11 when fully fit cant compete with the best on the continent. We're crippled right now, injuries are fucking us right up, lets be pragmatic, Rafa is yet to have a full squad compliment of players to chose from this year. Its not as if our "first team" is getting schooled week in week out.

We just got to hope that lady luck returns soon, saves us from injuries, and lets us get back to steamrolling teams like we did in the earlier part of the year. It hurts that this season hasn't started the way we wanted it do, but its no reason to ignore the previous progress that has been made, and no reason to doubt that this team cant return to form, when the squad is relatively fit

[Paul JH]

I'd ask you to watch his whole contribution while he was on closely Neil. Dwelled a few times missed opportunity s for a good pass into space.

Don't agree at all. If he DID, it was because the second he got the ball, the entire crowd were SCREAMING at him to pass it ... looked a bag of nerves at times, or at least, looked rushed into doing things which is why he misplaced some of his passes.

[Theredc]

How we didn't win that game is beyond me. They scored two, but really only even had ONE chance (which was the first goal). Reina has absolutely fuck all to do all game. God knows how people can come down on the team after that tonight.

Our luck isn't in at all. A settled, injury free team would be getting results. But we don't have that.
Thought we were great tonight, and Johnson was excellent again.

Oh, and the crowd? Maybe our players would start performing less petrified sometimes if they weren't being screamed at the minute they touched the ball. Riera got it a few times, fucking SCREAMING at him to pass as soon as he received the fucking ball. No wonder some of them look terrified to try anything this season.
 
I agree, but we didn't win and in normal circumstances we can all see that, we should be doing better, injury free side or not mate. Thing is we aren't in normal circumstances and tonight was a must win game.

[starlightshadow]

I notice how we're great at moving the ball up the field, passing the ball and getting down the pitch, but as we approach the opposition box, we just cannot get that final pass in. Players aren't making the right runs, balls/crosses are too slow or misplaced. We aren't able to jump well enough to beat the opposition. Too often we see it moved back for Lucas or Mascherano to smash it into the stands from thirty yards out, because we're being pressurised and have nowhere to go. It's depressing.

[joe bloggs]

If I wasn't chained down to my armchair I would be at Anfield pouring petrol over the seats and smoking carelessly. It's the stadium I tell you. It has been programmed by a bitter Evertonian to stop us winning. The ball was repelled from the net tonight due to an evil spirit. We need to get rid of these evil spirits. Let us go as a force down to the ground, burn it to a cinder, and rebuild from scratch. Only then shall we win the league.

[redpablo69]

Match Stats......


Liverpool Team Statistics Birmingham City

2 Goals 2

1 1st Half Goals 2

7 Shots on Target 2

18 Shots off Target 3

10 Blocked Shots 0

11 Corners 1

8 Fouls 9

2 Offsides 3

1 Yellow Cards 2

0 Red Cards 0

85.7 Passing Success 56.2

35 Tackles 27

91.4 Tackles Success 63

77.9 Possession 22.1

59.3 Territorial Advantage 40.7

[RedRaj]

Hope Glo Jo doesn't get injured during the wank England Friendly on the weekend.  I fucking bet that c..t Capello will play him and fuck him up...

[Theredc]

I notice how we're great at moving the ball up the field, passing the ball and getting down the pitch, but as we approach the opposition box, we just cannot get that final pass in. Players aren't making the right runs, balls/crosses are too slow or misplaced. We aren't able to jump well enough to beat the opposition. Too often we see it moved back for Lucas or Mascherano to smash it into the stands from thirty yards out, because we're being pressurised and have nowhere to go. It's depressing.

Another good analogy mate.

[starfish]

If I wasn't chained down to my armchair I would be at Anfield pouring petrol over the seats and smoking carelessly. It's the stadium I tell you. It has been programmed by a bitter Evertonian to stop us winning. The ball was repelled from the net tonight due to an evil spirit. We need to get rid of these evil spirits. Let us go as a force down to the ground, burn it to a cinder, and rebuild from scratch. Only then shall we win the league.

100% agree

YNWA