Topic: CL: Red Star 2 vs Liverpool 0 ‘22 ‘ 28 Pavkov

[Nick110581]

Hazard missed a 1v1 to seal the game, and we barely had a shot on target against City. Our luck can only see us through so far.

City were shite too.

And we missed chances versus Chelsea.

[JackWard33]

Fuck me love him but when lays an egg he lays an Ostrich sized one
How does that midfield 3 come our for the second half and last 80 minutes?!

Zero ability to move the ball through the middle of the pitch
The number of crosses in the second half was embarrassing ..... sigh

[QC]

No excuse for that. Really sad to watch after last season.

Indeed. Bring back last season's system.

[Zoomers]

Klopp is to blame for that line up really.

[Ski]

Well that was shite. So slow and laboured. Totally lacked ideas and played in front of them the whole of the 2nd half when we knew they’d sit in and make it difficult.

Why we didn’t at least switch mane back to the left where he had the fb on toast in the 1st half when it wasn’t working I’ve no idea.

[clinical]

When was the last time we played really well.

I'd go far back as Roma at anfield.

Last game we had Chamberlain for albeit a short time in that game. But no coincidence. And before him we have coutinho who would get us a goal in games like tonight. Not replacing either of them is a huge error. Not sure the point of Lallana probably could have got a bit of money for him in summer.

[kasperoff]

Not having the Gini beating he has been class this season.

He has been class, yes. "Has" being the operative word. He's been poor recently. Not playing anywhere near his early season form.

[wemmick]

Didn’t even try tonight. Just like at Napoli.

[Nick110581]

So is draw in psg Game best result now ?

Don’t know.

We can’t lose over there either way.

[Zimagic]

Looks like its the hard way as usual.

We're Liverpool! Is there any other way?

[diehard]

Klopp got it all wrong to be honest.

Why change the structure which worked so well in the home game?

[TheShanklyGates]

So is draw in psg Game best result now ?

Always was.

[gwam29]

Whatever midfield combination that is chosen in every game from Sunday till January, Shaqiri HAS to be in it. All other combinations are woefully short of attacking ideas. Only time we have looked anywhere near fluid like last year is with him in midfield. Crazy how it appears he is one of our most important players now

[Frank Becton]

Some average players out there tonight, Lallana is a shadow of what he used to be, Matip should be nowhere near the team.

Midfield so pedestrian, no creativity at all, £100m spent on putting it right but no signs of that at all, how we miss Ox.
Shaqiri has to be found a regular starting spot.

[stockdam]

That was a big wakeup call for us and we have been found out especially in midfield. We passed sideways and backwards and nobody had the ability to do something different or to burst forward. We were slow and predictable. Mane had one of the worst performances that I have seen from him but he was not alone.

Our forwards were too static and our wideplayers didn't do enough. Our midfield was poor. I only saw the 2nd goal once but it looked like Alisson made a poor decision and went with the wrong hand.

It smelt like a performance where we thought we would just rock up and win.

Klopp needs to get more from some of those players and get them back to where they were last season.

[TrueNorthRED]

What has changed from last season, we don't resemble that team at all. We don't press anymore, the front three have lost all their skill, awareness, craft. The midfield have forgotten how to pass, close down space and support the front three.

Buvac?!

[Henry Gale]

Embarrassing performance that. Just found myself constantly shaking my head throughout the second half. Played in front of them for most of it and on the rare occasion we did find a bit of space we wasted it. We managed 11 goals in our 3 CL away group games last season - this time around we've scored none and managed a measly three shots on target. Three fucking shots in 180 minutes of football. There's something seriously wrong at the moment.

Fair play to Red Star, they saw we were there for the taking and they took full advantage.

To be honest we haven't look anywhere near as good as we did last season. We scraped a few wins i the league to keep us at the top but we look miles off from last year.

[Ciara (with a capital "C")]

That was appalling.

And that is why everyone who has been worried about our performances to date this season, is completely justified. We are more than within our rights to be happy with where we are in the League but to be concerned by performances. Anyone who thinks otherwise has their head in the sand IMO.

You can count on one hand how many really top performances we have put in this season. I said in the TAW thread two weeks ago that one of the biggest concerns for me is that game where we do go 2/3 nil down. Is the muscle memory there to draw on? It is getting further and further away. Our front three have been terrible this season - collectively and I think they have been below par individual too, certainly for large spells.

There has been a Henderson-shaped hole in our midfield for 2 games now. Would love to hear how the detractors explain how Henderson wouldn't have made a difference there tonight, wouldn't have helped keep the shape and had us being a lot more disciplined in midfield and getting out to their players to close them down.

If the system isn't working, then why not change it? Why persist with it?

Obviously a hard place to go and all of that but we are much better than that.

Making it really hard for ourself to qualify from this group. We are probably in a position where we need to avoid defeat in Paris and beat Napoli at home, assuming PSG don't win tonight. In which case, I think the cat is amongst the pigeons.

Another really worrying performance. We are now at the stage where we need to start seeing some performances. 

[scalatore]

Sometimes it happens, that's football. The smaller team gets a goal and rides it out to win while the other team looks devoid of ideas. We were truly atrocious though. Terrible all over the pitch, bar Robertson - for me, the only player who brought the type of quality we expect.

Not happy at all. Don't want to see another performance like that this season.

[HeartAndSoul]

We had £90 million worth of midfield talent on that bench and we decide to take off our right back and striker when chasing a game and bringing firmino on to play wide, Gomez who’s no threat going forwards, moving mane on the right when he was causing their right back loads of problems and leaving on lallana, gini and Milner till the 80th min when they were doing nothing going forwards.

And when we do finally decide to make our last sub, we bring on a player who hasn’t played a single minute of football this season.

[PoetryInMotion]

worst performance since hodgson, and i dont understand how klopp couldn't get the side more interested.  milner and gini have been getting plaudits most of the season, but they were the worst players on the pitch the last 3 matches - how people think they are better then fabinho or hendo is beyond me.  mane has been awful for ages, bar the goals in the first 2 weeks too, yet always gets a pass - should have brought firmino on for gini/milner and left studge up front - at least he looked like he had the skills to beat a player.  just awful.

Agree with Milner & Wijnaldum, they've been struggling the past few games, but not Mane. He's been okay in most of the recent games. He was our only proper attacking threat against Arsenal. I don't know why he was moved to the right (not even inside, but wide right) at HT, that hindered him from then on.

[Big Dirk]

City are streets ahead of everyone, their depth is insane. The challenge is to finish higher than 4th and somehow win a trophy.

The difference between us and City is creative players who can turn the game with a defence splitting pass everywhere else over the park we match them.

[jillcwhomever]

The worry being that we’re now potentially Europa bound and league champions don’t come out of the Europa. Napoli win tonight and we’ll do well to qualify.

You can give up if you want, I have no intention it will go to the final game one way or another. Also it about time people realised we were in a tough group this time and this was always possible. So now we either act like losers and concede defeat, or we brush ourselves down and fight like zombies till the end. I know which one I would prefer.

[redalways]

Should have bought Shaq with us, brought him on when we were losing and start a riot so the match got abandoned.

 

[killer-heels]

Hazard missed a 1v1 to seal the game, and we barely had a shot on target against City. Our luck can only see us through so far.

Salah missed chances as did Shaqiri.

If that was a bad performance then we would have got battered by City and Chelsea. The idea that was a shit perofmance is mad

Today was.

[Zeb]

Think if we move the clocks forward again we'll be alright.

[number 168]

Jurgen recognised, like we all did, that the midfield needed marked improvement. An injection of pace and guile was badly needed yet here we are playing with Milner, Wjnaldum and Lallana offering nothing. Yes Shaqiri would have been useful and Naby wasn't quite ready but even so having to rely upon the same players who needed upgrading last year isn't good. The move for Fekir was evidence that Jurgen knew that a skillful and agile attacking midfielder was essential, the fact that we didn't get somebody is lamentable. Yes Fekir was an injury worry but there should have been contingency plans as we are not going back for him. I doubt Naby can be the answer by himself.

[Kekule]

Well that was depressing. Missed a sitter and then didn’t lay a glove on them for the next 75 minutes. Indefensible really.

Plenty of lower table teams watching that and seeing that you load the areas Salah is in, let Liverpool have the ball wide and we can look toothless.  The problem we’ve had with performances like tonight is that we follow it up with a shite performance almost immediately. Think Swansea followed by West Brom in January.

The best you can say is that it’s not terminal. On our game we’re capable of winning both our remaining games, but we need to get out of this fug to avoid having a black November like we always seemed to have back in the 90s and 00s.

[idontknow]

Well done Crvena Zvezda, great performance.
Out team, manager and staff have a lot to work on after this.

Probably the most mature response posted so far.
It's like 1973 all over again. That turned out ok in the end.

[richmiller1]

Well we managed to royally mess that up.

Europa League is presumably the most likely outcome now if PSG win tonight.

I get that we're trying not to knacker ourselves too early in the season but I'd quite like to feel like I'm watching Liverpool again. Can we actually start pressing now? Please?

[Banquo's Ghost]

I would say that I was shocked by that, but I fear it has been coming for quite a time. We have some very large problems, probably more in terms of getting the best out of our players rather than any serious shortfall of players.

Extremely disappointing, but it's entirely possible with this team that we go to Paris and win. I just wish it was clearer what is wrong, so looking forward to reading the more level headed analysts here and learning something.

[Mr_Shane]

We weren;t good in the first half. I don;t think we were prepared for this and we were sloppy. We could have played the whole day and still would not have created anything

Because of this result, we will have to play full strength teams in the remaining two games now.

[tornado]

I think there has to be a Buvac effect as poster above has mentioned. Missing midfield spark maybe but the world cup year and fatigue and all that just a red herring- has been 4 months already

[Ciara (with a capital "C")]

He has been class, yes. "Has" being the operative word. He's been poor recently. Not playing anywhere near his early season form.

And the same can be said for James Milner too.

[6BigCups]

That was like Hodgson all over again.

[RedorRed]

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Frankly we have been watching this type of performance all season. No midfield to speak of, no connection in the play, no ability to change things up, poor substitutions.

There is inarguably a huge difference between this Liverpool team and the one that finished off last season. It isn't just form either, though clearly some of it is.

Spot on.... feels like every week we’re making excuses now! Well the other team played really well..... shite ref.... etc etc
Something needs to get resolved and quick otherwise this season to rapidly going to run away from us

[Rush 82]

That was shit

Meh

Onward is all

[Je99ers]

Indeed. Bring back last season's system.

Yeah, it's Buvac.

[TheShanklyGates]

City were shite too.

And we missed chances versus Chelsea.

Is that supposed to be a defence of the performance?

Wasting chances has been a huge problem for us this season.

[vicar]

Sadly I don't think Red Star are that good. Sure they threw everything at it tonight, but they were really beatable with a bit more pace and drive. PSG and Napoli will beat them.
So we need to beat one of the big boys.