https://twitter.com/DanKennett/status/1655155185189105664
Not sure if that's been posted but it's crazy. 40 minutes of the ball being in play. Had a feeling it was quite bad yesterday but didn't expect that.
That's mental. 57m 04s of dead time. Almost an hour where no football was actually being played.
Brentford players went down every time one of our players even breathed on them - it was like there was a sniper in the crowd. Meanwhile, our players were getting pushed, pulled and kicked all over the pitch and staying on their feet (and rarely getting fouls given).
The difference between the best teams and the average ones is more than just the quality of the players, managers and tactics. It's about wanting to actually play football, instead of dragging it down to some sort of agricultural, turgid battle of attrition that we see so often in the so-called Best League in the World
TM.
On a positive note, I actually thought we bullied Brentford at times, and it was good to see Virgil, Milner, Fabinho, Jota and Gakpo getting very physical, and leaving something on the player without getting sent off or causing a injury. As the commentator said - you definitely know when Milner has tackled you
. It made for a a very stop-start game, but its good to see us being a bit more snide and occasionally playing dirty against the more physical teams when we need to. Far too often we've lost the physical battle and the other team has sneaked a goal. I absolutely love Jota for being so physical and such a great wind-up merchant to the opposition - he knows exactly how to get under the skin of defenders without ever coming close to a red card. More of that please.
The other good point from yesterday is another win and clean sheet. Its true what they say, that when you've been playing badly and losing for much of the season, it really doesn't matter how you win. The fluidity will return, and we'll undoubtedly get some new players in the summer whilst also moving on players out of contract.
Our last 8 leagues games reads DDWWWWWW and 20 out of 24 points. It doesn't erase the disappointment of the first half of the season, but it shows we can can grind out results and that Jurgen can find solutions. Top 4 looks a long shot, but there's no shame spending a season in the Europa whilst we rebuild and Jurgen's Liverpool 2.0 takes shape.
Even before this good run, things have actually been improving since as far back as mid-February - even if the performances haven't always been great to watch. Following that dreadful 3-0 defeat to Wolves on February 4th, our league form has been P15 W10 D3 L2 F33 A14, including 8 clean sheets.
That's definitely a good platform to build from, and with (hopefully) 2 midfielders in the summer, a backup RB and a new CB, things could look very different in August. Onwards.
