Topic: Fulham 1-0 Liverpool: Full time

[CRAZY HORSE EMLYN]

Spitting blood. If there's a jammier, more undeserved 3 points had all season... Fulham were cowardly, barely came out. Totally galling. A real blow. Can Spearing decision and subsequent suspension be reversed?

[Twelfth Man]

Positive? Jordan Henderson was fucking class out there tonight

Adam was our best player for me. Very encouraging signs from the deep fried Mars bar eatin Scotsman.

[jillcwhomever]

Postive? Jordan Henderson was fucking class out there tonight

He looks much better at the moment. I actually thought we played some good one touch stuff especially at the start, it's the final ball that needs to be worked on, and a bit of composure in front of goal. Had we got an early goal, we'd of got 3 points. Onwards and upwards.

[MagicB8all]

The more things change, the more they stay the same ... shakes head

[Juan Loco]

In the Uruguay team, Suarez shares the front line with Forlan and Cavani, striker with good conversion ratio. The pressure seems to be off. At Liverpool, he has had to deal with Ngog and now Carroll, two misfiring strikers. We should probably bid for David Villa, although I personally think  he is over the hill.

What we really need is a striker like Ian Rush or Robbie Fowler.

[Red_Rich]

I am ripping my hair out with all the keeping efforts against us. That save against Downing......Another one out of the top draw.

I know - it's so frustrating atm.

Ruddy has the game if his life at Anfield yet ships 5 at City (and they weren't all great, world class goals)

Just have to keep hoping that we are going to hit a rich vein very soon where we can't stop scoring.

[Neil D]

Neil I nearly always find myself agreeing with you, but having looked at it again, I think Suarez may have been fractionally off side

That camera angle is deceiving. Look at the line of the grass shadings and look at Suarez's position in relation to Sanderos

It looked to me like he was just onside mate, Hangeland just played him on, Ray Wilkins said as much and benefit of doubt should go to Suarez with the two of them seemingly about level.

But to be fair that was the lesser of the terrible game-ruining mistakes made by the officials tonight.

[Pistolero]

Positives - hendo..enrique..carroll....spearing.....all did relatively well imo...and we were knockin it around nicely till that stupid fuckin decision to send jay off destroyed the gameplan and the game

Just have to put it down to one of them cunting games and move on.......but by fuck do i despise monday night matches


 

[Dentron]

How can people look at that game and think Charlie Adam played well? I don't even care that he's careless with possession because I know he's capable of eventually picking out a pass that will unlock the defense, but he is an absolute liability defensively. How many times this season have opposing midfielders walked into the box around Charlie Adam? Look at the Chelsea goal. Dembele absolutely abused Adam today. Dembele is a decent player, but Adam made him look like David Silva.

In a 3 man midfield his woeful defending might pass, but in a 4-4-2 (ESPECIALLY with Lucas gone) it's a liability.

[stockdam]

Neil I nearly always find myself agreeing with you, but having looked at it again, I think Suarez may have been fractionally off side

That camera angle is deceiving. Look at the line of the grass shadings and look at Suarez's position in relation to Sanderos

I think he looks fractionally offside but we have time to look at the stills whereas the linesman didn't. We shouldn't be relying on a close call to save us against a team that we should be beating.

[skene11]

probably scored more than our strikers combined though, in the PL..

Perhaps, but that doesn't make him clinical.

[hesbighesred]

Oh well, he's gone on to bigger and better thi- ... Not really the point here is it?

You're giving up on 4th place in December, whilst 5 points off it. Word that into a show of bollocks.

Nah you're right, cheap shot from me, was just about to remove it, though the world has gone a little mad when you're almost a beacon of optimism.

I'm not totally giving up on 4th, but I'd be very, very pleasantly surprised if we made it. As I said, we haven't got a reliable goal scorer, we've lost our best midfielder (IMO our best player), and they're positions where most or all of our rivals have at least one top quality option, who all have better gelled squads with more established playing styles and at least as much experience of being there at the sharp end as we have at the moment.

There's no reason to believe we're suddenly going to become clinical against the shitter teams, and it's quite possible we'll stop actually playing as well as we have. We put ourselves back into contention with massive results in recent games and then shot ourselves right in the foot again with the result today, as we've been doing all season, and as we did at the end of last season when the pressure was on.

For us to have a real chance, and for it to be in our hands, then I think we need to buy extremely well in January.

But I'm more than happy to choke on these words come the end of the season. More than happy.

[Adeemo]

You could see this result coming a mile off, been like that for years.

[downtown]

SUAREZ WAS CLEARLY OFFSIDE 

[Carllfc]

Adam and Henderson particularly played well tonight, that's a good sign at least.

[Not funny reecehenebry]

Neil I nearly always find myself agreeing with you, but having looked at it again, I think Suarez may have been fractionally off side

That camera angle is deceiving. Look at the line of the grass shadings and look at Suarez's position in relation to Sanderos

Thing is Billy, if we struggle with it with pics and all afterwards I think we should be willing to allow the linesman off with it.

[Torpedo Tommy]

But compared to last season its DisneyLand

Maybe we should remember that at least

I thought the referee was shocking tonight and whilst I'm glad we're light years ahead of last year, we can't keep resorting to that point. We do need to improve in that final 3rd.

I'm confident we can. Henderson and Adam have improved immensely of late. Just need to be more clinical up front.

[rushyman]

Far from clinical.

I honestly dont know how you can laugh at that.

[Smug Cassandra]

Its time for us all to wake up. After 14 games we are 7th.

I personally dont see that the table is lying.............it NEVER does, there are 6 teams better than us in the league. Its that simple!!!

All of the money that have been spent and its actually not that much Net Spend wise has produced no movement in the league position. So my view is that the signings havent worked and Comoli hasnt actually done a good job thus far.

[Anywhichwayicant]

Stop it, just fucking stop it.

I've been laughing at some of the comments I've read since the match ended but this is the winner.

So simple.

[-Willo-]

He was fucking level. Level = Benefit of doubt = Onside

Look at that angle, if it was actually head on instead of looking at it from the left to the right, say his toe is onside or whatever but you know if it was against us we'd be saying it was off, and everyone in the world would agree with you.

[firing squad]

It's a fair point though. 8 in 27 isn't a great return for a 20+ million 'star' striker.

I fucking love him, mind, but I think that rate would go up a lot if there weren't so much pressure on him. Not sure it helps that he's played so much either - it worries me that we've flogged him through another very hard-working 90-minutes against a team given free-reign to foul the absolute shit out of him.

well you have a point if you're looking strictly at the numbers but the impact he has on the overall game compensates for the lack of goals. He creates so much that it's nreal. Pure quality.

[Neil D]

Look at that angle, if it was actually head on instead of looking at it from the left to the right, say his toe is onside or whatever but you know if it was against us we'd be saying it was off, and everyone in the world would agree with you.

It's clearly level. It's not even a debate.

[maqu006]

To cut a very long story short, the referee was abysmally biased and we have once again been unable to contest our chances.

[AULD-OLDIE]

To my mind if we play a "pass & move" game, the front 5 need to be fluent and interchangeable also pace in 2 or 3 of the 5 is imperative. ( Classing good old Lucas as brilliant in front of back 4). The fluidity is taken away when Carroll plays. He is better if a team plays with 2 pacy wingers feeding him decent crosses.  Therefore Kenny has a decision to make, when and if, we play that way.  Still in with a chance of top 4 with the attitude the team shows.

[-Q-]

Furious. Just furious.

Sometimes it is the easy way out to blame the ref, but today it was fully justified.  Two decisions, massive decisions, game-changing decisions went against us.

We played well, hit the post twice and scored a goal.

Mistake by Reina, but Johnson's defending is just woeful.  Absolutely dreadful defending.

Frustrated is an understatement.

[Billy The Kid]

Isn't the rule that it's only offiside if a part of the body a player can score with is beyond the last man? I can see what you're getting at, but it looks more like Suarez's arm, if anything, that's off.

I just looked at the pic on the previous page again. You may well be right. Either way it certainly was tight.

To be honest though, having that goal (be it on, off, or otherwise) disallowed isn't what's really irking me right now

It's the other chances that we squandered yet again. In a game that we controlled yet again. We have come away with less than we should have yet again. Which is a bit worrying when you consider we have scored just 17 goals this season.

[neilers]

and our bogey month of December is here, has all the hallmarks of dropped points till the new year.

[skene11]

I honestly dont know how you can laugh at that.

Because he isn't clinical.  If you have watched any of his games for Spurs this season you would know that.  Not the player we need IMO.

[faisfais]

What we really need is a striker like Ian Rush or Robbie Fowler.

Let's order some flux capacitors and make ourselves a time machine!

What we need is a run of games against Man United, Chelsea, Man City, Spurs, Arsenal every weekend... and we will win them all. But if I was a betting man, I would bet against us getting more than 8 points in the next 5 fixtures against QPR, Villa, Newcastle, Blackburn & Wigan.

[RK7]

Adam and Henderson particularly played well tonight, that's a good sign at least.

I thought Adam was poor, his positional play and the way he just allowed Dembele and others to keep running past him was a worry.

[Crosby Nick]

Thought we played pretty well. Usual woodmwork, harsh decisions on the goal and ref card. One fuck up and punished. And this game just epitomised how out trio of north easterners seem jinxed. Result is a head scratcher, just have to take it on the chin and move on.

[Dr Manhattan]

I honestly dont know how you can laugh at that.

I think the general rule is that you have to dismiss the achievements of other strikers, ones who don't play for us, and simply plough ahead with defending everything we do, then laugh at anyone who suggests a player who doesn't play for us is a decent goalscorer compared to someone who cost £35m more and doesn't actually score.

Something like that anyway, I'm still learning.

[pcch7]

Its time for us all to wake up. After 14 games we are 7th.

I personally dont see that the table is lying.............it NEVER does, there are 6 teams better than us in the league. Its that simple!!!

All of the money that have been spent and its actually not that much Net Spend wise has produced no movement in the league position. So my view is that the signings havent worked and Comoli hasnt actually done a good job thus far.

I kinda feel these are Kenny´s signings just as much if not more so than Comolli..

[Sinead7]

Far from clinical.

He has 7 goals and 6 Assists in 11 games. Fairly clinical I would say.

[Caeciro]

Thought Spearing was, well, below average. Sending off was a joke, but what can you do.
Henderson's almost-goal was genius, he was very good today.
Also, for what it's worth, I thought Downing came on and played the best I've seen him play, almost as if he was pissed off that he wasn't in the starting XI- he had something to prove.

[cptrios]

By the way, let's not discount Downing's contribution either. He looked very lively and once a-freaking-gain missed a tremendous, important goal by mere inches. Everyone is wailing on about how Maxi should have started, and maybe that's true...but Downing is a more dangerous player IMO. Maxi is a brilliant finisher and he wins hands-down on his final ball, but he no longer has the pace and movement to match what Downing can do.

[jaffod]

I've been laughing at some of the comments I've read since the match ended but this is the winner.

So simple.

It wasn't meant to be funny. I'm just fucking sick of the same old shite being bandied about on night's like this.
 Should win our next 5 games....work in progress....someone's going to get twatted soon....blah blah blah....

[Juan Loco]

There's no reason to believe we're suddenly going to become clinical against the shitter teams,

Is there not? I would've had said the goal records of players like Kuyt, Suarez and arguably Carroll would suggest quite strongly that they're likely to hit some sort of purple patch at some point in the season. Kuyt in particular is terrible for going long batches without scoring then scoring lots in bursts. At the back end of last season he was World Beater Dirk, now he's Barn Door Banjo Dirk. Then there's Gerrard, who even if he only manages as many games as last year, is still worth half a dozen goals.

That's by no means a certainty, obviously, but previous seasons suggest that these players will score in bursts. Dirk in particular is notorious for exactly this sort of streaky play.


For what it's worth, I don't think we should be relying on that, just that it is what will happen. I'd love goalscorer who didn't lose form at all over the season.. But then that's what I think Suarez, for all his profligacy, will become.

[woof]

Very disappointed. We didn't deserve to lose. The real problem is the lack of goals. We have a good defence now but can't score goals. Carroll was peripheral and I'm not sure why Maxi didn't start. What does he need to do to play???