Due to a delayed flight I missed the game and have just watched the full replay now.
I can take mostly positives from the game. Each and every one of our players were giving it their all and there's an obvious game plan where every one seems to know their role, whether we're in possession or not. I didn't see heads going down when we went 1-2 down and although I knew the result, I've got grounds to think that if I'd watched it live, I would have thought that there was an odds on chance that we'd snatch an equaliser and that's a belief that I haven't had in a long time. Every top team gives you that. Yes we could do with a couple of more technically aware players but there seems an improvement in the majority in the sense that they've upped their game.
Negatives for me is our goal keeper who I still don't have total faith in but am desperate to be proven wrong and a cutting edge up front. Klopp seems to want to work with Mignolet and I understand him when he made his statement a few days ago about his belief that you should try and work with what you have and try to improve it both in life and football but how far do you take that principle in a situation like this?
Up front it's obvious that with no Sturridge we're going to score a lot less goals with our current strike force. I think that Benteke will have a golden patch soon but he seems to lack consistency. Origi might yet prove a lot of people wrong. He's looking a better footballer than I gave him credit for at the start of the season but I can't see him chalking up a high ratio of goals to games. I'm certain our manager will solve these problems one way or another and sooner rather than later.
Finally you've got to get to the man himself. I only played football to county level so I loathe over analysing a game from a technical point of view with so many more people better qualified to explain and review but as a middle aged fan who has chalked up a fair amount of mileage home and away over several decades, I feel okay to speak about the Holy Trinity and right now it's as if we've re-discovered the Holy Grail.
There's a Spanish man who drinks in my local who is the spitting image of Herr Klopp and I have an overwhelming need to ask him for a cuddle every time I see him, which is about every two nights. He laughed at first but he now thinks I'm the wrong side of weird but I still have to have my cuddle and I fantasise that it's Jurgen. This is the power of the man. Jurgen that it, not Nico, who smells a bit sweaty to be honest and I can't think of Jurgen of being anything else but fragrant with a slight aroma of Schwaben Bräu but Nico will do. Klopp has made me go gooey. My missus is very worried but who can blame me. In the last few minutes of the game he was egging on all the fans behind him in the dug out. Mainly the same sort of middle aged fans, who just a few weeks ago would have pissed off by then but everyone was still there and loads were screaming and singing for their team. Yeah as it should be but it hasn't been happening. What Klopp has achieved in a few weeks is nothing short of miraculous in the way that he's given the team and fans belief and that alone can take you a long way.
Of course the result was disappointing but I thought that overall it was another large stride forwards. WBA's football is fecking shocking but we're going to have to learn to deal with it. It's imperative that for a title challenge next season that we clean up the three points in games like this and I have confidence that the solutions will be in place this time next year.