Topic: LEAGUE CUP SEMI - Liverpool 2 Jones 68, Gakpo 71 v Fulham 1 Willian 18'

[Anthony]

Why wasn't there VAR?

I thought it came into effect in the semis in the league cup?

Middlesbrough don't have it so deemed unfair to have it for 3 legs but not the fourth...

[Redley]

I’ll never understand why teams/players do their upmost to rile up Anfield. Do that shit at your own stadium and it might work, do it at Anfield and you’re just turning a sedate atmosphere into a heated one.

[keeby]

Was it going to one of those frustrating games ?, Fulham certainly tried their best pretty much from the off, time wasting shit housery added into that Merseyside police are now launching a man hunt for a deadly sniper who calously shot perriea in the face, certainly looked like that, the way the young fella was rolling around, on further cctv reviews Inspector Dan Gleballs concluded the Fulham felcher was merely trying to "buy a card" according to Alan gut boy Brazil on talkshite.  What a prospect Bradly is, great searching runs last night and nicked the ball several times when called upon to defend.  I hope we go to Fulham in two weeks time and score an early goal, then fall over a lot, with a minimum of five rolls clutching various body parts, including excessive todger holding, whilst Alisson goes to ground holding on to the ball like it was baby Jesus and not letting go for 5 minutes at a time, because you never get carded for it do you ?.  Right off to Athena now to get me mrs a birthday card and a poster of Diogo Joto to sellotape to me wall, promise not to look at that bird pretending to play tennis whilst casually lifting her short skirt.....

[Jm55]

We'd have loved that 3rd goal, but, the thing is, we're more likely to win at Fulham than at home last night, so it's ours to throw-away now. We're a big step towards another cup final. Another fucking cup final!
I fucking love cup finals.

Out of interest, whats the logic for this?

Our home form is better than our away form (as is theirs), we don't have the best record at Craven Cottage with no wins in our last two visit (also no defeats) and injury wise the only player who may be back by then is Szoboszlai as far as I'm aware?

[mullyred94]

Middlesbrough don't have it so deemed unfair to have it for 3 legs but not the fourth...

Oh right thats fair enough then !

[RedForeverTT]

I love the fact we just beat Fulham into submission. When we are not scoring, we will throw in 2 more forwards to force the issue. Except for Jota's injuries, we were quite fortunate that our forwards had remained healthy.

I don't recall anytime in our history where we were spoilt with forwards, we were badly downgraded once the main guy is injured:

Owen (replacement: Baros)
Torres (Voronin or Babel)
Suarez (Aspas)
Firmino (Ox, Minamino, Origi)

[MD1990]

great performance on the whole with the squad we have atm

[PaulF]

Out of interest, whats the logic for this?

Our home form is better than our away form (as is theirs), we don't have the best record at Craven Cottage with no wins in our last two visit (also no defeats) and injury wise the only player who may be back by then is Szoboszlai as far as I'm aware?

I assume players back from injury?

Love a cup final too, never been to one though. £5k for a corporate seat at wembley, gets the FA cup semi and final too. Starting to look like decent value.
Can probably get half the value by selling to someone else for the other FA cup semi

[steampie]

Out of interest, whats the logic for this?

Our home form is better than our away form (as is theirs), we don't have the best record at Craven Cottage with no wins in our last two visit (also no defeats) and injury wise the only player who may be back by then is Szoboszlai as far as I'm aware?

Guessing it's because they'll have to come out and properly play and not spend the entire 90 doing shithouse timewasting tactics and parking the bus.
If they do that, then clearly we'll have more chances going forward, and we aren't too shabby on the break these days. 😁

[redk84]

well we did just about enough there after going down by a very preventable goal!

2nd half is where our game started.....we were very disjointed in the first. I actually thought we went a bit gung-ho too early with the 4 attackers on the pitch and possibly could have introduced them in stages as we did make a couple good chances early on.

But 2 quick goals and getting our noses in front came at just the right time.....getting a 2 goal advantage would have been ideal but am confident heading to their place with an advantage because they will have to come at us and that will suit us

Badly need this winter break and hopefully we can get some good recovery into some legs as we are looking thin.
Nice place to leave footy for a bit so will enjoy the break from it also 

[gazzalfc]

I think the next 10 days the players have in Dubai is going to be huge for this season. It's almost a mini pre-season

Getting the players we have available to a place where we can go into Bournemouth, Fulham 2nd leg, Norwich City or Bristol Rovers and Chelsea.

[Tony19:6]

Middlesbrough don't have it so deemed unfair to have it for 3 legs but not the fourth...

I think you're right on that score..

But, (and my memory might be playing tricks on me here) didn't Burton Albion ? install it for a League Cup game a few years back, if I'm right, any reason why Boro couldn't?

Not that I like the way in which VAR is being used at present btw.

[KillieRed]

I’ll never understand why teams/players do their upmost to rile up Anfield. Do that shit at your own stadium and it might work, do it at Anfield and you’re just turning a sedate atmosphere into a heated one.

There were several incidents with their fans “making rude gestures” to our young lads Harvey & Bradley when down in that corner for no apparent reason. I can only assume these grown men had been on the sauce all day. I definitely have the away support in the other corner where they might be heard, but not seen.

[the_red_pill]

There were several incidents with their fans “making rude gestures” to our young lads Harvey & Bradley when down in that corner for no apparent reason. I can only assume these grown men had been on the sauce all day. I definitely have the away support in the other corner where they might be heard, but not seen.

While I don't condone that behaviour, I just think its people trying to break down the confidence of certain players of the opposition just to win a game- "every little helps" as they say.
And kids are the easiest target. Our lads though- they're no mugs, they would've taken that on the chin... with smirks across their faces.
Banter and stuff.
It's cultural, and the likes of the Fulham supporters still need to step into the 21st century.

[RedForeverTT]

There were several incidents with their fans “making rude gestures” to our young lads Harvey & Bradley when down in that corner for no apparent reason. I can only assume these grown men had been on the sauce all day. I definitely have the away support in the other corner where they might be heard, but not seen.

I don't condone it either but take it as a good baptism to prepare for the derby and 2 x Manchesters and Chelsea games where the vilest would certainly be there.

[Indomitable_Carp]

Are we to no longer swear at the opposition?!

I've always thought of Fulham as a fairly inoffensive bunch. A few hand gestures doesn't change that.

[PaulF]

I might have to start looking at prematch odds for us to be losing at HT, winning at FT.

[KillieRed]

Are we to no longer swear at the opposition?!

I've always thought of Fulham as a fairly inoffensive bunch. A few hand gestures doesn't change that.

It was more the fact that it was utterly pointless & for no reason. Was just weird.

[vicar]

I was quite surprised how much boooing Harvey got. Did he leave on bad terms? Seemed a bit odd.

[Crosby Nick]

I was quite surprised how much boooing Harvey got. Did he leave on bad terms? Seemed a bit odd.

Don’t think he left on bad terms. But if you were the supporter of a loser to middling PL club and you lost your most prized youth asset at 16 for a relevant pittance you’d probably feel a bit peeved about it. Not really anything Harvey did in this instance, just annoyed with the bigger picture I think.

[John C]

Out of interest, whats the logic for this?

I always suspected they try to keep it really tight over 90 minutes away and hope to beat us at their ground. However, I think with them being more open, we'd get behind and at them easier at their ground, plus any draw going to extra time advantages us and our mentality. I'd always fancy us to score in an extra time situation.
I reckon anyway.

[Red Beret]

Fully expect Fulham to get absolutely every decision going during the second leg. They'll be desperate to keep us out of the final.

[Samie]

We'll be playing Chelsea in the final for fucks sakes...the game raising twats.

[the_red_pill]

We'll be playing Chelsea in the final for fucks sakes...the game raising twats.

I'm so tired of these.
Hope they get knocked out. A draw at Stamford will do nicely.

[PaulF]

I always suspected they try to keep it really tight over 90 minutes away and hope to beat us at their ground. However, I think with them being more open, we'd get behind and at them easier at their ground, plus any draw going to extra time advantages us and our mentality. I'd always fancy us to score in an extra time situation.
I reckon anyway.

It won't go to extra time. If it is nil nil at 90 mins they'll send our keeper off for looking at the ref abit funny and award a pen for one of our players stealing two yards for a throw in.

[MonsLibpool]

We'll be playing Chelsea in the final for fucks sakes...the game raising twats.

If there's one team that can bottle it against Boro, it's Chelsea.

[Bennett]

Can't get over how good Bradley was last night. The only alternative we had was switching Gomez and going for an even less experienced player on the opposite side so he really had to step up and did so. Big week for him along with the cameo v Martinelli at the Emirates. Him and Quansah have been massive positives this season. Jones is slowly becoming our first choice midfielder in my eyes as well.

[newterp]

Do he and Quansah also help us fulfill the homegrown quota (or whatever it is)?

[whtwht]

Some get hold of this Perriera twat in the 2nd leg. He ofc is an ex Manc

[thaddeus]

Some get hold of this Perriera twat in the 2nd leg. He ofc is an ex Manc

Macca smashing that volley into him was pretty funny as was Perreira trying to walk around like it hadn't hurt him.  If only he'd been such a tough guy when Virgil brushed against his face in the first half.

When the camera first panned to Perreira laying flat out after the volley I thought it had caught him right in the crown jewels so it was a bit disappointing to find it was only his lower back.

I've always liked Willian though and sometimes think what might have been had we not been usurped by Chelsea in 2013 (although it sounds like we'd have missed out to Tottenham anyway - bleak times!).  He's 35 but was by some distance their best attacking player.  Wilson barely had a kick after he replaced Willian for the last 20 minutes.

[Hazell]

Oh yeah, Tottenham going for our transfer targets were definitely dark times. Can't recall how many they got but competing with them wasn't much fun.

Agree about Willian although I thought he was way past his best when Chelsea sold him and then when he went to Arsenal. Doing well at Fulham though as are a number of players. Marco Silva's done great there. Gonna be a tough second leg.

[Mighty_Red]

I've always liked Willian though and sometimes think what might have been had we not been usurped by Chelsea in 2013 (although it sounds like we'd have missed out to Tottenham anyway - bleak times!).  He's 35 but was by some distance their best attacking player.  Wilson barely had a kick after he replaced Willian for the last 20 minutes.

Careful for what you wish for - had we bought Willian in 2013 we probably don't try to sign Salah. That means that Chelsea don't sign him (their whole transfer strategy was buying players we looked at) thus setting in motion a new reality where Salah doesn't flop and reinvent himself and end up back here!

 

[thaddeus]

I love the fact we just beat Fulham into submission. When we are not scoring, we will throw in 2 more forwards to force the issue. Except for Jota's injuries, we were quite fortunate that our forwards had remained healthy.

I don't recall anytime in our history where we were spoilt with forwards, we were badly downgraded once the main guy is injured:

Owen (replacement: Baros)
Torres (Voronin or Babel)
Suarez (Aspas)
Firmino (Ox, Minamino, Origi)

It certainly felt like an area we scrimped on during the Evans, Houllier, Rafa, Owl, Kenny and Brendan reigns.  The drop-off from first choice to back-up was brutal.  The best I can think of during that period was when we had Owen, Fowler, Heskey and Litmanen but three of the four had injury problems.

During our period of domination in the 80s though we had forward lines that were the envy of every other club in the world.  The first match I went to we had Rush, Kenny, Beardsley, Aldo and Rosenthal.

There does seem a direct correlation between the depth of our forward line and our ability to go deep in the cup competitions.  Diaz and Jota missing so much of last season was nearly as big a problem as our midfield collectively losing their legs.

[Crosby Nick]

Wouldn’t have won the cup double without Origi and Minamino.