Nobody had done one and didn't see a name so thought I'd get the ball rolling so to speak:
Well, one of those 0-0 draws against a side we should beat. It's been a while hasn't it? It's almost nice to see one... Well not really, but still the fact that it's been a while shows our improvement against poorer sides I guess?It is a good sign wrapped in a bad result. There are several silver linings to be had - firstly, we kept another clean sheet, matching last year’s total of 12 in the league. Secondly, we handled a direct central-attacking team and kept them locked out, although we did have 1 or 2 scares. Thirdly, Coutinho continued his progress, and looks like he could rapidly become a key player in the nearest future.
Brendan picked the right team for me, but Suarez had a really poor day and nobody really stepped up when he needed them too - fair or not?Fair. But I think it was a “perfect storm” game – Suarez was off the boil, Sturridge is still not match-fit, and Coutinho was creating. Gerrard didn’t have his shooting boots, and Henderson was playing too fast for himself. Added to that, Johnson had a poor game on the ball, Enrique was more reserved, and we were always going to be struggling. The thing is, we won’t have many of those games. On another day, Agger’s shot goes in, or the Suarez/Coutinho 1-2 combination at the near post works out, or the Jaaskeleinen gets injured in the warm-up and West Ham’s back-up doesn’t have the same reflexes and doesn’t get down for Suarez’ near post shot, etc. The biggest gain from the game is that we didn’t get sucker-punched. And the later result between Spurs and Everton means the last few games still have something to play for, and that is a very positive thing for a manager’s first season.
Also, I thought the manager got the subs wrong. Downing's injury was key to us not clicking as an attack I reckon, and replacing him with Sturridge meant we had hardly any width at all with Coutinho looking to cut in off the left hand side. Personally I'd have liked to have seen Shelvey come on and Henderson go wide. Jordan isn't great there, but I think he'd try and keep the shape more than Sturridge did. I also thought replacing Henderson with Assaidi was odd. I understand Rodgers wanting to get some width, but with West Ham hardly looking to break from midfield, I think Lucas could have been taken off, and I wouldn't have picked Assaidi as replacement either. Having said that, I'm not the manager so what do I know?The subs were perfectly logical. Once you could see exactly how deep West Ham were going to set up, the early and first goal were going to be crucial. Sturridge made sense for that, as he is a goalscorer. The problem is not that he didn’t maintain width, so much as Coutinho didn’t either. Added to that Johnson’s propensity for moving inside to the inside right channel and it was fairly obvious that we were going to be narrow for a lot of the game, which played into West Ham’s plan. If we look at the movement within the shape of the team once Sturridge went on, we can see that a lot of the runs were inside runs:
The issue is that both fullbacks were also making those same runs, where they probably should have kept things wide. The outside forwards’ moving inward is an established part of Rodgers’ game, but it is vital that the fullbacks maintain the width in the attack (although this does lead to problems in transition when both fullbacks are caught up-field). In the West Ham game, this didn’t happen and so there was no real structure to the team in terms of stretching the West Ham defence, which was tight and disciplined at all times (as can be expected from an Allardyce team).
Positives: I don't think you can question our will and desire to win the game, I just think the opposition defended well. Also, I thought we coped with their attack pretty well. We've really struggled against physical sides this year, but they hardly had a sniff. West Ham were everything anyone could have expected – deep, defensive, counter-attacking, structured, and alert to all threats. We didn’t help ourselves by being untidy with the final ball, but they also made it difficult for us to get a decent ball into a shooting position. Their formation was interesting though because Nolan was the deeper midfielder and Diame made more of the attacking bursts:
Jarvis added some thrust to the attack but all the pre-match talk about him was misplaced, as he’s good in bursts but he’s not a consistent threat. Cole had the unenviable task of waiting for the parked bus to move forward and was often isolated and ineffective at times – Diame was the more threatening player with his drive with the ball, putting in an almost Vieira-like performance at times that really deserves a better team. Preferably one in red. That plays at Anfield. Collins gets the plaudits for keeping Suarez quiet, but a tip of the hat has to go to O’Neil too, who did some good work in the midfield for West Ham – much like Lucas, it is the kind of work that doesn’t get noticed but can be vital to a team’s shape. Their attacks were simple and direct, and what was noticeable at times was that when the long ball was being prepared, one of the central defenders would push up on Cole and the other would drop back and sweep. This was a key point for a few reasons – firstly, it was very, very traditional and smacked of common sense; the kind of common sense which would have helped us to a clean sheet against Villa. Secondly, it was a key point because in order to be able to do that, the two central defenders have to be close enough to get position – as can be seen from the team shape, Agger and Carragher played very traditionally, and this has been happening since Carragher got back into the team. West Ham didn’t offer enough threat to test the positioning too many times, but the central attacks were all but snuffed out, which was pleasing to see.
The tale of the tape, though, showed a Liverpool side that was dominant in one of the phases of attack (build-up) but lacking in the other two (final ball and finishing). The dominance was so strong that Reina had the least touches of anyone who played more than a half of the game, on both teams:
We can see the importance of Lucas in the game here, which explains the need to keep him on – he did a good job clogging up the central channel which forced Diame left and right and into the more easily-defender wing channels. What was interesting about our touches is that Coutinho had one of the better counts for the first time this season, a consequence of his growing comfort in the team and his central positioning when Assaidi came on. Sturridge, though, had fewer touches, and possibly represents his inability to impose himself on the game – although that will come with more fitness and integration into the team. West Ham’s touches reflect the way the game went, with their goalkeeper dominating the touches after Gary O’Neil in central midfield. Nolan had little involvement in the game, and Collins had to get touches on the ball as he played a good tight game on Suarez:
Overall, though, the game was a tale of dominance for Liverpool, punctuated by a few West Ham counter-attacks, and summarized by the Liverpool shot count with no goals to show for it. “One of those days” is the best way to describe it, but attention has to be paid to the fact that it is only the 3rd 0-0 draw all season in the league, and only the 6th game in which we’ve failed to score. There are big positives there if we care to look for them. In a season of “transition”, we haven’t done too badly at all. The acid test will be next season, of course. At that point, I’m not sure West Ham will be looking forward to this game (although by the sounds coming from Allardyce after the game, they weren’t looking forward to this one either).
