Topic: CL: Liverpool 3 vs 2 AC Milan Tomori OG ‘9. Rebid ‘42 Diaz ‘44 Mo ‘48 Hendo ‘69

[Charlie Adams fried egg]

We were pretty shit yesterday but it shows character to come back and win the game.

That's me told. I thought we were pretty good on the whole and thoroughly enjoyed the game 

[LFCEmpire]

That's me told. I thought we were pretty good on the whole and thoroughly enjoyed the game 

Ok granted I am being pretty harsh on the team but I am trying to say that even though we shipped 2 goals in 5 min it was great to see us come back and take the 3 points.

[Jookie]

We were pretty shit yesterday but it shows character to come back and win the game.

Can't disagree.

Got to dismantling no-marks like AC Milan with a minimal of fuss. Yesterday was too close for comfort and therefore was quite a frustrating watch at times. At half time I thought we might get beat, that's a completely unnecessary and unwanted feeling that I'd like to avoid in any further game this season.

Hopefully the players and Klopp learn from this and we smash everyone from now until end of May.

I think a lot of it comes down to depth. Last night our subs that were brought on were:

Mane (finished)
Thiago (not suited to this team)
Jones (only rated because he's from Liverpool)
AOC (done nothing since his ACL)
Milner (came on and got booked)

I'd like something a bit better to fall back on if any game is in doubt,

[So Howard Philips]

Can't disagree.

Got to dismantling no-marks like AC Milan with a minimal of fuss. Yesterday was too close for comfort and therefore was quite a frustrating watch at times. At half time I thought we might get beat, that's a completely unnecessary and unwanted feeling that I'd like to avoid in any further game this season.

Hopefully the players and Klopp learn from this and we smash everyone from now until end of May.

Probably good to have a bit of a wake up call when we did just to keep a check on complacency creeping in.

[newterp]

We were pretty shit yesterday but it shows character to come back and win the game.

We were incredible for 35, bad for 10, and good for 45.

What game were you watching? Even the announcers were purring about our performance.

[Dim Glas]

Ok granted I am being pretty harsh on the team but I am trying to say that even though we shipped 2 goals in 5 min it was great to see us come back and take the 3 points.

So maybe the key here is to not start off by saying 'We were pretty shit yesterday’, when they where anything but.

The first half hour of that game yesterday was scintillating, classic Jόrgen Klopp football. Shit was the last thing it was.

And the 2nd half was very controlled for the most part, with a couple cracking goals, again, not shit at all.

[deFacto please, you bastards]

Ok granted I am being pretty harsh on the team but I am trying to say that even though we shipped 2 goals in 5 min it was great to see us come back and take the 3 points.

Great and that doesn't equate to us being pretty shit like you posted. I mean there are tons of words in the English language to express what actually happened last night.

[LFCEmpire]

We were incredible for 35, bad for 10, and good for 45.

What game were you watching? Even the announcers were purring about our performance.

You can be incredible for 90 min and still lose the game. We have been wasteful in front of goals and it nearly cost us yesterday. I am glad the team fought back and took the 3 points.

[deFacto please, you bastards]

You can be incredible for 90 min and still lose the game. We have been wasteful in front of goals and it nearly cost us yesterday. I am glad the team fought back and took the 3 points.

And that still wouldn't mean that were shit. Being wasteful in front of goal wasn't the problem, because we weren't missing sitters, our problem was dropping off when we shouldn't have and making multiple collective and individual mistakes. That's an organizational issue, not an attacking issue.

If you do your job in the defensive third, then the opponent doesn't get the chance to exploit you regardless of what you do on the other end.

None of that however made us shit. That's nonsense.

[Timbo's Goals]

As I said above, if the comments are bona fide then you have to say the inability of some on here to actually grasp what they’ve just witnessed defies credibility. But I can only think these folks are just wind up merchants. Otherwise it really is disturbing.

 

[Charlie Adams fried egg]

Can't disagree.

Got to dismantling no-marks like AC Milan with a minimal of fuss. Yesterday was too close for comfort and therefore was quite a frustrating watch at times. At half time I thought we might get beat, that's a completely unnecessary and unwanted feeling that I'd like to avoid in any further game this season.

Hopefully the players and Klopp learn from this and we smash everyone from now until end of May.

I think a lot of it comes down to depth. Last night our subs that were brought on were:

Mane (finished)
Thiago (not suited to this team)
Jones (only rated because he's from Liverpool)
AOC (done nothing since his ACL)
Milner (came on and got booked)

I'd like something a bit better to fall back on if any game is in doubt,

Did you watch Mortimer and Whitehouse on Sunday?

[Jookie]

Did you watch Mortimer and Whitehouse on Sunday?

No. Where they discussing Liverpool's lack of activity in the transfer market and how the quality of your 6th choice forward is actually the determining and most important factor in a teams chances of success?

[El Lobo]

No. Where they discussing Liverpool's lack of activity in the transfer market and how the quality of your 6th choice forward is actually the determining and most important factor in a teams chances of success?

Bobs best moment was 'Never mind Ronaldo....they didn't sign a third choice defensive midfielder or back-up right back'. Said in jest of course.

[So Howard Philips]

As I said above, if the comments are bona fide then you have to say the inability of some on here to actually grasp what they’ve just witnessed defies credibility. But I can only think these folks are just wind up merchants. Otherwise it really is disturbing.

 

Could you imagine some of the comments made when there were ten minutes to go against St Etienne?

[Jookie]

I can only think these folks are just wind up merchants.

Guilty as charged

To be fair I was just paraphrasing what I've heard other Liverpool fans say/write. Just wanted to see if anyone agreed with what was obviously a post that was written with tongue firmly in cheek.

I thought we were excellent again last night. Bit wasteful in the final 3rd again and a knocked off a bit for the last 10-15 mins of the 1st half. Generally though 70-80% of what we've done this season has been excellent, and really promising.

[Charlie Adams fried egg]

 

No. Where they discussing Liverpool's lack of activity in the transfer market and how the quality of your 6th choice forward is actually the determining and most important factor in a teams chances of success?

  No but they were fishing too though

Edit: Just saw your post above. Nice to see a complilation.

Seriously though, I loved hearing Klopp's interview and hearing how much he enjoyed it because that was my first thought too.
If you've seen us in Europe over the years, you've seen that game a few times. It's what we do, it happens and as robbo said, if you switch off or let it drop even a bit, you get punished.

[Jookie]

Bobs best moment was 'Never mind Ronaldo....they didn't sign a third choice defensive midfielder or back-up right back'. Said in jest of course.

Of course it was i jest. They have quality cover in Matic and Dalot for those positions.

[Jookie]

    No but they were fishing too though

I'm not a clever man so fishing with the very blunt tool of (my version of) irony is all I've got.

[LFCEmpire]

And that still wouldn't mean that were shit. Being wasteful in front of goal wasn't the problem, because we weren't missing sitters, our problem was dropping off when we shouldn't have and making multiple collective and individual mistakes. That's an organizational issue, not an attacking issue.

If you do your job in the defensive third, then the opponent doesn't get the chance to exploit you regardless of what you do on the other end.

None of that however made us shit. That's nonsense.

I just said "pretty shit". Going in 1-2 at HT was difficult mentally. It showed great character to come back and grab all 3 points.

[Dim Glas]

Stop digging, take the loss and move on LFCEmpire 

[KevLFC]

Don't know what everyone's thoughts on Keita? Seems good in tight spaces but I wouldn't mind him trying a hard pass or even a meaty tackle now and again from him, seems to be playing in a comfort zone to me?

[Dim Glas]

Don't know what everyone's thoughts on Keita? Seems good in tight spaces but I wouldn't mind him trying a hard pass or even a meaty tackle now and again from him, seems to be playing in a comfort zone to me?

Probably trying his best to follow very precise orders. 

[Fruity]

I just said "pretty shit". Going in 1-2 at HT was difficult mentally. It showed great character to come back and grab all 3 points.

Slightly off topic but funny phrase that. Has anyone ever seen a "pretty shit" before. Why in general do we use the word pretty before shit. Can't say I have ever seen a pretty shit in my life. In fact most are pretty ugly.

[newterp]

Probably trying his best to follow very precise orders. 

I think so too.

[stjohns]

Can't disagree.

Got to dismantling no-marks like AC Milan with a minimal of fuss. Yesterday was too close for comfort and therefore was quite a frustrating watch at times. At half time I thought we might get beat, that's a completely unnecessary and unwanted feeling that I'd like to avoid in any further game this season.

Hopefully the players and Klopp learn from this and we smash everyone from now until end of May.

I think a lot of it comes down to depth. Last night our subs that were brought on were:

Mane (finished)
Thiago (not suited to this team)
Jones (only rated because he's from Liverpool)
AOC (done nothing since his ACL)
Milner (came on and got booked)

I'd like something a bit better to fall back on if any game is in doubt,

If you’d finished with Mane, you might have snagged a couple with the rest. 😉

[Jookie]

Going in 1-2 at HT was difficult mentally. It showed great character to come back and grab all 3 points.

Interesting point. Seems like the 2-1 deficit at half-time, was more difficult mentally for the fans than the players.

Now I don't know what the players we're thinking at half-time but their 2nd half performance indicated that they weren't that affected by going in at half-time 2-1 down -  though I'm sure they were disappointed.

A big facet of what I see with this team is belief and character aligned with outstanding individual and collective technical qualities.. They don't give up, they have the belief they can turn situations around. I'm not sure that belief is there within our fanbase to the same degree. Rightly or wrongly, I think there's been 2 snapshots into this in the last few weeks.

Some people's reactions to what amounts to not buying a 5th choice forward and/or a back-up midfield option showed a level of mistrust and lack of belief in the current squad as a whole and the manager's judgement. As did last night , when for the 1st time we went into half-time getting beat. I was really surprised at the wailing and gnashing of teeth by some. I actually heard someone say 'we are out if we don't turn this around'. It was as if we were losing in a must win game, not 1 goal down at half-time in the 1st game of 6.

Each to their own though. We all see things differently and it's a game of opinions being a football fan. Just don't see how the constant negativity and misery by parts of our fanbase help. Makes me wonder if some people even enjoy it. Last night was a brilliant game. One that we won 3-2. My last thought was to criticise any player, given the level of performance and balance of play. My reaction was to celebrate and revel in a win against a great club.

[deFacto please, you bastards]

Well said. I could somewhat understand the negativity because we hadn't won anything in a while leading up to #6 and #19. But now that we have, how are people still doubtful about this group of players and what they can achieve?

That's not to say that adding a 5th forward wouldn't have helped, but clearly we didn't lose our ability and clearly a lot of people have been brainwashed last season believing that just an injury to Van Dijk caused us to have a season like we did.

[John C]

I like this photo

Magnificent photo, I didn't see that happen in the ground. Love it.

[wige]

Well said. I could somewhat understand the negativity because we hadn't won anything in a while leading up to #6 and #19. But now that we have, how are people still doubtful about this group of players and what they can achieve?

That's not to say that adding a 5th forward wouldn't have helped, but clearly we didn't lose our ability and clearly a lot of people have been brainwashed last season believing that just an injury to Van Dijk caused us to have a season like we did.

This is triggering me far, far more than it should. It's been wheeled out in pre/post match 'analysis' in seemingly every game this season. The closest I've heard to the truth was last night when someone said something along the lines of 'Liverpool had big issues at CB last season' The reality is, and shouldn't be forgotten, that we had significant injury issues in every single position in the team from GK, FBs, CBs, CMs and FWDs. It was a ridiculous set of circumstances. Even then it took until January for everything to actually catch up with us and even that only lasted for a couple of months (even though it felt like years at the time).

[Gods_Left_Boot]

Can't disagree.

Got to dismantling no-marks like AC Milan with a minimal of fuss. Yesterday was too close for comfort and therefore was quite a frustrating watch at times. At half time I thought we might get beat, that's a completely unnecessary and unwanted feeling that I'd like to avoid in any further game this season.

Hopefully the players and Klopp learn from this and we smash everyone from now until end of May.

I think a lot of it comes down to depth. Last night our subs that were brought on were:

Mane (finished)
Thiago (not suited to this team)
Jones (only rated because he's from Liverpool)
AOC (done nothing since his ACL)
Milner (came on and got booked)

I'd like something a bit better to fall back on if any game is in doubt,

You would catch so many more if your signature didn't give everything away

[John C]

I don't know why I was nervous at any point during the first 35 minutes

Not many people around me or that I know were PIM. I said to my lad about that time "they're not a shadow on the Istanbul final team". He laughed, I'd said it purposely because like everyone he loved that AC side which were so admirable.

The Reds were cruising
A 2nd would have saved some bitten nails but like us as usual and so many of our achievements we do it the hard way.

Overall, it was a tremendous occasion, a privilege, an absolute fucking joy to see those Reds perform.

[Dim Glas]

This is triggering me far, far more than it should. It's been wheeled out in pre/post match 'analysis' in seemingly every game this season. The closest I've heard to the truth was last night when someone said something along the lines of 'Liverpool had big issues at CB last season' The reality is, and shouldn't be forgotten, that we had significant injury issues in every single position in the team from GK, FBs, CBs, CMs and FWDs. It was a ridiculous set of circumstances. Even then it took until January for everything to actually catch up with us and even that only lasted for a couple of months (even though it felt like years at the time).

ha, yeah, winds me up far more than it should too.   It’s bizarre how it became a thing. We only lost 1 league game till Jan 4 (and yep, Virg played that one, the Villa madness).  We where actually going along quite nicely for a while after he was injured.  The next 11 league games after the Everton game we won 6, drew 5, and eased our way through the CL group stage with only 1 loss too.

Like you said, took a while for it all to catch up, but after losing all the central defenders and having had to move Fab back, and then him getting hurt, also not having Thiago for ages (which became a bigger issue of course with us being down a man with Fab being at CB), then losing Jota for months, it was ridiculous. NO team could get through that and in fact, most other teams would have collapsed far quicker and likely not recovered. There’s a reason Kloppo says that getting 3rd last season is up there with his greatest achievements. Man City struggled the year before having lost just 1 central defender.

Last season was a perfect example of how a narrative is trotted out by pundits and media to such an extent, it becomes fact. 

[Timbo's Goals]

Guilty as charged

 

Got to say Jooks you got me there. Thought you’d had a knock on the head!

 

[red1977]

That's me told. I thought we were pretty good on the whole and thoroughly enjoyed the game 

We were more than good imo, it was excellent stuff, how we keep up that intensity boggles the mind and its these kind of performances that won us the league and European cup. I know you replied to "I. thought we were pretty shite" and fair do's for taking the time and being civil to the lad. "we were pretty shite" wouldn't have tempted me to engage. Anyway, life would be boring without a full spectrum of opinions, i guess.

[Ghost Town]

Okay, I re watched the First Half. It's one thing watching live not knowing what would happen and a completely another thing re watching it in the safe knowledge that we got the job done.

On that note, I don't know why I was nervous at any point during the first 35 minutes - maybe it was foreshadowing, but maybe it was also the natural feeling in a big European game. For the first 25 minutes, Milan did not have a sniff, we had around 5 to 6 decent chances and a penalty and it could've been 3-0 and game over by 35 minutes. However, I can see what Klopp meant by saying he could see what was coming. From the 35th minute mark, we stopped being a threat and more importantly allowed Milan to play around. They made their first decent foray in the 28th minute and from then on made 3-4 forays by the 40th minute which had to be stopped by Matip, Gomez or Fabinho and that did signal what was to come. They cut though our midfield 4 times in 5-10 minutes before the goal, which was not good.

Now, going to the goals themselves, both goals came from our right, so I find criticisms of Keita strange. He tracked back okay in the game and he was always available for the pass and distributed decently. Keita was the left sided CM, what are people expecting? For the first, they found the gap between Fabi and the defense and then Gomez played Rebic onside. For the second goal, Trent and Hendo were caught too high and Matip was isolated 1v1 and Gomez played Rebic onside again. I don't see why Keita is mentioned at all? But, yes. Overall we gave up control from 35-45 minute mark and those 10 minutes were absolutely poor from the whole team - not pressing, leaving gaps, not keeping the ball and so on. Apart from that, we were boss.

Good post. But it won't get much traction being as it's based on actually watching the game and cooly analysing what was happening rather than on preconfigured agendas and pure pharmaceutical grade bedwetting

- yes, I know that term triggers people and I don't use it often, but the HT thread yesterday was a pure exemplification of it, and of agendas.

That there were a number of people using that two minute loss of focus, and the goals conceded therein, as a reason to trash Origi and bemoan not buying another forward was pretty disgraceful (and that's another word I don't use often as normally I class it among the list of cliched overreactions that render a comment untenable)

[Ghost Town]

Slightly off topic but funny phrase that. Has anyone ever seen a "pretty shit" before. Why in general do we use the word pretty before shit. Can't say I have ever seen a pretty shit in my life. In fact most are pretty ugly.

I could pretty easily give you the real grammatical reason but that's pretty boring so I'll just agree that it's a pretty shite thing to say and makes a user sound pretty vacant.

[AndyMuller]

An incredible performance by the Reds. What a game. What a privilege it is to follow this team, these players and this manager.

It’s strange reading some of the comments on here. It really does seem as if there are Reds who simply don’t quite “get” what they’ve witnessed, who don’t and didn’t quite comprehend just how exceptional that opening half hour’s performance was and the immense individual and collective effort, quality and ability it takes and took to summon up such a breathtaking performance as that.

Moreover, the depth of resilience and grit it then took to pull back the deficit and procure the win following those late first half lapses. And further, just how much a sustained opening blitz of the magnitude we somehow managed can make it appear the opposition is failing rather than us forcing any such failures. Also in this connection how much credit is due to that opposition for somehow making their own recovery from our opening blitz and grabbing their own temporary moment in the sun.

Anyroad, weren’t we just fucking amazing. And the crowd too. Only downer is my broken heel and wrist meant they had to do it minus me.

 

Superb Timbo 

[rob1966]

Can't disagree.

Got to dismantling no-marks like AC Milan with a minimal of fuss. Yesterday was too close for comfort and therefore was quite a frustrating watch at times. At half time I thought we might get beat, that's a completely unnecessary and unwanted feeling that I'd like to avoid in any further game this season.

Hopefully the players and Klopp learn from this and we smash everyone from now until end of May.

I think a lot of it comes down to depth. Last night our subs that were brought on were:

Mane (finished)
Thiago (not suited to this team)
Jones (only rated because he's from Liverpool)
AOC (done nothing since his ACL)
Milner (came on and got booked)

I'd like something a bit better to fall back on if any game is in doubt,

Really decent effort that, but hit the post

[Dudek savessssss.........!]

[FowlerLegend]

Reflecting on last night, I thought we were terrific for the 1st 35 mins. Then for 10 mins we just shutdown, a bit like we did against Roma a few years ago. I genuinely thought last night it was because they put so much into that period they needed a complete breather.
Klopp mentioned something about us losing our heads and I think it was a cross between the players not having played in an atmosphere like that for well over a year and not controlling the adrenalin surge and our level being so much above Milan's that it was like everyone wanted to have a go at scoring! I think that is why Alexander Arnold, Hendo, and Fabinho were all the wrong side of the ball.
I love it when Klopp comes on straight after the game and can say exactly why we conceded the goals as well and I also think it would have done the players a world of good to beat a team (from behind) that wanted to sit in and frustrate us.
Personally, I don't mind seeing the team miss chances. Obviously I would prefer we weren't but I think we are looking more creative than we have in ages and with the quality of players we have will be more efficient as players relax.
My only slight concern is with midfield. We have lots of options but I would prefer to play with another that could sit alongside Fabinho, especially as it seems Trent in particular is pushing on a lot more. Thiago, Naby, Hendo are all good players but Burnley and Chelsea also found some of these spaces that Klopp spoke about. Maybe it's because they are not quite up to match fitness yet.