Liverpool 2-0 Newcastle United - 26/02/2025

[The College Dropout]

Didn’t think Hall had one of my better games. He was involved in that giving the ball away free-for-all that led to the second goal. At one point Salah was beating him to every header. It wasn’t one of his better games. 

[The College Dropout]

5 hours ago, RS said:

Very much like Man City, the team looked resigned to defeat even before they conceded. That losers mentality doesn’t bode well for the final. 

Aye.  This is why I really wanted a performance and a result. You can’t just turn it in when you are constantly mentally defeated. 

[huss9]

23 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

Didn’t think Hall had one of my better games. He was involved in that giving the ball away free-for-all that led to the second goal. At one point Salah was beating him to every header. It wasn’t one of his better games. 

salah the sly cunt has that habit of nudging defenders off balance as the ball comes over.

[Shays Given Tim Flowers]

Thought hall was superb against Salah for 60 minutes. Combination of fatigue and a clear instruction to attack more changed his performance in the last 30.

 

Also plenty of times we were in behind on the right hand side last night and nobody attacking the near post. 

[joeyt]

1 hour ago, Elliottman said:

What’s been the criticism out of curiosity? He was my mom, thought he done a great job again Salah despite being left isolated a few times. 

 

I think it was mainly @KaKa saying he was a poor match for Salah

[joeyt]

29 minutes ago, The College Dropout said:

Didn’t think Hall had one of my better games. He was involved in that giving the ball away free-for-all that led to the second goal. At one point Salah was beating him to every header. It wasn’t one of his better games. 

 

It was Tonali's error for the second I thought. 

 

Salah doesn't do any tracking back at all so it's near enough impossible for the left back to get any joy going forward.

 

Hall is naturally an attack minded 20 year old left back playing in his first full season in the Prem. He handled Salah pretty well I thought

[Shays Given Tim Flowers]

As well as anybody for 60 minutes really promising. 

[Kid Icarus]

Hall was easily our best player and one of the best players overall despite having the hardest job on the pitch.

[Lush Vlad]

3 hours ago, joeyt said:

 

Think we've missed the boat on both of them unless we can spare £100mil 

 

And the rest. 

[huss9]

4 minutes ago, Kid Icarus said:

Hall was easily our best player and one of the best players overall despite having the hardest job on the pitch.

he was marking the best player in the world on current form.

[KaKa]

22 minutes ago, joeyt said:

 

I think it was mainly @KaKa saying he was a poor match for Salah

 

I think in both games we've played them he hasn't had enough support in dealing with Salah, and he was put under pressure. 

 

Particularly when having to chase back when Salah spun and  got in behind, and being over exposed when he was being run at in transition.

 

He hung in there but I thought he wasn't protected enough. We were punished more for it in the first game, and last night I think if they had pushed more there was an air of inevitability IMO.

 

If people don't agree with that it's fine, but for me personally I'd like to see us do a better job doubling up on Salah.

 

And maybe also have Hall be a bit more conservative in when he goes forward as Liverpool tend to leave Salah up top as a quick outlet - on their second goal I thought Hall went forward a bit too early, the error was from Tonali who forced the pass to him, but that bit can also be looked at.

[Tiotes Witch Doctor]

One thing that worries me about us as a team is that even against the lower quality teams we rarely look truly comfortable in possession, we turn over the ball a lot during a game and don't seem to have any sort of dominant passing rhythm that even some of the mid table teams have.

 

The amount of times we lose the ball and create our own problems in games is astounding, you would expect better with Tonali and Bruno in midfield, that's the best part of 100 mils worth of signings.

[Conjo]

36 minutes ago, Tiotes Witch Doctor said:

One thing that worries me about us as a team is that even against the lower quality teams we rarely look truly comfortable in possession, we turn over the ball a lot during a game and don't seem to have any sort of dominant passing rhythm that even some of the mid table teams have.

 

The amount of times we lose the ball and create our own problems in games is astounding, you would expect better with Tonali and Bruno in midfield, that's the best part of 100 mils worth of signings.

 

Going way above my knowledge of system and tactics here, so take it with a grain of salt, but I think we have good passers in the side which indicates to me we need better playing patterns/systems, and players need to work harder to make themselves available to receive the ball. Take yesterday as an example: Liverpool were closing down our players with 2 and 3 men, and our ball carrier often had no available pass, so he was forced to either send it back to the gk or cb's, or try a hopeful hoof. With committing so many players to winning the ball surely there must be positions we could have taken to exploit Liverpool, yet it felt as every player was marked elsewhere on the pitch. 

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I agree with the problem in general, will be interesting to see whether Howe tries to improve our possession or doubles down on counterattacking. 
 

That said, Liverpool are absolutely brilliant off the ball and must be the hardest team to play football against. 

[Lush Vlad]

I think we have a lot of poor technicians on the ball, personally.  

 

From the team that started.  Pope, Tino, Burn, Willock, Murphy, Gordon and Wilson all look clumsy in possession and with their passing in different ways and to varying degrees.  Someone lobbed a chaff grenade at Tonali's passing radar last night and all.  When not even pressured a lot of the time.  Which was annoying.   

 

We still have a squad with a lot of athletes and system players and not enough that are willing or able to put their foot on the ball and try and dictate.  As I was saying in the Miley thread.  You wonder that as we start to get better players across the squad.  Whether the midfield and team as a whole will exert more control on games.  Which Howe has alluded to in the past.  Or if we will carry on with this system.  Where it doesn't feel particularly easy to have long spells of sustained pressure and possession. 

 

I do sort of also agree with Conjo, mind.  For ages, we have seemed to struggle with our build up and how to build an attack.  A lot of sideways, slow passing along the back 4 and not too much incisive into the midfield or beyond to build something.  How much of that is down to personnel and how much is down to tactics, fuck knows.  I'll let Eddie decide there  

[The College Dropout]

31 minutes ago, Lush Vlad said:

I think we have a lot of poor technicians on the ball, personally.  

 

From the team that started.  Pope, Tino, Burn, Willock, Murphy, Gordon and Wilson all look clumsy in possession and with their passing in different ways and to varying degrees.  Someone lobbed a chaff grenade at Tonali's passing radar last night and all.  When not even pressured a lot of the time.  Which was annoying.   

 

We still have a squad with a lot of athletes and system players and not enough that are willing or able to put their foot on the ball and try and dictate.  As I was saying in the Miley thread.  You wonder that as we start to get better players across the squad.  Whether the midfield and team as a whole will exert more control on games.  Which Howe has alluded to in the past.  Or if we will carry on with this system.  Where it doesn't feel particularly easy to have long spells of sustained pressure and possession. 

 

I do sort of also agree with Conjo, mind.  For ages, we have seemed to struggle with our build up and how to build an attack.  A lot of sideways, slow passing along the back 4 and not too much incisive into the midfield or beyond to build something.  How much of that is down to personnel and how much is down to tactics, fuck knows.  I'll let Eddie decide there  

There's levels to that.

Pope, Joelinton, Willock, Murphy really stick out as poor.

Burn maybe too.

 

The rest have a baseline of competency for their position. Surpised to see Gordon loses the ball more than most wingers. He's levels above in that regard to Murphy but that's a poor comparions

[Shays Given Tim Flowers]

2 hours ago, KaKa said:

 

I think in both games we've played them he hasn't had enough support in dealing with Salah, and he was put under pressure. 

 

Particularly when having to chase back when Salah spun and  got in behind, and being over exposed when he was being run at in transition.

 

He hung in there but I thought he wasn't protected enough. We were punished more for it in the first game, and last night I think if they had pushed more there was an air of inevitability IMO.

 

If people don't agree with that it's fine, but for me personally I'd like to see us do a better job doubling up on Salah.

 

And maybe also have Hall be a bit more conservative in when he goes forward as Liverpool tend to leave Salah up top as a quick outlet - on their second goal I thought Hall went forward a bit too early, the error was from Tonali who forced the pass to him, but that bit can also be looked at.

Salah’s the best player in the world and Hall kept his involvement in the game limited seems wasteful and unnecessary to have a second player double up when Hall was superb man marking.
 

It was clear as the game entered the final third Hall was told to push up more. Tonali makes a mistake that left Hall in a poor position. It’s not the approach that’s an issue it’s the execution by the players. Giving the ball away to Liverpool is pretty much the most dangerous thing you can do. Unfortunately giving the ball away is something our players have shown a real aptitude for. 

[Stottie]

One of Gordon's main moves is to come inside and play a vertical pass. This is a lower percentage but high reward ball.

 

I honestly didn't know before I looked it up but fbref says he's seventh in the league in key passes. The "progressive distance" per 90 stat also says he advances the ball up the pitch more than other key passing wingers like Salah. Kulu, and Mbeumo.

https://fbref.com/en/comps/9/Premier-League-Stats#all_leaders

[Pancrate1892]

Having John ruddy on the bench last night was pathetic. 

If you want to be a world class club, you won't put a division two (released) goalkeeper on the bench especially when you have a keeper on the bench. Can you imagine Liverpool doing that? Even if there isn't a senior player available that can come on to help, it's an ideal opportunity to put a youngster on the bench for experience. 

I love Howe but he needs to be pressed on that, it's a waste of a wage and boots 

[The Prophet]

1 minute ago, Pancrate1892 said:

Having John ruddy on the bench last night was pathetic. 

If you want to be a world class club, you won't put a division two (released) goalkeeper on the bench especially when you have a keeper on the bench. Can you imagine Liverpool doing that? Even if there isn't a senior player available that can come on to help, it's an ideal opportunity to put a youngster on the bench for experience. 

I love Howe but he needs to be pressed on that, it's a waste of a wage and boots 

 

 

[Rod]

7 hours ago, Shays Given Tim Flowers said:

Thought hall was superb against Salah for 60 minutes. Combination of fatigue and a clear instruction to attack more changed his performance in the last 30.

 

Also plenty of times we were in behind on the right hand side last night and nobody attacking the near post. 

I said the same to my mate about Salah.  He said "wasn't Salah superb last night"?  I replied "I thought he was just alreet, in fact I don't think he got past Hall once".  It just proves what the commentary can do to people's minds and thinking.  The commentators were absolutely creaming their knickers everytime Salah received the ball.  Ridiculous over the top commentary.

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

Haven't City had Scott Carson on the bench in recent years?

[Fak]

47 minutes ago, Pancrate1892 said:

Having John ruddy on the bench last night was pathetic. 

If you want to be a world class club, you won't put a division two (released) goalkeeper on the bench especially when you have a keeper on the bench. Can you imagine Liverpool doing that? Even if there isn't a senior player available that can come on to help, it's an ideal opportunity to put a youngster on the bench for experience. 

I love Howe but he needs to be pressed on that, it's a waste of a wage and boots 

36/37 year old Andy Lonergan was on the bench for Liverpool 5 years ago under Klopp 

[joeyt]

"So Eddie, tough game tonight where you didn't have a shot on target against the runaway league leaders, can you tell us why John Ruddy was on the bench tonight?"

[KennyUtd]

1 hour ago, Super Duper Branko Strupar said:

Haven't City had Scott Carson on the bench in recent years?

The last 10 I think. He's got more medals than Giggs!!!!

 

I kid obviously. 😁