Liverpool took a step in the right direction today, whether it was baby steps or a Neil Armstrong leap, we'll have to wait and see, but at least some of our issues of late look to have been addressed. First, we played much better defense. We shut down Everton nearly every opportunity that arose, especially when they tried to infiltrate the box. It was more or less written in stone that the Blues would have to score from outside the area and of course, they did. It doesn't take away from a valiant effort of defending, holding Everton to a single luck goal is an admirable achievement considering they've scored at least two goals in every other Prem match they've played.
It is also quite evident Rodgers gave his boys full permission to fire away though he should have taken that privilege from Balotelli after the half. We took 24 shots, 10 from Balotelli alone, though only 8 were on-target. A different story than Middlesbrough on Tuesday when we only took 11 shots in regulation. Being a constant threat from anywhere around the goal opened lanes, allowing us easier access for runs and passes into the box.
As for individual performances, Jordan Henderson made some world class passes in the first half reminiscent of his captain. He also created four chances, had five tackles, three interceptions, and completed 91% of his passes. Sterling was outstanding as well, creating six chances and successful on five take-ons. Gerrard put on a clinic in passing, completing 91%, going 3 for 4 on crosses and 7 for 8 on long balls, not to mention that class free kick goal. Moreno, Lovren, Skrtel, Manquillo, and Coutinho all played well as well.
The not-so-good starts with Lallana. How can anyone call that a great performance? He did little else other than dribble the ball and tackle out-of-bounds, take the Anglo-Saxon halo off his head and he'd been booed off the pitch for being a 26-year-old Championship quality player. He is paid to create goals and he had nothing to do with it today. Markovic was woeful as well, but first, he's 20-years-old, this is his first season playing Engliish football, and go back and look at the service he got, very few players in the world could have done anything with some of those passes. I'm also not so sure he's comfortable in his role in the side, he's a winger, where he played a lot of the match, but it looked like Rodgers wanted him to play a more central, 'hole' position, which he looked uncomfortable and out-of-place when he did.
Finally, we get to Mr. Balotelli. What a crock match from him. When Sturridge comes back, we won't see a better Balotelli, we probably will hardly see him at all. At least not for a while. Benching him, making him a super sub and forcing him to play his way back into the side is probably best for all. Make him learn his role the hard way. A couple of those things he needs to learn is making runs and creating space. When he's being marked, he seems to always just stand in the middle of the box, instead of moving about to allow other players to make runs or shoot. Also, he needs to work on his timing, Markovic made the only decent run all day. We could do with less of the antics as well.
This match reminded me of a few years ago when we would dominate matches, but were unable to score much and our opponents would get a wonder goal to win or draw. The Champions league Marseille match when Valbuena scored that amazing curlier from outside of the box for the win comes to mind. There were definite improvements all-round today and we are on the right track, but we can't let a luck goal knock us off our rail and distract us from our objectives. We go to Basel on Wednesday and if he's not back by then, Sturridge should be ready for West Brom next Saturday.
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