Spurs 0, LFC 3: Five things learnt

1. Mamadou Sakho is a bad influence.
In the first two matches, Lovren was rarely caught out of position, but against Spurs it happened twice and Liverpool were lucky not to surrender a goal.  Sakho uses his athletic ability to cloak his 'bad' positioning, but Lovren doesn't have that luxury.  It was also the first match that the Croatian played on the right.

2. You shall not pass!
Tottenham dominated possession and were able to move around the ball quite freely, that is until they got close to Liverpool's box.  Spurs managed just 9 of 22 passes into the box, that was 1.9% of their passes completed and 0.4% attempted, resulting in only 3 chances created.  Liverpool, on the other hand, attempted just 10 passes into the box (2.8%), completing 4 (1.4%), creating a chance and another that lead to a goal.

3. Sometimes efficiency doesn't matter that much
Especially when you can be effective on the counter.  All three goals came on the counter and if we are able to 'build a fort' around the box, opponents will just get frustrated.  That should lead to even more counter opportunities as we take advantage of their errors and lack of equal pace. Here are the efficiency stats for each side:

	att	def	ovr
Tottenham	0.633	0.679	0.656
Liverpool	0.54	0.645	0.593

As you can see, Tottenham were superior, they just weren't able to take advantage of their chances.  That could have been due to Liverpool's defence or Spurs' incompetence.

4. Do I really have to start calculating 'forced back passes'?

Tottenham were forced to make 94 backward passes in Liverpool's third out of 121 completed overall.  They attempted 95 and 160 respectively, which means that 38 times the ball either went out of bounds or changed possession.  It also means they were only able to continue their forward attack on 27 passes.

5. Liverpool can play defence when they want to.

28 tackles, 14 interceptions, 45 clearances, and 2 blocked shots, that's quite a line.  Not to mention the clean sheet.  The good part is we can play better and will need to when we have to play the real contenders.  The moments of communication breakdown were quite evident versus Spurs and others will punish us for that.

Just how statistically poor was Balotelli vs Spurs?

Before all you fan boys get out your stakes out and start your trash can fires, this post isn't going to be a complete slagging of Balotelli.  Everyone has to understand the expectations that come with a name like 'Super' Mario.  Unfortunately, the fact that we didn't pay £24m for his loan move (you're chum, Falcao) won't matter, even if we had gotten him on a free, he will always be a target for the press and opposition supporters.  He didn't do himself any favors against Spurs though.

Balotelli had 34 possessions (or touches) at White Hart Lane, completed just 8 of 16 passes, took 5 shots, but only one was on-goal.  Factor in his (lack of) defensive contributions and he was accountable for 12 negative changes of possession in 61 minutes.   He did have a chance created and three clearances though.

His attacking efficiency ended up being 0.324, the worst on the team.  For perspective, Lazar Markovic who has played a similar 59 minutes, destroys 'Super' Mario with a 0.744.  Sturridge who is worst on the team among minutes played qualifiers is still better than his Italian strike-mate with a 0.532.  Even Ricky Lambert betters him with 0.625.

He had a poor debut, you can either admit it or take residence in delusion land, where Glenn Johnson is still a good right back.  When he has such matches, he has to do the one thing that can be quantified, he has to create space.  He has to be a threat, go to open areas and force the opposition defence take notice, so Sturridge, Sterling, and other teammate have room to operate.

My feed was down the past couple of days so if you want to go to any missed articles they are below:
Liverpool has played the hardest schedule, boasts the best defence
Wanted: Yaya Sanogo, for impersonating a footballer (Match Day 3 morsels)
Skrtel top defensively, Flamini take over attack & overall efficiency
Tottenham 0, Liverpool 3: Sometimes moments of madness

Tottenham 0, Liverpool 3: Sometimes moments of madness...

They dominated possession, had a higher pass completion percentage, and were superior in the air, but Tottenham still limped away 3-0 losers.  How could this be? Counter attack and positioning.  All three of Liverpool goals were due to anticipating our opponent's movements and responding quickly.  That takes practice and talent, an ode to our mad Professor Rodgers.

What made it most impressive is that Gerrard had an uncharacteristically poor performance on attack, but made up for it on defence.  He completed just 71.1% of his passes, his lowest amount for a long time, but did have 3 tackles and 8 clearances.  Without some of those clearances, it may have been a closer match.

Gerrard's bi-polar display was quite indicative of many other LFC 'stars'.  Sterling was tremendous on the ball, scored a great goal, but his passing was poor (69.7%)and he really should have had scored from point blank range.  Lovren was impressive as well with 4 tackles, 2 interceptions, and 13 clearances, but his passing was also dreadful and he had to make two potential goal-saving tackles that were probably his fault to begin with.

Balotelli and Allen were not at their best, but Manquillo and Sturridge were the worst of the bunch.  The former was clearly rattled and wasted passes throughout, while the latter seemed to be trying to hard to make things happen.  I don't want to say he is trying to make up for the loss of Suarez, but he is, and it isn't working.  He's got to let the match come to him.

Henderson, Can, and Markovic played well, the last two in a cameo capacity.  I can't wait to see how the Serbian does in a full debut, he's very confident and smooth on the ball, which is entertaining to watch.  My man of the match though was Moreno, but not just because of his lung-bursting stunner.  He also added 4 tackles, 9 clearances, and a passing percentage of  87.1%, when others failed to post decent passing stats.

This was a must-win for several reasons, mostly for the confidence of the team and supporters.  If we can go into a place like White Hart Lane and not play to the best of our ability, but still come away with an impressive 3-0 win, just imagine who we can beat at our best.  Fortunately our next 12 fixtures are favorable, hopefully we'll win all of them and be at our confident best when Chelsea come to town November 8th.

contemplating tottenham

My first post in who-knows-how-long and it's about another club. Go figure. Anyways, I have soft place in my heart for the Spurs. I've honestly never met a White Hart Lane fan that I didn't like, maybe that's just dumb luck, but it also doesn't hurt that Berbatov the Impaler (who I hate now, btw) won me a pretty penny last season with his late game heroics against West Ham in one of the best matches I've ever watched.

To get to the point of this post, after watching Stoke embarrass them, I was thinking about the Spurs squad and wondering just how talented it is. Which players would make our squad? And would they even see the pitch? The only player who I thought would get decent time is Alan Hutton. I love the Scot and rate him higher than Arbeloa despite the fact that he looks as if he's 23 going on 40.

Other players I wouldn't mind having around are Pavlyuchenko, Huddlestone, Lennon, Luka Modrić, and David Bentley. Not sure if any of them would get enough minutes to be content, but I could definitely see the Russian being a late game replacement at striker and Modrić clearly has the talent to break into the starting side. Bentley would be a decent option on the right, but it would come down to availability and match-ups. The kids would likely wallow in lesser cup/match limbo for the most part and for a player like Huddlestone, I'm not sure that would be the best for their development.

It goes without saying, the Spurs are in shambles. A sad state of affairs that doesn't look to improve anytime soon. If you can't beat a mediocre side like Stoke with an obviously more-talented squad, than something is very, very wrong. I just don't think Ramos, who is the second-worst manager in Spurs history record-wise, understands the English game. Defense isn't exactly the strong point of the Spanish game and unlike La Liga, the Premiership sees no shame in nil-nil results. If he's trying to bring wild-style matches to England, well, he's failing miserably. They didn't look much a threat to score multiple goals today nor any day for that matter. Calling Big Sam?

Should we go after Dimitar Berbatov?

News out of White Hart Lane is that Dimitar Berbatov isn't happy and would like to go elsewhere come January. The 26-year-old striker has certainly lost his form of last year, managing to notch only a pair of goals in 14 matches. Last season he netted 23 in 49 total outings.

Fitness issues may have affected him at times, but for the most part this year his performances have been uninspiring. Comparing matches between this season and last, the Bulgarian International seems to lack the energy and creative spark he demonstrated in his debut season where he looked the threat nearly every time he had possession. In his defense though, he only scored four goals in his first dozen matches for the Spurs, but managed eleven in the final eighteen of last year's campaign. Maybe he just hasn't got it going yet.

Of course on the flip side of that argument is that he needed time to adjust to English football and once he did, well, his goal-scoring record speaks for itself. If that was the case then, how would one explain his recent dip in form? There were rumblings that he and Martin Jol weren't seeing eye-to-eye, but if that's the case, how's he going to react when he gets rotated-out of certain matches by Rafa? Neither Benitez nor senior members of the squad like Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher will tolerate such rubbish.

Another thing to think about is how a change of atmosphere could do him well, but if he had trouble handling the pressure at Tottenham, what's he going to do when the Scouser Nation become disenchanted? Ultimately I think it comes down to a risk-reward factor. I don't think it's wise to pay an exorbitant amount for a player who seems a bit inconsistent and possibly a head case, we already have plenty of those. If the Spurs would take Crouch and £10m, I'd say do it, but anything over £22m straight cash would be foolish. Let Chelsea take that kind of risk.