What started out with the intensity of European football, slowly drowned itself in the atmosphere of a true friendly. Most of our side glistened save the ever turnover prone and utterly useless Glen Johnson who refuses to let the match come to him and forces error after error. He needs to benched, sold, drawn, and quartered. Keep him off the pitch, Rodgers, please, at least until he returns to his form of three years ago. He doesn't play defence and it's like being a man down every time he gifts the ball to the opposition, which is entirely too often. Opposing managers must smile every time they see him take the pitch, he is always a counter goal waiting to happen.
The passing, for the love of Xabi, was absolutely brilliant. We picked apart their defence like the Visigoths on Rome. Pass after scintillating pass came from the feet of Gerrard, Sturridge, Coutinho, and Sterling, who found a better form in the second half, though far from his best. That one looping lob from Gerrard that found Sterling down the left was harken of our captain's finest displays and the entire episode leading to Sturridge's assist to Hendo was artful, though the ball did go out.
Lovren was solid in the first half, but not really needed in the second. In fact, we could have filled the back four with Salif Diaos and it wouldn't have mattered. Fans seems to be smitten with Manquillo's performance, but I guess harder to impres because for me, he didn't do anything spectacular. He was adequate and far better than Glen Johnson, but so was the hot dog man, me Gran, and that baby elephant. (It even looks like Glen Johnson, don't it?) I'll withhold a verdict until he plays in a match that matters.
The bottom line is the matches don't count until next Sunday, but if we can play as we did today, natural-like and calculating, we will win a lot of matches. The loss of Suarez put us at an advantage of sorts, defences won't know how to stop us. Before, if you could stop El Conejo Loco, you had a good chance of beating us, but now we are more of a team. If you stop Sturridge, we've got Sterling, then Coutinho, then Gerrard, then Hendo and so on and so forth, and we score on set-pieces, even more now with Lovre. That's just scary. If we are going to win the league though, we must not let one thing beat us, ourselves. When the opposition scores and they will at times, we must maintain composure and believe we will still win no matter the circumstance.
Showing posts with label friendly. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friendly. Show all posts
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts
-
Well, this makes sense and sort of makes me feel bad for the kid, but honestly, he should have probably not been playing hurt and taken care...
-
For this match, I'm praying that Benitez thinks both Xabi and Torres are fit enough to start. If so, we could possibly field are best s...
-
- The big debate in the British papers today seems to be whether or not Steven Gerrard should receive a painkiller injection in his injured ...
-
It's getting old. We are not good enough to challenge for even a Champions league spot and that's becoming more apparent by the mat...
-
Here it is: Reina Aurelio Hyypia Carragher Arbeloa Riise Mascherano Gerrard Pennant Kuyt Torres Subs: Itandje Benayoun Sissoko Finnan Voroni...
-
I have plenty to say about today's match and will wait to be more objective, but for Rodgers to come out and say 'We didn't get ...
-
Players must have played at least 300 minutes to qualify. Efficiency ratings are how likely a positive outcome will occur while that player...
-
The U18s began their double defence of the FA Youth Cup with a resounding 5-0 shellacking of Wycombe . The Wanderers were undefeated in thi...
-
Well, we got some good news today with the international clearances of Fernando Torres, Ryan Babel, and Lucas Leiva, as well as the near ret...
-
It has officially become a two horse race. Sure, Spurs, Chelsea, and even the Gunners could go on a run, but in the end, it will take a sig...