v Sunday, Nov 25 13:30 the lineup has been easy to guess of late, but wisdom's injury, enrique's form and the early suso/hendo swap has put a couple of spots up in the air. i personally would start suso high and henderson deep instead of sahin and allen, as allen has had a poor run of form and had his worse game against swansea in the cup. but, i'm sure rodgers will give him a chance against his former club and i guess i respect that.
We need Lucas back quickly, so we can have two starters in midfield (him and Allen) for league matches. Gerrard, Sahin, Shelvey, Hendo, and Suso have all been OK but not game changing. Although, Gerrard does a bit better when with Allen.
In. Let's get em back for the league cup loss and last season's last match. Oh and what Williams said about Luis Suarez.
Wisdom's expected to be fit so I'm expecting a similar lineup to the Wigan one, with Enrique playing a more advanced role like he played last week...and was quite dangerous.
Starting lineup: Reina, Johnson, Enrique, Skrtel, Agger, Allen, Henderson, Gerrard, Downing, Sterling, Suarez. Hopefully Downing is the LB and Enrique is further forward Feel pretty confident that Rodgers wont get blindsided twice. 3-2 win
Downing allegedly told he can leave in January and then plays next two matches. Weird. Off to the pub.
And the bench is comprised of: Jones, Coates, Carra, Sahin, Shelvey, Cole, Suso. Be interested to see how early he makes the first sub if things aren't playing out according to plan.
Was Suarez the last one out on to the pitch? I always though that Reina had a superstition which made him come out last.
Got two ESPN channels here but I don't see our match. Mostly round ups of the CL or europa. You guys better keep the comms coming. Hmm I guess the KO in at 7. That's what you get if you stay in Mexico and don't speak spanish. It has one 'great' redeeming feature though. I don't have to turn off the sound and lose the atmosphere when the talking dicks start up. The mx comms always sound so excited.
Enrique has been a beast yet again. Doing ALL the work as the left winger, that includes doing Downing's job at LB. Just a hair offside on that disallowed goal. Sterling's wonderstrike against the bar would have been nuts had that went in.
On that Enrique offside call.. it's supposed to be off if any body part that can be used to pay the ball is offside, but only Enrique's forearm seemed to be ahead of the defender there.
Like the look of things so far. We look dangerous with Enrique, Johnson, Sterling, and Suarez at the heart of most attacks. Our CMs aren't causing much trouble in their final third. Defensively we're restricting them to long shots, which is normally good but I still cringe when I see one of their players wind up for a strike. I'll be interested to see which manager makes the first substitution and how that affects the game.
An open match in which anyone can win or it could still end as a draw. A bit of an off colour start by us which is unsurprisingly as they really came at us. We got better as the half wore on. I'd like to see Henderson and Gerrad swapo places although Henderson will need to close down players mre than he currently is Hernandez coming off the flank is the real danger for them. They do have a suspect keeper and more decisive efforts on goal by Sterling could have produced interesting results. If only Enrique had been a fraction behind but off-side? Right in front of the referee, Gerrard was fouled, too. I hope we start the second half better.
Swansea made the first substitution at half-time - Ki on for Shekter. Don't know these players so I'm not sure if it's changed their shape or not. Whatever it's done, Swansea has started the second half better and the ball is spending a lot of time in our half. It looks like Swansea are now playing with three defenders.
Nevermind. They clearly line up four defenders when in their own half. We've now had a few good attacks and are back in control. We look dangerous on the right side.
Choppy stream but that could just be my new ISP. Looks like the usual, good possession but no penetration and they are looking to attack on the break
We've gone flat. Swansea providing the more dangerous (but still toothless) attacks. More urgency from Swansea at the moment.