THIS! Was the game I was scared of getting. But didn’t want to voice it in case I jinxed it. Well it happened anyway. Bandit and I went here after the game. Where nobody could hear me scream.
I can't heap much blame on Firmino as much I can blame Hendo, Thiago and Fabinho. Our midfield was abject at controlling the ball, tempo or anything else. Robbo and Trent phoned it in too. Defense was caught off guard too many times. Only positives were Salah and Nunez. Yeah, we can moan about the Ref but Liverpool played very poorly much of the match and were lucky to get a draw. Probably being a bit pessimistic but Thiago will prolly be out months on end. That might be good thing as we will see more of Elliott, Carvalho and Jones.
Couldn't post yesterday, too apoplectic. The ONE THING, the MOST IMPORTANT thing we needed to alter from past seasons of missing by a point was listless draws against lightweight clubs. And what do we open with? Jaybus you can't make this stuff up. Tragic. Over and out.
I think that's probably what got Klopp boiling over. the team must have been told "Remember Brentford!!" a hundred times before this game, but still came out lethargic.
The first 55 minutes of that was brutal. I think maybe the heat might have been part of it, but Fab and Thiago and Hendo were a million miles away from themselves of last week. Salah too for the 1st hour. Diaz, Firmino, Van Dyke and Matip were the only ones who seeemed fully awake in the first half. And, of course, in games like that, Trent jump defending like a 12 yr old doesn't help matters..... I don't think he realized how close Mitrovich was, but that's because (newsFlash) he didn't look....
It was kind of the opposite to Brentford. we were 3-0 or 3-1 to the good in tgat and we gave away the last 25mins... If we play mostly the way we played the last 25-35 yesterday all season we'll be fine...but not the first part....
I'm still baffled by our listless start to that game. Considering how good we looked a week earlier it must have been the boys thought Fullham would just quake in their boots when we lined up? I will have a quick moan about the ref, for the most part he seemed to let *everything* go, there was a foul by Matip in the first half that should have earned him a booking, but it wasn't even whistled. But whenever Mitrovic was involved, there seemed to be a different set of rules. Did we play poorly? Yes. Should we be capable of playing well enough to overcome poor officiating (we certainly have a lot of experience)? Of course. But we still shouldn't have to.
Some of them seem more concerned with 'officiating' as a style than getting stuff right ... check out what theWolves keeper did to the Leeds player and got away with...
We looked slow and ponderous out there. Is it at all surprising when we trot out an XI with an average age that would make Sean Dyche's Burnley jealous? Love Hendo. Love Bobby. But their best days are behind them at this point and shouldn't be starting anything other than cup games. And the less said about bringing on a 44 year old Milner the better. I'm sure the Fulham squad was quaking when he came on.
Oddly - Milner still played well all told. Elliott was the one that made the difference (along with Nunez of course) - as that allowed us to retain possession better and get Mo involved in the game.