Being a bad loser is a vital trait in football, but he's a really REALLY bad loser. Remember his histrionics towards the end of last season? Not sure that helped them in their failed title bid.
Cup talk - Spurs at home
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Being a bad loser is a vital trait in football, but he's a really REALLY bad loser. Remember his histrionics towards the end of last season? Not sure that helped them in their failed title bid.
Good is an exaggeration, IMO. Yes, he got into attacking positions regularly, but almost never found the right pass. During the game I was thinking that maybe his extreme one-footedness is the problem, there were several times defenders were showing him inside, but he was still trying to beat them on the outside and got his crosses easily blocked.
Moreno was ok but hardly tested really and in the first half a particularly brainless clearance into the centre of the pitch gifting possession instead of heading the ball out of play could have cost us as could the stupid challenge in the second half. Coupled with the terrible corners and crosses I don't think anyone could say he was good
Thought we were particularly good in the second half, a lot more compact without a huge chasm between the defence and midfield. There seems to be a streak of profligacy that runs throughout the whole squad. We are playing well enough to win these games comfortably but sooner or later we are going to get caught out. Hope some shooting practice is planned for this weeks training
Corners. Incredible how bad we are at them, still. All the technique these players have and they can't seem to hit consistently decent corners. That one from Moreno last night that landed AT THE FEET of the first man. At the feet!!! Unbelievable. Of course it's not just us. Take the England team, where the centre forward has to take the corner because no one else is deemed sufficiently accurate. And he's shite as well! What the hell do they do on the training pitch?
How many years have you been watching Liverpool? 50?
Say you watch maybe 30 games a year, with an average of 6 corners a game, I reckon you have probably seen 15,000 shite Liverpool corners so far.
I thought Moreno did well on balance. There was one moment though, when he shunned his usual trick of being caught upfield, instead he got caught horrendously infield and had to sprint back out to the left back position to close down Tottenham's winger. His positioning is the one thing that will always stop him from being a top left back.
Sturridge's finishing was great tonight, that's what he does when he's in the mood. But aside from some good performances from the kids, the one who really impressed me was Origi. He took the ball and made things happen on multiple occasions as well as a couple of great efforts from range. I wonder if he could maybe replace some of the attacking impetus that we'll miss when Mané is unavailable.
One day we'll buy someone that is a set-piece master
It's funny because you could argue that we have improved slightly on other dead ball situations, there's been a couple of nice ideas well executed from free kicks for example.
Corners though have been awful for a while. When was the last time we were decent at them? During the Benitez or Houllier eras, perhaps? Milner, Henderson, Coutinho and Firmino are all capable of putting in good quality balls but none of them seem to be able to consistently hit one when the ball isn't moving. It's bizarre.
We actually seemed to get quite good at corners in the Rodgers 'nearly' season. We scored a good few with the likes of Skrtel and a few others chipping in.
What do you think the benchmark is for 'good at corners'? Something like 8-10 goals a season?
Well bugger me silly! I wrote that then went off to have a quick check and it seems we were joint third in goals scored from corners in the league last year with 9. I didn't expect that. Crystal Palace were top with 11. Are we as shit as we think or was last year just a shit year for corners in general?
A bot of both, would be my view. In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king, and all that.
No teams are brilliant at corners, some just don't score many others from open play & get lauded set piece masters.
I was amazed looking at corners to goal ratios last year in that we weren't the worst, or anywhere near it.
We need to improve though, too often we get a lot of corners in a game & fail to score from any, only to concede a goal against run of play afterwards.
Its also no coincidence we're shite at defending them, how can you train to defend corners well when the players you're training against are so shite at attacking from them?!
I was amazed looking at corners to goal ratios last year in that we weren't the worst, or anywhere near it.
We need to improve though, too often we get a lot of corners in a game & fail to score from any, only to concede a goal against run of play afterwards.
Its also no coincidence we're shite at defending them, how can you train to defend corners well when the players you're training against are so shite at attacking from them?!
Good post. The very fact that nobody's much cop at them is itself an argument for improving our own performance, so we can steal a march on the rest.
Yep, similarly to my point in the match thread about wasting a gilt edged opportunity to whip a ball into the box by playing shirt corners, anyone who understands footy nows an early goal can change the outcome of a match dramatically.
That opportunity is on a silver platter time & again. Due to the way our forwards play defenders so often opt to concede a corner instead of risk a ball played anywhere else, & we then basically contrive to give them the ball instead of trying to capitalise on the opportunity.
That opportunity is on a silver platter time & again. Due to the way our forwards play defenders so often opt to concede a corner instead of risk a ball played anywhere else, & we then basically contrive to give them the ball instead of trying to capitalise on the opportunity.
Yes we are definitely not the worst at either scoring or conceding from corners - last year it was all about defensive errors for us!
I wonder if sometimes the difference might be in the defending. We definitely defend corners zonally and we tend to come up against a far bit of man marking when attacking corners - perhaps that forms part of the perception of shit at both, because one looks like we are leaving a load of space while the other looks like we can't find any.
I've been going to Anfield since 1964 and can testify that shit corners are an essential part of the club's heritage.
The short corner routine developed by Steve McManaman and Jason McAteer usually resulted in the opposition getting possession and scoring from a breakaway.
The short corner routine developed by Steve McManaman and Jason McAteer usually resulted in the opposition getting possession and scoring from a breakaway.
I remember fowler & rush combining well to make short corners work for a few weeks, but then teams got wise to it & did what they do today & closely marked the player closest to the corner flag.
I remember Gary Mac and his one arm up or two arms up corners being good. Is that correct or am I lost in a haze of balding Scottish nostalgia?
I wonder what the conversion percentage was though. We certainly waste a hell of a lot. Maybe part of the problem is we don't attack the corners well enough, but it's criminal how many don't even reach the danger area when we've got such sound technicians in the side. Take Milner. Great technique, he can hit really difficult cross-field passes, really precise through balls, hit some devilish crosses into the box, but give him a corner and more often than not it falls way short or sails over. Gerrard was much the same. It's like we don't practice them.
Yes, conversion rate is a good point.
6.97 corners per game, so a goal from a corner roughly once every 30 attempts.
Palace had a conversion rate of roughly once every 20 attempts.
City were top scorers in the league last year and had a corner conversion rate of roughly once every 26 attempts.
Over the years, I have wondered about that. Could it be possible that a succession of managers have thought that practicing corners in training is beneath us? Teams like West Brom that struggle for points certainly make better use of them than we do.
I got my lad a single for the match yesterday, and before the match we met up with my cuz who takes his son to all the cup games. Haven't seen him for a while was good to catch up etc, he's a funny bastard... anyways I head off to the main stand and they head off to the lower centenary... where by some utter fucking nuts vegas odds type situation they end up all sat next to each other. Hahaha.
What makes that story all the better is that my son would probs have said he couldn't be arsed sitting by himself last night and watched it in the pub with his mates, he only wanted to catch up with the family for a few pints before the game, coz we all had an ace day together when we went to the league cup final last year. Boss.
The worst thing about the scarcity of tickets now is the fact you never get to sit with your mates anymore. When we get corporate tickets off one of my mates on occasion four of us end up sitting together, it's a much better experience for it.
Yeah it's a bit shit innit.
You know it wouldn't take that long to knock up a bit of software, so everyone with a season ticket could enter their preferred group and preferred area in the ground, so you'd associate member numbers with each other, and then the system could generate a new seating arrangement that brought mates and families together. You'd have to do it with a disclaimer that said you'd have to be happy with what the system spun, but I'd defo be up for that. I mean maybe one in every so many groups would be pissed off being a few rows further back that they wanted or whatever but overall I think it would improve the match for loads of people. Have it open once every few years or something. Whatevers, will never happen.
You know it wouldn't take that long to knock up a bit of software, so everyone with a season ticket could enter their preferred group and preferred area in the ground, so you'd associate member numbers with each other, and then the system could generate a new seating arrangement that brought mates and families together. You'd have to do it with a disclaimer that said you'd have to be happy with what the system spun, but I'd defo be up for that. I mean maybe one in every so many groups would be pissed off being a few rows further back that they wanted or whatever but overall I think it would improve the match for loads of people. Have it open once every few years or something. Whatevers, will never happen.
Before the computer booking opened up for season tickets in the new Main Stand, we agreed with the people who sit around us that we would all try to get seats together in the new stand, and exchanged bits of paper with the row and seat numbers we were going to go for.
At the appointed hour, the computer booking was a bit like the first day's sale of a Bruce Springsteen concert, everybody was piling in with their requests, so we couldn't get exactly the right seats, but near enough that we can still exchange a friendly wave.
At the appointed hour, the computer booking was a bit like the first day's sale of a Bruce Springsteen concert, everybody was piling in with their requests, so we couldn't get exactly the right seats, but near enough that we can still exchange a friendly wave.
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