Post match
- Thread starter Mors
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Status
I'm not having that. He was in real pain.
And that midfield has less dynamism than a one trick magician. That particular midfield is designed to get the ball to the jet heeled forward three as quick as possible. But once Salah went off Madrid pushed up and the midfield kept giving the ball to Mane and Firminio who were overworked because the delicate balance of the front three had been affected. A better dynamic midfield would have maybe been able to play possession football or instigate driving runs, they did neither.
Skim-read this thread, and everyone else’s posts – feeling pretty much the same. I’m not much for conversational dissection of what went wrong. Even after the game yesterday – straight out the pub and home. My old man texting me, my Arsenal and Manc mates gloating on FB, the Karius meme’s flooding through today. They could get the ‘at least we were there’ response, but I’ve got no energy for it. Zero responses to all of em. I’m planning on treating this Final like that of Athens. Never to be watched again, commented on again. Fucking move on from the whole thing quicksmart. I can only imagine what that journey back from Kiev must be like for all those crestfallen supporters. Fuck that altogether.
The whole thing had some positive, many negatives. If you view it from the lens that Klopp took a woefully-short squad to the grandest stage of all, then the whole thing’s a monumental success – irrespective of Saturday’s failure. On the other hand, it’s another final loss. There’s no dressing it up – we’ve lost a European Cup final.
Pro’s:
Con’s:
Anyway, that’s enough of that. Fuck Kiev. Never to be discussed again.
The whole thing had some positive, many negatives. If you view it from the lens that Klopp took a woefully-short squad to the grandest stage of all, then the whole thing’s a monumental success – irrespective of Saturday’s failure. On the other hand, it’s another final loss. There’s no dressing it up – we’ve lost a European Cup final.
Pro’s:
- We took the game to them. It felt like a matter of time before we’d score in that first 30-odd minutes. Every time we went forward we looked threatening. Found space in the gaps between CB and full-backs, the front 3 looked sharp, and we were controlling the tempo. I’ve no doubt the complexion of the game utterly changed when our talisman went off.
- The back four. Seems weird when you concede 3, but I thought they were hugely impressive. Lovren especially. For the first time in a long time I wouldn’t be concerned if we went into a new season with that as our starting back four.
- Wijnaldum – He’s performed to his highest level in the latter stages of this CL. He’s cool under pressure, tracks movement well, and fits in a side that knows it will have to make-do with the minority of possession.
- Mane – By a distance our best player. It takes real courage to demand the ball when others don’t want it. Continued to drive forward, attacked from all areas, posed a constant threat, scored one and was dreadfully unlucky not to get another. For someone who started the season off the boil, he’s finished it better than anyone. What a talent.
- The collective. Aside from all the fromage-laden tweets, songs, and superlatives – we do look like a club again. Success on the pitch enables a positive view of the club off it of course, but there’s a palpable strength that we’ve got round the place now. A bit of authority or something. Who do we fear really? I wouldn’t swap our positions with United, Arsenal, Spurs, or Chelsea for fucking toffee? I know we’re in better shape than all of them. Been a while since I felt assured enough to say that.
Con’s:
- Midfield – Really badly exposed. The signs were there long before Saturday as well know. 5-0 up against Roma and no pressure on Nainggolan in the middle of the pitch so he’s got all the time in the world to dink a ball over the top to Dzeko to get one back. It’s the same every week. Your rock’n’roll football occasionally has to have a demure time-filling B-side to chew up the minutes. I read someone on twitter yesterday saying that the second it turned into a football contest, Real were always going to hold the advantage. So fucking true. We don’t really play football, we play basketball – up one end, and harangue it back to the other. That’s on the midfield. The most grinding part of it all was the double-whammy retreat back to comfort two metres in front of the centre-backs, and the absolute unwillingness to want to receive the ball. Which takes me to…
- Henderson – Just simply not good enough to play in the 6 at that level. You can’t be that weak on the ball at the top table of football. His attitude, commitment, and decent-fucking-blokeness is unquestionable. His ability to make an angle for a pass isn't. I gave up screaming at the TV for him to make a small fucking move to create an angle for a ball from Lovren or VVD. Endless long balls punted up to your front 2 or 3 cos your midfielders don’t want it. Even when he got it – mediocre first touch, and a ball back to the centre halves. Absolving himself of responsibility. Swivel your fucking head before you receive it, know what's going on around you. you're in a 360 degree game yet you're only looking straight ahead at all times. Everyone’s blaming Kairus. He didn’t do his job, and the mistakes were blindingly obvious. Same goes for this guy. He shirked it.
- Subs – Milner should have been hooked 15-20 mins before he was. Clearly out on his legs, and having no impact offensively or defensively. A passenger for the second half. Why wasn’t he dragged?Probably because we had no bench to work with. The two players he brought on – one has started less than 5 games for the entire season, the other hadn’t touched a competitive ball in 2 months. Real brough on Bale, left Asensio to the last minute, and had talent still sitting there in high-vis. Both of the former two would have been in our starting 11. Bale scored a wonder goal, Lallana was barely fit enough to get the ball.
- The goalkeeper – My first reaction isn’t frustration, it’s empathy really. Stick yourself in his shoes – that’d kill you. He’s looked very good since he came in – much much better than we assumed he might be. He didn’t choose Saturday to be the worst day of his football life.
- Klopp’s transfer strategy – This fabled ‘wait for the right man, and take nothing until I get him’ does indeed land you Van Dijk, and Keita, and it may well land you Alisson and whomever. But the house of cards falls down when one of them goes down. Who would have played if VVD had have gone off injured, Klavan? If Firmino had have done his string, Solanke? Championship footballers. Waiting 12 months for the right man leaves the squad exposed. Getting top 4 and to a final with that squad was miraculous, leaving them so exposed that they couldn’t even make a tackle in that second half was the culmination of punching above your weight and then simply being too fucking tired to throw a punch when it mattered. Every pundit, past-player, and fan commented in the month prior about how this side was better than Rafa’s ’05 side which won it. True enough. But Rafa was able to bring on Didi Hamman, Cisse, and Smicer to utterly change the course of the game. Klopp came up against an inferior issue on Saturday, and his bench options contributed to made it worse.
Anyway, that’s enough of that. Fuck Kiev. Never to be discussed again.
Last edited:
Yeah Mane was the Man - but he of the front 3 is the unpredictable one. As proved last season he was our most important player, but I tell you what - Firminio looked utterly lost without Salah.
I've been staying off social media since Kiev. Thinking of deactivating FB and muting every group on Whatsapp too, which i have obviously.
Gonna keep it low until the dust settles.
Gonna keep it low until the dust settles.
Yeah the contrast between Firmino and Mane was pretty stark. Bobby seems to play well when the players around him play well, hes not somebody who turns games on his own the way Salah and Mane do. I genuinely dont remeber him touching the ball after Salah went off.
I couldn't be more certain that is baseless conjecture.
The CL final with the world watching, Ballon D'Or possibly on the line, to say nothing of the man's integrity and personality, to say nothing of the fact that Egypt have no chance of actually going far in the WC, I'm as certain as it's possible to be (without actually being Mo Salah) that there is absolutely no way that thought even entered his head.
I can't wait for the world cup to begin so everyone's focus will be elsewhere. I bet Karius can't either.
LET THEM SPEAK _ their season's 'satisfaction' rested with a Liverpool result. Let that sink in for those inbred cunts.
Hendo was the biggest disappointment after Karius. He was laughing and joking on the plane, in the interviews, saying the correct things about doing things together, trying to win for the fans etc etc. It was all very promising.
When the match started he just shirked it. He was by far the least effective midfielder. Every ball which came to him was pinged back to the defenders pronto and they had to kick it up or back to Karius because Hendo just didn't attract their player enough to give the defenders any breathing space. At some point in the second they just gave up, Hendo wasn't even available for the pass anymore. We just bypassed the midfield completely and sent long balls after long balls to an equally ineffective Bobby (Who could blame him? Not his strength at all).
There was no lung bursting runs, no shouting, no enthusiasm before and when we were down 1-3. He was just as deflated as the rest of them. You are the captain, take some risks, do some tackle, bark at someone for goodness sakes. Just do anything to rally your troops and hope they will follow your lead. But he didn't do anything.
When we were defeated he just kept to himself and teared in self pity. Nothing for his players, nothing for Karius.
One player that came out of this with a lot of credit is Lovren. He was excellent throughout and led by example. Some assured tackling coupled with aggressive defending. Their players had no chance with him. He even created the equaliser for us. In the aftermath he came out and defended Karius. Very good performance overall from a much maligned player.
When the match started he just shirked it. He was by far the least effective midfielder. Every ball which came to him was pinged back to the defenders pronto and they had to kick it up or back to Karius because Hendo just didn't attract their player enough to give the defenders any breathing space. At some point in the second they just gave up, Hendo wasn't even available for the pass anymore. We just bypassed the midfield completely and sent long balls after long balls to an equally ineffective Bobby (Who could blame him? Not his strength at all).
There was no lung bursting runs, no shouting, no enthusiasm before and when we were down 1-3. He was just as deflated as the rest of them. You are the captain, take some risks, do some tackle, bark at someone for goodness sakes. Just do anything to rally your troops and hope they will follow your lead. But he didn't do anything.
When we were defeated he just kept to himself and teared in self pity. Nothing for his players, nothing for Karius.
One player that came out of this with a lot of credit is Lovren. He was excellent throughout and led by example. Some assured tackling coupled with aggressive defending. Their players had no chance with him. He even created the equaliser for us. In the aftermath he came out and defended Karius. Very good performance overall from a much maligned player.
Yeah.... I had a [emoji471] on my desk when I got in.
I agree
One positive thing is that we build experience in the group. We have a Young group of players that will benefit from being in teh final, and they will learn from loosing a final as well. We have discussion on lack in depth etc, but we also lack experience, and we will gain from this going forward no matter how much it hurts now.
It's been a fantastic trip through the CL this season. I don't know what more we could have done. We started the final well, and we got a little paralyzed after the Salah injury. It the last 15 of first half was poor, and when we had managed to regroup and adjust a bit we were slapped in the face by the most cruel of mistakes. The killer was their second. It is hard enough to get back once, and getting back twice just looked to tough on the night. Energy seemed gone and we didn't have much to put on to change the rythm of the game.
Well fuck it. We have had a brilliant campaign, and I have had a wonderful spring with this team. I am not to bothered about the world cup so I have a couple of good months now before we have another go'.
It's been a fantastic trip through the CL this season. I don't know what more we could have done. We started the final well, and we got a little paralyzed after the Salah injury. It the last 15 of first half was poor, and when we had managed to regroup and adjust a bit we were slapped in the face by the most cruel of mistakes. The killer was their second. It is hard enough to get back once, and getting back twice just looked to tough on the night. Energy seemed gone and we didn't have much to put on to change the rythm of the game.
Well fuck it. We have had a brilliant campaign, and I have had a wonderful spring with this team. I am not to bothered about the world cup so I have a couple of good months now before we have another go'.
Not buying into the whole "single incident swayed it" argument. Like most disasters, there were many contributing factors, and blaming the result solely on Ramos or on Karius is pretty fucking pathetic if I'm honest. Sure, we can blame Karius for fucking up. We can call Ramos a dirty cunt. We can say the ref gave us fuck all. But what about our failings as a team? Our midfield was really poor. Our defence was left exposed for 90 minutes. Our midfield didn't perform. Milner and Hendo just weren't at the races. Not to mention that Madrid totally outclassed us on most aspects of the game and they were just the better team over the 90 minutes. Our lack of firepower on the bench was another huge contributing factor. Klopp has some thinking to do over the summer.
Well .. I'm back and improved from my immediate post match depression. A great weekend with great friends and an epic journey:
Thursday Shannon-Manchester-Copenhagen (sleepless overnight in airport)
Friday: Copenhagen-Istanbul-Odessa-Kyiv (the last flight on a minibus with propellers). Decent hotel Friday night
Saturday : Met Oleksii, our organ farmer. Great bloke, great family - fed us homemade Borscht, took us into town & showed us around, drank tea while we sank pints. Epic failure in meeting up with anyone else from SCM (though I think I was 5 yards from Peter Hague at one point just after the match). 2 hours I'd rather forget. Back to Oleksii's via a couple of bars for a few hours kip
Sunday - spent the morning looking around the old soviet exhibition centre with Oleksii (some great soviet style sculpture there & at the nearby university), then flew Kyiv-Odessa-Istanbul.
Spent the night in the best business class lounge in the world at Istanbul (we were on biz class tickets for the return leg, courtesy of my airmiles)
Monday - Istanbul-Manchester-Shannon & home
As I said a great weekend apart from 2 hours, but really glad we did it, and really proud of Liverpool for an epic season. Went from deciding that was the last European final I would do just after the match to thinking I'll probably be back in Madrid next May.
I said it just after the match, I did feel that there was a higher percentage of UEFA corporate whores than normal (easily identified as they wandered round with big UEFA carrier bags of corporate gifts and, to a man, wore half & half scarves), and combining that with the result and the fact this was the first European final I've been to without my mate (though I did meet up with his son) was what put me in that foul mood … in retrospect it was a great experience.
Not ready to pass on the baton just yet ...
Thursday Shannon-Manchester-Copenhagen (sleepless overnight in airport)
Friday: Copenhagen-Istanbul-Odessa-Kyiv (the last flight on a minibus with propellers). Decent hotel Friday night
Saturday : Met Oleksii, our organ farmer. Great bloke, great family - fed us homemade Borscht, took us into town & showed us around, drank tea while we sank pints. Epic failure in meeting up with anyone else from SCM (though I think I was 5 yards from Peter Hague at one point just after the match). 2 hours I'd rather forget. Back to Oleksii's via a couple of bars for a few hours kip
Sunday - spent the morning looking around the old soviet exhibition centre with Oleksii (some great soviet style sculpture there & at the nearby university), then flew Kyiv-Odessa-Istanbul.
Spent the night in the best business class lounge in the world at Istanbul (we were on biz class tickets for the return leg, courtesy of my airmiles)
Monday - Istanbul-Manchester-Shannon & home
As I said a great weekend apart from 2 hours, but really glad we did it, and really proud of Liverpool for an epic season. Went from deciding that was the last European final I would do just after the match to thinking I'll probably be back in Madrid next May.
I said it just after the match, I did feel that there was a higher percentage of UEFA corporate whores than normal (easily identified as they wandered round with big UEFA carrier bags of corporate gifts and, to a man, wore half & half scarves), and combining that with the result and the fact this was the first European final I've been to without my mate (though I did meet up with his son) was what put me in that foul mood … in retrospect it was a great experience.
Not ready to pass on the baton just yet ...
Saw this on twitter. Don't know if he actually said it but it sounds about right.
I think the midfield was also suffering due to the increased confidence of their opponents who realises they needn’t worry so much about what was behind them... and of course being gifted two fucking goals might help you play a little bit better...
Pointing the finger at Hendo and Milner is daft IMO.
OH MY GOD! They're waking up...
- Status
Similar threads
-
- Locked
-
- Locked
