Liverpool travelled to White Hart Lane on Saturday hoping to rekindle their early season form but instead suffered a bit of a thrashing from Spurs. It really was a day when everything seemed to go wrong, although while defeat seemed likely from the kick-off the score line surely would not have been possible but for 2 sendings off. Spurs were brightest from the first whistle and had chances to open the scoring even before Luka Modric’s sublime effort in the 7th minute. While trying to stop the Croats effort Daniel Agger managed to damage his ribs and he was in evident pain from then until his withdrawal at about 20 minutes. Dagger has been our best defender so far this season but unfortunately his injury curse has stuck again and it seems like he will miss at least a few weeks as a result of this latest set-back. Young Uruguayan defender Sebastian Coates came on in Dagger’s stead to make his debut in a Liverpool shirt.Shortly after Agger was replaced, Charlie Adam was also leaving the field, Kenny Dalglish however didn’t have the luxury of replacing the Scot, because Adam was leaving after receiving his second yellow card, for a tackle which although it didn’t seem malicious was certainly reckless. From here on in damage limitation seemed to be the order of the day. Hold on in the game and hope to sneak one on the break. It seemed that we had achieved the unlikely equaliser before half time when Luis Suarez slotted home but his strike was ruled out for offside, upon seeing the replay it was clear this was the correct decision. The game continued at 1-0 into the second half when another unnecessary foul, this time from Martin Skrtel earned him his second yellow and an early bath. With Glen Johnson injured and Martin Kelly only regaining his fitness, Skrtel in an unfamiliar role was preferred to young JohnFlanagan in his natural position. It seemed a strange decision, but more on that later. By the time the final whistle blew Liverpool had conceded a further 3 times, 2 goals from Adebeyor and 1 from Defoe. It was a dark day and certainly one we cannot allow to linger. The lads need to regain their confidence and soon before any downward spiral begins to take hold. Our next opportunity is away at Brighton in the Carling Cup, for me its not an ideal fixture. It’s a real no-win situation, where by a win will be greeted as no less than expected but a loss could be used by critics as a major stick and the players themselves would find it much harder to restore confidence. Let’s not expect a cricket score, a win would be enough to satisfy me and begin the turn around in fortunes to set us up nicely for the Wolves game next week.
Perspective
The old adage that “your only as good as your last game” is a truism of modern football. Its an adage which I’ve never gone for. When trying to determine where your team is at any moment a sense of perspective is needed. True this performance was poor but there are certain extenuating circumstances which need to be thought of along with the result. Its very easy to watch a poor performance, accompanied of course by a surprise score line and decide that that means we are currently crap, the players are crap, tactics are crap and the manager is crap. How true is this though? I mean the players were certainly poor on the day, with one or two exceptions, and I am certainly of the opinion that some of Kenny’s decisions were not very good, but this game doesn’t reflect an entire season. Only 2 weeks ago the players were on top form, our tactics spot on and changes were influential as we put in a stellar performance against Bolton at home. Throughout the upturn in fortunes since the Kings second coming we have seen magnificent performances against Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea and Arsenal. We have pride back and we are building towards a new set up with a lot of new young blood in what will surely be a very exciting team. Nobody can expect that everything is going to click immediately and that we will be unbeatable throughout the campaign. The players will have more off days, and the manager will make mistakes, every manager does. In the grander scheme of things though there will be more good performances than bad, and more great decisions than poor ones. In the same way as we shouldn’t herald every victory as a return to greatness we should be careful not to over emphasise poor games as a sign of regression. The manager still has plenty to learn about his players and the players have a lot to learn about each other.
Tactics
There were a few decisions on the day that I found hard to interpret. Of course I am only talking about these because we suffered defeat, had the game plan worked there would be no need to think about any of these. But after seeing how the game pans out, and with the benefit of hindsight you can spot things which may have been improved if different choices had been made. I thought the decision to go with a straight 4-4-2 seemed strange, especially starting with Suarez & Carroll together for the first time in a few weeks. I felt Andy was one of our better players on the day actually so its not that i didn’t want him in the team, i felt thought if we were going with the 2 up top either Kuyt or Bellamy may have been the better option as they could drop off and become auxiliary midfielders when we lost possession. Having said that, Spurs are quite a big team these days so perhaps Kenny felt we needed Andy’s height for defending set pieces. In the end we were being over-run in the middle of the park prior to Adam’s exit. Lucas worked hard, doing what he doesn’t, but i felt he wasn’t given much help by Adam, Downing or Hendo. Of course, all three of the midfielders I just named had weak games and so perhaps an extra body wouldn’t have helped either way.
Our right hand side also seemed to be screaming out to be attacked. As mentioned before Skrtel was chosen to play out of position at right full, I presume Kenny made the decision due to Spurs quality on their left, he went with the experience of the Slovakian rather than play Flanno who is natural in the position but clearly still a bit green. That seems like a reasonable decision but the question mark for me is in advance of this position. Hendo was picked again to play right midfield, this lessened the support on offer to whichever right back was picked to play. I just want to point out, I don’t actually have any problem with Hendo, but he is still young and while he has attributes in an attacking sense he doesn’t offer much yet defensively. It seemed clear to me that whether we chose Skrtel (out of position) or Flanagan (inexperienced) Spurs were going to attack our right full back, and knowing this maybe it would have been a better idea to offer the better protection of Dirk Kuyt who would get up and down and take a bit of pressure off the full back. While i’m on the subject, i thought it was also strange that Flanno didn’t even make the bench in the end. It seems that Kenny has lost a bit of trust for him. From starting our first game of the season against Sunderland he is no out of the picture, even when he is our only fit right full. In that Sunderland game he was blamed for their goal, he lost his concentration on one or two occasions during the game but at the time i felt he would need a break but get back into the squad soon enough. The thing is, in that game he was paired on the right with Hendo, and i personally felt that his lapses in concentration were connected to the lack of support he had been offered throughout the game. I wonder if his fall has something to do with Kenny’s faith in Hendo? He knows he cant play them both together but right now it seems that he has complete faith in Hendo, which seems to mean young Flanno has to miss out.
