The train that Liverpool FC has been riding on since King Kenny took over the controls 2 months ago finally came to a bend in the track when Wigan Athletic came to Anfield on Saturday. Following on from a run of 4 consecutive victories in which not 1 goal had been conceded, many people expected Liverpool to steam roller Roberto Martinez’s side, that expectation of course was not based in reality. In reality we had already dropped 2 points against Wigan this season and we had not even fared that well on our previous meeting , going down 1-0. They may be lower down the league table than us but recent history shows them to be among those teams Liverpool can class as “bogey”.
Under the new management regime we have been going from strength to strength with every result and every performance seeming to be better than the last. Things had been improving so much that there was a certain sense of disappointment from many reds after this game. It was understandable i suppose but its also important to remember where we have come from to get back to this level of expectation. The result wasn’t as good as we may have hoped and the performance had dropped below what we had become accustomed to over the last few weeks but there we certain extenuating circumstances. The midweek international fixtures didn’t help, Daniel Agger for one played 90 minutes for Denmark v’s England but was unable to pull on his red shirt on Saturday. Meireles too it seems picked up a bug whilst away and had to be removed from action at half time. Dirk Kuyt, Lucas, Poulson and Glen Johnson also made big contributions for their national teams. I know certain people write off the midweek internationals feeling they shouldn’t make an impact, but i heard a statistic this week which made me think, the statistic said that Barcelona, who are the best club side in the world right now, win more than 80% of their games overall. For games immediately after internationals their win percentage drops to approximately 42%. Put simply, even Barcelona are only half as likely to win a game which comes immediately after an international week.
For the past few weeks i have been thinking of making a change from my usual Positives and Negatives article. It can be hard sometimes to come up with negatives when things are positive, and i wouldn’t want to be thinking them up just for the sake of it. Its not so hard to find a positive in a poor result though and i think that is the most important aspect of the article, so, instead of P&N I am going to try to come up with Important Points from every game instead. The format will remain much the same and at times I will focus more on negatives, the main idea is to keep a sense of perspective after each game.
IMPORTANT POINTS
Merieles’ Goal / Performance: First of all I would like to quote myself from my article following our game against Everton “Raul has really started to settle into this team and it was great to see him get his first goal in the red shirt. He has showed in similar positions a number of times this season but not managed to score so hopefully this will be the first of many. He has never really been a goalscorer throughout his career 4/5 goals a season from a deep lying midfielder would come in handy, especially this season!” I might have been wrong about the deep lying midfielder part but in fairness he has only been played in such an advanced role since Kenny took over, but following on from this comment Raul has continued in the same vein picking up great positions and showing phenomenal technique which has now seen the Portuguese star returning 5 goals from his last game. This means he has already surpassed the target expected after he netted his first goal. Not only have Raul’s goals been invaluable in terms of results they have also been great entertainment. Raul has been in flying form all over the pitch and is quickly proving that the fee of £11.5million we paid for him was superb value.
A New Star: Luis Suarez made his full debut in this game and quickly showed that he has more in common with our recently departed number 9 than simply the fact that their names sound-a-like, they also play-a-like. At one point in the first half the Uruguayan dragged the ball in the box in a way reminiscent of a certain Spaniard and with a little more luck would have seen the resulting shot nestle into the bottom right corner rather than rebounding off the post. He also went agonisingly close from a second half free kick but unfortunately the game would end without scoring his second goal for Liverpool. There was more to his game than goals however and Suarez ran his socks off for the cause showing the skill, pace and determination which is sure to make him the Kop’s new star.
Thats six games unbeaten: We may not have won this game but we didn’t lose it either. Even though our performance in this match dipped slightly we managed to hang onto our impressive run of form.
We still have players to return: We started this game with Andy Carroll, Steven Gerrard and Daniel Agger unavailable, 3 players who are pretty sure starters in our strongest 11. When these players return (or in Carroll’s place come in) to the side our 11 will stronger and so will our bench .
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