Liverpool
ended the game with the league champions with a 2-2 score. To those who didn't
watch it LIVE would say the final score and considering the opponents were Man City
it was a good result. After they had learned that Skrtel practically gifted
City's equalizer, some pessimist might have commented, "same old same old Liverpool". I assured you that Liverpool
under Brendan Rodgers will come good in the years to come.
It's still early days but the
good signs are there. After so long no other Liverpool
team had started as what the gaffer did. He actually started with a very young
team. The 'interesting' Sterling
is still 17, Coates 21, we have Kelly, Borini, Lucas which was replaced by
another young player in Shelvey and Allen. City never looked like a team that
could hurt Liverpool that day.
I know the fans wants and hopes
that this time around we could finish among the top 4. The passing and pressing
brand of football that Rodgers wants to instill into the team is still far from
perfect. Yes we had a good game against City but we were not so good
against West Brom. We finished the game with
10-men with a 0-3 score line. If we were a 'perfect' team, we could still win
any game with 10-men or at least get a draw.
With the players and formation
that Rodgers used it was clearly we were on top of City from the very
beginning. Even after we lost Lucas 5 minutes into the game we never looked
troubled. Shelvey came in and did his job well. We had lost Agger even before
the game started, Coates was brilliant too!
Like I said earlier, it's still
work in progress and we do not need to get carried away. City is done, next
will be Arsenal then later it will be United. All will be played at Anfield.
I'm sure Liverpool will put a strong
performance against these top teams. In between Arsenal and United we will
travel to Sunderland. That I need to see
whether can Liverpool perform as what we
expected.
It has been Liverpool's
trait now for a couple of season, fantastic against the top teams but to
perform under-par against lesser teams. So we would not want that to keep on
happening again this season. We need to gain as many points when we play at
Anfield and hope not to drop too many points when playing away. We've dropped 3
points against West Brom and 2 points against
City at home. That's already 5 points lost.
From the games I've watched since
BR took over, I can't see what happened the previous season to happen again
this year. Yes, the team will make mistakes along the way. But deep down inside
the players will learn from it and become better and stronger.
Skrtel's header was a bullet when
he scored against City. But then he laid a 'perfect pass' to Tevez to score
City's second goal and dented Liverpool's hope
to celebrate a famous 'victory' against the Champions. I could understand
why Brendan does not want to blame Skrtel. He likes his players to 'play' the
ball and saying that it was courageous enough from Skrtel to pick the ball and
try to play it.
But as a full-international and
experienced player Skrtel should have known he could have played the ball
earlier. He thought he could take another touch but not until the very last
minute he noticed that he was closed down and decided to turn and pass the ball
to Pepe.
1. Pepe's position was to deep
and the pass was too slow.
2. Skrtel could have 3 other
options which he didn't take it early
3. His awareness - same happened
when Shane Long came from his blind-side
If he can improve on this, he can
be a better player.
They've got a good manager in
Brendan Rodgers. I know we should keep out feet firmly on the ground and do not
hope for a miracle yet. But I would not be surprised if Liverpool
finished this season very strong and qualify for the Champions League.
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