Football: half-way point

[Mexal]

3 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Beautiful counter-attack.

Worse defense. Mustafi let him turn twice for no reason and Saka barely limped back when he could have easily engaged. It was fine, but heavily aided bu incompetence. Just don’t understand how it’s always the same and they don’t drill them on how to break up a counter.

[Iskaral Pust]

LFC starting XI vs Wolves: Alisson, Alexander-Arnold, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson, Henderson, Wijnaldum, Lallana, Mane, Salah, Firmino  

Subs: Adrian, Williams, Milner, Keita, Elliott, Jones, Origi

Shaqiri is out with a muscle strain, so not available for what should have been a guaranteed start for him.  That’s five current injuries (Matip, Lovren, Fabinho, Ox, Shaqiri); six if you count Nathaniel Clyne.  
I’m concerned that we’re not rotating more, especially up front where Origi could come in.  I hope we don’t end up regretting that. 

[Consigliere]

The lesson of Benfica and Porto is that if you want to be a successful feeder club then you need to get into bed with the most powerful and influential football agent i.e. Jorge Mendes. He will make the club a shit load of money while having replacements lined up as well.

[Rorshach]

2 hours ago, Raja said:

Hah - y'all looked better with Delph on!

That's true, but Delph is recently back from an injury and played 90 minutes against Burnley. Starting him would be courting disaster, methinks.

[polishgenius]

Wolves clearly treating the Watford game as the more winnable one, resting four players today, which is a shame coz I wanted to see Liverpool's defence get Traore'd.

[Iskaral Pust]

3 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Wolves clearly treating the Watford game as the more winnable one, resting four players today, which is a shame coz I wanted to see Liverpool's defence get Traore'd.

I think it’s more likely that they plan to bring on Traore and Jiménez for the last 30 minutes when Liverpool’s legs will be giving out.  Whereas Liverpool seem to be betting on grabbing some early goals. 

[polishgenius]

2 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I think it’s more likely that they plan to bring on Traore and Jiménez for the last 30 minutes when Liverpool’s legs will be giving out.

That's probably true and there aren't many more devastating subs to bring on against tired legs than Traore.

[Consigliere]

Birmingham City vs. Leeds was fucking nuts. Great game. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Liverpool are creating more chances but Wolves are pretty well organized.   They like to defend deep and counter. 

[kairparavel]

38 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

I'm not convinced that Salah could even manage to hit a cow's arse with a banjo at the moment.

http://idiom-a-day.blogspot.com/2014/01/couldnt-hit-cows-arse-with-banjo.html?m=1

I learn so much here. 

[Mark Antony]

The good and the bad of var within 5 minutes. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Very glad that offside meant some sloppy defending wasn’t punished. The VAR check on our goal seemed to disrupt our rhythm and focus as play restarted. 

[ljkeane]

Hmm, from a Liverpool point of view I'm glad that goal was ruled out but being consistent I'm not convinced that offside decision wasn't within the margin of error of the available technology. The Mane goal was a pretty clear cut wrong decision from the ref.

 

[Iskaral Pust]

As much as we all focus on VAR, the officials got both calls wrong initially.  And the Mane goal being disallowed would have been egregious.  Perhaps the linesman can be excused because it’s a very tight call and he knows he should let it go and have VAR check afterward. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Adama Traore on against tired legs as expected.  I hope we’ll be seeing Keita, Milner and Origi soon. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Liverpool’s tiredness is showing throughout the team.  Everything is less sharp.  I’m very surprised that Wolves aren’t showing more fatigue themselves. 

[ljkeane]

Not a great performance from Liverpool. Perhaps fatigue and a bit of a come down from the big game against the team in second factored into it but I thought Wolves set up pretty well to frustrate Liverpool. The wingbacks plus split strikers really made it hard for Liverpool to use their standard cross field balls between the fullbacks in possession. There's been a lot of talk about how important the fullbacks are to how Liverpool play but not a lot of teams do anything about it.

[Iskaral Pust]

It’s a relief to see out that win.  We had a large majority of possession, and we had the majority of chances for the first 60-70 minutes, but we missed some good chances to build a better cushion.  Wolves eventually had shots but not much of danger until very late.

That’s a tough opponent when our players are so tired.  I’m surprised Wolves had better energy, but their defensive shape also helped them to absorb and eventually counter. 

[Iskaral Pust]

City have rotated very little for their game too, although Aguero, KDB and Mahrez all came off early against Wolves.  

[Consigliere]