NOT A HUGE FAN OF SIX O'CLOCK AS A KICK-OFF TIME. 6pm:
It’s sort of in the way, particularly for a fella that is horrendously
meticulous about what time he eats his evening meal. Six is cooking/eating
time, not footy time. I’ll never get used to it, and probably won’t have to.
Frankly, I don’t want to get used to it, if this is the
type of football it produces.
I went to bed in a horrible mood about this one. Having
slept on it, I haven’t really changed my mind.
The Reds’ thinking is all wrong. You don’t defend a 1-0
first leg lead by sitting men behind the ball and constantly clearing the ball
long. Not in my opinion anyway. You see a game out by controlling it, keeping
the ball, scoring another. Front foot, always. We score one, they need three.
Okay, if Sturridge tucks his chance away, neatly played
in Balotelli, we get that goal. Everything seems great. Rodgers right again.
But after we miss that chance, particularly in the second half, we retract into
our shells. Don’t do that; go and kill it off.
Mario is undoubtedly the brightest of our front three,
although even he is only occasionally involved. That says a lot. Sturridge and
Sterling do nothing but get dispossessed all night, but what do you expect? The
three Reds are left to fend for themselves in attack; made to feed off hopeful (or
hopeless) punts forward from the back, often up against five or six hungry
Besiktas lads. It frustrates me when people are so quick to berate players
without any holistic regard for the type of game they’re playing in. Like I
said, the front three were left to play their own game of football; our other
seven outfield lads weren’t really interested.
Besiktas are a decent football team. But they are just
that: decent. Well organised,
industrious and tidy. A number seven that shimmers and really has something
about him, like most sevens. I refuse to believe they’re as good as people keep
telling me though. They’re not Barcelona; yet we very much played against them
like they were. We made Besiktas into Barca.
The crucial point for me is this: if we are playing a
team equal to Besiktas’ level in domestic football on a Saturday or Sunday
afternoon, our mindset is flipped on its head. We’re taking the iniative; playing
with adventure; playing devoid of fear. Our idea is very much to win the game;
not just to avoid defeat. I reckon we win the game 2-0, maybe three.
At the moment, we have a problem with Europe. Brendan
Rodgers has a problem with Europe. A mental block. Philosophies are thrown out
of the window; all the rhetoric of football full of courage and personality in
possession forgotten. We’re getting that at the moment in the Premier League,
so why not on the European stage?
Predictably then, the positives come at the back for
Liverpool. Martin Skrtel continues his good form, dealing with near enough
everything that comes his way. To his right, Kolo Toure does well enough,
slotting seamlessly back in. Obviously kept his African Nations Cup
celebrations to a minimum – ever the professional.
Alberto Moreno is all over the place, in a good way. An
irrepressible bundle of energy and probably our best player on the night.
You probably won’t believe me here. I don’t really care;
your choice. But I say to my mate after about 100 minutes, penalties already
inevitable, that Lovren will put his name down and balloon his. We laugh our
heads off.
We shouldn’t have laughed. Turns out Dejan Lovren does
think he’s better at footy than he is. Outrageous. Ah well, at least he stepped
up. How much money do you want again, Raheem?
Nothing football match that. Absolutely nothing. I did
remarkably well to squeeze 636 words from it.
You’d hope the City game on Sunday might be better, and
you’d hope the real Reds resurface. The returns of Sakho and Hendo won’t half
help. Hopefully they both recover in time. Coutinho, rested last night, will be
key.
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