Liverpool FC Forum

Scottbot wrote:What a difference a few days can make in football eh!

What a difference scoring early can make. 0-0 vs Stoke home and away last season, score early this season and win 4-0. Makes you wonder "what if" as those two 0-0s arguably cost us the title.

A BETTER performance last night, not perfect and Stoke didn't make it that hard for us which may have as much to do with us scoring early and changing the mentality of both sides. Johnson played well, but let's not get too carried away already as some seem to be, there's playing well and there's worth £17.5m - the latter can only really be CLAIMED after we're a lot further into the season - two games maketh a season not.

Good for five different players to get on the scoresheet in the first two games, shame some of those anonymous players from Sunday didn't have the same kind of game they did last night, where was the Gerrard of last night, Torres, Kuyt etc? And their route-one rout-ine didn't trouble us much at all, I did think they might test Insua and Ayala a bit more but thankfully they didn't have enough in them or were too shaken by our early goal.

I can't help but think how different it might be had we played better on Sunday, or not played spudz first up. While 4-0 is great, and 0-1 to the mancs just as pleasing, you do have to feel somewhat disappointed we've won so comfortably having played so poorly and lost the previous game. I'm sure I'm not alone in being willing to take a 1-0 in last night's game in exchange for a replay of Sunday's. Maybe we can write to the FA and say it was a manc plot, our players were kidnapped and lookalikes fielded in their stead. The way most played Sunday you do have to wonder if that isn't plausible.

Good win, we need to keep it up. Win, win, win and then win and put pressure on the mancs and hopefully Chelsea. Neither of those two has played anyone yet, I'd have expected most top four sides to win against Hull, Sunderland, Burnley and Brum. Only 1-0 over brum, 0-1 vs Burnley and the mancs no doubt still think winning the league is a foregone concluison with or without Ronaldo. Bottom line is HE would have at very least scored the penalty that Carrick (why did he take it?!?!) missed, dived for a couple more and probably created two or three other opportunities including a free-kick or two that would have probably seen them home in the past. The notion they "won't miss Ronaldo" is BS of the highest order, you don't take a free-kick and penalty machine who scores you 20-30 goals from midfield out of the side and expect nothing to be different. At the very least the pressure is on the rest of their side to score more and contribute more individually.

Funniest claim I've read and heard by mancs is "Rooney is the new Ronaldo" - is that except Rooney goes missing in the little games not the big ones...............? 

Bad Bob wrote:Now that's more like it!   Some really fine performances and a special mention to Reina for a fantastic save at a crucial time.  We did not need to let them back into the game right after the re-start.  The worry was how flat we seemed for the mid-part of the first half.  But, the lads grew in composure as the 2nd half progressed and started to look much more like the Liverpool of last season.  Johnson looks like he's been playing in front of the Kop for years and credit to the lad Ayala for keeping his cool and doing his job well. 

Tim LFC wrote:We'll wipe the floor with a much weaker and unsettled Villa squad compared to last year! I'm going 3-1 to us!

Reg wrote:Lets not forget we gave away FAR too many free kicks in what should have been dangerous positions.

Reg wrote:Lets not forget we gave away FAR too many free kicks in what should have been dangerous positions.

Good point. Wonder what the stats were on that - maybe Joe Terp has that on the tip of his tongue 

On another note, when are we going to figure out how to take a bloody corner kick ? Dunno how many wasted balls there were last nite from corners, most not even beating the first man....