by Sabre » Mon Jan 01, 2007 3:55 pm
Just like Bamaga man I have seen the game late.
It was a game that I loved to watch, BTW. Lot's of things to comment, alternatives, let's start commenting.
Most of our mistakes were committed in the first 10 minutes in the match. We were lucky that the linesman got wrong a good position of De Foe. After this 10 minutes the game was under control. And it was under control because once again it was a pleasure to watch Liverpool defending. Those Barcelona fans that want to know what Xabi Alonso provides that Xavi don't must watch the game against Tottenham. He made a superb match as a defensive midfielder, he stole more than 9 balls when I stopped counting, and he helped many times our centre backs.
We are winning this kind of games because we have corrected those little mistakes of the early part of the season. When you work at a rate like Carraguer did against Tottenham, IT'S MUCH MORE LIKELY you don't concede a goal. And not starting losing is very important in this kind of games. Should Tottenham have scored, then we'd had a different game, but since we worked well they didn't.
Luis Garcia made a great match. Not because his sixth goal of the season but because he fixed their Number 3, the South Korean in his position avoiding he could go up. The number 3 of them must have had nightmares with out little Luis. We charged our game by the right wing, thus seeming that Fabio Aurelio did not much, but I think it was our tactical decission.
After the goal in the second half we stepped back just a bit and the game was under control. Tottenham fueled by a frustrated crowd, tried to go attacking and Xabi Alonso and our men gave a lesson of how to recover balls, frustating them even more. I was so happy with the performance until min 70... very proffesional. But football is about passion... and weather. A sudden burst of blizzard somehow changed the game. And the already very fast pitch due to the water, became even faster. That, with the need of Tottenham to fulfill the will of their crowd, created a momentum of madness in the game in which constant giving away of balls and counter attacks happened.
Entering in this kind of mad game was a mistake of ours because we had the game under control. In this sense I found a good idea the entering of Crouch to hold the ball a little bit more -Kuyt needs to score and you could notice that, it's good he's scored today-. Gonzalez was entered in the game to seize the gaps left by the attacking Tottenham, but we didn't know to stop the game against min 85 or so when we started to do the things properly: Gerrard discussed with Davenport stopping the game, LG made some intelligent fouls, and Alonso got the game quiet. Anyhow, we were a bit lucky because we shouldn't have allowed the game went mad.
Good victory in a difficult stadium. I'm very happy.
Last edited by
Sabre on Mon Jan 01, 2007 3:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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