by Sabre » Tue Jan 20, 2009 12:20 am
Sometimes when we talk about a football match, we talk about the tactics, about the substitutions, and often we rate the players depending the result. The heroes are more heroes, and the villains more villains.
But in a derby, little of these things count. It's all about passion. And I watched a great derby today. Not very good football, but that's not what you can expect in a derby. So it didn't matter that Moyes was doing a valiant approach at Anfield, because in a derby, at any momment Gerrard can appear with a touch of genius to destroy all your work. It didn't matter Rafa picked the best eleven (or almost) and the subs he made, because at the end a decission of your player and a poor defended set pieces destroys all your plan.
A derby is a derby.
Regardless the result, for me today there were two heroes, Gerrard, and Reina. Gerrard, it's obvious why. About the saves of Reina in the early minutes of the match, the difficulty of those saves are only reachable for the likes of Reina or Casillas. Very very difficult saves.
Alonso did a good match for a derby, I feared for his foot in a couple of challenges, and for his head, but those were signs he was with the necessary attitude for a Derby.
Very angry how we conceded that goal. We defended that set pieces badly. Skrtel was at fault I think and Reina was angry the ball went just through the gap he left after correcting the 2 man wall. We shouldn't have conceded that foul there, there are times where it's best to hold position and wait for help and not to tackle and this one of those, I have to admit though that it was difficult to stop their black player (I don't know the name sorry), he was powerful, but I think that was an avoidable situation.
Torres game? a bit rusty in general. In the clear chance he had, though, that was a difficult one. He injected the pace, he was faster than the ball, and he "ate" the ball a bit due that pace and eventually only had the chance to try to score from where he did. No luck.
I must give credit to Everton because they played the derby well. I liked that Pienaar or something they have. I didn't know him.
Dissapointed by the result and how we conceded, but I trust in this guys despite the 8 draws at home.
COME ON REDS!
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