Liverpool FC Forum

No Christmas card for Balo from Sturridge !!

mario good penalty very soft foul but who cares

Superb, not convinced that it was a penalty but who gives a f*ck.

Bizarre scenes with Sturridge absolutely doing his nut at Balo and Henderson.

Great pen anyway.

Far from our most fluid performance but a great win. I hope Brendan sorts out any bad feeling immediately, need some unity for the run in.

Gerrard is fuming over the penalty.

He's basically said Henderson should have taken it and that should be that.

Gerrard is right.

However... with Balotelli's penalty record and in big games too you've got to ask why Rodgers named Henderson as penalty taker. If Balotelli is on the pitch he should be second only to Stevie in taking pens.

JC_81 » Thu Feb 19, 2015 10:13 pm wrote:Gerrard is right.

However... with Balotelli's penalty record and in big games too you've got to ask why Rodgers named Henderson as penalty taker. If Balotelli is on the pitch he should be second only to Stevie in taking pens.

Yep, might still not be certain about his confidence levels, I get the feeling Hendo felt the same as you.

It was a crazy risk to take, if he'd missed it he would have been crucified. But he didn't and we move on.

BTW ITVs post-match coverage is far, far too short, why do that?

I have no problem with Mario taking penalties. However, I'm having doubts about Henderson being our future captain.

No true captain would let themselves be pushed aside by another player. Can anyone see Gerrard, Carra or Hyypia doing so?

Hendo nor Sturridge should have taken the penalty but I agree BR should have made the call not Mario.
Pretty frustrating with this game could have gone much easier if it wasn't for so many egoistic plays...I thought we were over such selfish display but i guess Brandon needs to regroup the lads.
Ibe my man of the match really unstoppable ,Sakho and Allen very good and calm with very accurate forward passing ,Moreno with good involvement and runs as well...on the other hand Can Daniel and Coutinho pretty terrible..Hendo again a lot of effort but breaks so many plays due to lack of quality...good win gonna be a battle in Istanbul...btw Anfield was pretty quite at least on the tv.

Well that wasn't our brightest performance but at least we won. I was hoping that we can get a few goals advantage but make no mistake, Besiktas are no mugs and it was a good win for us.

Wasn't happy with the penalty incident. Most would fault Balo but I'm on his side for this one. Yes, maybe Brendan picked Hendo to take a pen should it come to that but since Balo was on, it was really a no-brainer that he should be taking the pen. In the club, Balo is probably only second to Gerrard for taking penalties. Sturridge is a bad penalty taker and I don't remember seeing Hendo ever take one so I have no idea how they couldn't see that Balo was the best option despite the manager's words before the match. At the end though, Hendo did the right thing at the end didn't make a huge meal out of it in the end, unlike Sturridge, who should be ashamed of himself.

7_Kewell » Fri Feb 20, 2015 12:25 am wrote:I have no problem with Mario taking penalties. However, I'm having doubts about Henderson being our future captain.

No true captain would let themselves be pushed aside by another player. Can anyone see Gerrard, Carra or Hyypia doing so?

That's a somewhat stupid thing to say. Yeah, he shouldn't have been pushed aside, he should have given the ball to Balo himself! Hendo has never taken a pen, Sturridge is a bad penalty taker and Balo has a fantastic record in scoring (important) pens. Balo was by far the best option and Hendo as a captain should have seen that right away instead of looking like a Stevie G wannabe.

Besiktas are a dour defensive team managed by a former rough neck and streetwise defender Bilic, I rate him though.

Nobody batters Besiktas as they don't take risks so 1-0 is a good result, score there and we are through basically.

For one Henderson should not be on pens and certainly not when Balotelli is on the pitch so that's a screw up by Rodgers.

Henderson will be embarrassed by tonight's events and frankly the lad shouldn't be put in a position he cannot handle, he is never
captain material in a million years.

We have been so poor in Europe you are just waiting for the axe to fall and just nabbed it tonight after great work by the impressive Ibe
and a reckless tackler by the Besiktas defender.

I was actually praying that Mario would stick to his guns and refuse to hand the ball over to Hendo or Sturridge, I had no confidence in either of those 2 putting it away. Hendo just looked like he really didn't fancy it and Danny was having one of those games where a penalty miss looked on the cards.
Even aside from the pen I thought Mario did really well when he came on, some of his hold up play was top drawer. Ibe was the star of the show though.
We weren't at our best tonight but never the less we won, kept another clean sheet and kept our decent run going so all in all it wasn't too bad.

Can't not talk about that brilliant one on one save by mignolet against the sheep...