Everton v Liverpool

[G-Dragon]

Bitterness is strong on this one.

 

[allouso]

Pretty static performance from our part, but that was more down to Everton's rigid formation.

Rodgers made a mistake by taking off Coutinho instead of Gerrard. Other than that I thought Ibe and Can were excellent.

 

[Smudge]

Pretty static performance from our part, but that was more down to Everton's rigid formation.

Rodgers made a mistake by taking off Coutinho instead of Gerrard. Other than that I thought Ibe and Can were excellent.

Best summing up from a Kopite Ive seen yet. I was surprised it was Coutinho who came off too, as the way our defence has been playing last couple of games, I never really felt you were going to break through, but Coutinho can do one little thing to find a gap sometimes. Think Rodgers maybe relying too much on Gerrard's past in this fixture to bail him out?

We've played this formation against Liverpool in both games, and it has worked well, but something has always spoiled it. At Anfield, I thought we were the better side until Mirallas went off injured, and then as we didnt have any other winger with his kind of pace to keep it working as effectively, we faded without him. Same pretty much happened yesterday. Im not sure why Lennon didnt start, match fitness or whatnot, or Martinez knowing that Naismith is a big game player for us and didnt want to leave him out, but I think we'd have been better starting Lennon in place of Naismith yesterday. Having that pace on both wings would have given us more options, as I thought Mirallas was terrible last night. We never really started using that width until Lennon came on, and then again when we changed the formation to bring on Barkley and push Oviedo forward. Going forward, Lukaku was far too often isolated against 3 centre halves, and even when he got the better of one, as he did when he robbed Sakho, there was always another defender closer to him to win it back as Skrtel did, rather than another of our forwards for him to pass it to.

Still, our defence is the most important thing. Unless we had scored a late equaliser to get a draw, I think a 0-0 will have done us more good than say a 1-1 or 2-2 might have done. Our defence has been so awful this season, before this 3 clean sheets in a row, we had only kept 3 in the League all season! So you can see where our problems lie and why we're so low down. Its the defence we've had to work on to make things better. In our last 8 games, we lost the first 4 in a row to Southampton, Stoke, Newcastle and Hull, conceding 9 goals. In the 4 games since then, we have drawn 3 and won 1 conceding only once to Man City. Its progress, and even without Baines last night, the defence were still excellent. Thats where we've needed to rebuild and start being solid again, and I expect something similar at Chelsea on Wednesday. We're back in Europe and have a home game with Leicester after that in our next 3, so maybe that will do us good to take the pressure off.

 

[Arkan]

Well that was an awful game. We set up to stifle Liverpool and apart from them hitting the post they never looked anything special and after beating 10 man Bolton who had a centre back playing as striker I thought Liverpool would come here and play us off the park.

On a more positive note that's our third clean sheet in a row and considering our abysmal defensive record that is pleasing to see. Great to see McCarthy back in the team and play 90 minutes.

 

[G-Dragon]

I think Coutinho was taken off because he was getting tired (has played played a lot of games without break) and took a heavy knock in first half. But I agree Gerrard was useless, and so was Rodger's boyfriend. Rodgers should probably have put Can in midfield and brought on Lovren when lucas went off injured. Overall, we drew a game where we could have easily gotten 3 points due to injuries and Rodger's tactical (and sentimental) issues...happens.

 

[Smally]

McCarthy was superb in the first half, but I think Martinez could have done more with his subs. Naismith wasn't having a good game going forward and I thought Lennon should have come on for him instead of Mirallas, as Smudge said having pace on both wings would have helped us much more on the break. Barkley has been awful recently and was rightly taken out of the team but he created our best chance and was the one player who could put the ball in behind Liverpool's defence. I thought he should have come on at the same time as Lennon, or for at least the last 20 minutes instead of 5.

The 4-3-3 we played was done to counter Liverpool's offensive 3-4-3. We really struggled holding on to the ball in attack and Gareth Barry had a shocker with ball. Naismith at times played almost like an extra midfielder and was too deep to threaten Liverpool. As others have said, the defence was solid and limited Liverpool to half chances. A draw was the fair result, and I was very relieved when Coutinho went off, I can only assume he was injured as he was Liverpool's chief creator

 

[johnnytodd]

Probably one of the worst teams we've had played at home thus far. Liverpool are a very long way from a top 6 club. Hull played better football when they came here. Will take a point at this stage of the season as we are in our worst run of form for some years.

Had the best chance of the game created by an out of form Ross Barkley and should have won it really. Liverpool huffed and puffed but were pretty dire to be honest, Countinho is the only real quality in a pretty negative average team.

 

[smat]

Emre Can has well and truly settled in now. He's looked really good in both games this week.

 

[Pagnell]

Loving some of the posts in this thread. Everton fans desperately trying to take something away from their team not having a shot on target until four minutes from full time and setting out from the first minute for a draw. At home. Superb ambition. At least we tried to win.

 

[Smudge]

Yeah, wish we'd gone all gung ho and got smashed 4-0 like we did at Anfield last season...MARTINEZ OUT THE NEGATIVE TWAT!

 

[Stevencc]

Warring factions, stand down. I'll settle this.

Liverpool as a city should be forced to apologise for the hour and a half of tepid, boring shite that they subjected the rest of the country to yesterday.

 

[johnnytodd]

Loving some of the posts in this thread. Everton fans desperately trying to take something away from their team not having a shot on target until four minutes from full time and setting out from the first minute for a draw. At home. Superb ambition. At least we tried to win.

Could be worse we could desperately try and think we are still a big club......mmm

 

[Pagnell]

Yeah, wish we'd gone all gung ho and got smashed 4-0 like we did at Anfield last season...MARTINEZ OUT THE NEGATIVE TWAT!

Yeah, because there are only two options eh? Balls out or defending like you're playing Barcelona.

If Moyes was the manager yesterday you for one would be giving him shit for the complete lack of ambition and don't pretend otherwise.

 

[EvertonPaul]

The Barry, Besic, McCarthy trio never really worked in the sense that there wasn't enough attacking impetus. Not really sure how Barry stays on for as long as he does, but I'm taking a positive in another clean sheet for Joel.

 

[johnnytodd]

Some Liverpool fans are taking this draw really bad, on the bright side Lambert looked fresh

 

[Arkan]

Loving some of the posts in this thread. Everton fans desperately trying to take something away from their team not having a shot on target until four minutes from full time and setting out from the first minute for a draw. At home. Superb ambition. At least we tried to win.

Are you insinuating Everton didn't try to win? If so then that is a preposterous thing to say.

 

[EvertonPaul]

Jordan Henderson and Steven Gerrard, the midfield enforcers, clocked up a combined 2 tackles and 0 fouls yesterday.

 

[G-Dragon]

Apart from Everton fans everyone knows Liverpool were the better team and the only team trying to actually win the game.

 

[Smally]

How were Liverpool better? Last time I checked you don't win games by not scoring goals. Just because Liverpool had more shots doesn't equate to being better - being better would be by scoring more goals than the opposition, not missing more chances

 

[G-Dragon]

You WIN by scoring goals, yes, but you can be the BETTER team even if you don't.

 

[Smally]

Are you better than someone in a game if you don't score past them though? I don't think so

 

[Bilo]

When you talk about the better and worse team in matches, you can not disregard the result but it usually just comes down to personal criterias. But the bottom line for me, yesterday, is that Everton were more successful in their approach than we were. Lucas limping off didn't help at all, neither did the nostalgical shoehorning to fit Gerrard in.

 

[SALTIRE]

How were Liverpool better? Last time I checked you don't win games by not scoring goals. Just because Liverpool had more shots doesn't equate to being better - being better would be by scoring more goals than the opposition, not missing more chances

Simple, they were trying to win the game, Everton were set up to be happy with a point before the match the cheeky little scamps.

 

[Bilo]

Simple, they were trying to win the game, Everton were set up to be happy with a point before the match the cheeky little scamps.

And who would you say succeeded?

 

[SALTIRE]

And who would you say succeeded?

Very much so, but its supposed to go against Martinez's belief that all his teams should play like Barca.

 

[Bilo]

Your answer made absolutely no sense.

 

[Smally]

Simple, they were trying to win the game, Everton were set up to be happy with a point before the match the cheeky little scamps.

I disagree, as I said earlier Everton's ball retention in attack was very poor. We played a system to combat the numerical advantage Livepool's system can have in attack. Had Everton been able to hold onto the ball better in attack then it would have looked a lot different, however Naismith & Mirallas were both really poor and Lukaku was often isolated. When you say "tried to win the game" is that because Liverpool had loads more shots at goal? Because there are many ways to set up to win a game. Liverpool in the end didn't create many obvious scoring chances because of how Everton set up, and Everton in the end had the best chance in the whole game. So your logic is flawed on that

 

[SALTIRE]

Your answer made absolutely no sense.

Yeah I didn't read your answer correctly at first, I thought you said 'and would you think he succeeded?' and I tailored my answer to that Bilo - must be going blind in my old age!

I disagree, as I said earlier Everton's ball retention in attack was very poor. We played a system to combat the numerical advantage Livepool's system can have in attack. Had Everton been able to hold onto the ball better in attack then it would have looked a lot different, however Naismith & Mirallas were both really poor and Lukaku was often isolated. When you say "tried to win the game" is that because Liverpool had loads more shots at goal? Because there are many ways to set up to win a game. Liverpool in the end didn't create many obvious scoring chances because of how Everton set up, and Everton in the end had the best chance in the whole game. So your logic is flawed on that

I thought Naismith's pressing and workrate caused Liverpool a lot of grief in trying to play out from the back, though he and Lukaku didn't create a thing going forward. Everton didn't work to create anything throughout the game, and that chance only came to them because of poor defending from Liverpool as you'll always get a chance when you play them even if they have tightened up at the back latterly. A fair few Liverpool moves created good chances, but whether it was down to poor passing to others to finish chances, or rushing it, they came to nothing, though Ibe's shot was very unlucky it didn't result in a goal for the lad tbh. Liverpool were by far the better side, but that sharpness wasn't there and that's how they didn't go on to win the game. On another day they would have won by 3 or 4.

 

[Destruction]

Hi guys, does it matter, night.

 

[allouso]

Best summing up from a Kopite Ive seen yet. I was surprised it was Coutinho who came off too, as the way our defence has been playing last couple of games, I never really felt you were going to break through, but Coutinho can do one little thing to find a gap sometimes. Think Rodgers maybe relying too much on Gerrard's past in this fixture to bail him out?

We've played this formation against Liverpool in both games, and it has worked well, but something has always spoiled it. At Anfield, I thought we were the better side until Mirallas went off injured, and then as we didnt have any other winger with his kind of pace to keep it working as effectively, we faded without him. Same pretty much happened yesterday. Im not sure why Lennon didnt start, match fitness or whatnot, or Martinez knowing that Naismith is a big game player for us and didnt want to leave him out, but I think we'd have been better starting Lennon in place of Naismith yesterday. Having that pace on both wings would have given us more options, as I thought Mirallas was terrible last night. We never really started using that width until Lennon came on, and then again when we changed the formation to bring on Barkley and push Oviedo forward. Going forward, Lukaku was far too often isolated against 3 centre halves, and even when he got the better of one, as he did when he robbed Sakho, there was always another defender closer to him to win it back as Skrtel did, rather than another of our forwards for him to pass it to.

Still, our defence is the most important thing. Unless we had scored a late equaliser to get a draw, I think a 0-0 will have done us more good than say a 1-1 or 2-2 might have done. Our defence has been so awful this season, before this 3 clean sheets in a row, we had only kept 3 in the League all season! So you can see where our problems lie and why we're so low down. Its the defence we've had to work on to make things better. In our last 8 games, we lost the first 4 in a row to Southampton, Stoke, Newcastle and Hull, conceding 9 goals. In the 4 games since then, we have drawn 3 and won 1 conceding only once to Man City. Its progress, and even without Baines last night, the defence were still excellent. Thats where we've needed to rebuild and start being solid again, and I expect something similar at Chelsea on Wednesday. We're back in Europe and have a home game with Leicester after that in our next 3, so maybe that will do us good to take the pressure off.

Most definitely, and he's doing that a lot this season.

I wouldn't say it's costing us fourth, but Rodgers is proving to be too sentimental.