Bolton v Liverpool Post Match Thread

[scully]

Of course it doesn't, but he's always been a favourite of mine just for his real genuine commitment to the red shirt. Far too often in the last couple of decades we've had players out there more concerned with their hair styles than with giving blood, sweat and tears for the cause. I understand that a lot of fans thought over the last season or so that just giving 100% effort wasn't enough, but with him now contributing goals, and more so, looking confident in front of goal, making intelligent runs into the box, having a good game awareness to feed others in and around the area, and even having seeingly improved his ball control and general distribution, he's becoming a very important part of a winning side, and proving a lot of people wrong at the same time. You can't fault him as a man and its getting a lot harder to fault him as a footballer, long may that continue I say

Great post.

[rage]

kuyt is a different player from last season, shame keane is too!

good away win but this is not the same fat sam bolton. also thought their goal on a different day would have been given.

we really need to score more when we're on top, it'll put an end to the spurs type result that yesterday could have been.

just glad its mid november and we're still up there. torres not playing much may work in our favour, he'll get stronger as the season goes on as he'll be fresher. i'd also like to think that keane can't get any worse in front of goal.

[Leyton388]

Kuyt is now looking like the player he was in holland and is now looking like the goal scorer he once was

[andyhanrahan]

thought hyypia looked past it today. gardner ran past him like he wasnt there and all he seemed to do was jog after him. He didnt even seem to win most of the ball in the air either from boltons set pieces it was either carragher or agger. Was a legend now looks well past it.

[brightred]

thought hyypia looked past it today. gardner ran past him like he wasnt there and all he seemed to do was jog after him. He didnt even seem to win most of the ball in the air either from boltons set pieces it was either carragher or agger. Was a legend now looks well past it.

He was the same on Wednesday against Spurs. Against a better team than Bolton we could have been punished because of his lack of pace.

Sad to see.

[slimbimjim]

Here's something to make you all laugh -

"Liverpool never ripped us apart. We started with (Fabrice) Muamba in midfield, we tried to take the heart-beat away from Liverpool, and Gerrard did not do anything until they scored."

Was he asleep during the match? We could have won that 7-0 mate.

[RedReet]

Anyone notice that Kuyt's first touch has been immense lately?

His first touch has always been good. Because people read so much it was bad, they jumped on the bandwagon. Likewise, although he's no Olympic sprinter, but he isn't the slowest player in the world either. Like any player, when out of form his touch could be a bit heavy, and that's what most people most choose to remember.

Just look at the many cross field balls get played to him during a game. A strange tactic for someone with such poor control???

Ditto.

Another Alonso masterclass today but Kuyt continues to grow. The guy's renaissance has been beautiful to witness. He is a threat and one of our key players; striking the ball so cleanly and powerfully, and a fantastic header for the goal...something I've not seen in his locker before.

So happy to be proven wrong over Dirk. He must've known his position in the team was under threat and he's risen to the challenge. Fantastic.

Kuyt always had this in his locker. There was plenty of evidence of this during his first season. Like yesterday though, the woodwork was his enemy and he should have had a lot more goals. Unfortunately for Kuyt, when it was hoped he would kick on in his second season, he obviously had the problems with his father affecting him, then struggled to find form.

As mentioned pre-season, I don't think his position was ever under threat, he's probably first name on every team sheet.


[QUOTE=rage;1210355]kuyt is a different player from last season, shame keane is too!


Kuyt has just continued the form he showed towards the end of last year. Only difference is he added a few more goals.

[Mark79]

Kuyt has just continued the form he showed towards the end of last year. Only difference is he added a few more goals.

Scoring more goals makes for a huge difference though doesn't it.

Not knocking the positive aspects of his performances last season but an increased strike rate is a massive improvement in form for any player, surely!

[SB]

LOL Megson think they should have had a pen when their goal was wiped off LOL

Megson's reaction was a laugh. I know that Keepers seem to be overprotected at times but when two guys aren't going for the ball but just trying to impede the keepers movement to get to the ball, that;s a friggin joke. Right decision IMO.

[RedReet]

Scoring more goals makes for a huge difference though doesn't it.

Not knocking the positive aspects of his performances last season but an increased strike rate is a massive improvement in form for any player, surely!

Of course it does, but my point is that it’s only now that he’s scoring the goals that people appreciate his whole contribution to the team, not just his goal scoring.

To 99% of people, he was still too slow, still had a bad touch, couldn’t score and was useless in midfield (just because he was bought as a striker). Now that he’s scoring, it’s funny how these other things suddenly aren’t as bad?

[Craig_H]

Of course it does, but my point is that it’s only now that he’s scoring the goals that people appreciate his whole contribution to the team, not just his goal scoring.

To 99% of people, he was still too slow, still had a bad touch, couldn’t score and was useless in midfield (just because he was bought as a striker). Now that he’s scoring, it’s funny how these other things suddenly aren’t as bad?

But of course they're not as bad IF he's scoring - because the whole point is that being slow, having a bad touch and not being a good finisher, would usually have a negative impact on his ability to score. If he IS scoring goals, then of course the other stuff doesnt matter.

That's the whole point.

[RedReet]

But my point is that he isn’t that slow, doesn’t have a poor touch and isn’t a bad finisher.

I don’t get what your ‘whole point’ is in relation to me???

[Shaggy]

Everything about his game has improved. It's not "just goals" ffs. His touch has improved immeasurably from the latter part of last season onwards. For a long time he was Mr Two Touch - first touch followed by a sliding tackle. Haven't seen that for a while. He is playing far, far better now than this time last season and it's a lot more than goals.

[dww]

Everything about his game has improved. It's not "just goals" ffs. His touch has improved immeasurably from the latter part of last season onwards. For a long time he was Mr Two Touch - first touch followed by a sliding tackle. Haven't seen that for a while. He is playing far, far better now than this time last season and it's a lot more than goals.

I think that is very true.

I think there is an aspect here that people who have supported him when he was playing less well are going overboard in defending aspects of his game that have changed. I take you point that a lot of the time last season Kuyt was not taking the ball well but I think he was over criticised for it then in that he was more inconsistent with his touch than universally awful. Last year there were some people that would have a go at him no matter what he did. A lot of people who thought they saw something worth persevering with feel vindicated.

I do think that those who said that the problem was confidence with Kuyt have been shown to be correct. Now that he has started a new season clear in his role in the team and without worries over his father or previous poor form he has started to show the touches that I have liked since he arrived more often and in more productive areas.

He has also benefited from the fact that Riera spreads our midfield more giving him more room to come inside without compressing play too much.

At the start of the season I worried that at times the Kuyt-Arbeloa right side combination played into the weaknesses of both players but as the season has gone on the willingness of Arbeloa (and on Saturday Carragher) to go past Kuyt keeping width has shown this fear to be unfounded.

If Babel can learn a little bit from both Riera and Kuyt then he would be doing well. He really couldn't ask for two better role models as both have worked hard on aspects of their game to get to the stage where now they can genuinely be considered some of the seasons top PL performers.

[RedReet]

But we’re not talking about form, we’re talking about ability. People labelled Kuyt as having no touch etc. etc etc. etc. on the few months he was playing bad, ignoring his years in Holland, the good matches he had in his first season and any decent performances that appeared during his bad run. They refused to accept that he was anything more than a workhorse, regardless of what he did on the pitch

I’m confident that if Kuyt wasn’t scoring the goals he was or if we weren’t sitting top, then we’d still have to listen to the same old Kuyt clichés, even though they’re not true and he would be one of the first players most would want replaced. The fact that he performed so well towards the end of last season yet almost everyone excluded him from their predicted teams for the season is evidence of this.

This is a pointless argument, but all I hope for is that when we either start dropping points or Dirks form tapers off a bit (as it inevitably will) then people analyse his performance and form opinions on his performance rather than spout out the same old boring clichés.