Espanyol v Liverpool FC - Match & Post-match

[Guest]

Anyone else think we might have made a massive mistake letting Arbeloa leave? Whilst I am an admirer of Glen Johnson's attacking capabilities his defending last night reminded me just how bad he can be, and Degen was absolutely out of his depth. RB is a really worrying position IMHO.

Both full backs didn't have great games, I mean Degen and Johnson. Degen and Johnson are IMO, good going forward and sloppy in their positional defensive play. I expect them to improve throughout the course of the season. Degen showed glimpses of what he can do on an offensive front but he needs to cement a regular place in the side for him to improve. If he's in and out of the team, I doubt we'll ever see the best of him. So that might be interesting to see.

[Tee]

Clearly Espanyol were 'on it' and wanted to win their first game in the new stadium, however we should be looking a touch sharper tbh and I was disappointed at some of those unbelievably bad tackles we were making. That won't do our reputation and winning new fans much good, especially given that it is a friendly game.

[Cormack74]

I know it's only pre-season, but that was some of the most aimless passing I can remember watching from a Liverpool team.

[Guest]

I know it's only pre-season, but that was some of the most aimless passing I can remember watching from a Liverpool team.

If it were aimless I doubt it was actually passing.

Have you actually seen Gerrard's clay pigeon shooting? That was pretty impressive and he tried that after two minutes yesterday but without the desired effect.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6IcLXzwwEs"]YouTube - Gerrard - Clay Pigeons Â[/ame]

[DannyMan2006]

Against St. Gallen and Rapid Vienna the perfomances could be tolerated as we had only just started pre-season and were way behind in fitness to those teams.

We have been back in training two weeks longer than Espanyol, yet they looked fitter than us. I can only hope that Rafa had been working them like he was in Swiss/Austria because that would partly explain the lethargic performance.

But there is a reason you can't bet on friendly games. And ours and Spurs results are perfect examples of this.

[RedReet]

Really thought we'd destroy them yesterday.


Thank God I'm no longer a gambling man. Anyone know what price we were out of curiousity?

[Guest]

Against St. Gallen and Rapid Vienna the perfomances could be tolerated as we had only just started pre-season and were way behind in fitness to those teams.

We have been back in training two weeks longer than Espanyol, yet they looked fitter than us. I can only hope that Rafa had been working them like he was in Swiss/Austria because that would partly explain the lethargic performance.

But there is a reason you can't bet on friendly games. And ours and Spurs results are perfect examples of this.

I think pre-season under Rafa is bloody hard and we've always looked somewhat lethargic at the beginning of each season under Rafa, with the exception of last year, where we started well but we didn't especially play good football, we were more efficient. We've proved to be the fittest team in the end though, and I think all the work being done now is geared towards that. So I wouldn't be concerned at all with the results.

And Espanyol played as if their lives depended upon that game, they were flying into tackles and overdoing it when they were on the receiving end of the same treatment.

[Tee]

We really need to hit the ground running next season, not necessarily playing the best football but winning games. It just worries me that we just find it difficult still to look comfortable in possession, more so without Xabi.

I will write off yesterday but if we tackle like that or mark like that in a PL game we will be in for a nasty shock.

[-V-]

Promote Darby, Pacheco and Nemeth to the first team squad and throw Degan, Ngog and Voronin to under 18's until we can find them clubs that they can handle

[FatTony]

We really need to hit the ground running next season, not necessarily playing the best football but winning games. It just worries me that we just find it difficult still to look comfortable in possession, more so without Xabi.

I will write off yesterday but if we tackle like that or mark like that in a PL game we will be in for a nasty shock.

It happened a lot last season. Without Xabi, and just Mascher and Lucas in the middle, we were somewhat short of ideas and struggled to keep possession. Just read some of the post match posts after the games where Xabi was injured.

We are going to struggle without him and if we don't get a replacement we can kiss goodbye our chances. Bringing in Johnson and losing Arbeloa and Xabi (if he does leave) has made us a lot weaker.

[DannyMan2006]

Really thought we'd destroy them yesterday.


Thank God I'm no longer a gambling man. Anyone know what price we were out of curiousity?

Apart from the Community sheild, you can't get odds on club freindlys.

[RedReet]

Apart from the Community sheild, you can't get odds on club freindlys.

Of course you can. I'd been stung by many a friendly before.

[DannyMan2006]

Of course you can. I'd been stung by many a friendly before.

Linky?

[Redspin]

Against St. Gallen and Rapid Vienna the perfomances could be tolerated as we had only just started pre-season and were way behind in fitness to those teams.

We have been back in training two weeks longer than Espanyol, yet they looked fitter than us. I can only hope that Rafa had been working them like he was in Swiss/Austria because that would partly explain the lethargic performance.

But there is a reason you can't bet on friendly games. And ours and Spurs results are perfect examples of this.

At the end of the day we used 19 or 20 outfield players in what was just a pre-season kick-about to give a few youngsters a game and contribute to fitness levels of all the squad, with a view to hitting the ground running when the season starts. So there's no way that the performance can be used as an indication of how we'll play in a real game. Similarly I doubt very much Spurs will be losing any sleep over their loss. It's a pound to a penny that if we played Espanyol over there in a competitive match we'd win by at least a couple and not get past third gear. It's important to keep a sense of perspective when looking at pre-season games.

Frankly I couldn't give a toss if we lost all pre-season games if we're going to use 20-odd players a match. The important thing is to get to proper match-fit levels by the day of the first game, try to avoid too many injuries by resting key players or only playing them for parts of games and, finally, give our fans around the world a rare chance to see their idols in live action, such as was the case in the Far East and will be in Norway in midweek

[DannyMan2006]

Of course you can. I'd been stung by many a friendly before.

So you can. I never knew that!

http://guardian.oddschecker.com/football/pre-season-matches/lyn-v-liverpool