Southampton (H) - Post Match

[baitman]

Suso is the player we needed yesterday could have played the Coutinhio role....... send out the sos

suso wouldnt have covered for coutinho, unless its a lookalike contest. suso plays a little deeper, more of a lightweight alonso.

should have gone three at the back, and then played with two proper wingers to give us pace and width to support/feed tha attack.
playing sturridge on the right...

moses could easily play as the advanced midfielder as he can go either way, quick feet, creative and can also score. might even be a better option than coutinho... there, i have said it.
although there are flashes of genius and great potential from coutinho there also needs to be a direct goal product to add to his assists.

[Mark79]

Why have him on the bench then?

If he is searching for fitness then let him play more for the ressies.

Perhaps they don't think he's recovered enough for a full 1st team match just yet. I don't think it's so much about match fitness as much as carefully managing his return from that ruptured ACL.

[little dave hedgehog]

suso plays am. he might play like alonso for spain occasionally, but we've never, ever used him that far back in any serious game.

[Sarb]

For me the enjoyment has just gone out of football. Hasnt got anything to do with us doing f all for the last few years. We drew on Monday and we were 10 points from 12. But from some of the criticism that was served up by our fans you would think we were 0 points from 12

Im not saying we shouldnt criticise. But many just seem to lose grip on reality. 10 points from 15 is a solid enough start in search of CL football. We arent going for the league. Ive seen loads calling Aspas and Sakho **** and wastes of money.

No grip on reality and the constant whining just gets depressing. Will be unbearable when we dont have Walter White to look forward to on a Monday

Finally have we not won something like 8 of the 10 games Suarez missed? That is pretty good **** if you ask me

[RichC]

Amen

[Darkon]

For me the enjoyment has just gone out of football. Hasnt got anything to do with us doing f all for the last few years. We drew on Monday and we were 10 points from 12. But from some of the criticism that was served up by our fans you would think we were 0 points from 12

Im not saying we shouldnt criticise. But many just seem to lose grip on reality. 10 points from 15 is a solid enough start in search of CL football. We arent going for the league. Ive seen loads calling Aspas and Sakho **** and wastes of money.

No grip on reality and the constant whining just gets depressing. Will be unbearable when we dont have Walter White to look forward to on a Monday

Finally have we not won something like 8 of the 10 games Suarez missed? That is pretty good **** if you ask me

[chadrtc]

For me the enjoyment has just gone out of football. Hasnt got anything to do with us doing f all for the last few years. We drew on Monday and we were 10 points from 12. But from some of the criticism that was served up by our fans you would think we were 0 points from 12

Im not saying we shouldnt criticise. But many just seem to lose grip on reality. 10 points from 15 is a solid enough start in search of CL football. We arent going for the league. Ive seen loads calling Aspas and Sakho **** and wastes of money.

No grip on reality and the constant whining just gets depressing. Will be unbearable when we dont have Walter White to look forward to on a Monday

Finally have we not won something like 8 of the 10 games Suarez missed? That is pretty good **** if you ask me

[Darkon]

OptaJoe @OptaJoe 19t

44 - 44 dribbles attempted (by Liverpool vs Soton yesterday) is the most by any Premier League team in the period 2006-present. Tricksy.

That's like half a win in itself or something

[PTP]

3-1-1 record so far which equals Chelsea and we all wouldve taken at the start of the season I think.

Today proved to me that we may have a good first team but our squad isn't quite there yet, especially with 3 key players out.

3 things worry me from it..first the obvious 4 CBs that just did not work but I can at least understand given Johnson is out, Enrique wasn't 100%, Cissokho out and Kelly isnt ready yet.
The second was our tempo though and this has happened 2 games running. Where the **** is it? Its disappeared.
Thirdly Sturridge clearly cannot run properly or shoot with any force yet he has started every game so far. Lets just let him recover ffs

agree with this..as angry and pissed off as I was Saturday, we've still had a decent start...we have done ourselves no harm for the season and its included a win against man utd

However what is worrying is how ****ed we look after five games. I know some of it is bad luck etc with injuries to key players *ill come back to this in a bit

But for me although results have been good, we've been ****ing lucky at times...mignolet penalty save against villa, Swansea could easily have won..it could have been a lot worse.

What's frustrated me is our all round energy is non existent. We do not apply enough pressure, we don't press anywhere near high enough up the pitch and we drop deep, get over run in midfield and put defence under pressure.

Sturridge has looked completely ****ed all season. Credit too him for battling though it and getting some goals but he's ****ed on his own up there. Aspas is ****. Coutinho got clattered against united and he's hardly touched a ball since, he went missing I united game then got clattered against Swansea and is now injured whine hasn't helped.

But it's the midfield where the real problems are and what's really ****ed me off is its an area all summer that I said I was worried about and needed more only to be told by many we are fine in midfield...

Are we ****, I can't put my finger on it..I'm not sure if its the tactics, the set up or the personnel but it just doesn't work and so far we've shown that we have no clue how to change it.

Henderson is the only one of the three to have any credit, his work rate has been superb...but gerrard looks lost, doesn't look like he has the legs to play in that role when his partner is Lucas, who also looks to be struggling at times...worryingly the only other viable option in the squad is joe Allen and I'm not convinced he will improve it that much.

For me especially when Suarez hasn't been about, gerrard should have played further forward, he still has the quality to influence the game there and with Sturridge being ****ed the ball has come back at us to easily, with gerrard up closer to Sturridge it might have stuck more.

Also going back to key players...I also said right at the start, if we keep are key 9 players fit and playing in as many games as possible then we will be ok but once they go a few games missing we will struggle, cause the quality/strength in depth is just lacking (key players being mignolet, Johnson, agger, Enrique, Lucas, gerrard, coutinho, Sturridge and Suarez)

Final thing, with the injuries we had and some of the obvious issues, I don't know why Rodgers didn't try something different...maybe 3 at the back, load the midfield and have Moses and Sturridge along side each other...or start ibe/sterling instead of aspas...something

It's great having a philosophy, a style of how we want to play and sticking with it...but when it's not working because ether we have injuries, or players of form or other team has found us out you have to have the ability to adapt and change it

[Phoenix07]

You can spin it however you want. On one side, 10 points out of 15 is a great return, avoiding defeat against Villa and Swansea away, and beating the likes of Man Utd and Stoke at home.

On the other hand, the moment you mention the last game being a home defeat against Southampton, it sounds ****e. We're only two points better off than last season. It appears that when momentum is finally building, it's all thrown away. Our mentality will be tested in the coming weeks.

So you can spin it anyway you want. Hopefully, that game was a real wake-up call for everyone involved, and I'm pleased Rodgers wasn't happy. It shows a winning mentality, that defeat at home to Southampton is unacceptable. Listening to Gary Neville yesterday, he was talking about every Man Utd loss resulted in an inquest. We need this kind of mentality, and I'm confident Rodgers has it in abundance

So for me, I'm not going to slit my wrists as 10/15 points is a great return so early on. However, serious questions should be asked after a home defeat against Southampton. It is how we respond that will show the character of the side.

[Fernandinho]

totally agree mate. Something PTP regularly posts about with the powerful midfielder in his squad posts is something I totally agree with. We have seen with teams like West Ham and Soton that a powerful midfielder like Wanyama/Diame can make a huge difference. When we are being over run by teams in midfield we have to give away a little bit of quality and intelligence on the ball for physical qualities. Henderson has proved how important they are but his success this season and I think at times we need more options like this, especially when playing a team with 1 up front and 5 in midfield/a team who generally press high.

[Arn]

You can spin it however you want. On one side, 10 points out of 15 is a great return, avoiding defeat against Villa and Swansea away, and beating the likes of Man Utd and Stoke at home.

On the other hand, the moment you mention the last game being a home defeat against Southampton, it sounds ****e. We're only two points better off than last season. It appears that when momentum is finally building, it's all thrown away. Our mentality will be tested in the coming weeks.

So you can spin it anyway you want. Hopefully, that game was a real wake-up call for everyone involved, and I'm pleased Rodgers wasn't happy. It shows a winning mentality, that defeat at home to Southampton is unacceptable. Listening to Gary Neville yesterday, he was talking about every Man Utd loss resulted in an inquest. We need this kind of mentality, and I'm confident Rodgers has it in abundance

So for me, I'm not going to slit my wrists as 10/15 points is a great return so early on. However, serious questions should be asked after a home defeat against Southampton. It is how we respond that will show the character of the side.

[Arn]

That's like half a win in itself or something

Not really tricksy. It shows that we played very slow and was up against a packed defense almost every attack we made so we had to make many dribbles trying to create something.

[Arn]

Adam Lallana was thrilled to see Southampton's game plan 'executed brilliantly' as they overcame Liverpool at Anfield.

The Saints brought the Reds' unbeaten start to the season to an abrupt halt as they left Merseyside with a 1-0 victory.

Mauricio Pochettino set his side up to press from the front, preventing Liverpool from playing their way out from the back.

He got his tactics spot on, with Liverpool drawing their first blank of the campaign as they toiled for long periods.

Lallana said afterwards: "They are a team like us who like to play out from the back and we just played a high-pressing game and felt we won the ball back in areas where we could affect the game.

"We wanted them to play it long.

"It's credit to the staff, the players and everyone who works at the club.

"We worked hard on our game plan all week and we executed it brilliantly.

"The last 10 or 15 minutes get a bit edgy when you're winning. You tend to drop off a little bit deeper and people get tired. But I don't remember them having a serious chance."

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11661/8937368

[BigChief]

A few observations on Llalana's, er, observations.:

1. Southampton will be found out the same way
2. We had both full backs missing which meant we couldn't expose their tactics (Glen Johnson would have ripped Southampton two new holes with his dribbling and pace from defence)
3. Southampton caught us on a very bad day when Brendan had a brain fart
4. I hope to God other teams try what Southampton did, I really do
Edit:
5. No mention of the clear penalty or Moses' chance then?