Watford vs Liverpool - Premier League (19/20 - Game 28)

[Lecter]

The simple fact of the matter is we've looked awful going forward for weeks now. We've been managing games and just scraping through numerous times in the last 20 minutes.

Hopefully this was a wake up call that they all badly need. We looked like we hadn't kicked a ball in months last night. Every single one of them was shocking. Some of those touches and passes were amateur level. The ball was bouncing off some of them.

Bobby had a really nice patch of games around the WCC but has now regressed to his fatter, slower twin Slobby Firmino. He needs to get his mojo back because he has been absolutely dire for a number of weeks now, loose passes everywhere, poor touches, not pressing like usual. When he's off form the whole front three is off too, he's clearly our barometer. Don't know if he needs a rest, but he looks really slow and cumbersome to me.

Lovren? He's ****. He's always been **** and he clearly makes everyone else nervous as **** out there because nobody knows what he's going to do. You can visibly see the chaos he causes out there, players that have been playing like world class defenders all of a sudden start bumping into each other, Allison starts fumbling the ball etc. It's him. It has to be. This has happened before. Deeney the balloon headed prick absolutely owned Lovren. Why is he allowed to try man mark big brute CF's? His track record with them is horrendous. He was all over the place last night.

Don't know what's gotten into Gini either. He's been anonymous for weeks too. Like being down a player in midfield. Its certainly looked that way last night. Surely we can't be that heavy legged. They've just had a two week break and Klopp managed them through January really well i thought.

Gini has these week in previous seasons. It's no real surprise

Lovren is always an issue and whilst he might not ultimately make the mistake for the goals he did make errors in the build up to them. I said a few years back about our backline if you have Mignolet, Lovren and Moreno playing they all have it in them to make errors. The more of them play exponentially the more errors you will make. Degsy is the last man standing in that lot

That said it was a woeful performance our xG shows how little we did despite having huge swathes of possession. Reminded me of a latter Brendan-era performance. Slow, lethargic possession

Weve been like this since the break. Ok you can say opposition have played well and controlled us but others tried this earlier in the season but we beat it by building pressure and moving and switching the ball quickly from side to side

Klopps post match interviews in last 2 games West Ham not winning enough 2nd balls and yesterday wanting quicker passing and switches from flank to flank at least tell me they know why the drop off is happening. Its how they fix that

[Assassin]

We had to lose at some stage. I’m quite happy for it to be against Watford. It would have been unbearable to lose against the bitters or citeh in the next few games or so

[McDermotX]

Aye......the biggest thing now is to have a massive reaction against both Chelsea and Bournemouth, not only to progress and for the points, but to establish a performance level for the home leg against Atletico.

Even though the Anfield crowd is a major factor on a European night when we need something and more often than not the team responds, if we play anything like yesterday, you can forget about it.

[Lecter]

Aye......the biggest thing now is to have a massive reaction against both Chelsea and Bournemouth, not only to progress and for the points, but to establish a performance level for the home leg against Atletico.

Even though the Anfield crowd is a major factor on a European night when we need something and more often than not the team responds, if we play anything like yesterday, you can forget about it.

I dont fancy us against Atletico

Really got to be at top form to go through v them

[Lecter]

Just going back to Lovren again

Lovren makes a mistake for the first but it was an easy cover for Virgil and he didnt even make a challenge

3rd was Lovren was too interested on Deeney rather than winning the ball but again it was a shocking pass from Trent

Lovren did make errors but we really compounded that mistake by other players making more mistakes

The defending side of things isnt that much of a worry it's the easiest thing to solve for me. Biggest worry is the not winning as many 2nd balls, the slow lethargic passing which is impacting our crossing which is also impacting our xG and amount of chances we are creating

Wonder how many crosses we have put in since the break I would guess the stats on number attempted and accuracy are miles off

[BigChief]

It's mental fatigue. Not easy to be at 100% level at your job everyday.

[Buzzo]

[ame]https://twitter.com/DieRotenBullen/status/1233836897526566923[/ame]

[Lecter]

It's mental fatigue. Not easy to be at 100% level at your job everyday.

The defensive mistakes can be put down to mental fatigue

Not winning as many 2nd balls has been since Henderson got injured and the slow lethargic build up has been prevalent since returning from the break

The slow passing is the thing that probably concerns me most without those quick passing and switches of play it's easier to contain us

[Paul12]

I agree with the view that it was an all-round bad performance, so naming individuals is not the way to go. My worry is that the all-round performances have been bad - and getting worse - since the break and we could have easily lost the Norwich and West Ham games too. "Mentally exhausted" the Times said, although I thoughta few looked physically shot too.

As far as I am concerned, the only goal is to win that bloody league - everything else is an extra - and the midweek team should be picked with that in mind.

[The_weatherman]

Missed the game and won't comment on Lovren's performance, or anyone's for that matter. But it's a bit funny seeing Lovren coming in for one game, we concede three goals, and he starts talking about a wake up call for the boys

https://www.thisisanfield.com/2020/03/klopp-insists-a-little-knock-is-important-as-dejan-lovren-accepts-a-wake-up-call/

[BG1973]

Can talk ****e in 6 different languages.

[greenturnip]

I'm not sure whether we need to play our way through this mini slump - on Tues night for example - or rest the 'first' team...

[frank the tank]

his comments just add to it. What a plonker.

If i had 3 consequence free punches, I used to say that I'd pick Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Dejan Lovren. Today, I'd use all 3 on Degsy

[vlahka]

Hey frank, wouldnt you prefer to go the full trinity of politicians? You can replace Lovren with my Australian prime minister.

[Buzzo]

Need a thread for the game tomorrow.