No Style, Little Substance

By KP

The seeds of this woeful performance was firmly sown in the first leg as soon as Andy Carroll stepped on to the pitch and provided his team mates with an out ball.  As mentioned in the last blog, we simply overdosed on the long ball, and did not possess  the capacity to create chances without becoming long ball merchants and looking very one dimensional.  King Kenny stated, There wasn’t much between either side.  They were very well organised and we knew the responsibility was on us to break them down and score a goal. If Andy’s header had gone in, in the first-half it could have been different outcome, but we never put anything past that.”

You need to be strong creatively if you are going to break down a very organised side or you need a bit of luck and we certainly have not had much fortune over two legs – but I guess everyone says that they should have more luck than they get.  Like every other in the world we could do with a bit more creativity but we are no different than anyone else.”

Never a truer word said by the maestro, but if you asked most Liverpool supporters who is the nearest player to Suarez in style and skill I think most would say Dani Pacheco.  It was difficult to fathom the thinking yesterday when crying out for that creativity spark we brought on Spearing and Ngog ahead of the enormously talented Spaniard.  One has to wonder whether Pacheco has a future at the club as this is not the first time that cometh of the hour, it seems that his personal clock has stopped at 59 minutes.

Liverpool started well yesterday, with Cole linking up well Carroll early on with Cole fastening on to a Carroll ball to have a crisp left-footed drive parried out with Carroll’s resulting shot blocked for a corner, despite cries for handball. The resultant corner should probably have seen Liverpool take the lead, as Carroll’s clear header from a Meireles corner went wide.  Braga were in  essence, pretty comfortable for the rest of the game having realised that Liverpool’s game plan was based around the long ball to Carroll and as such mopping up second phase ball was their intention.

Playing Meireles deeper to accommodate a basically ineffectual Joe Cole cost Liverpool in terms of losing his potency in bursting in the penalty late and with Lucas was again not having the game intelligence to make driving runs when in possession the ball was moved to slowly through the midfield area. Added to that, the lack of a cutting edge on the flanks with Kuyt and Maxi not having the speed to get behind and Wilson and especially Glen Johnson failing to offer an real support going forward, crosses from last third of the pitch were barely negligible and again as has been noted before on this blog, Martin Kelly’s influence has been sorely missed, let alone that of the quality talents of Gerrard and Suarez.

In saying that, Liverpool had two clear cuts opportunities to get back on an even keel when the ball fell to Skrtel, who didn’t possess the striker’s instinct and technique of Daniel Agger to manufacture a finish past the on-rushing goalkeeper and in the dying moments from a beautifully floated Meireles free-kick Ngog fluffed his lines when it seemed easier to head the ball goalwards, he failed to connect and with him almost certainly went the Last Chance Saloon of European football. 

The sadness with this lost to a very average Braga side, is that considering the sides left in the competition this was very winnerable competition, but then without our first choice eleven which is basically the team which played against Man United we don’t have the depth of quality and it shows that players like Ngog, Maxi and arguably even Johnson who is no longer the best right-back at the club, might be plying their trade elsewhere in the coming season.

By KP