Hodgson Victorious As Liverpool Revert To Early Season Type

By KP

As a Liverpool fan, reality used to be a friend of mine.  The harsh reality now is that Man United will almost certainly extinguish our record, becoming the first team to win nineteen titles and with Spurs drawing away to Wigan, a missed opportunity went a begging to close on the remaining European place.  The same failings were there for all to see, no width in the final third means we are unable to use Andy Carroll in his the most potent area, the penalty box.  

The lack of pace especially at the back, was exacerbated early on when Liverpool lost both Johnson and Agger.  The idiosyncracies with our style of play meant that losing those two really hurt the team in the creative department as both bring the ball out of defence and have the propensity to strike on goal.  The unbalance nature of the Liverpool squad, with no reserve wide-men and only Kelly from the available reserve full-backs making a mark, led to Liverpool ending up with four centre-halfs in all the defensive positions.  With a backline of Carragher, Kyrgiakos, Skrtel and Wilson looking very uncomfortable with Odemwingie, Jerome Thomas and Brunt with pace to burn threatening at every opportunity.

It all looked so different in the first fifteen minutes with Liverpool starting spritely and almost taking the lead with Kuyt hitting the crossbar.  With the referee blowing at every opportunity against Carroll’s challenges, he seemed to hold back which hindered Liverpool as he was the only outlet for a Liverpool backline incapable of bringing the ball out defence.  The lack of creativity is already weighing on the shoulders of Suarez and he delivered a few of his trade mark slalom runs down the by-line and with him and the occasional set piece with the height of the backline and Carroll, hope was not completely dampened. Thus it was no great surprise when Skrtel headed home from a set piece against the run of play.

The fact that we could not stop the waves of WBA attacks led to the build-up of pressure and causing the two goals. Time and time again Kyrgiakos and Carragher was left to deal with searing pace with no protection from the midfield through the middle and down the flanks, but the first goal as is his wont on the ground,  was down to rank bad defending from the experienced Greek International and the second his lack of pace led him to panic, forcing Reina to bring down Odemwingie for the second penalty.

With possible long-term injuries to Agger and Johnson and with Kelly almost only just about to resume training, King Kenny maybe just be forced into giving delving into the Liverpool reserves to supplement the his depleted first team resources, with an injection of pace, skill and creativity needed to stiffen up a potential last ditch late charge for a European place and allow Meireles to get forward as he had been doing consistently up until recently.

With nothing to lose considering our League position when he took over the reins from victorious Hodgson, Dalglish  can afford to go for broke and if that means putting a few youngsters on the bench, then so be it.

By KP