Quite Simply Second Best And Second Class

 

It would be easy to come on here and say we lost because of missed chances. Yes Carroll missed a glorious chance in the opening few minutes which could have put us on our way and the fact we cannot score goals especially when we are top to close out games shows the deficiencies in our squad which we may come to rue at the end of the season. Three consecutive home draws has placed on the back foot and again as in his previous seasons we have failed to capitalise when teams around us have floundered and we already paying the price and with Chelsea and Man City on the horizon the season could unravel before the end of the year and Tottenham and Newcastle showing ominous form.

Liverpool as has become our signature, starting brightly and could have had the game wrapped up in the first twenty minutes, but failure after failure in front of goal only lead to increased confidence levels from Swansea.

While chances were missed, in great parts of the game we were handed a football lesson by Swansea in terms of ball retention and what was worse that both on the field and off we had nothing to remedy the situation. The central duo of Adam and Lucas could not compete with the swift interplay and pace of Swansea which left the defence under constant threat from Routledge and Dyer. In fact Enrique had his most difficult game of the season faced with pacey and tricky Dyer.

Adam plays the diagonal long ball as well as anybody in the country, but what he doesn't possess is the thrust from midfield or the ability to take a game by the scruff of the neck and set the tempo. Alongside Lucas, who breaks up play, but tends to play the ball sideways Swansea dominated all, but the final ten or so minutes of the second half. After his miss Carroll knock down ball after ball, but with no onrushing midfielder the second phase ball fell to the defenders.The decision to select Henderson on the right side is beginning to look very negative and stubborn. He got in to some excellent positions but failed to supply one decent cross through his tenure on the pitch.

The bad decisions didn't end there. Having failed to create anything on the right Henderson was switched to the left where he offered next to nothing which was no surprise. The impotency on the field was matched by the decisions taken by Dalglish. The opportunity was there to either move Henderson or Spearing in to central midfield to bolster the yawning gap and competitive edge, or bring on the potency of Bellamy. Of the players left on the bench Maxi has a goal scoring record and yet wasn't used.

 If Liverpool qualify for the Champions League there will be many highlighting the fact that not being in the Europa League allowed Kenny Dalglish to concentrate on all the home competitions by fielding his strongest team. While that might be true, an equally strong argument can be made that young squad members have missed out on access to top class football because of our non-qualification to the much maligned European tournament. Thus to augment the current squad, players like Adam Morgan and even young Raheem Stirling may have gained crucial minutes with the first team. Funnily enough, a right winger and poacher are the type of players we don't have in the squad. In a perfect world it be great to bring a Hernadez or Wellbeck of the bench…

Without Suarez Liverpool appeared one-dimensional team and in a sign of things to come the lack of leadership without Gerrard and Carragher was there for all to see.
Man of the Match: Suarez, quite simply head and shoulders above and on this day the only Liverpool player with Enrique good enough to get into a joint team.