Bournemouth 1 Liverpool 3: Sterling cherry picks Cherries

By dedlfc

With the pressure mounting on our manager by the hour, it was imperative that we produced a good result and secondly a performance versus currently the top side in the Championship.

After the chances created and missed against Man Utd at the weekend our Brendan Rodgers decided to again start Raheem Sterling as the main attacker with Lazar Markovic and Henderson as wing backs.  Lallana and Coutinho also started with Lucas providing defensive cover to a back three of Lovren, Skrtel and Toure.

I thought Sterling would have been given a break before the Arsenal game at the weekend, but a loss to Bournemouth would have been catastrophic for the club and moreover for Rodgers future.

Prior to the game our manager stated “I looked at the game at the weekend and that was probably the most chances we created for a long time.  I was pleased with certain aspects of the weekend... The players look comfortable in this system so hopefully we’ll get a result here.”

We started the game with a very steady composed, but slightly increased tempo, even so it was Bournemouth who had the first chance with Bournemouth midfielder Wilson knocking the ball wide from five yards.  Excellent interplay between Sterling, Coutinho and Lallana resulted in a powerful shot from Lallana being tipped over by Bournemouth keeper Boruc.

At this point we were very much in control of the game with our possession game full of lots of relentless probing.  After putting on so much pressure and keeping possession for a highly impressive 52 passes the inevitable happened with chance falling to Sterling.  Markovic lofted a splendid ball to the back post for Henderson to nod back across goal for Sterling to dive in front of his marker to guide an excellent header into the corner of the net. 

Continuing to control the game through comfortable possession we then proceeded to double our lead with a first senior goal from our exciting Serb Markovic.  He started the move with a pass from the left to Coutinho with Elphick pausing to appeal for offside, (it transpired that a Bournemouth fan blew a whistle and which Elphick too) when Coutinho’s pull-back fell to Markovic 16 yards from goal, the Serb tucked away a tasty side-footer into the net.

Almost straight from the restart the gulf in Premiership and Championship finishing was proved again when Bournemouth spurned a great chance to pull a goal back. Kermorgant blasting over from 10 yards after a pull-back from the right! 

After our second goal our intensity and control of the game eased allowing Bournemouth into the game as the first half developed, but we managed to get to half time with a clean sheet despite a late poor back pass by Lovren causing our number two keeper Jones to clear hurriedly.

Halftime analysis - A good half from us, playing with confidence and style and most of all capitalising on good play with two fine goals.  A little luck finally went our way as Bournemouth squandered two decent chances.  The hosts came back into the game, but looked susceptible to the counter-attacks led by Sterling.  The next goal would be vital wither way.

Sakho replaced the injured Lovren at half-time which I was delighted with as Lovren has performed poorely all season and needs a break from the first team.

We started the second half still in control and the the vital third goal arrived 5 minutes after the restart with Sterling at the end of another fine Liverpool move.

Toure broke up a Bournemouth attack and then pinged a long and low ball forward to Lallana.  The former Southampton player (and Bournemouth youth) helped it on to Sterling, who took it in his stride, slalomed past the last defender and fired beneath the keeper and into the net. Goals breed confidence and Sterling’s was certainly rising. 

Let’s hope he can maintain this confidence until Sturridge’s return.

As always when Liverpool get into a comfy lead anxiety sets in and they stop playing their game and this game was no different with Bournemouth pushing for an opportunity to get a look in for a major comeback.

The first stage of their attempted comeback began with a goal from the old “Blue Nose” Gosling who had history of scoring a winning goal against us - this time a good move down the right by Bournemouth and Ritchie pulled the ball back towards the edge of the area. Gosling ran on to meet it, commendably decided not to go down in the box despite being clipped and then fired beneath the hapless Jones.

At this point our manager needed to grab back control by bringing on Can for Coutinho, but waited another 15 minutes during which time Gosling hit the post.  Liverpool fans at the stadium and watching at home must have been screaming for him to do something to bolster our midfield.

Once Can was on we regained control of the midfield and comfortably saw the game out for a deserved win but just as importantly an excellent team performance against a team full of confidence.

Positives 

Excellent team performance with the majority of the team making major cases for starts against Arsenal.

Markovic despite not playing the role much put in a strong shift as a left wing back with Henderson having a steady game as a right wing back – although Arsenal Sanchez and co will be a different level of threat.  Sakho and Toure were both very impressive as two of a three man centre back formation. Lucas was his ever steady reliable self.

Negatives

The manager waited too long to make the vital substitution to kill off the game and that's a side of his tactical reading of the game which has to improve for him to eventually be seen as a great manager.

Man of the match:  Raheem Sterling - despite disappointing me immensely at the weekend with four spurned chances versus our deepest rivals Man Utd, he was in the right place to make the runs again tonight and took both his goals very well. Maybe the change of hairstyle has meant a change of luck for him and a change of luck for us for the rest of the season.

Brendan Rodgers comments: ""I thought we were excellent,"

"We've come away from home, we controlled the game and created many chances.

"Credit to Bournemouth as they kept going, even at 3-0.

"But overall for us it was a wonderful performance and we thoroughly deserved it.

"I saw enough at Old Trafford to suggest we were heading in the right direction, and tonight we proved that further."

The draw for the Capital One semi-final pits us against our old rivals Chelsea again. We need to hope that our manager is ready for the two legged semi-finals versus his old master and can finally show that he is ready to graduate by beating his footballing mentor.  He has so far never beaten him so it would be fantastic to finally break that hoodoo and get us to another final.

Teams:

Bournemouth: Boruc, Francis, Elphick, Cargill, Smith, Ritchie, Gosling, Stanislas, Kermorgant, Wilson

Subs: Camp, Cook, Daniels, Arter, MacDonald, Fraser, Pitman

Liverpool: Jones, Toure, Skrtel, Lovren, Henderson, Gerrard, Lucas, Coutinho, Lallana, Sterling, Markovic

Subs: Mignolet, Lambert, Sakho, Moreno, Manquillo, Can, Borini

Referee: M Clattenburg
Attendance: 11,347