With West Ham losing earlier in the day against leaders Chelsea it was imperative that we capitalised on their slip up and that we did despite not playing well coming away with a vital away win.
There was an early Christmas present for 17 year old winger Sheyi Ojo who had finally been called up to the first team bench after some very encouraging displays for both the under 18s and 21s. There was also a return to the subs bench for Mario Balotelli after his one match ban after the controversy surrounding his retweeting on social media.
Sterling seems to have now been entrusted with the task of leading the line for us with Ballotelli, now seemingly having lost our manager's patience and Sturridge still out injured.
It was in fact Sterling who started brightly with the first shot of the game screwing his shot wide of the far post after a promising counter-attack.
Burnley's best attacker Ings then saw his shot cannon off the post coinciding with the last piece of action for Brad Jones with a thigh injury which meant an early reprieve from the "out indefinitely" Simon Mignolet.
Burnley clearly dominated the first half, although creating two clear opportunities to score with the Ings effort off the post and Lucas excellently diverting a volley from Arfield wide when it looked destined to sneak inside the near post. Burnley had the drive and determination to create pressure on our team all over the pitch.
In comparison, we looked lethargic and resembled a team who had had one too many turkey dinners despite the whole squad training on Christmas Day. In attempt to break the lethargy our manager decided to make another change at the break with Emre Can replacing Kolo Toure in defence.
The awareness and quick thinking of Coutinho enabled him to magnificently hook a ball over his own shoulder into the path of Sterling to coolly round Burnley keeper Heaton before dispatching his shot into the net with great composure in front of the travelling Kop.
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| Liverpool's saviour |
The Kop fans started singing Coutinho's name even more when he went on a further mazy run which resulted in a shot from the Brazilian being deflected wide. Shortly afterwards Coutinho was replaced by Lambert to move the tiring Sterling out wide rather than continuing through the middle.
An exquisite through ball by Gerrard for Lambert was finished well by the centre forward only for his effort to be ruled out for offside. There were no other further scares for us and we returned back to Merseyside with the points. The sole strike by Sterling had made the all-important difference. Now that's what I call a nice Xmas present.
Man of the match: Raheem Sterling - very cool finish, practising his finishing skills after those vital misses versus Man Utd is starting to show.
Liverpool team v Burnley: Jones, Skrtel, Toure, Sakho, Markovic, Gerrard, Lucas, Henderson, Lallana, Coutinho, Sterling
Subs: Mignolet, Can, Moreno, Manquillo, Ojo, Balotelli, Lambert.
Ref: Anthony Taylor
Att:21,335
Positives:
Winning these games over the festive period could provide us with the momentum required going into the second half of the season. A win today was vital even if the performance was under par.
Sterling showing his great potential as a striker long-term with his pace and movement even though most people prefer him out wide and the lack of service.
Lallana showing such quick feet and is developing into a player that has to be one of the first names on the team sheet. Coutinho was once again was the main creative catalyst.
Clean sheet despite both keepers playing (Jones 15 mins, Mignolet 75 plus 6 mins injury time in total). Only our second clean sheet in the last thirteen PL away matches.
Negatives:
Mignolet seems to still be very low on confidence, this was proven by a simple back pass from Sakho being allowed to roll back to the under pressure keeper and a corner being conceded rather than Mignolet clearing his area.
Lucas and Gerrard - both seemed to be over run by the Burnley midfield, it should have been the older Gerrard being replaced by Can in this game as Lucas and Gerrard had got through a lot of work over the last two games and maybe this game was one game too far.
Not getting the very best out of Henderson playing as a wing back, he is a vital part of our engine room but needs to be played where he can have more influence on the side.
Manager's comments:-
"We had to show a different side to us, different types of qualities to what we showed against Arsenal and Bournemouth.
"We didn't play too well in the first half but we defended well, got our blocks in, stopped crosses and it didn't come into the box.
"I thought in terms of our character and resilience in the game we showed outstanding qualities when needed.
"There weren't many chances but the one clear one that came to us we put it away. We deserved three points for the character we showed."
Also like to add that Sakho was very impressive at the back with his heading ability, calmness under pressure and also with his distribution - showing why he eventually should be the mainstay of our defence long term.
ReplyDeleteHave to say we won ugly, very ugly, but we won!
DeletePoor performance but great away result with a clean sheet, despite the "dreadful" performance of Migs. Given the absence of Jones due to injury, we have no option but to buy a no 1 keeper in this window.
DeleteThat's if the owners feel that our manager can find a suitable replacement because remember Mignolet was his long term choice as replacement for our main keeper Reina, who despite having two average seasons was never as poor as Mignolet.
DeleteFraser Forster should be our number one target because he also has the experience of playing top level football in the Champions League with Celtic. If not him it should be Petr Cech either on loan or bring him in permanently, at 32 he is relatively young for a keeper and will bring much needed stability to our defence.
The keeper we bring in needs to be able to dive the right way, punch the ball further than a meter, not just aim to kick the ball to the right full back, judge and have time to kick the ball and not let it run out, recieve back passes, catch the ball, lead the back line, not get bored.....
DeleteWe need a goalkeeper that does the essentials well. I’d be satisfied if an incoming keeper commands his area and is relatively good with his feet, not every keeper is as good as Pepe with his ball control.
DeleteAs for the game we were truly bad, but we won which is obviously the most important thing. Midfield were awful, couldn’t get a grip on the game and we were lucky not to be least two goals down before we scored. Stevie played at least two passes where he unlocked the door (not including the offside goal), apart from those he was basically a bystander. He’s obviously finding it difficult to dictate in a struggling side.
I agree with David, in that Can was excellent when he came on and one shoulder to shoulder barge showed his physicality, but just as important he was composed and excellent on the ball and I just wish he could get some games under his belt in the central areas in tandem with Henderson (being wasted) – wasn’t that worried when he asked to replace Toure because he played mostly at left-back last season for Bayer Leverkusen.
Raheem took his goal well from his only real chance and Coutinho’s pass was sublime.