Captain’s Martin Skrtel and Ashley Willams presented a wreath bearing the number 96 to Barry Devonside, whose son Christopher at just 18, was one of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster. Mr Devonside held the wreath aloft to a tumultuous minutes applause.
The game itself saw Jurgen Klopp make 8 changes from the first leg game against Villarreal with Klopp bringing in a number of youngsters to make the average age 23 years and 218 days the youngest in the Premier League era for the club.
Daniel Sturridge’s exclusion against Villarreal meant his inclusion was a pre-requisite in a bid to retain his fitness.
Within the first five minutes it was obvious Liverpool were struggling to contain the movement and power of the Swansea midfield, which wasn’t helped by the sloppiness and our apparent willingness to gift the ball away.
We finally created something off note after Jordon Ibe crossed only for the inform Daniel Sturridge to miscue his volley wide of the target.
With Liverpool unable to shake themselves from their lethargy Swansea continued to poor forward and Ayew slipping in ahead of Lovren fired his shot over.
It was no surprise to see Swansea take the lead. Sigurdsson’s corner was met by Ayew running past Sturridge and rising above Lovren to head home.
Apart from a few moments of decent possession we could not get a grip on the game and it was Swansea who almost increased their lead. Taylor and the speedy Montero linked with Routledge before he found the unmarked Cork who volleyed, only for Ward to make a superb save before springing back up to punch out the rebound.
Smith having his toughest 90 minutes in a Liverpool shirt was booked for a reckless tackle.
The waves of Swansea attacks kept coming unabated and Amat waltzed in unchallenged to unbelievably head over from 4 yards.
Ward pulled off yet another good save from Ayew after the striker skipped past Martin Skrtel before firing in a shot.
The second had to come and in did. Philippe Coutinho with mind seemingly already on the second leg was easily dispossessed centrally before, Cork loped towards the area unchallenged before picking his spot to curl his effort inside the far post.
Liverpool were being eaten alive with Chivirella struggling in the fires of the engine room. The Spaniard at this moment to my mind is better deployed in the hole, where Liverpool are well stocked than in the middle of the park.
Daniel Sturridge almost brought us back into the game as Ojo played him in producing a delicious chip which floated over Fabianski, but unfortunately wide of the post. The striker frustrated with the lack of service had a speculative effort from distance which looped through to Fabianski on the full.
Lucky to be only two-down at the break and with eyes firmly stuck on next Thursday Klopp replaced Coutinho with Benteke and Lucas on for Chivirella.
The changes had an immediate effect with Lucas adding more stability to the midfield and more cover in front of Skrtel and Lovren.
Enjoying more possession without much cutting edge, Liverpool struggled with holding on to possession losing the ball with ill directed passes and slow build up.
As the clocked ticked round to 65 minutes the next three minutes perfectly highlighted Liverpool's problems.
Ojo’s perfectly delivered corner dropped in the centre of the goalmouth for Benteke to break free of his marker Sigurdsson to head in past Fabianski for his ninth goal of the season.
Two minutes later and the game was as good over. Lucas doing a very good impression of a Sloth, was caught moping on the ball by Montero who headed straight for the area, before the threat was momentarily halted by Clyne, only for Skrtel and then Ojo to miss out on opportunities to clear before Ayew bursting into the area slammed a shot through Lucas weak block and into the back of the net.
Liverpool’s day hit rock bottom when Smith, given a torrid time by Routledge earned himself a second yellow card for a needlessly high challenge on the winger. It was a chastening afternoon for the youngster and one he is good enough to get over after getting very little support from first Ibe and then Ojo.
Skrtel also earned himself a yellow form a foul of Sigurssson.
It was an ignominious afternoon, beaten by Swansea side who up until that point had been relatively solid at home.
The lopsided balance of inexperience kids with a sprinkling of experience heads caused Liverpool to be overwhelmed from start to finish and with Southampton going on to beat Man City later on in the day, Europa qualification through the league now seems in the balance and dependent on results and Man United winning the FA Cup.
Man of the Match: Danny Ward – pulled off some fine saves under incessant pressure from Swansea. Impressed again from with his distribution on the ground and undoubtedly will have a future as number two at Liverpool.
I cannot remember a worse performance all season. We struggled to get into the game and apart from a brief window which saw Benteke resurrect some brief hope we were very rarely at the races.
It was a disappointing performance where we overwhelmed in all areas and our failure to create left Daniel Sturridge little to work with.
Sturridge appeared to go off in a huff at the end of the game after appearing not to thank the fans.
In response Jurgen Klopp said the following, "If someone forgot to say thank you to the fans, then it's my fault and nobody else's.
"If you think we ignore the fans it's not what we wanted. I went too immediately. Hopefully our fans know how close we are to them. After a game like this, he wants to leave and go home, recover and do a lot of things."
"The first two goals were too easy and too simple for Swansea. We deserved the defeat and they deserved the win but I think a big part of this result was our performance so we have to accept this, recover and prepare again and play much better.
"Our performance was not as good as possible. With this line up, we tried to bring fresh legs and fresh minds. I'm only frustrated and disappointed because I know we could have played better.
"It's not important now but if we could have played a little bit better, closer to our 100 per cent then it would have been a completely different game."
"Now, in this moment, we take each game as it is from now on."
"So it's the Europa League, then next Sunday, it's the Premier League. Do you really think we say 'let's put everything in this game and ignore the rest of these games' - that's not how we can work.
"We played really well in the last few games with different line-ups and today we didn't and that's less surprising than the good games we played with ten changes and things like this.
"After Bournemouth, after Stoke, after all of these games, everyone says 'how good are these young players?' and they are good, but that's how it is.
"Life as a professional footballer player is not always a honeymoon, so you have to prove yourself and deliver. Today, it didn't work too well but that's not a problem for the future, it's only problem for today... It's not about the squad or something, it's only about today."
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ReplyDeleteVillarreal rested 10 players tonight and still beat Valencia 2-0
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