I’ve unashamedly cribbed this from the saintslist, I do hope the author doesn’t mind but the young padewan speaks sense :-
So, where are we now.
Our equal biggest defeat, and our biggest home defeat, since returning to the top flight, if my memory serves me well.
First, we have to accept that Liverpool are a good team, with good players who played well for each other. Even so, and unlike the Everton defeat, I don’t think we can just write this off as ‘a bad day at the office’.
It started with the first goal. Not ours unfortunately, although that was nice, but theirs. Caulker failed to take advantage of Sturridge’s miscontrol, backed off and allowed him to shoot. Stekelenburg allowed the goal to go in despite the very narrow angle. This pattern would be pretty much repeated five more times, with Stekelenburg making his first real save in the 91st minute.
Up until then, Sturridge had looked rusty, as one might expect, the Liverpool midfield although numerous was ineffective and easily bypassed and their defence frankly panicky. But once we were sliced open so easily Liverpool realised that Caulker was there for the taking, that Cedric (who had one of the worst games I can remember - was he trying to show Koeman was right to prefer Yoshida last week) would be unable to support him correctly, that Van Dijck - until then dominating at the back - could be bypassed and that Stekelenburg would be beaten by accurate shooting. The Liverpool midfield pulled its collective self together realising there was an outlet for its work and - not all the time but for long enough - showed Saints that there is indeed a difference in class between the two teams.
Meanwhile our midfield (meaning Wanyama and Clasie - Davis had one of his “Why, Oh Why” games) becoming increasingly nervous (with good reason) about the solidity behind them, dared less and less and resorted to long balls either to Pelle - but Davis was incapable of seizing on his knock-downs - or to our wingers (both Tadic and Mané played pretty much as conventional wingers for almost the whole game). The latter two tried but were ‘double-teamed’ effectively for most of the game.
So much for diagnosis: others may see it differently, and in particular may argue that - like v. Everton - it was just a matter of letting in too many shots. But I think it showed up some basic weaknesses in the team that we ignore at our peril. First, the right side of defence is not right. Cedric has many qualities, and I generally want him to play, but he is NOT a quality right back. Caulker demonstrated clearly why he has failed at Spurs and Swansea, and gone down with QPR. A trier but not a winner, basically. Van Dijk showed, like Lovren and even Alderweireld, that he needs Fonte beside him to be at his best and that once the going got tough he wasn’t able to play as a classic solo centre half. He got pulled to the middle leaving Bertrand exposed, and not sufficiently covered by either Davis or Clasie (or Tadic, but that goes without saying).
Then the midfield, so comfortable at first, lost all confidence, arrived second to every ball (no difference when JWP and Romeu came on), failed to support either defence or forwards and ended up in almost total disarray. We must find a midfield general, like Schneiderlin, who can play through the odd mistake and still be confident that he is better than the opposition. We hoped that Big Vic would take that role, but I don’t see it against good teams (he may, and I hope will, be great against Villa); we hoped that Clasie could do some of that, and he probably can, but not yet and not when really needed. We know that Davis and JWP are not that type of player so we don’t understand why we don’t see more of Reed, who I still believe could be.
Finally the attack, after the first 20 minutes when we should and could have been two or three up, lost confidence as well (not surprisingly), drifted apart from one another, consistently found themselves on the wrong side of the ball when we did get it in or near the penalty area and generally signalled that it was not their day. But, when we realised how weak Randall was on their right, why did Mané not go over and torment him a few times? Certainly Tadic had the beating of him, at least at first, but it didn’t take long for Liverpool to reorganise and make sure that he would not be left on his own. Mané, with his speed, could have got past Randall before reinforcements could arrive. And Pellè, once he realised that the referee would give him nothing in his battle with Skyrtel, should surely have dragged him over closer to Lovren so that space would be left for -who? - to run through the gap.
In sum, we showed ourselves to be a team that can do great things, if the opponents don’t stop us, but has no idea what to do if they start playing better than we do. Our guys should study video of Stoke, West Brom, Swansea, Palace, all of whom have (I would argue) less skilful players, as a team, than we do but who are better able to resist and make it difficult for a good team, on form, to run away with the game.
Meanwhile, until we can afford a few players like Can, Sturridge, or even - dare I say it - Lallana, we can forget about our Top Six dreams. Our reserve centre-back has to be better than Caulker or Yoshida. Our midfield dynamo has to have more skill and energy than Davis. Our keeper has to be a better shot stopper than Stekelenburg. These are just examples, scapegoats if you like, but symptoms of why the odd good result, however welcome, will not open the door to the top.
So, Villa on Saturday, to see how well we can bounce back.
