Wednesday 3 December 2014

Match Review - Leicester City

Watching the first half I was again worried, we seemed desperate to present Leicester with a goal with defenders constantly inviting pressure on themselves clearing the ball straight up in the air or only to the feet of an attacker on the edge of the box, then, when this doesn't work Mignolet decided to pass the pall directly to Leicester's most talented and high profile player directly in front of goal, whilst making sure there were no defenders or even himself in a position to prevent the goal. Somehow he missed and we were still level. Lucky yes but despite not falling behind all this does is lift the Leicester crowd, keep ours quiet, encourage a bottom of the table team that they can actually compete with us and create extra nerves in our players.  Leicester's goal proves this a period of pressure from Leicester, largely due to Liverpool's inability to clear the ball rather than any great play from Leicester led to a goal that was a comedy of errors from our defence and keeper, unlucky? Possibly, but deserved fro Leicester.

We equalised shortly afterwards with a great strike from Lallana but it was hardly deserved we hadn't played well were not creating and again players seemed to be out of form or short on confidence.  At half time I was criticising Gerrard he appeared to be missing from the game not getting on the ball and unable to keep up the the quick breaks of Sterling and Lallana leaving attackers isolated and easy to defend against.

The second half saw a change with players across the midfield pushing forward and Gerrard getting on the ball far more often allowing him to run the game, with both him and Sterling now producing the class we are used to.  But the important point to take from the game is the physicality that the Liverpool players had to produce to match that of their opponents, long balls into our box were Leicester's main weapon and we defended them along with any corners and free kicks well.  Leicester were very physical and we got little or no protection from a dismal referee but the players stood up for themselves refused to be bullied and dogged it out.  Teams have been bullying us very easily for most of the season and i am glad that over the last couple of games this has changed.

Goals in the second half came from the majestic Gerrard and Henderson both after good work from Sterling with Liverpool having to withstand at times heavy pressure, pressure that they coped with well in the second half far better.  

Liverpool were also denied a certain penalty when Schmeichel and the Leicester goal clearly fouled Gerrard when he was through on goal.  At this point Leicester were down to ten players after Morgan had been sent off for an earlier professional foul.  It is my opinion that the referee did not award the penalty as if he did he would have had to send the Leicester keeper off as well leaving them with only nine players.  A terrible spineless decision form a referee who was dismally below standard all day, if referees are not up to the job or not prepared to make decisions they should be taken out of the league there is no reason at all why the referee or one of his assistants could not have awarded that penalty when everybody else in the ground could clearly see that it was apart from that all three of them bottled it.

A good win for Liverpool and a very valuable three points but still not a good performance, terrible first half better in the second but we dogged this one, we had to stand up to Leicester and we did so well done Liverpool, three more points at the weekend please.

@lfclumo

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