One of the worries brought up over the course of the past few weeks was how playing an extra match - one that could have been prevented - would affect the team. Given the result of the replay, it seemed worth it to keep Liverpool in the FA Cup tournament. It was a spectacular win, one covered in my previous blog post. It was one that should have given this club loads of confidence heading into their next match - the all important Merseyside Derby.
However, it seemed to have the opposite affect. Liverpool looked tired and listless. Several players had solid performances, but several had less than stellar matches and even bordered on being awful. Steven Gerrard was one of those players. His game was by no means actually awful, but compared to what we have come to expect from the Liverpool captain, it was by no means a typical Gerrard match. He looked slow and a bit off. Gerrard's touch was nowhere near where one would hope it would be, given the fact this match could have been his last Merseyside Derby. His passes were off the mark from the very beginning.
In a play that garnered a chuckle from the NBC broadcast crew, Gerrard sprayed one out wide toward winger Jordan Ibe, when Ibe had already clearly made a run up the pitch. Similar passes were made later in the match as well. By no means is this a statement against Gerrard as a player. It could simply be time catching up or it could be a lack of form given his relative lack of playing time over recent weeks. Or, the most likely answer in reality, is it was just a poor performance and should be written off as such. Unfortunately, we have come to expect great things from Gerrard so often that anything less comes off as much worse than it was in reality.
The Liverpool skipper was by far, not the only player who had a less than stellar match. When you look at the overall performances of the team as a whole, Raheem Sterling, Emre Can and Martin Skrtel were the only players that had good performances. Lucas' departure so early in the match may have been a cause, perhaps throwing the team into a disarray. Joe Allen came on in his stead, and while he did not do anything wrong, he did what Joe Allen tends to do - nothing.
Allen gives his all out there during the match, usually doing a decent job of closing down or trying to plug up space. But given his normal position of a defensive, holding midfielder he just rarely cuts it. He is too small to be effective as a fourth or fifth defender, often getting muscled off the ball especially against Everton on this night. He gives the ball away too often in areas that may not lead to direct counter attacks, but still put his defensive teammates in a poor spot.
Even Daniel Sturridge had a poor showing. Sturridge did nothing wrong, really, but outside of a few nice moments he really disappeared in the late stages of the second half. This is not necessarily a reflection on him. He was not being set up in very opportune spots and often tried to get things going in a positive manner only to run into defenders. The team gained a brief spark when Sturridge first entered the game, but offensively you could tell they were looking to him too much after that instead of taking the game by the scruff.
The defense also returned to their shaky play. They did not fail to mark their counterparts or allow players in behind them. However, their footwork was questionable at best. Emre Can, save for his overconfident play late in the match against Lukaku, was very good. Martin Skrtel was ok. However, Sakho more than made up for both of them and that's not a good thing. Sakho marks his men very well and is a solid defensive back, but there are recreational league players who show better foot skills than Liverpool's left back.
Ultimately, I could go on for paragraph after paragraph singling out players and moments in the match. The bottom line is that this was a very disappointing match. It wasn't an end of the world result. Liverpool gained a point and are still alive. However, it was a match that was winnable and given circumstances in the table it would have been much more valuable to gain the three points as opposed to just one. No one can argue that a draw is not better than a loss, but the listlessness of the match just put a negative spin on this.
The Bolton replay may be to blame. While in the grand scheme of things, it is a positive thing for the club to remain in the FA Cup, it could be partially to blame for this type of result. Despite being a lower level club, Bolton really took it to the Reds in their midweek clash. Despite having their lone goal come on a questionable penalty, Bolton took the game to Liverpool and the Reds had to expend quite a bit of energy to score their own two goals. From the beginning of the Merseyside Derby, you could see that Liverpool just didn't have that jump and energy that you would normally see in such a rivalry match. The extra game is surely to blame, at least in part, for that.
It is not just Liverpool to blame for this result. Everton came out with a game plan and executed it reasonably well. The disappointing thing was just the way the match played out. It was boring, it was uneventful, it lacked pace and punch except for Jordan Ibe's blast on the Liverpool side and a great save by Simon Mingolet at the end of the match after a smart shot by Sheamus Coleman.
Liverpool just did not come out with the energy one would have hoped. Even though the club has struggled to finish goals in games past, if Liverpool came out and played with the form they have shown over the past few weeks there is no doubt they would have won. Everton lack much of the skill that the Reds have and if both are at their best, Liverpool should have gotten a win. Instead, Everton played ok and Liverpool made many mistakes and a 0-0 draw is what is the result.
Again, this result is not the end of the world. A point is a point and every point is valuable at this point in the season. It is just disappointing that so many players were either affected by the extra game during the week or lacked the mental fortitude to summon the energy for a derby. It is disappointing to watch two teams that need wins going forward to put so little into the match as a whole. It was disappointing to have the legend of Steven Gerrard end so unremarkably in regards to the Merseyside Derby. Both teams will go on their respective paths for the rest of the season, but this was just a disappointing match to watch.
Random thoughts:
- Perhaps it is just me, since I do not live in the cauldron of Liverpool and do not have to deal with the rivals literally living on my doorstep. However, Everton seem like those rivals that you hate and want to destroy in the derby but are ok with them doing well other than that. As long as Liverpool finish at least one place above them, Everton can finish as high as they want sort of deal. Maybe I'm wrong.
- In addition to the faults I found with the players, I wasn't completely on board with the substitutes. Ibe starting is fine due to his speed and youthful exuberance. I was a bit shocked to see Coutinho come off, even though he has played a lot of games lately. Joe Allen coming on makes sense from a positional sense but I would not have seen a problem using Markovic to replace Lucas and moving Gerrard back. Lambert is basically in the same boat with Fabio Borini and Mario Balotelli. He just doesn't do much.
- Liverpool had lots of shots and though credited with 6 on target, it was disappointing to not take advantage of Tim Howard not being in net. Being American, I am biased, but Howard is still one of the best Premier League keepers and not winning when he is not in the match makes it a bit more disappointing.
- I did not understand why Reds and Blues could not sit together. Everything I have heard in the past is that fan bases have intermingled during the Merseyside Derbies. I did not get the reasoning to not allow this just because the match was held at night.
Walk On
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