Ratings & Reactions: LC5 Villa v Liverpool

[ciggiesnbeer]

I see Liverpool have lost no time in giving sainthood to their losing players tonight. God knows how gag inducing it would be if they had won.

Funny how its all fine when teams have an unfair advantage in squad value & spend but in one game when a "top club" loses then age is trotted out as an unfair advantage for the winner.
 

 

[Hornso]

Everton, Oxford & Colchester to join us in the Semi's please. 

[Pelle]

I call this a text book youth team vs. senior team. The youth team were full of energy and ran around chasing us all over the pitch. Clearly and obviously more motivated but with less skill. The esnior team, our players, did what was needed and had a calm night. Sure, Nyland had to make some good saves and I gave him MotM, but after our first goal there really wasn't any doubt. We never came out of 1st gear and we really didn't need to either. Job done.

Even though Kodjia scored twice, or a hat trick if he really touched the first one, I think this game showed why he's not in the team. He's quite selfish, doesn't work for the team and most of the times when he has the ball nothing comes out of it. Yes, 3 goals are quite obviously very good. Can't really ask for more than that, but most times he tried to do it all himself and lost the ball. And against better teams there won't happen more than today. BUT, he's hungrier for a goal than Wes and will get into scoring positions more often. So if we're screaming for a striker scoring loads of goals then yes, he's the better option, but for another kind of forward Wes is probably more what Smith wants from that position. Even though he hasn't been very good of late. Still good for both player's confidence to score tonight. That won't hurt any of them. And a hattrick is always a hattrick, no denying that.

[ciggiesnbeer]

Top post there @Pelle  Spot on re: the Kodjia dilemma. 

I still hold out hope his decision making can improve particularly when on the ball , pass it dammit. I am sure he has been told the same by the coaching staff. Improve there and he really could be our starting striker. He may have to be.

[mattyvilla]

I think claims that we were outplayed were quite bizarre , clearly we sat off and allowed them to have the ball . Liverpool kept possession well but played triangles and sideways , they really didn't penetrate , if you look at our goals they mainly came from us waiting for a loose pass to go forward it was clearly a tactic . Didn't see much from anyone tonight that would suggest anyone should be in the starting 11 , having said that we can't ignore hourihanes dead ball delivery , its a weapon.

[villalad21]

The stats are worryingly equal.

I find it amazing that a bunch of kids had 58 % possession.

 

[villa4europe]

The possession is meaningless, we spent 45 mins 4-0 up, let them have the ball, keep our shape and make them do something 

The comfortable lead dictated who had the ball 

[A'Villan]

14 minutes ago, mattyvilla said:

I think claims that we were outplayed were quite bizarre , clearly we sat off and allowed them to have the ball . Liverpool kept possession well but played triangles and sideways , they really didn't penetrate , if you look at our goals they mainly came from us waiting for a loose pass to go forward it was clearly a tactic . Didn't see much from anyone tonight that would suggest anyone should be in the starting 11 , having said that we can't ignore hourihanes dead ball delivery , its a weapon.

Conceding a few dangerous attempts on goal to Liverpool over a ten minute period qualifies as being outplayed apparently.

We were fortunate to go up because it was against the run of play, but that happens in football, as witnessed in our defeat to Leicester.

Some really good chances don't end up in the back of the net, Wes then makes a blunder and Leicester take a few touches and score in transition.

That doesn't change or negate the efforts in both matches that saw the eventual winners play a solid brand of football that their opponents didn't have an answer for.

 

[Talldarkandransome]

Reading some of the comments on here suggests we lost 5-0

Listening to Sky would suggest we played 11 newborns who were playing their first game on their own

[sidcow]

5 - 0 yet Nyland is MOTM. I was seriously concerned in the first 10 minutes as they had almost total domination and 5 or 6 excellent chance.  But for Nyland saves and some wayward shooting it looked like the kind of performance I had been dreading was about to unfold. 

Fortunately it was a game of 2 Keepers and as good as Nyland was their keeper let in 2 freak goals in quick succession. 

What I found amazing was how good those Liverpool kids were.  They were constantly pressing us,  most of the time we were just hanging onto the ball by the skin of our teeth or losing it to them. 

When we had the ball our passing was woeful. 

They kept it up all game and didn't deserve the tonking they got. 

Experience shone through in the end assisted by some great keeping and a bit of luck. 

Why can't we press like that though? It's just hard work at the end of the day but makes a massive difference to a team. 

[villalad21]

13 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

The possession is meaningless

It's been a glaring issue for us this season.

We are unable to string passes together and it invites pressure on our back 4.

You can't say it's meaningless. We lose the ball and the opponent catch us on the break. It happens all the time.

[Davkaus]

3 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

It's been a glaring issue for us this season.

 

It has, but I don't think last night is an example of it. Seemed to me Smith told them at half time to just keep it steady and not to take the piss. We could have played a bit more and humiliated them but he clearly wanted us to keep the score down and not have our players exert themselves. If we could have just called it a day at half time, I think we would have.

We played in second gear, scored at will in the first half, then spent 45 minutes seeing the clock out. I don't think much can be taken from it at all.

[A'Villan]

22 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

The stats are worryingly equal.

I find it amazing that a bunch of kids had 58 % possession.

 

58% possession means they had the ball for 15 more minutes than us over the 90 minutes, and no goals to show.

We were more incisive, clinical and purposeful with the ball for most of the fixture. Pretty sure we had triple their successful dribbles too.

They had nearly 200 more passes than us in total, but average passing sequence lasted 5 passes for Villa and 6 for Liverpool.

I'd argue that despite the success rate for passes and total possession, we had the better build up and were the better side at dealing with phases of play, clearly.

Yes those opening minutes were Liverpool's through and through, but they failed to emulate that kind of potency again.

 

[A'Villan]

11 minutes ago, sidcow said:

5 - 0 yet Nyland is MOTM. I was seriously concerned in the first 10 minutes as they had almost total domination and 5 or 6 excellent chance.  But for Nyland saves and some wayward shooting it looked like the kind of performance I had been dreading was about to unfold. 

Fortunately it was a game of 2 Keepers and as good as Nyland was their keeper let in 2 freak goals in quick succession. 

What I found amazing was how good those Liverpool kids were.  They were constantly pressing us,  most of the time we were just hanging onto the ball by the skin of our teeth or losing it to them. 

When we had the ball our passing was woeful. 

They kept it up all game and didn't deserve the tonking they got. 

Experience shone through in the end assisted by some great keeping and a bit of luck. 

Why can't we press like that though? It's just hard work at the end of the day but makes a massive difference to a team. 

Woah, we couldn't see it more differently. We played around their feeble attempts to press with ease for the majority. Brains over brawn.

Sure they played with energy and enthusiasm and forced us to play some tight and tidy football in our own half, but we were well and truly up to it.

Different game had they gone up, and they were a bit unfortunate, but we did enough to put ourselves in the position for each and every goal.

As for the team pressing, stamina and tenacity in one vs one duels is great but the team game requires tactical organisation to be effective, which I thought we were today.

Both the assembly and arrangement as a team and the responsibility of the individuals in it made us a defensive outfit that did enough to prevent Liverpool.

Their pressing lacked trapping that was good enough to force us into errors and allowed us to play around them with relative ease.

Run 100 meter sprints all day if you like but if you're closing down isn't adequate enough to stem the flow then the river gonna continue to run, and we ran away 5-0!!

 

[carewjust4u]

32 minutes ago, villalad21 said:

It's been a glaring issue for us this season.

We are unable to string passes together and it invites pressure on our back 4.

You can't say it's meaningless. We lose the ball and the opponent catch us on the break. It happens all the time.

have a day off mate, we made 10 changes from our starting 11...including 3 players who haven't played in months.

Edited December 18, 2019 by carewjust4u

[Robtaylor200]

Didn't watch it live as stuck on the old mans shift at work

My 4:1 bet was only 15/1 so shows what was expected by the bookies, I was told it would have been a better bet for how many times the commentators mentioned the age of the Liverpool team

At the end of the day, I dont care if they are some bodies grand kids We won and we are in the Semis

[tinker]

42 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Why can't we press like that though? It's just hard work at the end of the day but makes a massive difference to a team. 

This is what I can't understand either, it's a simple part of the game that requires high fitness levels. We started the season doing but we appear to have stopped it now . Their back 4 had time on the ball until they were in our half. Our back four was under pressure from the edge of our box .

We need to start on Saturday by pressing Southampton and forcing them long , if we stand off their back 4 we will invite them into the game 

[rjw63]

12 hours ago, jacketspuds said:

Good result. Had to miss the last 20 minutes as I couldn't hear anything other than the commentators fapping over the Liverpool players.

This is why you lot should NOT pay for SkySkumSport.

Local radio is much better. In fact checking "Livescore" on the cellphone every ten minutes is better than listening to the Sky Turdburglars rim Liverpool/Manure/Chelsea/whoever is playing us

[Jareth]

55 minutes ago, Robtaylor200 said:

At the end of the day, I dont care if they are some bodies grand kids We won and we are in the Semis

Quite right - some folks on Twitter were criticising Elmo's goal celebration - tough, we treated this fixture with the respect it deserved, LFC chose not to. Worth cheering this for many reasons, but mostly for the record of LFC's biggest battering in the competition in history. 

[Paul33]

2 hours ago, villalad21 said:

The stats are worryingly equal.

I find it amazing that a bunch of kids had 58 % possession.

Don't be fooled. These U23 teams not only play together regularly but, in many cases, have played together at younger levels.

What you had last night was a cohesive unit playing a distinctly unfamiliar and disjointed unit that had never played together before. In the end, our fitness and experience won the day but I always expected Liverpool to have plenty of possession and confidence. 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Paul33