Ratings & Reactions: Liverpool v Villa

[Ghost]

19 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Surprised to see this.

Thought he was awful and heavily favoured Liverpool.

They should have had 5 yellows first half chopping down our breakaways.

They continually fouled us and threw us down to get the ball.

Then he gave the silly never a foul dives when a defender is under pressure to both sides, moreso to them.

Funnily enough, I thought the ref was actually decent. I would say that Fabinho's yellow was given far too late, but apart from that, I think most of the other decisions were actually correct and fair for both teams. I'm not even sure that the 10 mins added time was wrong - it seems like the proper amount of time is finally being added to games these days, post World Cup, and viewers and players just aren't used to it. The 3 or so minutes added on at the Wolves game was a joke and should have probably been 10 mins.

Stopping the clock for breaks in play is the obvious solution that no one wants to implement for some reason - it would just remove all the dodginess.

[Lochheads twin]

45 minutes ago, Tomaszk said:

Surprised to see this.

Thought he was awful and heavily favoured Liverpool.

They should have had 5 yellows first half chopping down our breakaways.

They continually fouled us and threw us down to get the ball.

Then he gave the silly never a foul dives when a defender is under pressure to both sides, moreso to them.

That’s Football! 

I watched the game with a Liverpool supporter and maybe that influenced me. His opinion, for what it’s worth, was the ref was useless and hugely favoured Villa.

Other than not booking Fabinho much earlier, I thought he got the important decisions right.

Well, that’s how I saw it and everyone has their own perspective on a game. Cheers!

UTV

[AVTuco]

14 hours ago, Lochheads twin said:

Huge shout out to the ref.

Best impartial performance for a long time. 
 

not what we are used to at an away match with the Sky6!

Yes, I agree, well done ref. 

Refs get so much shite it's time to also point out when they do well. Yesterday, this ref did.

[delboy54]

Winning 1 nil against liverpoo with injury time to play it's always going to be difficult to hold on.

1 - 1 against that lot is a good result, esp with spuds losing. Let's keep positive...

[ferguson1]

Despite the equaliser, it was a fantastic result and our first half performance was so controlled. Lay literally didn’t lay a glove on us until the second half. We’re good, bloody good.

One thing that is still bugging me this morning though is the 18 minutes added time overall? Just how is that possible? We got to have 3 minutes at Molineux recently, despite Wolves wasting time all second half. 

[Rolta]

15 hours ago, jjaacckk91 said:

107.5 minutes...

This was insane and absurd! I remember one game recently with loads of injuries and we got about 3mins of injury time that I don't think were even fully played.

[Lichfield Dean]

8 hours ago, MrBlack said:

I explained it above, but i think it should be offside (but it isnt under the correct interpretation of the current rules).

The offside player is interfering with Ramseys decision making.

Therefore he is interfering with play. It absolutely should be considered offside...but the rules say because Ramsey deliberately tried to block the ball that the previously offside player can now be considered onside.

It's just such an arbitrary way of handling the offside call that massively penalises the defending team. Maybe they want to encourage more goals, but it doesn't sit right with me. 

Either way, that call went our way when it very easily, and probably, shouldn't have. Its a small recompense for the dismal referees we've had over the last 8 weeks or so.

I'm only surprised Klopp didn't moan about it after the game. He's such a bad loser..and they didn't even lose.... Except their ability to play in the CL next season 

Ok, I get your argument. As you say, given the current rules, it's hard to come to a sensible decision in scenarios like that.

[stewiek2]

To sum it all up...

We've got Super Unai Emery!

[tinker]

We had the best chances to score in the last 10 minutes,  McGinn made the wrong decision on 2 occasions when we had men over on the edge of the box.

Fabinho constantly stopping breakaway chances with cynical fouls cost us this game, he did it in our half so avoided a card  but he should have been booked in the first 20 minutes regardless. When he was finally booked Klopp took him off as he needed a player on who could stop our breakaways with more cynical fouls. It's a method in dealing with our formation ,one that Spurs tried as well. We need to speak to the refs and raise the temperature on this type of cheating. 

[El Segundo]

I have mixed feelings on the ref.  He got most of the big calls right I think, and he  deserves credit for not obviously favouring Liverpool at Anfield, which so many of them seem to fall into. However he let himself down by allowing persistent fouling from Fabinho before finally yellow carding him after about his 8th foul.   The added time thing was apparently an instruction to refs for the last two games of the season, according to a Wolves player who questioned it with their ref. But quite how he added 5 minutes to the first half and then found another 3 minutes and 8 seconds within that 5 minutes to add on is anybody's guess. 

On VAR,  If anything, we got the rub of the green on some decisions.  The offside goal was a question of interpretation as to whether the ball was played deliberately to Van Dyke or not, it could easily have been given the other way and I was surprised it wasn't at that place.  Then the penalty shout for Luiz's challenge on Henderson - not enough in it for me but I've seen them given for less, especially there.   I also fully expected a red card for Mings even though it wasn't.  

 

[stewiek2]

I might be diabetic now after all the saltiness from dippers on Twitter

[TRO]

15 hours ago, RicRic said:

My life i love this squad and my admiration for Unai Emery is through the clouds into heaven What a man and what a team he has engineered! just bloody refreshing and so good!! .. yes i was very angry when they equalised even threw the table , not so much angry at us but the fact that we deserved it way more because we were so disciplined, could have been a whole lot worse if we lost especially with 10 added minutes.

These boys have done us proud no matter what happens next match, i feel overwhelmed as a villa supporter right now this club runs through my veins so these times mean everything to me, my grandmother is seriously ill who is like a mother to me, and the only thing putting a huge smile on my face right now is this CLUB UTV!!! 
 

Mings was outstanding today mcginn,Luiz and ramsey deserve special mentions too fantastic. 

I'm Sorry to hear about your Grandmother, I hope she finds comfort.....she is the most important thing to look after.

The team is in good hands...no fears.

[duke313]

11 hours ago, Lichfield Dean said:

It was definitely a strange offside decision having seen it on MOTD. I thought initially that it was a blatant offside from the initial ball in but that wasn't the case. It was the nodding back of the ball into Ramsey and it deflecting back to a Liverpool player that was offside. I think technically it was offside (if we assume Ramsey was't deliberately playing the ball), but I don't think it should be really because it just seemed like random luck that it ended up at the Liverpool player's feet.

Not that I'm complaining about Liverpool getting a decision go against them of course, they absolutely deserve that after some of the decisions they've been getting. I just mean in general I don't think that scenario should have been an offside.

If you have a quick read of the Liverpool forums, you’d think that decisions go against them every week, and that their is some sort of massive conspiracy to shaft them at the expense of the Manchester clubs.

[VILLAMARV]

Even the Liverpool fan I was with didn't think it was a red for Mings. I agreed with his appraisal which was you can see Mings start to try and pull his foot away after kicking the ball. The added time was weird - more so in the first half. Fabinho should have been booked fairly early on. 2 things became inevitable for me. Firminho was going to come on and get the last minute goal. And as it went in I turned to my mate and said, well, that's ten minutes of injury time then. and lo how they both came to pass!

We were great in the first half. Mings, McGinn and Kamara especially for me. Watkins looked real nervy before the pen and I wasn't surprised he missed it in front of the Kop. But the ball from Dougie and the finish from JJ. Lovely. My mates kid (who incidentally had just picked up his coach's player of the year for his u9's team earlier on - good for him) learned some new words AND how to celebrate properly when your team scores!

The second half was a horrible thing in the main, But Mings and Konsa dealt with most of it and Martinez kept claiming everything that came his way, and to be fair, when the goal came in the end it is from a really nice ball with the outside of his foot from Salah eh and Firminho gets his moment in front of the Kop. I also want to say that in Luis Diaz and Gakpo they have 2 of the most fun to watch players if you were neutral. They make it look easy and fun. And therefore what a game back for Cash and I thought Digne had one of his better games for us keeping Salah pretty quiet first half. I bet Cash was knackered but he kept running and battling. Bailey started brighly but faded. Buendia sorted us out a bit when he came on. I was surprised to see Dougie withdrawn.

And a draw was probably a fair result overall. Does us loads more favours than it does them, and after the Brentford win we all knew a point would leave our destiny in our own hands. And so on to our cup final 1 of 1. Win against Brighton at home on the last day and we qualify for Europe. We'd have taken it at the start of the season, we'd have definitely taken it when Gerrard left, We'd have taken it when we were sitting behind Chelsea for a few weeks, we'd have taken it when we lost to Wolves. Lets hope we can take our chance now we've earnt it. Brighton isn't an easy game but I'm not going to bet against us.

Proud.

[Paul33]

3 hours ago, stewiek2 said:

I might be diabetic now after all the saltiness from dippers on Twitter

Sugar not Salt !!!

[stewiek2]

1 hour ago, Paul33 said:

Sugar not Salt !!!

I stand corrected.

[stewiek2]

"Aston Villa are the first team since Man City in 2021 to better Liverpool's xG and record an xGA of below 1 in a Premier League match at Anfield.

Unai Emery has drastically improved this Villa team across the board in the space of months. Elite."

[TomC]

10 hours ago, Ghost said:

Stopping the clock for breaks in play is the obvious solution that no one wants to implement for some reason - it would just remove all the dodginess.

There's a very good reason...if you introduce stop-clock, then they will start running TV ads during the stops, and then the match will take 3.5 hours to play and lose all flow. It will turn into American football.

Sorry to go off topic.

 

[RicRic]

8 hours ago, TRO said:

I'm Sorry to hear about your Grandmother, I hope she finds comfort.....she is the most important thing to look after.

The team is in good hands...no fears.

Top man appreciate it thanks  

[OutByEaster?]

I only saw flashes of the game but jeez you know when you've taken a point off this lot don't you?

It is apparently a miracle this season that they've finished even in the Europa spots with the 491 clear and obvious deliberate mistakes that United supporting royalists have deliberately made to stop their boys who've never done anything wrong ever. Even the manager is on-board and on message - wooden toothed bully that he is.

It's the most one eyed, unbalanced fan base in football, they're genuinely mental - and I say that knowing full well that I'm a Villa fan and that Newcastle supporters exist.