The Soccer Blog: Liverpool 1, Steaua 1: Wake Up and Read This

Friday, 3 December 2010

Liverpool 1, Steaua 1: Wake Up and Read This

By: Ed | December 2nd, 2010
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Milan Jovanovic’s first-half header seals progression for Liverpool.

And outside of that nice interplay between he and Ryan Babel, you’re lying to yourself if you thought this was enjoyable.

Boring and passive for much of the 94-odd minutes played, this was the Liverpool we’ve come to despise. Passive, hoofing, then passive and hoofing, followed by more passivity and more hoofing, it was an exercise in not trying to win for nearly the entire match. Up 1-0? Chrissakes, get back and defend! A brief period of possession and pressure directly followed Steaua’s equalizer, but that fell by the wayside as Liverpool sat deeper and deeper, more and more content to hoof and sink. Predictable, frustrating, but ultimately, another performance that will be explained away as a means to and end and a deserved and quality result.

It was a bit of a mish-mash both collectively and individually, and I’ll be curious to see what Roy Hodgson has to say in the post-match comments. Yesterday he was more than happy to pre-emptively absolve any and all non-regulars of guilt, but I can’t imagine that he was impressed with anyone’s performance outside of maybe Jonjo Shelvey, Milan Jovanovic, Danny Wilson, and Pepe Reina, even if the latter’s moment of madness was to blame for the Steaua equalizer.

But it wasn’t anything near overwhelming or encouraging from anyone, really. The tactical approach mostly neutered any accountability from the forward men, and Christian Poulsen and Shelvey were largely invisible for most of the match. Most of Shelvey’s influence came while tracking back, as Steaua completely dominated possession and could basically wait for a hoof to arrive at their feet. And as bad as he’s been, I found myself almost desiring possession for Poulsen, whose name was barely uttered during the first half. Tactically they were there to serve a different function (read: watch the ball sail over their head), but this pairing was worlds apart from Lucas and Raul Meireles.

The defense was just stable enough for most of the match—the lone quality chance in the first half came on Sotirios Kyrgiakos’ bobble, but outside of that they were largely resolute for the first 45. Nice to see Fabio Aurelio return, even if he was slightly off the pace at times, but Martin Kelly had his first real struggles of the season, as Cristian Tanase got forward at will and nearly created a handful of chances for the hosts. Encouraging stuff from Danny Wilson, though, and it’s hard to be upset with a defensive unit that spent nearly the entire match in action. Eder Bonfim’s equalizer was an absolute collapse from Reina, but with so many other chances allowed for Steaua, you have to say Liverpool are fortunate it was the only one.

Joe Cole’s performance will probably get plenty of press, as will his parting thoughts, and I think it’s justified. It was clear he was anything but ready to go today, bottling a clear chance and looking like a man who wouldn’t have featured even if he was fit over the past month. Unfair to condemn him on today’s performance alone, but it’s clear that he needs to get up to speed relatively quickly if he’s going to break through. Didn’t do anything to answer my pre-match wonders about how he would fit—right now, he wouldn’t.

The same goes for the rest of the front six, maybe excluding Jovanovic. Again, there can’t be any sort of conviction in blaming them for basically trying to operate in a system that has little use for them, but they were a disorganized and confused-looking unit when getting forward. There was little urgency in possession, and when they did move forward, it rarely created any sort of quality chance. Jovanovic’s goal and Kyrgiakos’ header off the bar were, to my recollection, the only times Liverpool threatened.

As I said, I don’t think we can come to any definitive conclusions about today’s performance other than to say that the personnel weren’t put in a position to succeed. Nearly to a man, the tactical approach negated any sort of consistency outside of defense. We can attribute it to inexperience or youth or a tough European venue, but I think that would be ignoring the frighteningly familiar nature of today’s display.

So yeah, it was a point, and it means progress in Europe. But beyond that, it felt pretty damn empty.

Some Related Liverpool Posts:Matchday: Liverpool v. SteauaMatch Preview: Liverpool v. Steaua Bucharest, 09.16.10Squad Announced; Fernando Torres Has Been Paying AttentionLiverpool 4, Steaua 1: Better When I’m Not AroundLiverpool 2 (3), Trabzonspor 1 (1): Moving On

Category: Europa League, Match Recaps, Miscellaneous, Team News

Tags: Christian Poulsen, Dani Pacheco, Danny Wilson, David Ngog, Europa League, Fabio Aurelio, Jonjo Shelvey, Martin Kelly, Match Recaps, Milan Jovanovic, Miscellaneous, Pepe Reina, Ryan Babel, Sotirios Kyrgiakos, Team News
« Matchday: Liverpool v. Steaua | Home | The Return of Robbie Keane »Jay WrightThat was the first time that Hodgson has gone with the EXACT lineup that I wanted to see! (although I did want to see the personnel used slightly differently; with us having a look at Jovanovich upfront, Pacheco behind him, Cole having a free role on the left and Babel hugging the touchline on the right)

I hoped that we'd go out on the front foot and try to attack again, but I guess that that was too much to ask for - especially once we held a 1-0 lead which automatically means all out defence under Hodgson.

Anyway, we saw that Cole does not deserve a swift return to the first team, Babel can do damage in the wide areas (right wing/wideforward please?), Jovanovich can finish (get Maxi out?), Poulsen is a serviceable defensive midfielder (how was his performance any worse than that for which Lucas is getting so much applause for??) and that either Kelly or Wilson can be trusted to fill in at centre-back with no great drop-off in qualityGoing DownHaha.justinPacheco's completely wasted on the right where he has to run back and forth and ends up doing just that all the time because this team plays hoof and there is no possession at all for passing or moving.

Thought Babel had a decent game, direct most of the times but still rather predictable when on the left; ball on his right, shuttles down the left, cuts back inside. The only surprise today was when he crossed with his *left* foot.

The team hardly knew one another. Funny how we're playing hoofmania when we're a team of shorties, maybe we should just sell all the flair players and get some giants in to play hoofball, we're wasting their time anyway.RedLiverBirdFCFuck this.EdToday's performance? Or my dimwitted musings?

Either way, I'm with you.RedLiverBirdFCOh no, your musings are nice! I was generally dissatisfied with Liverpool's overall performance this year. But who isn't eh?

Keep up the good work ed!

I will go conjure up masturbatory fantasies in which Liverpool spank 6 goals through manchester united's hapless defensive line.NoelI'm gonna go with Option C: Channeling Joe Cole.EdThat Hodgson has further underlined this as a "very good" display is about all that needs saying.eddieyep, totally agree with you ed. Cole did struggle, maybe its down to match fitness and playing in hostile ground, and ofcourse his confidence is a bit low at the moment with all that everyone is expecting of him.
I thought pacheco was also average tonight, he roamed around and didnt really do all that much to be honest. Again agreed with the others, that he does look uncomfortable on the right, and should be playing a more central position.

On a positive, i though babel did really well, considering he hardly had any help from others trying to assist him. He held the ball up well, good passing, good movement and touches etc. i really thought he was the stand out player tonight for us. Hopefuly roy will start playing him more now. I just hope that we go 442 against aston villa with torres and babel up front. Babel playing just behind torres. We all know that potentially that could be an excellent partnership! anyone else agree?NoelThe return of nap time matches. An argument in favour of rotation so that you don't end up occasionally sending out an entirely unfamiliar and rusty "b team." Another suggestion that giving Joe Cole more than seven million dollars a year to alternate between injury and rusty may have been a bad idea. A reason to wonder how it is that a 19-year old kid who came in with a reputation as a more attacking midfielder has more positional sense than a supposed defensive specialist who chases the ball without fail.

What a soporific match.redtrev73What a waste of life that was...and we learned?? Nada. Cheers woyston. We finally see pacheco and it's alongside 9 lads who won't feature in the first team. Magic. That's how to bring on the brighest prospects isn't it?! Best we can hope for from this latest spiritless and cagey display is that fabio gets in ahead of konchesky for the villa game. Felt sorry for the lads tonight. Hard to see cole starting on monday after that display. What a classic piece of werthers buffoonery to haul off a guy trying to play himself into form after telling the world at a presser his confidence was very low...i swear to god, the man makes my blood boil...watched on irish tv tonite and had to endure yet more benign appraisals of the old codger. 'Poor roy', ventured the dollybird reading viewers texts after one guy ventured that it might be time for hodgson to go. Then mark wright opined that he deserved 'tremendous credit' for his euro mastery...jesus wept...Justin BonebrakeI totally napped.JoelIt's sad that I started watching the game on a stream because class was getting very very boring, but by the end, I was paying more attention to class because the game got very very very boring.

On the whole, I agree that any one player can really be singled out as playing bad after the game, as the tactics were really what made it a horror show to watch. Thought Babel had quite a good game up top, showed some excellent movement and did well in going up against 2-3 players. Had some nice play into the channels as well. Think we might have seen a very different game had Cole been on the right with Pacheco playing centrally.Justin BonebrakeI was passively barking this same comment. Kudos to you for sharing a small piece of my mind. I couldn't help but feel that Babel really could have done something in this match with any sort of quality service going forward. It takes me back to our early season matchup against . . . shit, what was their name? Anyway, we still had Aquiliani and it was some tiki-taka masterclass. Babel is excellent when allowed to drift around the entire attacking third, and even does quite a decent job on the flanks, I enjoyed (masochistically) seeing Bucharesti triple team him after that excellent cross to Jova for the opener. Clearly, Roy just wanted to not lose this match. It's a fate I've come to accept with him as boss, pragmatism at its worse. More fodder for the cannon I suppose. A result nonetheless.Justin BonebrakeBabel for first team! Left wing, me thinks.blog comments powered by Disqus