Sunday 19 October 2014

Match Review - QPR

I think we should have played the diamond formation, it is our strongest formation, best fitted to most of the players we have and with two up front would give the support to Balotelli that he is crying out for.  But I have banged on and on about this in other posts so will try to leave it at that.

During the first half in particular we were terrible, QPR are a team at the bottom of the league and seemingly in disarray, with a manager who it seems doesn't care about their situation and for the majority of the first half they destroyed us and we're very unlucky not to have scored hitting the woodwork twice.  We were completely overrun with our team simply unable to break out of our own half, it was what we do to teams when playing at our best only this was QPR doing it to us, QPR!!

Gerrard was playing higher up the pitch with Can playing as the more defensive of the midfield players, a mistake in my eyes, Gerrard was moved further back as he was becoming less effective in this more forward role over a year ago, he can still have an effect here for short periods or when making an impact from the bench but not for a full game, not from the start, he did come closest to scoring for Liverpool but other than that one chance hardly had a kick as the rest of the team couldn't get the ball to him.  Can was ok but like the rest of the team we were getting steamrollered and bullied

As normal our defence was very shaky, Zamora bullied them and left them destroyed for most of the first half not even bothering to challenge him he was allowed to do exactly as he pleased.  Lovren simply could not cope, in my opinion Zamora showed him to be exactly what he is an average defender at best, I hope my opinion changes, but he is not getting any better still making the same mistakes, still diving in, still been found out of position, still having the slips in concentration and now not even winning his physical challenges, totally outplayed by Zamora a decent striker but not world class.

Our passing game was to slow, everybody seemed to take several unnecessary touches before releasing the ball allowing QPR to put the pressure on Mignolet, Lovren, Enrique, Lallana and Balotelli all seemed regularly at fault, taking to long on the ball and giving it away regularly allowing QPR to build up a head of steam and preventing Liverpool creating anything.

At half time Rodgers made a decent tactical switch returning Gerrard to the more defensive role and pushing Can further forward before replacing him with Allen and Lallana with Coutinho.  Truth be told the best thing that changed for Liverpool was Zamora becoming less influential a little because Gerrard kept an eye on him but mostly because he tired and his hip injury seemed to slow him up.

We were better in the second half at least we were a threat and with Zamora gone we looked a little more comfortable at the back.  The first goal was a quick free kick that caught QPR napping poor play from them rather than good from us and it was certainly not deserved.  As the second half wore on I actually started to think we were going to win with a clean sheet, of course I had forgotten about our total inability to defend any type of ball into the our box or set peace.  Those last few minutes were mad, both teams looked like they could score at will, I was certain we were going to lose then we would score, then more crap defending and we were level and I would be feeling that they would snatch it then we won and wasn't Sterling fast not just fast lightning, didn't look tired at all.

We won, we got three points but we certainly didn't deserve it, we were atrocious, embarrassingly bad.  I'll take the three points there have been plenty of times when we have totally outplayed teams and lost.  The manager and players know it was bad and they know that they absolutely must improve or we have big problems and I know I said I wouldn't mention it again, but bloody well use the diamond!

@lfclumo

1 comment:

  1. Very lucky to get the points massive improvement needed for Wednesday

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