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It started badly; the first five minutes littered with silly errors, soft free kicks and comical defending at set pieces, and it went down hill from there really.
Ngog opened the scoring in the 14th minute with an unchallenged diving header to send Skrtel’s knock down in, the corner coming from a typically poor piece of play from Stephen Warnock. Warnock was done for pace by Ngog, albeit blatantly offside, two minutes later and the Frenchman made no mistake with the finish.
Villa were lacklustre and listless throughout the half, struggling to string together more than three passes during any brief spell of possession. Their own worst enemy, the first touch was awful, there was next to no understanding, the movement was poor and even the bounce of the ball from 50/50′s didn’t fall our way. Nothing was working.
Houllier sent Delfouneso out for the 2nd half in place of Ciaran Clark whose 1st half booking means he’s suspended from the next one. It didn’t do much, Villa threatened to show some life, but were easily undone by a simple ball through the hole in the middle to Rodriguez who fed Ngog out wide before collecting the cross unchallenged and thumping past a helpless Friedel.
Basic stuff and a display of how simple it can and should be.
Carew came on for Gabby and Pires for Albrighton for the last 25 minutes, but Liverpool had long since given up showing any interest, secure in the knowledge that Villa were completely incapable of mounting any sort of threat all on their own.
There’s little to add. Almost to a man, Villa were atrocious, it was like they’d never met each other before or played any professional level football. Dire, incomprehensibly so. Worse than when we were beaten 5-0 on the same pitch, fortunate that this Liverpool side are a shadow of that one.
It’s probably too early for any sort of evaluation, but my feeling is that the changes being introduced behind the scenes at Villa Park are taking their toll and it’s simply a case of too much, too soon for this bunch of players. That’s just my guess, but they really didn’t seem to have the first clue what they were doing tonight.
I know where the finger of blame for that will be very quickly pointed, but the players out there tonight seemed to lack basic skills like trapping a ball. Without those sort of fundamentals, these results are inevitable.
Things look bleak right now, they really do.
Starting XI: Friedel, L Young, Warnock, Dunne, Collins, Downing, Albrighton, Clark, Hogg, Ireland, Agbonlahor.
Subs: Guzan, Pires, Carew, Delfouneso, Cuellar, Lichaj, Herd.
Liverpool XI: Reina, Johnson, Konchesky, Skrtel, Kyrgiakos, Meireles, Lucas, Kuyt, Maxi, Babel, Ngog.
Subs: Jones, Kelly, Aurelio, Poulsen, Cole, Jovanovic, Shelvey.
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7 Comments to “Liverpool 3 Aston Villa 0 – Dismal performance from front to back”
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Beyond dismal, I thought – but in fairness, Freidel is still playing well, so they are not “atrocious to a man.” And Albrighton is playing with energy, although not always well directed.
This game convinced me that relegation is a real possibility.
As a glass half full person I still agree that we were bad tonight, A few pints and the company of my irish-liverpool mate at the local I watched a poor away performance highlighted by the white flar substitution of the fragile albrighton and agbonlahor t fight another day.
My main main mantra is to write off this season as experience – give the kids the experience and we will benefit next year. The aging and the poor should be moved on and we can develop a competitive squad for the top 4 nirvana. Yes it is a step back, but consolidation the right way can help. We have not given a flying feck about the europa league in the past so 6 or 10th is nothing to the fans.
The problem this year are numerous …..1. Dunne needs to sit down on form alone and let Clarke or Cuellar take his place. 2. Injuries Injuries ,Injuries….3, Gerard need time to bulid his philosophy, 4.Stephen Ireland is not the answer, 5. Carew STOP SULKING, 6 a long term plan for Friedel is needed…his lateral movement is good, but he never comes for crosses leaving a nervous back 4 to be isolated and beaten. In pre-season he was poor, easily beaten from range due to loss of footwork.
The solution – better physios. Give up on the ireland project sooner rather than later- he is not the player he was a few seasons back – send him to Leicester to sven to rebuild him. We need to play two up to help gabby – so get emile fit or buy a foil. The midfield needed either a petrov, bannan or reo-coker, delph or even a sidwell to help out.
Anyway…….we will be mid table com the jan window and then we can consolidate and build….onwards and upwards. As long as we avoid aging leftovers, Pires is not the answer…or keane.
/owen
Maybe we should bring back Barry…….from the Man City experiment!!
….or is that the shandy talking!
Appalling performance. First half was a shambles, and despite the 2nd goal offside, Villa deserved that kick in the balls. Second half was marginally better, but only because Delfoneso gave us some numbers up front. Ireland should pack his bags for Celtic who are looking to get him on loan. he shows no enthusiasm to play. Warnock needs to stop being stupid on the fouls. Our defence needs to just tighten up all over. In the midfield Hogg showed how green he was, while Albrighton might be forgiven for being out of sorts. Downing was our only real player tonight. Clarke… green. Up front didnt matter, we didnt get the ball up front. Horrible display.
I didn’t think Downing was very good either – poor crosses and free kicks, nothing like what he has shown in the past month.
Maybe Petrov is more valuable than I thought. Get him, Reo-Coker, and Heskey back, and maybe they can at least achieve the mediocrity that will stay up for this year, and then all those good things can develop next year.
Sobering statistic – 39 goals allowed last year, 27 goals allowed already this year and not yet halfway.
i really need to do some serious chalkboards looking at the distribution from the back. i’m fast forming the opinion that the back five are under strict instructions not to send it long and are struggling with the transition.
i’ve just glanced at the passing numbers and they’re astonishing. 22% more passes completed during this game than any league game in the last four years.
mind. blown.
good site dis………anyway dat tip tapping around back was at fault o goal 2 a lot o da lads not on der game …….houllier is turning gold into lead!!!!
I’m just as dissappointed as everyone else but I don’t think we were bad “to a man” (although it felt like it).
Silver linings: Delfounseo really looked like he wanted to prove himself. I think he showed that he is worth a solid run of games. He could have sulked like Carew but put his head down and tried to prove GH wrong in keeping him on the bench.
Ireland – still not sure, but he showed a few sparks and looked like he was at least trying (at points in the game).
Albrighton – still looked bright but obviously not fully fit