Swansea vs Liverpool | 25th November 1330 GMT | Premier League |

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Venue - Liberty stadium



Liverpool return to Barclays Premier League action with a trip to Swansea City on Sunday.

It's the first time the likes of Brendan Rodgers, Colin Pascoe, Joe Allen and co will return to the Liberty Stadium since moving to Anfield in the summer.

The two teams recently met in the Capital One Cup at Anfield, with Swansea recording a 3-1 win.

Last season's corresponding fixture ended 1-0 in the Swans' favour.

Team news -
Liverpool -
Liverpool defender Andre Wisdom is expected to be fit despite being substituted with a knee injury in the Europa League game against Young Boys.

The likes of Joe Allen, Glen Johnson and Jose Enrique will return after sitting out that match.

Lucas will sit out/get 10-15mins
Borini and Kelly are long term concerns.

Swansea

Swansea pair Ki Sung-yueng and Kyle Bartley will return against Liverpool after recovering from respective hamstring and thigh injuries.
Danny Graham, Ben Davies and Luke Moore have been ill but should be available.


FORM [ all comps ]

Liverpool - DLDWD

Swansea - LWDDW

MATCH FACTS

Head-to-head

Swansea are unbeaten in their last three games against Liverpool in all competitions (W2, D1).
Liverpool failed to score in either Premier League meeting with The Swans last season.
The Reds have lost five of their last six league games at Swansea.


Man to watch - Michu

Tough game, Wont be surprised if they edge us with the form they are in.


Hopefully we get 3 points.
YNWA.

Lucas won't be getting any game time against Swansea and Spurs according to Rodgers.

Good. I don't want him rushed back. The last thing we want is a third injury or an aggravation of his previous ones.

I have a feeling Swansea will give us a very tough time in this match. If we win this i will very very very happy.
Henderson has to play, We need to guys to press Michu. The game will be won in the midfield or by Suarez.

Well it's a tough match, losing or drawing would not be a shock. But considering our league position, three points would do a world of good.

Call me weird, but I might even drop Gerrard for this match to have a young and energetic midfield to take the game to Swansea.

I hope we smash them 3-0.

I am just having a feeling that in this game we will be able to see a tactical masterstroke from BR.
Never mind but 2005 we were winning champions league and swansea were getting promotion from 3rd division, if I am not wrong. But tomorrow we are so not sure about how the game will go through. Surely strange tides now but I am quite hopeful that the mighty REDS will come back with 3 points.

First half reminded of last season. So many missed chances One of them is bound to go down ffs. And Enriques goal could have stood any other day, it was so close.

FT 0 - 0

I guess you could say neither team deserved to lose, so there you go, points shared.

God Rodgers pissed the f*ck out of me with his subs. COLE r u f*cking kidding me??? First we play the whole game with 10 men against 12 since Clowning was definitely playing for Swansea. And then he takes him off and brings on resilient Joe f*cking Cole, who was gasping for air and had his hands on his hips the second he came on. He had Suso and Sahin on the bench ffs and he brought on halflung

Well i guess the next time I am having trouble sleeping I will watch the replay of this game, I am sure it will put me to sleep

It wasn't a boring game for a nil-nil, imo. But didn't have too many thrilling moments either.

I thought it was fine to bring on Cole, after all he scored against Young Boys and we didn't have exactly game-changers on the bench anyway.

Does anyone have any idea why Assaidi isn't getting game time? I've been very impressed by him each time he's on the field, but he doesn't even seem to get played all that much in the Europa League, let alone the PL (has he featured in the league for us yet?) He didn't even make the bench today. Why buy him if he's never going to see gametime?

Cant wait for Jan.
Mark Suarez out of the game and we are clueless with the ball.
Frustrating game, Chance to move up the table dropped as usual.

yeah first half did not start well but later stages we were good and also created chances.
I was not pleased with the performance of second half, I felt lucky that we did not concede goal on several occasions. Specially when gerrard had lost the ball once.

It grinds my gears every time Rodgers says "we got the result" after a draw. GTFO draws ain't good enough. And if he mentions this unbeaten run to be a good run of form I'll personally fly to Liverpool and break his nose.

Calm down Messiah.

Rodgers is and will never say anything negative towards Swansea. It's where he made himself and everybody in Wales still respects him - and he still respects them. It's not as if he was disrespecting Liverpool either, so you could hardly slag him off.

Draws aren't good enough, but we're not playing to draw. We're always attacking. It's not as if we're playing with 10 men behind the ball and playing for one point.

Regarding the game, I do feel we should of scored atleast once on three different occasions. That counter with the 1-2 with Sterling and Suarez, Raheem hitting the bar and the Glen Johnson 1-2 with Enrique in the first half. Henderson for me, was one of our better players but MOTM goes to Enrique or Johnson for me.

Rodgers is still trying to help balance the team. Our defence was poor at the start of the season but it look's like they're adapting to it. Our midfield is still bonding together and still adapting to the constant moving and pressing that Rodgers wants (Lucas' return will be massive to this) but our midfield has been quite solid.

My only concern from this game was keeping Downing on the pitch. He wasn't working as a LB. Cole coming on would of no doubt would of been influenced by his performance mid-week. He did have a warrant to start. He did create a chance for Agger towards the end.

@ Stevieg: Assaidi has missed pre-season and has had two or three different injuries since joining Liverpool. Nothing major but he has struggled to get fit. He did play mid-week so he could be in contention against Spurs.

Yet another decision goes against us...

You know from a footballing perspective this match was absolute top class. And given its free flowing football it made it quite interesting from a tactical perspective as well. Believe it or not we probably played our best football yesterday and truly saw signs of what Rodger's system can bring us.

Quite obvious from the start we preferred to absorb their pressure and break them with a fast, pass and move counter which was just fine given you don't want to play a team more experienced in the same possession based system in their own game. And it worked! (to an extent) as despite looking off sorts the first 10 minutes we got into the game by pressuring their midfield and using advantage of the wide areas to press them back. Most of the chances created came from us along that Enrique's goal was wrongly ruled offside. I can't express how much I hate every single linesman in Europe. I really do.

Mistakes were playing Downing as LB supporting Enrique as not only he shirked his defensive responsibilities in work rate and positioning but he also was absolutely pathetic in attack. What this meant was that Enrique literally was taking both responsibilities and when on the front Agger had to cover for Downing's ass and let our excellently compact defence exposed.

Johnson had a solid game yet really shuts down when going forward sometimes as his brain just freezes and doesn't know when and where to pass.

What pisses me off about Rodger's is his sheer naivety at times. I would've thought he kept that joke of a player Downing just for lower Europa League matches yet he brings him in a PL match despite knowing how out of his depth he is in such a technical system. What disappointed me even more was how he opted for Joe Cole instead of Suso or Assaidi as here is another indication that Rodger's will get carried away from one good performance vs the 3rd best Swiss team. Cole when coming on did f**k all as predicted. Why would he take off Henderson for Shelvey when we needed more intelligent possession and not Shelvey's un intelligent decisions to shoot or hollywood pass?

Great game by us yet poor in game subs killed our chances.

I agree with Arquitecto that we played some good football at times in this game.

What comes to Johnson and his brain-freezes: he is sometimes overly relaxed on the ball. You can see that he never panickes with the ball, he's got that training-ground attitude of "I do this every day for fun" even in matches. Usually it works out, too, because he's so good on the ball. But sometimes he ends up losing it.

Anyway, the points I don't agree on:
- Enrique was offside from the replay I saw.

- Bringing on Shelvey for Henderson was absolutely the right thing to do, Jonjo is much more a goal-threat than Hendo.

- Starting Downing and bringing on Cole were not bad decision, imo. It's not like we bought these guys from nPower League Two and they never had the ability in the first place to play at this level. No, they can be good footballers. Downing played as a part of defence that did not concede and while Cole was ineffective during his 15 minute spell it's not like anyone else scored either.

Art Morte wrote:I agree with Arquitecto that we played some good football at times in this game.

What comes to Johnson and his brain-freezes: he is sometimes overly relaxed on the ball. You can see that he never panickes with the ball, he's got that training-ground attitude of "I do this every day for fun" even in matches. Usually it works out, too, because he's so good on the ball. But sometimes he ends up losing it.

Anyway, the points I don't agree on:
- Enrique was offside from the replay I saw.

- Bringing on Shelvey for Henderson was absolutely the right thing to do, Jonjo is much more a goal-threat than Hendo.

- Starting Downing and bringing on Cole were not bad decision, imo. It's not like we bought these guys from nPower League Two and they never had the ability in the first place to play at this level. No, they can be good footballers. Downing played as a part of defence that did not concede and while Cole was ineffective during his 15 minute spell it's not like anyone else scored either.

I can agree about Johnson as well as forgive him given how much he adds to our attack along with fitting seamlessly into Rodger's system. I just wish he would overcome his concentration lapses in defence and attack. Nonetheless it was a solid performance.

-The offside is arguable but seeing so many linesman make such close calls from more than 20 yards away is just making me yearn for goal-line technology/replay. I have grown tired of seeing Linesman overestimate their own ability this year as well as seeing all to many poor offside calls. Futile argument though.

I cannot agree about Shelvey as Henderson seemed to be doing just fine and was keeping solid possession as well as influencing our team in his one-touch and pass n' move football. Shelvey wasn't needed since we already has a free roaming box-to-box midfielder as since he came on we were destitute of possession along with Shelvey not being involved in the game in any manner. He is more of a goal threat but not enough to compromise our key to creating chances which has been more incisive possession vs a possession based Swansea. I can understand your sentiments but I cannot agree.

-Of course Downing and Cole have ability yet since when has Downing ever really performed for us as especially under Rodger's system? He looks completely out of his depth here. As a leftback he would be good against lower sides at best yet vs Swansea he did not display any positioning to cover the left side, or when to overlap, when and where to pass or where to move. He displays the experience of a raw youth player as he just had no clue on how to navigate himself within the system. Several times due to him we were exposed on the left.

As for Cole this is an out of shape 2 pack a day past his prime player who we are talking about. Cole's ability is undoubted yet given that he hasn't exactly performed to our standards for over 2 years now it would have been better to put on Suso who has displayed far more ability and adeptness within the unit. No one scored yet Cole was the least involved in the play as I forgot he was even subbed on until I saw him post match, on his hunches, breathing as if he ran an SAS trial.

Nice to read the all discussion till now.
IMO the substitutions were late by at least 15 min. When S.Ki was substituted the free flowing passing of Liverpool in the midfield was hindered. I think there were 2-3 instances which clearly showed the same. Naturally in the second half, we did not create clear-cut chances as in first half. So the substitution could have been done after 10 or 15 min in second half.
The idea of bringing Shelvey was probably right but there was no enough time for him to bring something to the game. Due to less time in the game, he tried to rush sometimes. I think there were two reasons why he was brought:
1. Shelvey surely keeps the ball better than Henderson under pressure and has composure and vision to make a right pass to the next person.
2.Off course his goal scoring instinct, getting in right position at right time.

I think Hendo has recently started making more forward passes instead of those of his usual sideways passes to either other midfielders or defenders.

But I also think that instead of cole, Assaidi or Suso would have been better option. I would have brought Assaidi, as I saw Swansea faced problems when Liverpool effectively used width of the field. Assaidi is a very traditional winger; he often goes wide and then comes in. It would have surely given more space to Enrique to come in through the space created by Assaidi.