5 Times European Champions vs. London Hoofers

Sigh another 2 points dropped while it looks like everton are beating a top 4 side and moving 3 more points ahead.

TBH i'd give the honors to collins more then agger, the block he did in the first half after the mistake only looked good cause cole sliced it off his foot and was missing by a mile and hit agger in the chest.

HEck no, screw that bald skinhead. It's easy to defend when your team parks the plane.

And it wasn't just that block from Agger. He didn't set a foot wrong. Had another massive interception in the second half. He took two amazing long range shots that were definitely going in and they got deflected to corners. Commanding performance.

Second half was better than the first, but still could find no answers to West Ham's great defensive performance. Collins the best player of the match and I have to take my hat off for Allardyce here, he set his team up to nullify our threats, made it very tight in the box and took out our space to play it on the deck there, so our technical players like Suarez and Coutinho had little joy there.

All in all a disappointing match.

I'm sorry, but I can't bring myself to compliment Allardyce for the tactics. It was an incredibly negative, Stoke-ish, performance. Kudos to the West Ham team, though. They executed the plan brilliantly, and even managed a few shots, which I'm sure Allardyce chastised them for.

The issue with today was that nothing was coming off for Suarez, especially in the first half. His passes were off the mark, and those darned defenders kept their legs together every time he tried to 'meg them. Collins especially played exceptionally well. I've always thought him a bit of a slow, mindless brute in defense. However, all evidence was to the contrary today. Still, had Suarez, Sturridge and Coutinho been more in form, they would've easily opened them up.

I loved the addition of Sturridge on the right, and I felt his presence opened up space for the Liverpool attack. The real problem is that the team continued to play as if Downing were there for a while.Not to slight either player, but they are vastly different in their strengths and style of play, and it was obvious the squad took a little time to adjust. He had a few good chances, and nearly put us ahead before the break. I think we can play with a front three of Coutinho-Suarez-Sturridge. However, Johnson’s runs might need to be curtailed a bit against more adventurous sides. Conversely, Martin Kelly or Andre Wisdom would suit the role a little better, as they are naturally a little less inclined to make the wing-back runs.

Coutinho wasn't awful, but he did look to struggle against a pretty physical West Ham defense. Again, he had a few decent chances, but his touch and exchanges with Suarez and other attackers just seemed a bit off today. His late move into the center didn't really work for me, either. It sacrificed the three-man midfield (which wasn't really a problem in this game, and certainly not at that point in the match). I'm not sure if it was the situation (needing to press and score) or if it was just his style, but he seemed far more direct than Hendo in that CAM slot. For me, his talents lend themselves better to the winger/inside-forward role in this set-up. I think he may be too small (in style and mindset*) to play in that role for us.

Agger has to be our MOTM. Collins would be theirs, though Jaaskelainen could get honorable mention.

Overall, it was a bit of a disappointing day, due more to the quality football than the result. We did blow an opportunity to make up ground on Everton. Even though Spurs couldn’t bring themselves to really help our plight, they did manage the late draw, keeping us within striking distance ahead of the derby.

*Mata is approximately the same size, but their styles are very different.

A draw is a good result for West Ham and they applied tactics which gave them the best possibility to get that, so imo Allardyce deserves credit. Some may call it negative, but I don't see it that way. A single point is a big point in the Premier League's lower-half of the table.

What I also disagree on is Coutinho, I think his passing ability & vision and his technique is ideally suited to play CAM. It's just that our set-up usually requires him to play on the wing - which is very fine, too - but at the moment I believe he's a better CAM than a winger.

Suarez

I really thought we had gotten over beating shit teams at home...but looks like we still need at least ONE MORE star attacking player.

Harry Redknapp wrote:
I really thought we had gotten over beating shit teams at home...but looks like we still need at least ONE MORE star attacking player.

Andy Carroll agrees
#planB

Art Morte wrote:

Harry Redknapp wrote:
I really thought we had gotten over beating shit teams at home...but looks like we still need at least ONE MORE star attacking player.

Andy Carroll agrees
#planB

Arq, you do know that we don't even play tiki-taka ? right ?

Rodgers ditched tiki-taka before end of christmas....if anything we are way too direct IMO. rushing too many attacks today.

Wish we could get one more player like Coutinho, he was again our best player today.

Players like Coutinho got contained relatively easily today.

Art Morte wrote:Players like Coutinho got contained relatively easily today.

Contained ???

Coutinho was our most dangerous player today, with the most number of shots on their target, not even once he got contained by their fullback.

Our failure today was Suarez being contained by Collins and being too fancy and have a touch off imo. Not to mention Henderson and Sturridge making some questionable decisions when in good positions.

Carroll has scored in 3 games this season, been contained in the other 23

Harry Redknapp wrote:

Art Morte wrote:Players like Coutinho got contained relatively easily today.

Contained ???

Coutinho was our most dangerous player today, with the most number of shots on their target, not even once he got contained by their fullback.

Our failure today was Suarez being contained by Collins and being too fancy and have a touch off imo. Not to mention Henderson and Sturridge making some questionable decisions when in good positions.

Carroll has scored in 3 games this season, been contained in the other 23

It's actually 15 PL starts + 4 sub apps and 5 goals, but that's not my point. (And just look how much of the ball Carlton Cole saw today to judge how easy it is to be a striker at West Ham).

Anyway, I'm all for signing another player like Coutinho and he would do good things for us - but there are those games, too - like today - where it'd be nice to have an alternative approach to playing it solely on the deck with short passes and dribbles for the full 90 minutes.

Jovetic could solve this problem when Suarez is off form

Messiah "Aggerswagger" wrote:Jovetic could solve this problem when Suarez is off form

While selling Suarez to get Jovetic MIGHT solve the issue of what happens when Suarez has a poor match, it creates the problem of not having Suarez when the other 95% of the time.

That felt like last season. :X

Collins easily MOTM. First defender to mark Suarez out of a game and the most surprising thing is that he's not very good. Absolutely killed Suarez both in the air and on the ground.

I'm quite happy we kept a clean sheet. Would of dropped points if it weren't for Lucas so kudos to him for clearing it off the line. That's actually something that's wrong with Liverpool Football Club. West Ham had 3 corners and if it weren't for Lucas, would of took their chance to score. We had 12 corners last night and didn't manage to get one shot out of those corners... spraying them all over and handing back possession to the opposition.

Yeah, we are crap at corner-kicks. I'm not that bothered about it in attack, though, but we are struggling to deal with corners when defending and that's a real worry.

One thing I still want to mention is that I was a little surprised at how well Sturridge did on the wing, especially his runs with the ball down the flank were quite effective in getting the ball up. I'd start Coutinho - Suarez - Sturridge in the next game.

But i really felt that as suarez was having problem in the centre, suarez should have himself drifted more on the right and sturridge in the centre, i am saying just in this match as collins was having one of the best match, probably of his lifetime.