Red vs. Blue- Battle for the 6th place trophy

Sky Sports ranting about Luiz sticking an elbow into Rafael's chest prior to Rafael's kick-out and red card, but no mention of Fellaini.

He did that with Skrtel as well. I cant find anything on that till now though.

Well, as long as he didn't bite anybody. This is definitely a better example to set for the kids.

Don't even want to bother in analysing such an atrocious game. Tactically dreadful, dreary and dull and a piss poor sight of football all around. We CLEARLY lacked Suarez yesterday? Why? Suarez tends to add an element of calm, composure and an ability find spaces through passes which affords time and space. We also lacked his magic and exposed to how reliant we can be on him. Coutinho and Sturridge were 50-50; a bag of tricks here and there, yet overall far to tense and quick in the final third to provide any decisiveness. Sturridge for all his tight space pressure work, still freezes when it comes to open spaces and option. Coutinho dribbles far too many times into dangerous positions as for all his skill, he is quite tactically raw.

I love Hendo, but playing him for a match which requires balls of steel (to which Hendo does not have a shread of) was a miscalculated move as even if on the left, we didn't see anything of note or even his signature simplistic play to keep the midfield ticking. Lucas was far too often sticking on one man and almost run ragged. Gerrard & Carra our best players if not our only. Gerrard was consistent in all his endeavours and ideas yet it wasn't enough.

Was Stewart Downing playing? Cause the longer I have to see this insanely average specimen on our left, no matter what minor crap he adds to our tactics; the longer we will continue to be impotent from the right side since Johnson is pure shit as of now.

Speaking of Glen, I losing my patience with him. Jose didn't have a good game either yet at least he is busting his ass on the left flank was Hollywood Glen is being lackadaisical, lazy and lethargic with a pathetic attitude. If Kenny was here he would have benched his ass.

3 draws in 4 games. Nice.

Too harsh on Henderson and Coutinho, Arqy.

Henderson is not a wing player, I expect him to put in as good winger shifts as Lucas might, which would be pretty much fk all. Him playing on the wing is him paying the price for having a bit of this "all-round midfielder" reputation left in him. On the rare occasions when we got the ball around Everton's penalty area Henderson actually had some good, clever touches and good runs down the middle. But we suffered from Downing's piss-poor performance on the right and from lack of a natural wide player on the left - and I don't blame Henderson for that.

Coutinho, yeah, he lost the ball on a few dribbles, but he had good dribbles, too. Good passes and runs and looked our most creative player by far, that's all we good ask from him when no one around him was getting anything done.

Art Morte wrote:Too harsh on Henderson and Coutinho, Arqy.

Henderson is not a wing player, I expect him to put in as good winger shifts as Lucas might, which would be pretty much fk all. Him playing on the wing is him paying the price for having a bit of this "all-round midfielder" reputation left in him. On the rare occasions when we got the ball around Everton's penalty area Henderson actually had some good, clever touches and good runs down the middle. But we suffered from Downing's piss-poor performance on the right and from lack of a natural wide player on the left - and I don't blame Henderson for that.

Coutinho, yeah, he lost the ball on a few dribbles, but he had good dribbles, too. Good passes and runs and looked our most creative player by far, that's all we good ask from him when no one around him was getting anything done.

I apologize Art, as I didn't mean to come across that harsh. I forgave Hendo's performance because he was stuck out wide yet I did not like the idea of him starting in such a ferocious and feisty match where mentality reigns supreme over skill. It is simply not the kind of game to which would exploit Hendo's strengths.

Coutinho as I said performed well and was one of our best players, yet I'm just noting on that he happens to be tactically raw, which is normal for his age yet I would like to see an improvement on that.

I agree on the rest, Art as the players also were victim of some awful performances by their team-mates

The main problem was Sturridge's decision making tbh. The team did well.

I dunno that I've ever had a problem with Hendo's mentality... He seems to get up for big games to me, although his decision making (in all games) can be a little off and that's ntoiceable there. I don't think mentality was the problem in this game, either, he seemed to be giving his all through the pressure. Just was poor at finding space in the wing and was closed down quickly by Everton.