Written by Kirsikka
Here we are again. There’s some nice symmetry in that it’s Premier League season 9 and we want to improve on finishing 9th. Yet it’s been a summer where we’ve become victims of our success, with a succession of departures, whilst recruiting their replacements is still a work in progress.
Man of the match against Liverpool?
Semenyo
Semenyo
Vote
Brooks
Brooks
Vote
Tavernier
Tavernier
Vote
Adams
Adams
Vote
Petrovic
Petrovic
Vote
Someone else
Someone else
Vote
With injuries also taking chunks out of the squad, AI didn’t have too many choices to make. About the only one who saw him throw new centre back Diakite in for a baptism of fire ahead of the unfortunate Hill, who’d done well in preseason. There were also debuts for Truffert and Petrovic.
There are different angles to what happened out there tonight. The positive slants around the overall performance, how closely we drove them and some individuals. And that trumps all. So don’t be fooled by anything negative below; they are merely observations on things to work on. The tldr is we far outperformed my expectations.
Into some of the nitty-gritty then.
There was quite a lot of sloppy passing out there from us, especially in the first half. In fact, it also seemed to affect our ball control and tackles at times. It got to the point that I was starting to wonder if it was somehow related to the change in ball manufacturer. It was endemic, maybe Semenyo aside, but the reality is it was probably down to nerves and getting back into the groove.
There were two moments where we probably should have scored in the first half. The first was early when a good Truffert run and cross came to Semenyo, but he blazed over.
The second came at about 35 mins with the scores still level when Evanilson rescued a pass to the byline and he played it inside to a Smith run. He cut it back for Tavs in the area, but his shot was weak and easily saved.
In matches like this, you usually need to take those chances and we paid the price for such profligacy when Liverpool attack saw a slightly weak challenge from Senesi and the ball bounced back kindly to the Liverpool forward, allowing him in on goal to slot home.
I’ve really had to think about this long and hard and I have to say I think Senesi shouldn’t even have been on the pitch to make that challenge.
Earlier on, some more sloppy play led to the ball bouncing around at the halfway line with only him and a Liverpool attacker left before our goal. The ball deflected off Marcos and was going to land in the path of the man in red to start running at Petrovic, until Senesi swiped at the ball deliberately with his hand and deflected the direction of its travel.
It was a long way out but when you see the replay, you can see nobody was going to catch the Liverpool player. It’s the same kind of scenario that saw Arsenal have a man sent off against us last season, only that was a foul and not a handball.
The VAR claimed it was an involuntary action after the ball bounced off his body, but it wasn’t. It was clearly deliberate.
I’m not celebrating that. We got away with one, but it’s a sign that VAR is still complete trash. We’re going to suffer a lot more bad decisions against us than ones in our favour through the season, so one for us here is nothing to be happy about. So yeah. Same **, different year.
One area I was watching closely was our relative lack of height after the summer departures. A team like Liverpool might not target it specifically, but I think a lot of other teams will see it as a weakness. We didn’t concede from a set piece, but I don’t think we looked all that comfortable. I’m hoping whatever centre back we bring in is at least 6’3” and good with his head. Wishful thinking, probably.
We had a clear tactic to target Kerkez with Semenyo and it was working. Antoine was coming out on top despite some robust challenges and causing problems. This seemed to antagonise the crowd and that’s when things got ugly.
The ref suddenly called a halt to things and trotted over to speak with both managers. Some Neanderthal had decided to racially abuse Semenyo, and it was being dealt with. It’s a difficult subject, but one that shouldn’t be avoided. There are people on here who call any anti-racism symbolism included around football as a waste of time and not needed.
You’re wrong.
As we saw again tonight.
As long as we have absolute dipshits in our society who think this kind of thing is acceptable, then we need to keep delivering the message loud and clear that this isn’t ok. That we aren’t ok with it. That we don’t want those people polluting our game. Or our wider society. That everyone else must be seen as another human, and nothing less. No matter the colour of their skin.
I hope the authorities throw the absolute book at whoever it was.
Back to the football, and that was the first half. Time for a cup of tea and a rethink, having held them to 1-0 and caused them some problems. And that without it being a classic AI performance because we simply didn’t have the personnel available for that.
What we needed to avoid was conceding a second early in the new period, but that’s precisely what happened. Gakpo was allowed to run across the edge of the area with defenders falling for his dummies, and then when the space opened up he shot home. Multiple players didn’t cover themselves with glory there.
Meanwhile, Brooks had an odd night. He’s been superb preseason, but it’s a different ballgame when the competitive matches start. First half, he was all over the place, bullied out of everything and slipping over more than even me when I try to ice skate. Second half, he finally outmuscled his defender in one brilliant bit of skill and that perked him up. Minutes later, he got an assist.
A Brooks run was picked out excellently by a pass from Adams. He raced onto it and crossed first time with absolute perfection for Semenyo’s run in the middle, who scored.
There’s no denying the superb quality of the cross he put in, but I don’t think that will be enough to save his place when new wide players are signed and Tavs is restored back from the midfield to the forwards. As another one with 12 months left on his contract, could we see even more upheaval in our wide options before the window shuts?
I know many don’t want to hear it, but during the next two weeks, these are the kind of conversations that will surface.
After scoring, we had our best spell of the game. We pinned Liverpool back but couldn’t quite prise open a clear chance.
Then, AI played a wildcard and brought on Traore for Scott. There’s a man I never expected to play for us in a competitive match again, but such was our desperation to bring some fresh legs on.
There are times when it feels like AI is Midas in disguise. He has periods where everything he touches turns to goals. This was one of them.
A Liverpool attack broke down on the edge of our area and the ball was dinked forward a few yards by the newly introduced man Traore to Semenyo. And he channelled full Forest Gump, just running and running.
He was helped by us having a supporting case of four players against only two defenders, who had no idea where to go with so many to cover. Antoine used the runners to open up space for himself and, having dribbled almost from one box to the other, fired it home.
What a playing start to the season for him.
Oh, and that’s an assist for Traore.
Liverpool responded by turning the tables and putting all the pressure back on us. We couldn’t get any quality possession and it was our turn to be pinned back. Finally, the mistake came.
A cross came in and Petrovic had to dive to keep it out, but he could only sort of knock it up in the air with his hand. With the ball needing a firm clearance, another sub, Winterburn, mistimed his jump and, instead of heading it clear instead knocked it into the body of another defender. From there, it bounced out to a Liverpool player who shot home.
A harsh moment that Winterburn will likely still be replaying in his head forty years hence. Clearly, if we weren’t missing so many, he’d have been nowhere near even the matchday squad, never mind the pitch.
Then, in injury time, as we threw caution to the wind, another sub, Hill, was slow and indecisive in dealing with a ball booted clear over the top. It meant he went from clear favourite to collect it to allowing Salah to take possession instead. Do that at your peril. He turned Hill inside out and scored.
The 4-2 final score was harsh given the performance. Especially considering the players we had available and those who were missing. Still, that match is out of the way, and there was an awful lot to like and praise from that night.
Selected Player Watch
—– Semenyo —–
By far our most effective attacking player out there and scored a couple of brilliant goals. I don’t care who we sign before the window shuts; our signing of the summer will still be his new contract. And any racists out there can **************** off.
—– Diakite —–
It’s so harsh to judge him at this stage, he’ll barely be over the jetlag, but my first impressions were I thought at times he looked surprisingly clumsy. Give it a week of settling in, though and I’m sure he’ll be a different proposition.
—– Truffert —–
Definitely brings a lot of attacking impetus and will be a crucial player for us this season. A few moments where he tried to do too much, like trying to dribble past two Liverpool players out of defence and losing it or poor passes that gifted possession away. However, he was by far the best left-back performer in the match out of the three that played.
—– Petrovic —–
Early days, but didn’t pull out any unexpected stops, which is meant to be a strength. Can’t really complain about that though! Kepa took a number of weeks to settle with us so let’s see where we are in about a month.
—– Scott —–
I thought he’d be slotted into the 8 role, but AI is persisting with the Tavs experiment there and trying Scott as the 10 again. This has me wondering a bit as he’s never really impressed in that role. Maybe this is the season we see a different side to him there? It wasn’t tonight, though, even though he was mostly on to a hiding to nothing considering the opposition.
AI and Tactics Watch
Creating belief is such a crucial skill. Sometimes, the Sky Six teams get away with a fairly easy ride because you can see teams play away at their stadiums with little or no faith that they can win. They’re almost beaten before a ball is kicked.
That isn’t the AI way, though. Sure, he made us pragmatic at times tonight – plenty of long balls for example, but a necessary evil when missing so many – but there was a core of belief running through the team that we could get at Liverpool. And that belief was right.
There have been plenty of games where we’ve gone away to Liverpool or the reigning champions and, no matter what team we’ve put out, they’ve totally blown us away. Today we took half a squad that included a defensive five with three new players, one of whom probably doesn’t know anybody’s name yet. And, but for a mistimed defensive leap in the 87th minute would probably have come away with a point. The scoreline may have finished 4-2 but it was a lot less comfortable than that for Liverpool.
And it wasn’t done with a complete backs-to-the-wall, hunkered-down defensive shape. Yes, we had to defend, yes, we also countered quickly at times, but we also caused Liverpool problems. It wouldn’t be unfair to say we should have scored a couple of the first half with the chances we created. It wouldn’t be unfair to say Liverpool were rocking when we pinned them back after getting back into the match.
All that with a half-baked team and squad is why, for me, the doom mongers can feck right off. We know we’ve got a lot of work to do on the squad, but to perform like that in one of the hardest fixtures of the season smacks of a team that is still going to perform at a high level and pick up a lot of points. Especially when you bring the six extra players that will be joining that matchday squad (2 x wingers, 1 x centre back, Cook, Christie and Kluivert).
The thing that brings that belief, that tactical nous, that drive to go at teams is the man on the sidelines. If this is to be his last season in charge, then let’s enjoy it rather than catastrophising all the time.
We lost, but we now have a week in which to get key players fit, get new signings over the line and for the defence to work on building up partnerships.
An AFCB season should never be written off because we lost at Anfield. However, an AFCB season can be seen to be full of hope and potential because of an excellent performance that pushed Liverpool right until the end at Anfield.
It’s going to be a long week and a bit as I’m already excited about the next match.
Your say…
AFCBmattjamr said…
Feel much more positive about our season after seeing that performance. We sign a couple more, get our injured players back and keep playing like how we did today, we will be in for a fun season.
First time at Anfield today and the atmosphere was absolutely incredible. – To join the conversation, please click here.