Sunderland 0 – 1 Liverpool
The Performance? No. The result? Hmm… no. Torres’s finish? Well okay yes, but no. I’m talking about that goalie kit! Infact, the entire away kit. Seeing a Liverpool team run out in silver & red, with a keeper in a proper keeper’s green top just for a few moments jumped me back twenty years. Then the game kicked off and we were far from championship material.
So what can we take from that game? It was a better performance than against Liege, although it’s hard to see how it could have been worse. We were somewhat fortunate to come away with three points. If the Sunderland starting XI had possessed a decent striker things could have been very different.
Still we rode our luck a bit, and ultimately we did that thing all league winning sides are meant to do – Play badly and win One-Nil. How often we can do that this season will depend on how often the big names do the business and those pundits thinking Torres will struggle to repeat his form last season might want to think again.
Ultimately I’m still feeling quite positive despite our slow start. We’ve 3pts in the bag. We have Masch, Lucas and Babel all to come back and if we’re lucky maybe one more new signing to come in.
Right now if I have any concerns it’s over starting selections. Alonso was brilliant for us today, grabbed the assist for Nando’s goal and almost won goal of the season on the opening day with a trademark 60-yard screamer. Yet Rafa chose to start with the inexperienced Plessis. Similarly defence? A lot of the talk this summer has been about the future defensive pairing off Skrtel and Agger, so it was a surprise to see Carra and Sami get the starts. Surely it’s too early to start rotating already!?
As for the new signings. Dossena definitely stepped up a gear today. Meanwhile Keane frustrates, mostly himself with another ordinary showing. Surely it would make more sense to stick with our winning formula from last season with Gerrard in behind Torres and then bring in Keane gradually? At the moment it’s all starting to resemble Crouchy’s early Liverpool career and we all know how long it took him to break his duck.
(Karl Eisenhauer)
Not a great peformance agreed but at least we won. Teams like Sunderland are the teams that we should be killing off in games but I am happy with a 1-0 and what a corking goal from Torres!
My take is simple we won – Job done. If this turns out to be a great season for us a few performances like that won’t matter, so long as we get the result. You pay £20 million on strikers to produce match-winning moments. Nando did this yet again and I’m not too bothered about accusations that we rely on him. It’s not like United were exactly storming with Ronaldo on Sunday.
Exactly. 1-0 is good enough. 2-0 would have been better but if we did that every game we wouldn’t be complaining come the end of the season.