Chelsea 1-1 Liverpool - Improvement?

Article by Red Phil

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A better performance perhaps but, let’s be honest, many of the Chelsea players were mentally wearing their flip flops and queueing up for their candy-floss on Skegness’s promenade.

We held the ball quite well and attacked more than I’ve seen for many a month but, yet again, with no penetration up front. Coutinho and Lallana were excellent and I hope next year will give Lallana the chance to show more of what he can do . . . injuries permitting.

The need for a top striker has never been more obvious with move after move breaking down at the stage when we should be offering a real goal threat up front.

My main concern though is that whilst we are a bit weak at the back still I am petrified that we are ruining Emre Can as a Liverpool player by continually playing him out of position. He is not a central defender and is most definitely not a full-back so why is the manager so obsessed with playing him in roles that just don’t suit him?

Much more of this and this fine midfield prospect could be hankering for a move to enable him to play in midfield, his rightful place.

I’m loving seeing Jordon Ibe on the wing and the other new kid, up front, looks a superb prospect as well. We need to get Moreno back as he has been decent for us when played in his rightful place.

Dejan Lovren looks, finally, as if he might be settling down at LFC but I’m dreading the thought of Sakho and Toure turning up for the first game next season.

Henderson was largely anonymous but that is the norm these days so we shouldn’t have expected too much. I still find it ludicrous that we had all the hype about him earlier in the season. Perhaps I’ve learned nothing about football despite having watched this club, man and boy, for over fifty years?

We are far too reliant on Coutinho, who must also be getting fed-up trying to get the team going almost on his own, and if we don’t get a top, top midfielder this Summer I hope we’ll start playing Can alongside or just behind Coutinho.

Raheem Sterling had a strange old game, flicking in and out of the game and, whilst it was his best game for a while for us, he isn’t anywhere near the player who was outstanding last year even though I couldn’t fault him on effort this week. The keeper flapped a bit and could be worried about the possibility of Begovic leaving Stoke, as is being mooted. All in all, I’d rather have Begovic!

This sort of game made the very thought of us signing Andrea Pirlo look so far beyond stupid as to be on the next continent. How could we even consider signing somebody about a year, possibly two, older than our Stevie G who looks as if his endless running days are long behind him now?

Mind you, any team that can purchase Ballotelli isn’t going to stop buying somebody old enough to be Jordon Ibe’s dad, are they?

Whilst United, Chelsea, Arsenal and City are primed to pick the best £30m fruit from the various leagues in Europe I just hope we aren’t going to settle for FREE transfer James Milner, FREE transfer Danny Ings, possibly even FREE transfer Micah Richards and several kids from around Europe?

You don’t make up ground on the top teams by letting them have the pick of Europe’s and the world’s finest players – with cost apparently being no deterrent – whilst we shop around at bargain-basement or Pound Shop prices whilst also seeing if kids barely through puberty can hack it against relentless machines like Chelsea, etc.

United have already got Depay and are now talking about getting Gundogan, Clyne and Hummels and, of course, they tend to get what they set out to get, even at £25-30m each!!!! We don’t!

If we did, Ericksen, Sanchez, Costa, Delph and several other top players would be ordering a plate of scouse somewhere in Tuebrook instead of living off the fat of the land in the Capital!

If we are not bidding for top players – and I don’t consider a Barcelona reserve full-back to be a player on a par with 99% of the players on the books of the top four clubs – we need to know the science behind that decision?

Are we waiting to the end of the Summer on the off-chance we’ll get a bargain, remembering how well that went with Ballotelli at £16m, or are we so obsessed with saving every penny that we keep missing players when other teams bid a couple of million more than us to seal a deal that SHOULD have been finished in Liverpool’s favour had we not been so miserly. . . and I cite the Ericksen deal in that category when we refused to meet the price quoted and Spurs popped-in with a bid TWO million pounds more than our bean-counters would sanction and THEY got the player!

Anyway, it’s the Europa League for us . . . but let’s hope we’ve got a squad capable of doing something in that competition! We SHOULD be one of the favourites for such a Cup but I bet half the teams in it would love being drawn against us. With this squad, understandable, but what sort of squad will we have next year?

If we don’t match the other teams, pound for pound when it comes to transfers, we’ll struggle again next year!

RED PHIL