Everton v Liverpool. 7th Feb at 17.30.

[The Equaliser]

an industrious defensive striker

Interesting concept.

 

[Sy-]

Removing the context of the opposition/game, I'm not overly disappointed with that. I will happily take exactly the same formation and scoreline at Stamford Bridge.

Quite happy to see that Martinez knows how to set up defensively actually.

 

[Zatara]

Hes clearly seen RS and chelsea as two games where we are underdogs and setup to counter.

If we get a point against chelsea no one would complain.

Also now mccarthy is back and lennon in the squad we should see more energy to our play.

I think if we get a point on weds we will start to pickup points and wins.

It wasn't a bad result and to be honest with our history against the RS I'd be OK with 2 draws against them almost every year. However watching this the reality finally hit me that we are going to do everything in our power to hold our position over trying to make a run up the table. And maybe that's the smart thing, we might need to be pragmatic and get to 40 asap, I don't know.

It just kind of hurts because of expectations. I wasn't expecting 4th mind you, just to compete for it and be there at the end and at least get another top 7 Euro spot. That being said you know what I'd be happy with 12th if it means a nice long run in Europa, neglecting the league for Europa probably really helped Fulham and Boro (That being said I'll also be fuming if we go out 1-1 on pens/away goals playing like this in the round of 32/16).

 

[Tubey]

"defensive striker" is one superb bit of doublethink.

It's not, it's a legitimate role. It's a player intended to pick up the opposition defensive midfield if they use that as the fulcrum of their attacks. Naismith did that and broke them down - Gerrard was a non-entity as they could build their play from deep. Indeed, when Coutinho went off and they couldn't build anything around the attacking midfield either, they had absolutely nothing and could have played for another hour and not scored.

People underestimate Naismith massively.

 

[Toffeelover]

Our attcking threat is woeful

Did not know we had an attacking threat, can't say I recall seeing one.

 

[tommye]

Erm, One team in gash form lid

Liverpool are top of the form table

Good point tonight, Not arsed one bit

 

[Zatara]

This is some kind of enigma code.

He won free kicks all night long, riled them up, attached himself to the man when the ball was lofted up and made a nuisance of himself, closed down the opposition in good areas. Did everything an industrious defensive striker should.

In fact, couldn't have asked any more. My mind is boggled by people criticising him tonight, just bizarre.

 

[billyblue80]

Well at least we didn't fold this time, but the attacking bravery of last season was badly lacking, we were too afraid to go for it as we were containing to an extent. Surprisingly tepid game in all with Liverpool dominating possession but not threatening often, until the Besic bust up in the second half, when Barkley came on and we looked a bit more fired up/like we wanted to go for it.

Ps Lukaku is SO lazy he lumbers around, getting caught off side and letting the ball bounce ten yards away from him. what happened to the beast of a player of last season?!

 

[banno]

Barkley was our most creative player on the pitch

 

[Sy-]

Naismith was excellent tonight, but I give up explaining why he was. He's the boo boy because he's not Belgian apparently.

I think he sticks out more because he touches the ball a shed load more than anyone else. I can't think of any other attacking mid options we have? but yeah, people will just bash him anyway.

 

[Zatara]

In that case we may as well get straq back.

Why? His hold up play is ten times better than Lukaku

 

[Del]

A few weeks ago I looked at the up coming games City,WBA,Palace,Liverpool and Chelsea, I honestly thought we would pick up 3 points out of the lot, I am betting a lot of you thought the same or worse

We have 6 points out of the first 4,we are unbeaten and have Chelsea to play, We have improved vastly since the 4 game losing streak that ended at Hull

Our defence looks solid again conceding 1 goal in the last 4, Its no surprise we are lacking up top when you see the calibre of player we have available coupled with Martinez prob looking to shore things up to steady the ship which imo was the right thing to do (Obviously Stones coming back is a major factor

We went into todays game playing the leagues form side, Going in naïve like we did at Anfield last season would have been suicide, He went safe, So what? There's plenty on here who slag the man off for not learning from previous mistakes

 

[Billy Dean]

A points a point at the end of the day...

It is at any time of day to be fair mate.

 

[orly]

Meh, think in the scheme of things it is an alright result

Clean sheet, mccarthy returns- not a huge issue

 

[Azzurri]

Good point, defended well.