I did not want to say anything about the game until I watched it again. Now that I have I am disgusted with the tactics employed by Reading’s manager McDermott.
From the first kick they tried to neutralise Torres & Gerrard with rough play and Phil Dowd turned a blind eye to that first challenge in the game which should have been a definite yellow. That challenge was the one that injured Torres, this of course set the stage for the game and at the end we ended up with Gerrard & Yossi out for a couple of weeks and Torres sent to the operating table.
While many have congratulated Reading for beating us, I am not.
They might be in a different division now, have a different manager but Reading are the reason why Petr Cech wears protective headgear.
Enough said.
YNWA
antoine@empireofthekop.com
-Antoine
This is pretty petty….
You’ve got a point. But it’s not just Reading. Whenever Nando plays, every game there’s defenders just fouling him, needlessly. After the game, all I could think of was the fact that everyone game, Torres gets fleeced and yet even though we are half a season in, there is no sign of any clamping down or protecting players by referees.
May as well just get used to seeing Nando on the physio’s table. :(
What Sean said. This kind of thing happens in every single game every week, regardless of the Division your in. We should know how to cope with it by now.
Reading should not be playing football but rugby their shirt already looks like a rugby shirt anyways.
Sorry Antoine. For the fist time I can remember, I disagree with you. Reading deserve all the credit they have been given for beating us. The first tackle set the stall but to say the Reading players are responsible for el Nino’s injury just sound like sour grapes. They knew they could tackle that little bit more robustly and Dowd would give them at least 1 chance.
As eire said the injury to Torres is a culmination of the rough treatment he faces evry game and cannot be attributed solely to Wednesday night’s match.
If you think a team struggling in 21st place in the championship is going to try to beat you by footballing methods only, you are deluded. Strong arm tactics are part and parcel of football. As the superior team, you must learn how to deal with it.
YNWA
Julian
It’s pretty clear that refs do not like Liverpool, too often the refs got it wrong this season and I don’t even want to start counting all the penalties that were denied. This is one of the many reasons why Liverpool is only 7th but it is not the reason why Liverpool got knocked out. Reading simply showed something that we haven’t shown for far too many games this season: passion. Add the lack of quality in the squad, the injury crisis and off pitch troubles and you get exactly the season we have.
I don’t know if we still can qualify for the CL, it certainly does not look good and it’s a shame that we have to panic about opponents such as Stoke or Spurs! But if we do not get that passion back, not even David Villa would secure us CL qualification.
Disagree Antoine. Reading deserved to win. They played as a team and beat Liverpool fair and square. If Liverpool had got a late goal in they would not have deserved that. The end result was as it should be.
“It’s pretty clear that refs do not like Liverpool, too often the refs got it wrong this season and I don’t even want to start counting all the penalties that were denied. This is one of the many reasons why Liverpool is only 7th”
That’s terrible. Referee’s aren’t to blame for how lacklustre and flat we’ve been playing this season, for the players who are simply not good enough to play for Liverpool or for the awful tactics that Rafa persists with even though they consistantly fail week in week out.
JamesD,
I suppose you are against the two holding midfielders that Rafa supposedly played on Wednesday?
Rafa’s ‘awful’ tactics are the reason he has been here near six years. The ‘awful’ tactics from the man who has an amazing CV. The man who won us a Champions League, F.A Cup, got us to a second CL final in two years, gave us our best finish in decades, all with a budget that would make any City manager cry. Has Benitez moaned or complained or bitched about the fact we’re skint? No. He’s the man who’s getting on with. Getting players ‘who are simply not good enough to play for Liverpool’ are his only option with a pissy budget.
At the end of the day, he can take some responsiblity, but it’s the players who go out onto the pitch to do their job. Can Benitez make a pass go 10 yards to a Liverpool foot? No. Can he make a goal? No. It’s the players who are on the pitch. The ones that aren’t good enough, the ones who are senior with years of experience.
And yes, it is pretty clear the refs do not like Liverpool, penalties are in the rulebook. To give them or not to give them, is up to the refs. Prime example of a ref: the Spurs game. The ref (don’t care to remember his name), made Pepe take a goalkick again, only to blow his whistle for full-time before Pepe kicked it.
– éire
I know all that Rafa’s done in the past, the people who are standing by him bang on about it constantly. Yet we need to look at how we are playing now, this season, and see what can be done to improve.
Since you ask, yes, generally I am not in favour of playing two holding midfielders, especially when we do so against teams like Portsmouth and Debrecen who’s attacking ability is fairly limited at the best of times. I think replacing one of them with an attack minded midfielder would be much more beneficial.
I believe the best form of defence is to attack and keep possession and that the formation we play with 1 up front and 2 defensive midfielders invites ‘lesser’ teams to have more of the ball and come at us. If you add to this the fact that we are relying on a striker playing on the wing who has no pace, skill or technique to provide the chances for our 1 up front, we have very little threat going forward.
We have played this way all season and it has got us where we are. How long can Rafa keep trying the same thing and keep seeing it fail before he decides on different tactics or trying different players?
I don’t want to get into a rant with you, these are just my opinions and they seem to differ from yours. I hope we turn it around against Stoke and we can start to talk about happier times ahead.
YNWA.
What I would like to really know is where the hell did the 4th official get 4 and half minutes of extra time in the second half? Total bullshit. That was also not even close to a penalty, im sorry.
The challenge against Aquilani in their area was way worse and a clear penalty.
I agreed that Reading deserved to win, they were the team better that night. But to win in a dirty and unfair way isn’t a real win, is it? If they really want to play dirty and win in this way … that’s kind of poor … isn’t it?
DIRTY, WRONG and ROTTEN!! All I need to say!!
This is not the 1st time our player become a target of rough play…thats the only way to neutralise a great player…just look at Morientes…he cant play the way he use to at liverpool becoz he always become a target in each game….
Its about time our player learn from cristiano ronaldo the method he use when opposition tackles him…he rarely get injured in england….
So,if you say Reading play a dirty game…maybe they did…but then again our player is not strong enough.we should rectify this prob wih our player 1st….
Im really sad with this lost….10 in 20….Rafa or the Board should act fast before we face meltdown….Without Torres,Gerrard,Benayoun we will struggle in the next few weeks…Sorry to say…i dont think we will end the season in top 4……
This Is Horrible!
It’s NOT Rafa’s Fault.
I Totally Agree With éire.
And Reading PLayed Dirty.
Cheers, great writing.