Jordon Ibe’s brilliant individual goal was the highlight of an otherwise underwhelming finale to our tour of the Far East – which finishes with a 1-1 draw against the Malaysia XI.
The Reds fell behind early on after some sloppy defending from Dejan Lovren and Martin Skrtel, and might have been beaten if it were not for Ibe’s moment of supreme brilliance just before half-time.
SEE MORE:
Liverpool fans bemoan Dejan Lovren’s latest error, as Malaysia XI take early lead
Twitter explodes in delight at Jordon Ibe’s brilliant individual goal v Malaysia XI
Liverpool’s team vs Malaysia XI in 2011 – Where are they now?
Plenty to mull over for us Liverpool fans. Here are five things we learned from today’s game…
5) The Lovren / Skrtel partnership is not right
You can see why Rodgers would want to push forward with this pairing – the vastly experienced veteran and our most expensive ever defender. However, it’s clearly not going to work. There is a distinct lack of pace and we’re asking too much of the full-backs to always be able to come across and cover. Against Malaysia, Skrtel was caught ball watching and Lovren – despite his size and strength – was held off too easily as he attempted to track back. Mamadou Sakho won’t have seen anything to concern him here, as he waits on his starting spot against Stoke.
4) Moreno has lots of work to do as well
The full-back didn’t do anything particularly wrong today, but equally, he didn’t show enough to prove that he deserves his place over the hugely impressive and rapidly improving Joe Gomez. The same defensive frailties – mostly in terms of his positioning – were on show again, and a stronger quality of opposition clearly would have taken advantage. He’s still young and has the potential to improve, but he’s in a real battle for his place as things stand, despite it being virtually a given a month ago. His new haircut could do with some work as well…
3) Jordon Ibe is going to very special indeed
On to happier news now. How good was this kid today? It’s hard to believe that Ibe, a bigger and stronger Raheem Sterling is many peoples eyes, is still only a teenager. However, James Milner is right when he says that we shouldn’t label him and we shouldn’t put too much pressure on him to produce. Ibe, unlike Sterling, seems very down to earth and concentrated on his football. Why try and fix what’s not broken? Let him do his thing and hopefully we’ll be seeing more moments of magic, such as the one we saw today, in the very near future.
2) The future is bright
Ibe wasn’t the only youth academy product on show today. At the full time whistle, Liverpool had Jordan Rossiter, Sheyi Ojo, Daniel Cleary, Joe Maguire and Pedro Chirivella on the pitch, all of whom were more than holding their own against an opposition that were ready to kick anyone or anything that moved. Now, we’re not going to say they’re all destined for greatness, they’re not. But what is encouraging to see is that Rodgers and co are bringing these kids through and giving them a chance to prove themselves around the first-team. More of the same, please!
1) But Divock Origi isn’t quite ready yet
One young man who will be a little disappointed with his performance today is Divock Origi. He was marked out of the game fairly efficiently for the most part, but didn’t do enough to go looking for the ball when he might of done – and in the same way that Danny Ings has been doing so well in some of our other games. When he did get a chance, he was wasteful, striking one rare chance straight at the goalkeeper. The elements of a good player are all there – the strength, the speed, the vision – but he still needs to work on the finer details before he’s in full flow.
