We continued our roller coaster season with a 3-0 home win over West Ham.
The Pros
- We managed to play confidently, not afraid to shoot and pass.
- We got a comfortable 3-0 win without any goals from Torres and without Steven Gerrard.
- Our players looked happier than usual.
- The defence was the strongest its been all season, the team weren’t afraid to throw in some tackles.
The Cons
- Hodgson made the team sit back in the second half. Why sit back? Realistically we were going to win the game, so there was not even a risk for trying to attack more. 3 more goals would have put us in 7th.
- West Ham were playing as bad as anything. They couldn’t even mark and our players had tons of space to do what they want.
Christian Poulsen
While I’m not the biggest fan of Poulsen, I am not one who would even think of booing him. A few years ago Vidic actually stated he wanted to leave Man Utd, but he still got cheered by the fans. Christian Poulsen actually stated he wanted to do his best for Liverpool. It was a hard job to fill in for Gerrard, and today Poulsen was one of the players that was ‘OK’. He had a good shot at goal which had to stretch Rob Green, and it’s been his best game in a red shirt. Let’s just hope he manages to up his game, but right now he deserves all the support he can get.
Roy Hodgson
From my point of view, I think this season is going to carry on as a roller coaster ride. I wouldn’t predict a win against Spurs and we just can’t keep consistent with Roy. It was good to see him smiling and celebrating.
The ‘Did you see that‘ moment
After the second (or it might have been first) Liverpool goal, Avram Grant got up and purposely stood in front of Roy Hodgson blocking his view. It was cheating by Avram, forcing Hodgson to get up. We still managed to easily win though.
Poulsen did better than ‘ok’. He had a good game, given that so many people are trying to crucify him lately. He doesnt hide away. We certainly offer more with 2 strikers. I thought it was good for aurelio to get some minutes on the pitch too. We’ll certainly have stiffer tests to come than this west ham team- which i dont we’ll be playing next season somehow.
I tend to think that the second half performance was more a reaction to how poorly West Ham were playing. To be honest, for vast portions you could probably argue that they weren’t even trying to compete, and that had an effect on our game. Suddenly we didn’t need to work so hard to get into space or make a pass, and we got complacent.
I think the team was expecting West Ham to come out firing after half time and therefore could have been expected to hold back just a little but when that attack never came, the whole match just turned into a bit of a training exercise. I would have liked to see Shelvey and Babel given a bit more time on the field though. You don’t often get a chance like that although you could argue that it wasn’t much of a test for either player.
The key is still the away games and how Hodgson decides to approach them. He certainly needs to release the shackles more than he has done so far but I’m hopeful that the team can improve further. Only 3 points off fourth spot now, so we’re not out of it by any stretch of the imagination.
Poulsen had a solid game and he deserves credit for it, given the amount of stick he’s taken. He doesnt hide away and he applauded the fans at the end which was nice. He aint Alonso or Mascherano but he is a half decent player who by his own admissions can do a lot better so we should all get behind him and hopefully better things will follow.
I’m not putting to much into this game. West Ham were awful! Anyone would have beaten them today.
However, Glen Johnson was excellent (How’s that for an England right back Hodgson)!
Aurelio coming on and almost hitting on target was excellent!
Maxi played excellent!
Good game against unworthy opposition.
I come across this whiles on Google news lookìng at ManUtd news and I have to state that Vida has never said he wants to leave, it has always been madeup garbage by ABU press, Vidic has stated constantly through out the years that he wants to be at United and haves no intentions in leaving.
I was really enjoying the Liverpool struggle – hey I support United, you would be the same if it was United – but I have to say welldone for turning it around. I can’t really see top4 for Liverpool this season, but you never know. I expect some will disagree and have some comments but hey what the hell, we are rivalries afterall so I don’t expect you to want us to win the League (which we will, #19 Lge titles, a new record).