There is no bad luck to imprecate this time round. Swansea City earned a draw at Anfield with a stunning performance which quite frankly made the Reds look extremely ordinary, and which also re-emerged the ‘Newcomers’ Syndrome’ which we seem to fail to shrug off.
No beating about the bush here, our main problem this season is inconsistency. Swansea City out ran us, out passed us, and outclassed us! The confidence with which these newly promoted teams come to play at Anfield is astonishing. Their game plan always seems to work to perfection and as with when Norwich City introduced a second striker in the second half to come on an get the equalizer, Swansea City substituted an attacker for another with barely 12 minutes to go, showing that not only were they not holding for a draw, they were looking at the chance of snatching the three points, and nearly succeeded.
As always we started well. As always we sent our opposition into a panicky frenzy. As always we failed to capitalize (no need to add further….)! It was clear that Enrique was going to have a bad day with Nathan Dyer. Actually I think Jose had his worse game for the Reds so far. Dyer literally had a field day with him out there, especially in the second half when the Spaniard’s and Johnson’s fruitless forward forays left us precariously exposed.
Henderson! He started out on the right again where even the turf buds of Anfield know he is practically ineffective. I saw a lot of horizontal and back passing from him, but rarely did I see a pro-active forward pass. Later on in the half he switched sides with Downing and from that point on both flanks became stale from action! His substitution at half-time was timely.
Suarez did not have one of his best days, but he was still the best one out there in my view, together with Agger, Lucas and Reina were perhaps the only ones (in my view) that made the grade! I am of the opinion that Kenny should have brought off Downing and not Carroll. And why on earth was Bellamy playing on the right when he came on? Why Downing wasn’t moved to the right like in the first half to let Bellamy play where he is best is beyond me. Neither Downing nor Enrique had much joy with Rangel and perhaps Bellers could have done a bit better! And why is Maxi, who ended last season so brilliantly not being given a chance?
In the end we played a decent first 30 minutes and then we mustered a satisfactory last 10 minute effort. Apart from that we were dismal, created nothing worth noting and made John W Henry and Ms Pizzuti swear they will not attend another home game again!
Well done to Swansea City who came to a packed Anfield with the confidence and zest of a consummate Premier League side. Well done to them for having had enough belief to take an unlikely point from a match that Liverpool should have won but which in the end they risked losing. We need to do much better, we need to find consistency. These dropped points will come to haunt us come the end of the season, and quite honestly, we are also running out of excuses.
An article on the Club website was titled ‘Reds frustrated by Swans’, it ought to have been ‘Fans frustrated by Reds’! Don’t you think?