A win is a win no matter how it’s accomplished, but the 2-1 victory over PFC Ludogrets yesterday certainly echoed the age old adage that there’s no easy matches. Not even one.
I’m getting tired of saying that and you’re probably getting tired of hearing it — unfortunately, it’s the truth. While more than one pundit decided that the Bulgarian side would be easy pickings for their more prestigious bedfellows in Group B, what we saw yesterday at Anfield was an organized, disciplined side that weren’t about to be told who was going to do what to them when. We learned that quite quickly, didn’t we?
Everything happened a bit too quickly following the pre-match festivities. The Kop was on song, the Champions League anthem incited pulmonary palpitations in even us virile young men and then — what exactly? There’s little doubt that Reds boss Brendan Rodgers instructed his side to hit the visitors hard and fast during the opening exchanges, but everything was a bit too hard and a bit too fast with more wayward balls and over-hit crosses to count.
The usually incisive Philippe Coutinho was, in a lot of ways, the major culprit on the night as many of his tricks and feints and what are usually perfected weighted passes just didn’t come off. Much like in Saturday’s loss to Aston Villa, the entire front line often looked more like strangers than a group of world class players who spend week in and week out training together — more growing pains, to be fair, but it was alarming at points how everything went into disarray in the final third.
Despite the flying start, the mere fact that it took 21-minutes for the hosts to even get off a decent effort is telling and owes much to the defensive midfield pairing of Anicet Abel and Svetoslav Dyakov. The Reds looked like they were going to break the deadlock when Mario Balotelli’s blocked shot fell to Adam Lallana, but he saw his rebound knocked away by Ludogrets ‘keeper Milan Borjan.
The visitors backline held firm under increased pressure as more chances fell to the Italian, Raheem Sterling and Lallana — still, the breakthrough eluded the much more fancied hosts. Roman Bezjak gave the Bulgarian’s their best chance of the half, but Mamadou Sakho was on hand to cover up and send them to the break on level terms.
Javier Manquillo’s volley flew just over, no one could get on the end of a peachy Sterling cross after the youngster was played in by Coutinho and Fabio Borini’s header was palmed away as the Italian almost became an instant hero after replacing Lallana midway through the half.
Despite the fact that the Reds were controlling proceedings comfortably, Bezjak almost made up for his first half miss when he latched onto a well worked throw-in, but he could only watch on as he shot curled agonizingly away from the top corner.
Marcelinho — dangerous throughout — nutmegged Sakho to set up the Ludogrets Number 9 for another pop at Simon Mignolet and Jordan Henderson’s header from Alberto Moreno’s cross flew wide as the two sides exchanged blows, but it would be Balotelli who’d finally find a way through when another cross from the Spaniard set the striker up to show some fancy foot-work and close control in the box before he lashed in his first goal in the famous red shirt.
Surprisingly though, the celebrations were short lived. As the Reds went looking for some insurance, the entire back-line was caught too far forward and horribly out of position, allowing Dani Abalo to sneak through and round Mignolet before sending the visiting contingent into hysterics. That should have been a point assured for Georgi Dermendzhiev’s team, but even more surprisingly, it was easy come, easy go as a routine back-pass was miscontrolled by Bojan.
Manquillo, who has showed how dangerous he can be going forward since coming in on loan from Atletico Madrid, rushed the ‘keeper and the Canadian up-ended the on-rushing fullback, leaving referee Matej Jug no choice but to point to the spot. Steven Gerrard doesn’t miss many and he wasn’t about to change that — not in front of the Kop on his sides return to the Champions League and he made no mistake as he spared his side some serious blushes.
Winning is winning is winning and you’ll hear no complaints about the result coming from here. Could we have done better? Of course. Does our defensive failings concern me? Of course. Are we going to get better? You’re expecting an “of course”, but I’ll go with “I hope so” instead. This is a young, inexperienced team who can go from strength to strength in this competition — let’s just hope we can buy ourselves enough time to show it.
–Steven
