A 3-1 defeat at the Boleyn Ground sent Liverpool crashing to their second Premier League defeat on the hop. The Reds defence, or lack thereof, was once again the culprit as two goals within the opening ten minutes set their up for a hard go in the Capital.
Raheem Sterling pulled one back before the break and the visitors looked more likely to leave East London with something rather than nothing as a second half resurrection pinned West Ham United back, but a late counter-attack saw Morgan Amalfitano secure the points for Sam Allardyce’s men. “We were nowhere near the standard today. We made a really slow start and before we knew it we were 2-0 down” said Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers in his post match press conference. “Lots of elements in our game have been very good and everyone has seen that over the last couple of seasons, but it is just not quite happening for us at the moment. We have a lot of work to do and today was very disappointing in terms of performance.”
That the Northern Irishman chose to point out we’ve been good over the “last couple of seasons” rather than this current season is telling in itself. The Reds have now lost more than half of their Premier League matches this season with last weekend’s loss to Aston Villa still resonating through the league table as both the Midlanders and the Hammers sitting above their more prestigious opponents in the standings. With October speeding towards us, even the more optimistic of us can’t help but see trouble on the horizon.
“They had better intensity than us. Our performance level wasn’t anywhere near what I would expect. We made too many long passes; normally our passing is shorter, crisper and faster in the game. Today we didn’t show enough composure on the ball” continued the manager with the obvious sound of disappointment in his voice. “But, first and foremost, I thought the intensity of our game wasn’t quite at the level. But that’s something that we will look at. I’m very fortunate that I’ve got an honest group of players that know that sort of level isn’t what we expect. We will, over the course of the season, get better and better.”
Video courtesy of showmetheFOOTBALL
If nothing else, one can only hope that the defense gets better. In what’s sadly become the staple of every Liverpool supporters post match conversation, the failings at the back were only magnified today when we didn’t just concede one early goal a la Aston Villa, but we let two slip before the players had barely broken a sweat. Disconcerting? You better believe it.
“It was very disappointing,” Rodgers said when asked if he felt frustrated by his teams capitulation. “There’s definitely work [to do]. If you do it over a number of games, it’s certainly something we need to look at. It was never a problem for us last season.” To be fair, it was never a problem because we were the ones screaming out of the gates and we could almost always count on scoring more than we conceded. It’s still early days, and injury problems have certainly put a dent in our momentum, but the pessimist in me thinks we may have used up all our paper last season — the ugly cracks are starting to show through.
“It all came from the intensity of our start. Today, our performance level wasn’t what we’d expect and normally the consequence of that is a disappointing result – and that’s how it was today” he continued with a welcome sense of frankness. “We had enough time to get back into it; but just the little bit of luck we needed, the final ball and final finish just wasn’t there for us.”
The real disappointing part is that we may not have needed that final ball or that final finish quite so much had we not fallen into ugly, predictable patterns in our own half. I said over the transfer window that I’d rather score 30 less goals than last season if it meant that we conceded even 20 less this one — at this rate, we’re on course to do neither.
–Steven
