I’m sure I can’t be alone in getting a little tired of enduring the ‘morning after the night before’. That sinking feeling of having avoided Match of the Day only to be bombarded a few hours later with reminders of the result from various TV, radio, online, print and Ipswich supporting sources.
Not pleasant and despite having had forty something years to practise said morning routine it doesn’t get any easier. At least I was spared the ignominy of having to trawl through last night’s results on live TV; a feat that was handled expertly by our own Mick Dennis this morning on Sky Sports News.
Fortunately for City – if there is such a thing as fortune after being thumped 5-1 – with the exception of those in deep, darkest Suffolk, most were more interested in discussing the utter brilliance of Luis Suárez than delving into the deficiencies in the City performance.
And they’re right of course. Suárez was simply unstoppable last night and as Rick (Waghorn) put to me earlier: “Even Barca, Bayern, Real and Dortmund would have struggled to contain him last night”. And he’s right too… as always.
What I find a little hard to commute is why is it always us? If Premier League hat-tricks are so easy to come by for the little Uruguayan why not unleash them on all and sundry? Why wait for Norwich?
The answer I suspect is in the mindset. Suárez *knows* he’s going to score against us in the same way the City players *know* he’s going to score against them. That appears to be how it works, or is at least how it feels.
Hull’s defence certainly didn’t suffer the same inferiority complex on Sunday afternoon.
And there’s no getting away from the fact we do little to help ourselves.
While the first was a speculative forty-yarder tinged tinged with brilliance, there were elements of sloppiness in the way it was conceded. Leroy Fer could have done better in preventing the supply to Suárez in the first place and the way both centre-backs backed off the Uruguayan just invited him to shoot.
And it’s not as if he hasn’t scored against us from that range (plus some) before.
If the first was a little sloppy, from a defensive perspective the second goal was worse – much worse – and smacked of defending for which I’d have been roundly castigated back in the days of Suffolk and Ipswich League Division One (I know… poor me). Whoever had been detailed to be the ‘first man’ and block off a near-post corner did a rotten job – the ball even bouncing in the six-yard box – and Russell Martin’s half-hearted attempt to block off Suárez smacked of someone who needs to be rested.
Forgive me for dissecting them in chronological order (I was once an accountant…) but the third, while brilliant in its execution had an element of the Pied Piper, with four players seemingly in touching distance without being close enough to do a thing about it. Brilliant, yes, but still preventable.
Of course it’s easy to analyse and criticise, and if no mistakes were made every game would end goal-less, but the regularity and volume by which City make them – particularly when going toe-to-toe with the ‘big boys’ – means it’s invariably ‘game over’ before we even get a foothold in the match. It happened last night, it happened at the Etihad and, to a degree, it happened at St James’ Park.
As Rick said, the form of Suárez would have tested the resolve of the best last night, and therefore the very last thing City could afford to do was give him a helping hand, but they did and did so more than once. To be in damage limitation mode from minute 29 onwards was crushing and scant reward for the travelling Yellow Army whose own resolve is being tested to the limit right now.
While others of a similar ilk are able to go to the Anfields and Etihads of this world and compete, at the moment we’re going to these same venues and getting thumped. No lack of effort – I didn’t see any heads drop last night – but a severe lack of belief in their ability to do anything other than lose.
And it’s a problem. A big one.
Quite how such a cycle can be broken is not obvious, but perhaps a trip to the less heady and refined atmosphere of the Hawthorns is what’s needed. Certainly there will be no excuses for the level of subservience on show last night.
One thing’s for sure, Hughton needs a result on Saturday and another limp and lifeless away day will only cause the McNally brow to furrow ever deeper. The home form is keeping the wolf from the door right now and amen to that, but the longer the form on the road continues to frustrate the narrower the margin for error at Carrow Road.
A form guide that shows two wins in the last four suggests nothing more than the norm, but the reality is currently the lows of the away defeats are far outweighing the highs of the home victories.
It’s a cycle that needs to be broken… and quickly.
Timid tactics, baffling team selections, predicable play patterns.
Hull gave no Liverpool man an inch of room to take the ball. Norwich stood off and let them pick and choose.
I feel deeply for the players because match preparations must be so demoralising.
Our leader is weak. Shoot him and move on.
OTBC
I’m a Liverpool fan. I don’t think Norwich City did bad at all. Before Suarez scored, I thought we were really sloppy and lacked the confidence. Norwich had 1-2 good chances and could have caught us cold if your side had more quality in the final 3rd. We lost the ball too much and seemed lacked confidence. Even when Suarez started his own show, Norwich didn’t look bad at all, your side had strings of passes in midfield and do not look like a side in the bottom half. But again the final 3rd was rather poor. Then when it was 3-0, it was rather over and I could see a few heads down. Nevertheless Norwich was not defeated by LFC as a whole, but it was defeated by Suarez. Take Suarez off the equation, I think your team will definitely be in the league again next season. The manager is a decent and full of pride and I see that in Norwich.
I am surely not alone to be fed up with sympathetic noises from supporters of teams who have thrashed City. But I agree the team were not half as bad as against Man City. We must accept that for different reasons Hooper and Elmander cannot hold the ball up as the hopeful balls up to them would suggest. Before anyone invokes the name of Grant Holt, we know that last season he was struggling and this year he has not been fit or only coming on as sub in the Championship.
We must forget the pain of defeat and coldly analyse where we go from here. First we must not assume that the defence is good enough. Only Olsson is in my view a truly premier league player and he played in a team which was relegated. The others are for the most part honest triers but are beginning to look demoralised by the heavy defeats. Curtis Davies looks a bargain for Hull and it is disappointing that CH did not use his knowledge of the player to get him in. It is difficult for Ryan Bennett to develop his undoubted talent in the current atmosphere.
In midfield, Howson and Fer have shown their capabilities. But even a man as strong and committed as Fer has wavered during recent onslaughts. It was a disaster that Tettey was injured because he has the pace and athleticism which Johnson lacks. Redmond is a star in the making but cannot do it all on his own. His ratio of shots to goals is almost worthy of Stewart Downing. Snoddy is so wholehearted and passionate especially about Scotland that he returns from the international breaks with injuries; and Pilkington is almost rivalling Darren Anderton with his number of sick notes.
As for the strikers, Elmander looks as though he could play all season without scoring. Hooper is promising but only that; while we need to see more of a fit RvW to judge him.
A couple of wins and the return of players from injury may make things look better. But Hughton should remember how this last few matches have gone in deciding where reinforcements are needed.
Those who called prematurely for the manager to be sacked have added to the pall hanging over the team. I would hate to see the dreaded “vote of confidence” but it does seem that the club should be seen publicly to be pulling in the same direction. That is my preference but if not we should not see our manager being hung out to dry and gradually see all vestigial confidence in the team drain away.
OTBC
Senor Suarez does like to put us to the sword but he still lags behind Messi who has done the hatrick of hatricks against two sides (Ath. Madrid and Valencia) and Ronaldo who has a quartet of hatricks against Seville…mind you we still have to play Liverpool again this season.
For all those crowing Suffolk-types, our 7 PL hatricks conceded is still less than their 8 (Ian Wright got 2) and my records indicate that it is a few years since their boys had to battle against the best in the top league.
We’ll bounce back and I’d like to congratulate Bradley Johnson on a fine goal in front of the Kop – he’s cut plenty of flack this season, so credit where it’s due.
Excellent comments Doug Millar. Off at a tangent, credit to our die hard travelling fans, more so mid-week matches. I haven’t checked our travelling numbers this season. Would be amazed if they are still holding up.
All this ‘we never go toe to toe with the big boys’ is nonsense. Before we lost to Man City everyone was full of praise about how we payed against Arsenal and Chelsea. Last year we always played well against the big guns and also the year before, for the most part. One day Hughton will pick a team that actually gels – which he was doing until January – and they’ll start playing again. It came when he got Tetty up to scratch this season and bode well. But frankly, picking Becchio and Hooper would have been far more troubling to Liverpool than the sack of spuds he stuck up front last night.
It is a frustration that probably our most creative player is also our most wasteful – normally a trait reserved for wingers. Unfortunately Wes simply gave the ball away in too many dangerous areas last night. We had good possession (and chances too) in the period before Saurez scored his first – I didn’t appreciate it much at the time, but it was a glorious effort. From having looked at times the answer to our prayers, Leroy looked out of place and that, unfortunately, left us without much of chance to keep the fluid Liverpool midfield away from our back four. With the fit players at his disposal I’m not sure there was much else Hughton could do. We might have played two up, but simply didn’t retain the ball well enough, and when we did we were normally moving backwards, rolling it back to Ruddy and his lump upfield. With due respect to Elmander, he is not that sort of target man, so the pressure was back on again. Howson tried to drive us forward, as he had done against Palace, but how we now miss Tettey. Johnson did a fair job, but midfield is critical to our game. It matters little which of the front men play if we can’t win the ball, keep it and then get it in the opposition box. Selections, formations and tactics do matter and are the manager’s complete responsibility, but execution is down to the players and too often the execution has been lacking. Well, we’ll go again on Saturday – fingers crossed. OTBC
The hard facts are, we’ve now played 7 games away from home this season and we’ve won 1, drawn 0, lost 6, scored 4, conceded 21, points 3. Until such time as we can regularly pose a goal scoring threat away from home (and that’s the joint responsibility of both the manager and the players) we will continue to struggle near the foot of the table. Let’s stop focusing on the opposition and address our own failings before it’s too late.
GazzaTCC(8) – hard facts yes, but they need context i.e. 5 of those defeats have been against top 7 sides. I make it 8 away games to come against teams around us where we realistically could/should pick up points (10+) starting with the Baggies. I’m sure (?) CH will be more positive in approach (as at Stoke) against these teams to come.
Of course we have to address failings but you do have to give some credit to the opposition (Suarez, Man City and Arsenal) for their performances.