Football News: Huddersfield Town v Liverpool - A Liverpool Perspective

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Huddersfield Town v Liverpool A Liverpool Perspective

A stroll in the park pretty much, with no one getting out of first gear, even Milner was subdued, but doing enough to win. I have seen people say Liverpool were lucky, but Alisson made just one simple save, so what was lucky about it? The team were clearly just doing enough, with a few exceptions, trying to exert as little energy as possible and let Huddersfield run themselves out trying to press. It worked and that was as close to a routine 1-0 win as you get.

It was frustrating and tedious to watch and I would not enjoy watching that every week, but sometimes you just have to grind them out when things are not clicking. Away days against bottom 3 teams have been a real Achilles' heel for the team in recent years, it was important to just get a win and move on.

Klopp - did not exactly have a lot of choice in terms of team selection, with so many missing, but still managed to spring a surprise or two. Lallana was a strange one, I know he wants him to get match fitness, but Lallana ruined any chance of it being a fluid, fast, attacking performance, because he does not play that way. Rating: 6.5.

Alisson - got caught on the ball once, but that was due to having no option to play the ball to and it being passed to him when it really should not have been. The defence were taking the easy option far too much for my liking, playing it back to him, when it just meant he was going to be put under pressure. Never really had much chance to get involved in the game other than that, with just one simple save to make. Rating: 6.5.

Gomez - he does tend to drift too central at times, but, in the main he was decent, played a delicious ball to Shaqiri for the goal. Needs to use his long throw more often, that could really put the opposition under pressure if used correctly. When a defender knows the opposition has a long thrown specialist, they will often hoof the ball aimlessly up field, rather than out for a throw, which can gift position in much more dangerous positions. Rating: 6.5.

Lovren - solid game in the main, his only ropey moments came when van Dijk was being overly casual and made a mess of things. He needs to do more talking on the pitch and wake van Dijk up when he is having a game like this. If it was the other way round, Virgil would be on his case immediately, but no one seems to do the same for van Dijk. Rating: 6.5.

van Dijk - dreadful. Ridiculously casual and strolling through the game making far too many mistakes because of it and constantly playing Alisson into trouble. Needs to buck his ideas up and stop acting like these kind of games are too easy for him before he costs us points. Did win some headers but his headers were directionless at best. Rating: 3.5.

Robertson - poor. Really struggled to handle Hadergjonaj's pace and got no help from Lallana in front of him. Offered little going forward to make up for constantly giving the Swiss right sided player so much space to operate in. Needed to get tighter and stop Hadergjonaj getting a head of steam up. Use his body to get into him and be physical, as Hadergjonaj is cowardly and vanishes in physical games. Rating: 4.5.

Shaqiri - looked a bit lost in this role, showed some good touches and played a couple of good passes but it was obvious it was a new position to him. Ran around a fair bit but it was mainly aimless. Looked better when Lallana went off and he played further forward in a role more familiar to him. Rating: 6.

Henderson - had a decent first half but had to be taken off at half time. Not his best performance but he was given little movement to pick out ahead of him when he had the ball. Rating: 6.

Milner - a little subdued for Milner, though he still covered almost every blade of grass on the pitch before being substituted. Seemed to suffer from the same malaise that was running through the whole team of not being quite at it. Rating: 6.5.

Salah - scored the goal, constantly threatened but the final touch, pass or shot was missing most of the time. All of that does not really matter though as it was there in the moment it actually mattered for the goal. Rating: 6.5.

Sturridge - struggled badly to impose himself on the game and when he did he tended to just slow up the play. He was doing everything at walking pace. Not good at all. Rating: 3.5.

Lallana - by far and away the worst player on the pitch. Anyone who has played video games online will have spotted he was clearly suffering from a connection lagging behind the rest because he was reacting to everything half a second late. I lost count of the number of times I swore at him for making a mess of something simple by overdoing it or simply getting it wrong. He was utterly abysmal. The worst performance in a Liverpool shirt I have seen since I began doing the match reviews. I know it was his first game back so a lot of the issues will come good, but there is no excuse for bottling challenges time and time again. He was a major hindrance to the performance as he was so slow they were able to push right up on him and go at Robertson constantly. Instead of trying to move forward, he just dropped off. So much talk about what he is going to do and he always follows it up with these kind of cowardly, lightweight performances. Rating: 0.5.

Subs:

Wijnaldum - replaced the injured Henderson in the 45th minute. Provided a bit of drive and mobility in the midfield, as Henderson was clearly not at his best. Rating: 6.

Firmino - took the place of Milner in the 77th minute. Ineffective and struggled to get into the game. When he did everything he tried, pretty much, did not come off. Rating: 5.

Fabinho - replaced Lallana in the 69th minute. His first touch was a lovely throughball, but the rest of his game was a bit of a letdown after that. Not that he was bad, just that the pass was lovely and he did nothing like as good after it. Did look to add some solidity in front of the defence as well as offering the potential to play those quality passes which made the Huddersfield backline a bit wary. Rating: 6

Written by Tris Burke October 21 2018 18:04:20