John McCormick writes….
Our two post match verdicts were not good. Pete Sixsmith used the phrase “inexorable slide”. A few minutes later Rob Hutchison chipped in with “Fading away with a barely a wimper”.
But what does our manager say? Does he agree? Not quite, although he does appreciate the fans, as you can see from the personal and private post-match letter he sent to M Salut, and perhaps some others, at the end of the game
Dear Colin,
It was a cruel goal, very cruel indeed.
I don’t think Liverpool created the goal; it was pure luck. Even the finish was slightly mis-hit, but it went in and that’s what matters.
I think that killed the whole place because we were so optimistic about the second half after what we’d tried to do in the first.
It took a while to recover from that but in the end there wasn’t enough quality play in the final third from ourselves to create the sort of chances to get us back in the game. The effort, organisation and commitment were fine.
Wes Brown came in and did a fantastic job for us; he used his experience with John and Younes out. We lost Jack Rodwell to a hamstring injury and then Seb Coates, so everything has gone against us again.
We have to keep looking to change our luck ourselves, and we do that by continuing to believe in ourselves, work as hard as we did tonight and provide the right sort of quality in front of the opposition goal.
Every time we were in the final third they were willing us to get a goal, but sadly we couldn’t produce the right amount of quality to get one.
Thanks for your support
Sam Allardyce
For me, 2 major turning points
1) Kevin Friend choosing not to send Benteke off 5 minutes before half time for an absolutely blatant second yellow card when he went straight through the back of Defoe- I know he evened up by not sending Lens off later but that made no difference.
2) Ridiculous start to 2nd half and the goal deflating everyone immediately.
Win on Saturday or we are doomed.
Friend’s reluctance to dish out the cards allowed Liverpool to commit fouls any time one of our players looked to be getting into a dangerous position, knowing that the chance of us creating a scoring opportunity from a set piece is about the same as getting a bacon sandwich at a bar mitzvah.
When you cede possession and territory, as we did, breaks will favour the opposition. Liverpool made their own good luck; we let them do it.
Yip not much else to say here…..lucky goal and we were poor.When you at the bottom small things go against you ,but mount into defeats…been here all before…they just have to keep fighting.Make that luck change.
For once I actually think this is a decent post match response. Our fans were great tonight! Of course the media won’t reflect on this like they do when people leave early. Good turn out from the Scousers too – all the upper tier of the North Stand full and impeccable during the pre-match silence.
We certainly didn’t seem like the poorer side but didn’t really threaten our former keeper either. Onwards if not upwards.