Liverpool 4 - West Bromwich Albion 1

oshawabaggie:

How long before the Anelka experiment is declared dead? SC must be under huge pressure from management to explain why he went out on a limb to sign this has been, albeit for only a year. By picking him to start he condemned us to playing with ten and a half men for three quarters of the game. But to be honest Liverpool, or rather Suarez and Sturridge, were just too good for us. It could have been 7 or 8 based on the clear chances they created. Our much vaunted defence looked decidedly ropey. Ollie and McAuley are good against traditional big centre forwards, but can't handle trickery.

With the game drifting out of hand SC remained planted to the bench and by the time he brought on Long and Brunt the game was pretty well over. They instilled some life and for a while we finally started to put Liverpool under some pressure, but their brilliant fourth goal killed us off.

Billy Jones improves with every game and earned us (somewhat luckily) our only goal with his storming run into the box. But for me once again Mulumbu was our best player. What an example to other players, in stark contrast to NA. A plea to SC; Start Long or Berahino next week instead of Anelka.

the liquidator:

Top form Scousers, and we were off the game today.

In fairness, all 1st class unstoppable/freakish goals (all in one ffff game!!) which would have beaten the best. And how good were those goals!

There unfortunately has to be questions over dropping the onfire young Saido for N.A. Why change it? Surely not for the supersticious "old boy will come up with one" routine, cus Im buggered to think of any other reason (excepting injury). If so-then Long should have started methinks... if not-it should have remained with hugely inform Saido.

There was undoubtedly a great chance to change at HT before it was too late... although the sudden loss of Alfie maybe influenced that one (sub.noted-top drawer pen. from Morrie).

SC has been so right in the last few matches, maybe on this occasion not so.

Some great performances however from Mulumbu and Jones in particular -(how good is this lad!),with heroically timed tackles also from Olly and a superb finger tip from Myhill from the Suarez scissors effort. No blame with the others...

Going into it, I thought we could get something today... oh well... ever the optimist... Allez les Baggies!!

Paul Gainham:

If a week is a long time in politics than a month is an eon in football. Remember the excitement, the feeling we had turned a corner, the sheer audacity of us showing up at Old Trafford and taking the game to the reigning champions and winning? So do I.

So just what has happened in the last month?

I would compare our approach to yesterdays game to the ?hope and contain? approach we used during our early PL years playing at places like Anfield. When there was an absolute inevitability about the result, it was a question of by how many. Never excusable but understandable in some aspects. We had a much poorer team then and getting thumped every time you show up at places like this was bad for morale. So we often just tried to defend our way through a game.

And then one day a few years ago, we beat Arsenal 3-2 at the Emirates and I don?t think we have looked back since ? we reached a level where we could approach games like this with a level of confidence as over time we narrowed the gap between ourselves and the top teams.

And then yesterday comes along.

The old saying that if you fail to plan you plan to fail would sum up our approach. We simply had NO game plan yesterday, back to the worst of the poor spell second half of last season and the hope and contain strategy of years gone by. Suarez and Sturridge ably assisted by Gerard, Henderson and Lucas literally tore us apart at will and we looked shell shocked and had no response. Enough about Liverpool who in fairness would have given anyone a run for their money yesterday, what about us?

Our defence was poor yesterday, Jones the only bright spot. Olsson and McCauley were constantly being pulled apart by S&S when they normally stay tight together to minimise the gap between them. That seemed to go out of the window yesterday. Mulumbu had his normal bright and effervescent game but Yacob alongside him looked off the pace and was caught out of position on many occasions.

My biggest criticism is for the front 4. Just WHAT was Clarkes?s plan for the forwards yesterday?? After his abysmal showing at Stoke, Anelka?s ?punishment? was a starting position as our main forward - you simply can?t make this stuff up - just what sort of hold does this guy have over Clarke, is it a contractual one? Quite frankly he is an embarrassment and when the Liverpool fans clapped him off, I was left thinking was that a thank you for him being so abject. On the back of that he pushed Anichebe wide left, then right, he pushed Sessegnon central then left, then right and finally Amalfitano also moved position during the half.

First point to this why oh why pay $6m for a supposed forward, Anichebe, and then play him wide left and wide right in midfield. A couple of Liverpool fans were ribbing me on the way out they were sad he left Everton as he never once worried them when he played there. I knew exactly what they meant he was awful again yesterday, not a single effort on goal, the one strike he did attempt went out for a throwing. This guy is a slow useless lump who will score less than 5 this season.

At least Sessegnon again tried, albeit he was alone. Amalfitano was again poor before going off injured, Anichebe and Anelka, you couldn?t make a single decent player out of merging their best assets, they are both woeful.

I said a few weeks ago our complete lack of a natural goal scorer post Lukaku would be our Achilles heel and so it is turning out to be. Yes we rallied in the second half after we were 3-0 down but it was Jones, Morrison and Brunt who all had the chances ? our supposed strikers were nowhere to be seen.

Clarke ? you had a game plan against ManU and Arsenal that WORKED and yet here you are again tinkering with the wrong players in the wrong position and whatever the right or wrongs of it, we were thumped, embarrassingly so. That tinkering has a knock on impact on other players so think long and hard about what you are doing because on the basis of yesterday that tinkering affects the whole of the team.

Player Marks

• Myhilll 6 Having lost 4-1 hard to give him more but not sure he could have done anything with the 4 goals. One great save from a Suarez overhead kick
• Jones 7 Pick of the bunch, defended well overall and got forward really well, won the penalty
• Olsson 5 Poor, pulled out of position, looked lethargic
• McCauley 5 Ditto Olsson, allowed himself to be pulled out of position
• Ridgewell 5 Typical Ridgewell game
• Mulumbu 7 Always a beacon of hope ? tried everything to get the game going for us
• Yacob 5 Poor, slow and often out of position
• Sessegnon 6 Some good touches, always tried but was too isolated by those around him
• Amalfitano 5 Poor again, did very little before going off just before HT
• Anichebe 3 Useless lump. No pace, no skill, nothing
• Anelka 2 Even worse, no passion, no energy ? his one chance he powder puffed towards goal. Needs to be shown the door.

Subs

• Long 5 Ran around but made little impact
• Morrison 6 Looked lively and scored the penalty
• Brunt 6 Had a couple of chances and tried to get involved

Clarke 4 Yet again, unfathomable tactics

Referee 5 Fussy, missed a couple of clear fouls and was not looking to give our penalty, linesman flagged for it.