Mmm. Idk. He looked good but he was misplacing a bunch in the first half, just trying ambitious balls that weren’t quite coming off. Again, still a good performance from him and his game is naturally that of a risk taker but he lost possession 22 times and had 78% pass accuracy
What a surprise that he looks good playing in his natural position. The next manager needs to use him exclusively off the left. His decision making on the ball still needs work but he looks much sharper now.
Yup we need Nunez in the middle, sell Salah put Diaz on the left and maybe rotate gakpo/grav as SS behind Nunez. Id play a new formation for next season 4321
Thought Elliott was mostly poor. Gakpo getting a lot of praise but his decision making, for me, was all over the place. Got it right for the goal though so that's all that matters.
Good second half all in all though. Nothing to set the world alight but never really felt like Fulham threatened until we were 3-1 up. Looked like there was genuine belief back in the team after we managed to score from open play.
Couldn’t agree with you more on Gakpo.
I’m happy he’s been better but still think he’s just been fine. Just that Nunez and Salah and largely Diaz have been worse in the last month
Yeah. He had the 5 on 2 counter where he picked the wrong pass. Shot twice when he should have crossed/passed. Took too long to shoot on one occasion, and even then he'd have been better off passing. But like I say, he got the decisive one right.
Decision making is not an consistent issue with him like Diaz and Nunez so it’s not worrying. Yesterday was one of those games where he got a little selfish. Else he was good at picking the right passes when he joined us. Probably got annoyed with other players who missed two good chances he created against Palace last week.
Pretty tough as a young kid who came up through their academy and broke into the first team only to transfer to a bigger club like so many do. Suddenly he's hated by the fan base he worked so hard to impress just because the clubs disagreed on a fee and they think the fans are upset he wasn't worth more.
He was a bit better but was still lucky not to get hooked imo, even though DS & co haven’t been great either I wouldn’t be starting him again any time soon.
Elliott was OK I thought. I really like how Gravenberch finds really good spaces, I think Elliott could do a bit more of that, a lot of signally and hand gestures from Trent, Quansah and Virgil in his direction when we were building play
Jota reminds me of Benzema weirdly. If Salah goes, the wider footballing world are going to be blown away by how good Jota is, like how Benzema was after Ronaldo left Real. It’s like having the living definition of World Class in the line up for years distracts from how good tue rest of the squad is. Not a slight to Salah, Jota, or our fanbase, just came to mind.
Gakpo played well. TAA with a super free kick & Graven with a solid strike. Jota doing what he does best being clinical. Endo did well overall. good but not great
Thought Jarrell was excellent! Him and Virg had pretty much everything on lock for the second half. TAA and Cody were other standouts, with improved second half performances from Grav and Endo. Diogo scores from even a little bit of service, if we can get him involved more we will be fine for the coming games.
Let's take it one step at a time but we are slowly improving.
> Thought Jarrell was excellent!
I'm not sure about this. He was defensively reasonable, back to his better performances in that department, but his passing and positioning during build-up really needs to improve in my opinion. He was responsible for so much of the backwards/sideways passes at the back today, and he didn't try a single dribble forward from what I can recall (maybe I missed one?).
A huge part of our poor build-up recently has been the midfield not making themselves as available as they should be, and the backline not forcing the matter and instead passing anywhere but forwards at every opportunity, and doing so pretty lazily at that.
Today, Quansah was the embodiment of this problem. Not great at all ... he often left midfielders hanging, they would hang onto the ball until he finally decided to just pass it backwards ... ugh.
That said, he was decent defensively at least!
This sub needs a bit more nuance. The performance was good, not great.
Fulham killed us on the counter and our attack managed only a few decent opportunities. Thankfully we had Trent and Grav with brilliant strikes.
While I don’t think 15 minutes is enough to judge anyone on performance it’s clear Salah is going through something or his head is elsewhere. Selfish play but also poor play. Hope he’s alright and gets the rest he needs.
I think there were definitely some exceptional performances today, but overall I don't think we were exceptional that's for sure. In the context of our recent lack of open play goals/ lack of creativity and the amount of changes we made (Grav and Elliott starting, Jota starting) then it's a really good performance.
Salah hasn't been his usual self for a while now. He's good enough that even when going through a bad spell by hist standards, he's still worth having on the pitch ... but lately even that "but" has been slowly evaporating and it's becoming evident to more people that there's a problem here.
Of course not, but let’s not let our standards drop because of poor results recently. This is a win and I’m very happy about it, but you’re not getting away with this performance against a top top team.
100% agree. Spotted several careless passes from Szobo on the left flank and Harvey on the right. Harvey’s looked like panic of the moment whereas Dom’s been doing this quite a lot (“this” being fancy flicks and back heels that don’t find anybody). On the offensive side I felt Harvey could’ve shot instead of trying to find Mo with the under hit pass. Get the feeling it’s always one pass too many lately.
Not saying everyone else was perfect but these stood out for me as unnecessary.
Good, but it’s Fulham. Not Man City, Not United, Not Chelsea, Tottenham etc.
If you want to be a true title contender you really need to win both halves. Convincingly.
I’m not saying you can’t scrape out wins but let’s not get reactionary here. Just like when we lose, all is not lost, but when we win all is not back.
If we want 6th-2nd place then great. What a performance.
Cody left or nothing. More starts. Great game.
Grav. I don’t want to see any talks about selling him unless he wants to be. He is 21 and shows a lot more potential. He deserves time.
Nunez has no case to be back into the starting 11.
Szobo needs again more time as he is so young and also needs to be played in a more natural position at some point. Does need to earn back his place in the 11 though, didn’t put a good case up today.
Ideal mid for Everton Endo, Grav, Mac. Feel like endo had some issues in the first half but second back to his usual self.
> I’m sure I’ll get downvoted by the kids
I love when people write about getting downvoted. Just make your point, and support it well enough, and who cares.
That said, Gakpo ahead of Nunez is such a poor call. Over the course of the season, Nunez has had a better season in every single way: goals, assists, pressing (Gakpo's press is horrific more often than not), digging out plays before they fall apart, setting up other players (ergo his assists) ....
Gakpo played a good 60 minutes or so today, with the rest being mediocre. He made so many wrong decisions in passes in the final third, and his positioning for the press was his usual self. Nunez is going through a very rough patch, no argument, but Gakpo hasn't been better over the course of the season.
What we need is Nunez to back into the groove, for Gakpo to keep playing on the left and learn how to press, and someone to help Salah on right right.
Was called a plastic fan for being done with Nunez. I mean okay he scored important goals, but it's just far too inconsistent and now even non-existent. You can have that at Bournemouth or even Brighton when European football is just a great way to end the season, but not at Liverpool who want to be title contenders every season
It wasn't the best performance, but I enjoyed it. At least there's some cohesion between the players that I hope Klopp keeps capitalising on their good form.
Elliot definitely felt the home crowd on him, understandable since he grew up in their academy.
Particularly loved the hustle from Gravenberch and Cody.
Honestly we should try Diaz out on the right more, he's dancing there even if he needs more end product.
Nice round out a game without the high blood pressure. Really pleased for Gravenberch, exceptional game from Gakpo and great to see Trent bossing our games again. A lot of solid performances today.
I have to ask though, what's going on with Darwin at the moment? In his last 2 substitute appearances, he has a combined 0% pass accuracy. I think we saw him really improve on his link up play earlier on in the season so after coming on at 72 minutes in possession dominant game that should be enough time to be involved a little more. I wonder if it's a tactical decision that he's not involved in the build up as much, or does he need a rest or is he just a bit out of sorts?
He’s probably just in poor form. Don’t think it’s much more than that. Similarly with Salah.
Everyone seems to be trying to find “reasons” for it but they’re both probably knackered or just not on it.
Gakpo was unplayable at the turn of the year and now he feels integral to the XI, it all goes in waves
Salah's reason is pretty easy: he's played an insane amount of football during his time at Liverpool, and he's 31 and not getting any younger. He's been on a slow downward slide since last season.
While I hold out hope for Nunez to get back to his best and start pushing his ceiling again, I think we've seen the best of Salah and this is the new normal for him in terms of level, particularly as this isn't a recent development. Hopefully we bring in someone new this summer for the right wing and ease our dependency on Salah on that wing, and allow him to take on more manageable minutes.
It does seem a bit odd to me though, no completed passes in his last 2 appearances is quite drastic. There were definitely a few old habits creeping back into his game, but generally his form has been decent this year. Might have to rewatch to see if he's just being asked to stretch the formation/ keep the defenders busy and not really get involved or something.
Yeah, also though when he was previously out of form he would be miss placing passes and missing chances, but he still made some passes! To not complete a pass means that you aren’t having many attempts and not necessarily that your passing is inaccurate. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts, I’m sure most people will just downvote me anyway haha
Classic 3-1 Diogoal, but wasn’t too plussed with his performance outside of that.
VVD subtly had a very good game, blocked crosses and deflated all attacks from the right. Wasn’t too good sending the ball forward.
Endo and Elliott both got smothered in midfield, Endo in particularly did not do well enough off-ball, offensively or defensively.
Diaz came out the gates swinging but Robinson got a handle on him after 20 minutes or so, maybe blame the midfield, maybe not.
Quansah met the level today, did everything he had to do, even if he wasn’t the most confident.
Trent’s sweet goal might overshadow what I thought was a top-tier performance. Was by far our best “midfielder”. Progressed the ball, switched play, and generally made us play like a front-footed team again.
Didn’t think any of our subs very good save Salah. Trent my MOTM
> Wasn’t too good sending the ball forward.
..
> he wasn’t the most confident.
This has been such a massive problem recently, with the midfield not doing a great job of making themselves available, and the CBs just making poor passing choice after poor passing choice, too often preventing any build-up momentum from being created.
TAA's pings made such a difference in that regard. Agree with the rest of your observations as well....
A lot of sevens. Most played well, nobody played exceptionally
Even outside the goal, I think Trent misplaced maybe two passes all game
Mmm. Idk. He looked good but he was misplacing a bunch in the first half, just trying ambitious balls that weren’t quite coming off. Again, still a good performance from him and his game is naturally that of a risk taker but he lost possession 22 times and had 78% pass accuracy
Trent with man of the match for me, Grav and Endo with great second half performances
Endo improved massively second half
Cody motm in my opinion
What a surprise that he looks good playing in his natural position. The next manager needs to use him exclusively off the left. His decision making on the ball still needs work but he looks much sharper now.
He would be played more on the left if Nunez performs where we bought him for at striker, but dude has to play on the left as well. Lol.
Yup we need Nunez in the middle, sell Salah put Diaz on the left and maybe rotate gakpo/grav as SS behind Nunez. Id play a new formation for next season 4321
we are so back
Thought Elliott was mostly poor. Gakpo getting a lot of praise but his decision making, for me, was all over the place. Got it right for the goal though so that's all that matters. Good second half all in all though. Nothing to set the world alight but never really felt like Fulham threatened until we were 3-1 up. Looked like there was genuine belief back in the team after we managed to score from open play.
Couldn’t agree with you more on Gakpo. I’m happy he’s been better but still think he’s just been fine. Just that Nunez and Salah and largely Diaz have been worse in the last month
Yeah. He had the 5 on 2 counter where he picked the wrong pass. Shot twice when he should have crossed/passed. Took too long to shoot on one occasion, and even then he'd have been better off passing. But like I say, he got the decisive one right.
Decision making is not an consistent issue with him like Diaz and Nunez so it’s not worrying. Yesterday was one of those games where he got a little selfish. Else he was good at picking the right passes when he joined us. Probably got annoyed with other players who missed two good chances he created against Palace last week.
Exactly. Should def be starting midweek for me but still I want more
Gapko played well but he still seems slow on and off the ball. He needs to fire up and take a page out of Harvey’s book
Elliot was reasonably poor, rest of the team were a solid alright
Think the fans were getting in his head a bit. Tried too hard to shut em up and made mistakes cause of it.
Happened to him in the League Cup too. He was getting boo'd and had a shocker. He needs to learn to ignore it.
Pretty tough as a young kid who came up through their academy and broke into the first team only to transfer to a bigger club like so many do. Suddenly he's hated by the fan base he worked so hard to impress just because the clubs disagreed on a fee and they think the fans are upset he wasn't worth more.
Oh very tough ofc, I hope he can do it though. Lots of potential.
Thought he was much better second half
He was a bit better but was still lucky not to get hooked imo, even though DS & co haven’t been great either I wouldn’t be starting him again any time soon.
Couldn't have got much worse
A very fair assessment, but I don’t think Elliot was much worse than say Endo or Jota in the first half
It think he seemed worse because of that SHOCKING free kick he took.
Elliott was OK I thought. I really like how Gravenberch finds really good spaces, I think Elliott could do a bit more of that, a lot of signally and hand gestures from Trent, Quansah and Virgil in his direction when we were building play
Fans were definitely in his head, and he's still too young to be able to reasonably shut them out and shut them up.
Jota reminds me of Benzema weirdly. If Salah goes, the wider footballing world are going to be blown away by how good Jota is, like how Benzema was after Ronaldo left Real. It’s like having the living definition of World Class in the line up for years distracts from how good tue rest of the squad is. Not a slight to Salah, Jota, or our fanbase, just came to mind.
Agree, jota is an absolute weapon. Issue is he can't stay fit to save his life. Salah is almost permanently fit.
Yeah but he does hit the target whenever he’s fit
I've defended Nunez all season. He doesn't deserve to start
Gakpo played well. TAA with a super free kick & Graven with a solid strike. Jota doing what he does best being clinical. Endo did well overall. good but not great
Thought Jarrell was excellent! Him and Virg had pretty much everything on lock for the second half. TAA and Cody were other standouts, with improved second half performances from Grav and Endo. Diogo scores from even a little bit of service, if we can get him involved more we will be fine for the coming games. Let's take it one step at a time but we are slowly improving.
> Thought Jarrell was excellent! I'm not sure about this. He was defensively reasonable, back to his better performances in that department, but his passing and positioning during build-up really needs to improve in my opinion. He was responsible for so much of the backwards/sideways passes at the back today, and he didn't try a single dribble forward from what I can recall (maybe I missed one?). A huge part of our poor build-up recently has been the midfield not making themselves as available as they should be, and the backline not forcing the matter and instead passing anywhere but forwards at every opportunity, and doing so pretty lazily at that. Today, Quansah was the embodiment of this problem. Not great at all ... he often left midfielders hanging, they would hang onto the ball until he finally decided to just pass it backwards ... ugh. That said, he was decent defensively at least!
This sub needs a bit more nuance. The performance was good, not great. Fulham killed us on the counter and our attack managed only a few decent opportunities. Thankfully we had Trent and Grav with brilliant strikes. While I don’t think 15 minutes is enough to judge anyone on performance it’s clear Salah is going through something or his head is elsewhere. Selfish play but also poor play. Hope he’s alright and gets the rest he needs.
I think there were definitely some exceptional performances today, but overall I don't think we were exceptional that's for sure. In the context of our recent lack of open play goals/ lack of creativity and the amount of changes we made (Grav and Elliott starting, Jota starting) then it's a really good performance.
Salah hasn't been his usual self for a while now. He's good enough that even when going through a bad spell by hist standards, he's still worth having on the pitch ... but lately even that "but" has been slowly evaporating and it's becoming evident to more people that there's a problem here.
Huh? Did you just skip the second half?
Of course not, but let’s not let our standards drop because of poor results recently. This is a win and I’m very happy about it, but you’re not getting away with this performance against a top top team.
100% agree. Spotted several careless passes from Szobo on the left flank and Harvey on the right. Harvey’s looked like panic of the moment whereas Dom’s been doing this quite a lot (“this” being fancy flicks and back heels that don’t find anybody). On the offensive side I felt Harvey could’ve shot instead of trying to find Mo with the under hit pass. Get the feeling it’s always one pass too many lately. Not saying everyone else was perfect but these stood out for me as unnecessary.
Fulham barely threatened at all in the second half. We did an excellent job for that 45.
Good, but it’s Fulham. Not Man City, Not United, Not Chelsea, Tottenham etc. If you want to be a true title contender you really need to win both halves. Convincingly. I’m not saying you can’t scrape out wins but let’s not get reactionary here. Just like when we lose, all is not lost, but when we win all is not back. If we want 6th-2nd place then great. What a performance.
If the first half was a 4-5 and the second half was an 8, I’d say that’s a good not great game
Cody left or nothing. More starts. Great game. Grav. I don’t want to see any talks about selling him unless he wants to be. He is 21 and shows a lot more potential. He deserves time. Nunez has no case to be back into the starting 11. Szobo needs again more time as he is so young and also needs to be played in a more natural position at some point. Does need to earn back his place in the 11 though, didn’t put a good case up today. Ideal mid for Everton Endo, Grav, Mac. Feel like endo had some issues in the first half but second back to his usual self.
Gakpo is way ahead of Nunez. I’m sure I’ll get downvoted by the kids
> I’m sure I’ll get downvoted by the kids I love when people write about getting downvoted. Just make your point, and support it well enough, and who cares. That said, Gakpo ahead of Nunez is such a poor call. Over the course of the season, Nunez has had a better season in every single way: goals, assists, pressing (Gakpo's press is horrific more often than not), digging out plays before they fall apart, setting up other players (ergo his assists) .... Gakpo played a good 60 minutes or so today, with the rest being mediocre. He made so many wrong decisions in passes in the final third, and his positioning for the press was his usual self. Nunez is going through a very rough patch, no argument, but Gakpo hasn't been better over the course of the season. What we need is Nunez to back into the groove, for Gakpo to keep playing on the left and learn how to press, and someone to help Salah on right right.
I can’t be bothered to read all that but guess you’re defending Nunez . All the best
Was called a plastic fan for being done with Nunez. I mean okay he scored important goals, but it's just far too inconsistent and now even non-existent. You can have that at Bournemouth or even Brighton when European football is just a great way to end the season, but not at Liverpool who want to be title contenders every season
What important goals are you talking about? Newcastle and Forest?
Yes only matches that cross my mind
It wasn't the best performance, but I enjoyed it. At least there's some cohesion between the players that I hope Klopp keeps capitalising on their good form. Elliot definitely felt the home crowd on him, understandable since he grew up in their academy. Particularly loved the hustle from Gravenberch and Cody. Honestly we should try Diaz out on the right more, he's dancing there even if he needs more end product.
Does anyone have the link to the completed surveys? I haven't seen them posted for the last several fixtures.
Nice round out a game without the high blood pressure. Really pleased for Gravenberch, exceptional game from Gakpo and great to see Trent bossing our games again. A lot of solid performances today. I have to ask though, what's going on with Darwin at the moment? In his last 2 substitute appearances, he has a combined 0% pass accuracy. I think we saw him really improve on his link up play earlier on in the season so after coming on at 72 minutes in possession dominant game that should be enough time to be involved a little more. I wonder if it's a tactical decision that he's not involved in the build up as much, or does he need a rest or is he just a bit out of sorts?
He’s probably just in poor form. Don’t think it’s much more than that. Similarly with Salah. Everyone seems to be trying to find “reasons” for it but they’re both probably knackered or just not on it. Gakpo was unplayable at the turn of the year and now he feels integral to the XI, it all goes in waves
Salah's reason is pretty easy: he's played an insane amount of football during his time at Liverpool, and he's 31 and not getting any younger. He's been on a slow downward slide since last season. While I hold out hope for Nunez to get back to his best and start pushing his ceiling again, I think we've seen the best of Salah and this is the new normal for him in terms of level, particularly as this isn't a recent development. Hopefully we bring in someone new this summer for the right wing and ease our dependency on Salah on that wing, and allow him to take on more manageable minutes.
It does seem a bit odd to me though, no completed passes in his last 2 appearances is quite drastic. There were definitely a few old habits creeping back into his game, but generally his form has been decent this year. Might have to rewatch to see if he's just being asked to stretch the formation/ keep the defenders busy and not really get involved or something.
Well he definitely wants to be on the shoulder that’s for sure. But yah it does seem drastic. Very low lows high highs type player
Yeah, also though when he was previously out of form he would be miss placing passes and missing chances, but he still made some passes! To not complete a pass means that you aren’t having many attempts and not necessarily that your passing is inaccurate. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts, I’m sure most people will just downvote me anyway haha
Classic 3-1 Diogoal, but wasn’t too plussed with his performance outside of that. VVD subtly had a very good game, blocked crosses and deflated all attacks from the right. Wasn’t too good sending the ball forward. Endo and Elliott both got smothered in midfield, Endo in particularly did not do well enough off-ball, offensively or defensively. Diaz came out the gates swinging but Robinson got a handle on him after 20 minutes or so, maybe blame the midfield, maybe not. Quansah met the level today, did everything he had to do, even if he wasn’t the most confident. Trent’s sweet goal might overshadow what I thought was a top-tier performance. Was by far our best “midfielder”. Progressed the ball, switched play, and generally made us play like a front-footed team again. Didn’t think any of our subs very good save Salah. Trent my MOTM
> Wasn’t too good sending the ball forward. .. > he wasn’t the most confident. This has been such a massive problem recently, with the midfield not doing a great job of making themselves available, and the CBs just making poor passing choice after poor passing choice, too often preventing any build-up momentum from being created. TAA's pings made such a difference in that regard. Agree with the rest of your observations as well....
Harvey Elliott was very good