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Despite a very dominant first half performance from Liverpool, the Reds failed to turn the control into 3 points as Sunderland grabbed a point thanks to a superb strike by Sebastian Larsson.
Kenny Dalglish started with perhaps an unsurprising first XI, with perhaps only John Flanagan being chosen ahead of more seasoned rightback Martin Kelly a dubious choice from Dalglish. Enrique was given a surprising debut, given that he only just signed for the reds two days ago.
Flanagan and Enrique kept to most of their defensive duties and rarely got up and helped with the attack, with the starting set up of something similar to a 4-2-3-1 giving the midfielders more space to express themselves along with to go forward and penetrate the Sunderland defence.
High Pressure in the First Half
Liverpool chased Sunderland around the pitch in the first half, barely allowing the Sunderland midfield to get their passes off. Luis Suarez stealing the ball of Kieran Richardson at the back and allowing him to be clean through on goal, before Richardson took Suarez down for a penalty. A pity for that missed penalty, but he made that up with his goal off Adam’s set piece.
Lucas was in my opinion quietly brilliant, as he cut out a lot of loose passes in midfield whilst he also stole the ball off opponents on a number of occasions, setting the Liverpool attack off pretty quickly. His partnership with Charlie Adam worked because of the simple theory, that Lucas did most of the defensive duties, whilst Adam was given more space and time for distributing the ball and moving forward.
The 4-2-3-1 formation allows the 2 central defensive midfielders to break down the opponent’s attacks, whilst attack midfielders track back and perhaps surprise opponents wit that tackle from the back. Although Henderson and Downing didn’t go into too many tackles, they still won the ball back through interceptions, so that was pretty well done.
Lack of Width
Many Liverpool FC fans expected a lot more crosses once the new season begins. Many thought that Downing would be whipping tons into the box for Andy Carroll to get onto, but apart from him taking the corners, and with the exception of one odd cross that came pretty close, Downing barely threatened with his crossing ability. He cut in on many occasions and perhaps should have taken on his marker more.
Henderson, likewise to Downing barely saw the ball. He was given the free role to roam around, and try and cause some damage to the Sunderland defence, but as I have already said countless times already, he should not be given the winger’s role. Henderson is a box to box midfielder whom is more effective in the center, but then again, it would be hard to set off Carroll because of his lack of pace, so what I see happening is that Gerrard will eventually come to replace him on the right wing.
Reason for that? Not only can he deliver crosses and beat his man, he can also shift to a more central position very effectively, and his timing with the runs is absolutely exquisite and how many times have we heard the commentator say “Geraaaaard”? I simply think that Henderson isn’t up to scratch-yet. But given time I think he’ll get there.
How Liverpool Lost Points
It’s easy to blame John Flanagan for the Sunderland goal. Horrible positioning, I mean there wasn’t even a real point of him to be in that space? No. He had defenders in front of him, no opponents in front of him. To me, that was Glen Johnson-esque defending from the youngster and it simply questioned Dalglish’s decision to field him instead of the more season Martin Kelly.
But it wasn’t simply Flanagan’s fault for us dropping 2 points. The fact that we were trapped in our own half for the majority of the second half. A few things that cost us the game in my opinion included the fact that Charlie Adam was knocking players over for the majority of the time, allowing the Sunderland attack to reorganize and rethink their strategy for a set piece. That, in my opinion, is one of the key reasons.
Another reason for the draw? Well, I think it is simply because of sloppy passing. Our passing in the first half was absolutely top notch. The passing was accurate and it found our midfielders and attackers time and time again in the first half. The second half saw sloppy passing from the Reds. The midfield was tired and weary and most notably Luis Suarez ran out of steam. The pace wasn’t there and he lost the ball on quite a few occasions in the second half.
