Did you watch last weekend's match that Liverpool lost 0-1 at Craven Cottage? How infuriating was that. Following a series of outstanding back-to-back wins against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the BPL and League Cup, and an impressive 1-1 draw with runaway BPL leader Manchester City, they duly lost this game to a relegation-threatened Fulham. As a long-suffering fan of Liverpool, it pains me to say that its the sort of results that i'm almost getting used to - you know, they string a few nice games together, lift up your hopes, ... only to then drop and shatter them.
Well, i should have known when i saw the starting line-up. Andy Carroll. Hmm. Well, normally when you have a 35m-pounds rated striker in your line-up, you would be overjoyed. Normally. But this was a "striker" that couldn't keep the ball, pass the ball, let alone score. No, not even from the penalty spot. You just need to watch how he'd missed that one against City just the week before. Lame, to say the least. And of course for long periods during this game, as he did with the others that he played for Pool since he joined Jan 2011, you wouldn't know he was playing unless somebody reminded you that in fact he was on the pitch. It was thus amazing that he managed to stay on the field for as long as he did, 78 loooonnngg minutes to be exact, before he was replaced.
Which brings me to my second point - what on earth was Dalglish thinking?! Why he continued to start Carroll despite the latter's apparent lack of form (i'm assuming here he even has that ability!), only Dalglish knew. The partnership between Carroll and the world-class Suarez is clearly not working. Indeed, playing Carroll upfront only served to inhibit Suarez's movement and man, it looked like such an awkward and uncomfortable partnership for the most part. And why did Dalglish persists in not playing the in-form Maxi Rodrigues? I mean, give the man a break - his goals-matches' ratio has been impeccable, has scored in both games vs Chelsea recently, so the man's clearly in form! But no, Dalglish had other ideas and left Maxi to warm the bench for the entire duration of the match. Fantastic!
Liverpool will not be Liverpool without its strings of bad luck. And we had plenty of that in this game for sure. We hit the woodwork not once, but twice! Suarez was in his usual effervescent self ... twisting, turning, scoring. But ohhh, have i added that his goal was ruled "offside" by the referee?!! As if playing against 14 men (Fulham's 11, plus the referee, plus the two linesmen) weren't bad enough, Liverpool went down to 10 after Jay Spearing (who was only playing because our man of the season, the awesome Lucas Leiva had to undergo a knee op and has been ruled out for the rest of the 2011/12 season) was red carded. A would-be penalty kick for Liverpool after Charlie Adam was brought down was adjudged to have happened outside the box, so only a free kick was awarded.
So you see, if i'm not exactly looking forward to this weekend's home game against QPR, you know why!
Life goes on.
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