I'm finding this thread kind of funny, and I'm not even a Liverpool fan. I can see why Toro is all pissy knickered.

Well, if Liege were Standard, I guess Liverpool were "subst--" What? They won? Never mind.

Toro, we weren't moaning, we were having a laugh at your team's woeful inadequacies. That was 'sweet'.

Or Standard Liege. But definitely one of those two.

Well I wanted Standard to win and sat up till midnight hoping for an upset, but I'm damned if I could see where a goal for them was coming from.

Standard may have played better than them Liverpool, but Liverpool always looked the most likely to score, and that's what they did.

Alderman Barnes wrote:

QUOTE:
Well I wanted Standard to win and sat up till midnight hoping for an upset, but I'm damned if I could see where a goal for them was coming from.

In fairness, Standard came close to scoring on four occasions in the first half alone, plus the header De Camargo wasted near the end of normal time.

Liverpool had been totally outplayed in this tie until Standard Liege began sitting back after about an hour of play.

Hieronymus of Hesselink wrote:

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A good match with a nauseating ending. Being second best to Standard Liege doesn't bode well -- there'll be no long European run to save Rafa's arse this year.

Yeah, because none of his other European campaigns had awkward spells.

One might have thought that the sages of OTF would know better than to start drawing conclusions about whole seasons before August has finished, but there we are.

I was thinking more of the fact that Liverpool have played really badly in every single match they have played so far this season.

Do these performances fill you with confidence for the season ahead? I mean, christ, that tie could have ended 4-0 or 5-0 to Liege over the two legs and Liverpool wouldn't have been able to have any complaints.

Clearly not, but I'm sure we've all seen teams recover from far worse starts. I was just surprised by the certainty in your statement, but then this is a very certain place, I suppose.

Hieronymus of Hesselink wrote:

QUOTE:
In fairness, Standard came close to scoring on four occasions in the first half alone, plus the header De Camargo wasted near the end of normal time.

Liverpool had been totally outplayed in this tie until Standard Liege began sitting back after about an hour of play.

Ah right. I only tuned in just before half time, so I missed that.

liverpool lost the home leg of the third round CL qualifier in 2004 and 2005, so tonight's win shows we're improving all the time.

standard were a decent team, probably the best liverpool have played so far in this round. they were well organised and determined, and with all those big guys their gameplan of keeping a clean sheet and hoping to score from a set piece made sense.

still, that was shocking from liverpool. with the exceptions of reina, skrtel and alonso from half time on, they all disgraced themselves.

i hope the reintroduction of mascherano is the catalyst for a dramatic improvement. i think we would be better off playing the 4-2-3-1 that was successful in the latter part of last season, and dropping robbie keane. he's a fucking curse and if he puts in another three performances like he did tonight he'll get benitez sacked.

Oh well, all you Liverpool haters can now console yourselves with the fact that the tiny sliver of a chance they had of winning the league has fucked off to Belgium- Europe is too much of a distraction.

tiny sliver? That is wildly overstating it. I reckon Liverpool's chances of winning the Premiership are on a par with West Brom's, and would have been even if they had lost tonight.
Never in a million years.

Watching Dirk Kuyt playing football makes me want to smoke crack.

As poor as Liverpool were, all credit to Standard Liege who are way better than the usual sort of team Liverpool draw at this stage. Liverpool may be off form, but Standard would have disrupted much better teams than them on tonight's showing.

They are very English indeed, as they ran and ran in the first leg I thought they would fade but they didn't notably. I thought they might have shagged themselves out and take a while to recover, but they've won their opening two League games. Tonight only their attack faded as the match went on. Like statto I was really impressed with Fellaini. And where did Wilfred Dalmat get that form from. I've always considered him one of these players who keep getting gigs based on what they did at their first club, despite doing nothing at many other clubs in the intervening years. Just like I think of his brother actually. He was great tonight.

Robbie Keane is a curious one. You overpay on Premiership players because there are certain givens with them you don't get singing a player from abroad. You know he can handle the pace and power of the English game so there is no acclimatisation period. Yes, he needs a little time to hone an understanding with colleagues, but he should in theory slot straight in and start to make an impression quickly. Keane has been utterly abject so far. No touch, no confidence, nothing at all. He needs to step up and quickly.

Gerrard was frustrating tonight. Now he was carrying this groin injury and probably shouldn't have been playing, you could see he was half a yard short because of it. All the more reason to temper his Hollywood excesses and concentrate on doing the simple things that Liverpool struggle to do just now. But no, he can't help himself. His 50 yard crossfield ball that flew out of touch about 15 yards ahead on intended target Babel summed up his game tonight.

Only Torres could hold his hand up after that game and say he did well enough. As ever the fullbacks and wide midfielders are a class below the rest of the team. Rieira is a player who is going to make or break Benitez's Liverpool reign.

Keane has been utterly abject so far. No touch, no confidence, nothing at all.

Sorry, but this IS one of the "certain givens" with respect to Mr. Keane, at least in respect to a minimum of 50% of his performances for Tottenham and a significantly higher percentage of those for Ireland.

dalliance wrote:

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As ever the fullbacks and wide midfielders are a class below the rest of the team.

Seriously? I thought Aurelio had a decent enough game, didn't seem to do a lot wrong.

Plus points - two good pubs and several anaesthetic pints of cider, plus a chippy tea on my way into the ground.

Minus points - the match started, and went on far too long.

Hopefully we will look better with Gerrard out of the picture for a couple of weeks, but we'll be lucky to get anything from Villa on that showing though.