Err, were we watching the same game? That was the second inept performance I've seen in the space of five days. Graz on Wednesday was one of the worst footballing performances I've seen in a season or two. In this game, Liverpool as an attacking force was a non-entity in the first half and hardly much better in the second. Bolton were by far the better team on the day, and the neat passing triangles between players like Stelios, Okocha and Gardner put the team to shame.
I thought Garcia, disallowed goal aside, had a stinker. His first touch was sending the ball yards away from him. He passed to a player in a white shirt more often than to a player in a red shirt, he didn't take people on and didn't beat people, he didn't shoot, and didn't take up intelligent positions. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt having just arrived and all that, but on the basis of that performance, he will need to have much better days. What he did try was to get involved, and he ran, but that's about it.
Alonso was steady if unspectacular. Got stuck in which was nice to see, but both Hamann and Gerrard get stuck in; we need someone who can create.
I thought the lineup chosen by Benitez was poor too. Starting with Milan Baros as your lone striker is never a positive move, and the five in midfield showed. I was worried about it before kickoff and the first half did nothing to allay the fear. At times in the first half when we did have possession (Bolton had far more of that), we stroked the ball around on the outside of the penalty area with just Baros in the box. Now Milan bless his soul, is a good player but hardly a target man. Great when you can play the angled ball or counter attack, but we sat up and passed it around and had no one to get into the box.
I spent the afternoon trying to get decent stock of both Alonso and Garcia and struggled. Which usually indicates the players in questoin weren't particularly impressive.
If anyone thinks I'm being overly negative, you need to watch the last two games with an open mind and objectively. Some of the stuff going on, particularly against Graz but today wasn't much better, was schoolboy. But on the plus side, just to show I'm not *all* negative, I have watched Josemi several times now and I have been fairly impressed, particularly given his price tag. No nonsense whack it out of the box player and with a decent work rate. And also, losing Hyypia early in the game didn't help, and I was worried, and sad to say got proven right. It was a soft goal to concede, but with Carragher and Traore as your centrebacks?
And applaudable though Benitez's penchant for bringing youth on (and I do acknowledge our squad is lacking), I was also surprised to see Stephen Warnock in the starting lineup again, and playing his third game in a row. He tries yes, but lacks the nous at this level for the moment, and given that we're struggling, now's not the time to be blooding really. He plays his part in the simple passing, but does nothing concrete going forward, either with penatrative pass, or beating his man. This is not a condemnation of the player, just that we are asking too much too soon.
