Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers made a real ‘statement’ in tonights match against Real Madrid. The Liverpool manager made several high profile changes, as Raheem Sterling, Steven Gerrrard were all left on the bench. It might make one ask the question why did these players travel to the Spanish capital if they weren’t going to start.
Emre Can, Lucas Leiva, Kolo Toure, Lazar Markovic and Fabio Borini all started for the Reds at the Bernabeu in a match that people such as myself felt that Liverpool needed something from. A dissapointing performance in Switzerland against Basle which ended in a 2-0 defeat hasn’t helped Liverpool’s campaign.
The 18 time English champions went into this champions league game on the back of a 1-0 defeat to Newcastle. The last meeting between the two sides last month saw Liverpool suffer a ‘mauling’ to Real Madrid,the defending champions won 3-0 at Anfield.
Karim Bemzema scored twice that with ‘goal machine’ Christiano Ronaldo grabbing the other. Ronaldo came into this match one goal short of equalling former Real Madrid striker Raul’s record of 71 champions league goals – but suprsingly the Portuguese captain had a quiet night for his standards.
That was mainly down to the brilliant perforamnces of Kolo Toure and Martin Skrtel on the night. If I was to be harsh I would say that Kolo Toure was a little bit at fault for the only goal of the game that was scored by Karim Benzema.
Lazar Markovic another player who impressed on one occasion in the first half wasn’t quite ‘in sync’ with his colleague Javi Manquillo which ultimately allowed Real left-back to deliver a wicked ball in, Karim Benzema was left in space in the box – and all the Frenchmen needed to do was make some form of connection to the cross, which he duly did to score what proved to be the winner on the night.
That goal was harsh on Liverpool, the Reds battled hard – Fabio Borini really did work his socks off upfront. The main plus points for me were that Liverpool had a ‘nice shape’ about them defensively. Time and time again Real with their vast array of attacking talent, struggled to really threaten Liverpool’s back line. That was down to Liverpool’s well organised defence, the Reds defended in numbers, and when Real did attack they stuggled at times due to Liverpool’s defence.
Martin Skrtel who was captain for the night did make the occoasional error – but Simon Mignolet the (Liverpool goal keeper) made some magnificent saves, the one from James Rodriguez early on being the pick for me.
So many times this season Dejan Lovren has looked incompetent and error prone – but the performance of Kolo Toure alongside Martin Skrtel for me was good enough to make Brendan Rodgers say that this is his defensive partnership for Saturdays game against Chelsea at least.
Although Liverpool did lose this game, Brendan Rodgers can be very pleased with this performance. Players such as Fabio Borini and Kolo Toure in my opinon have really staked their claims to play in the Saturday lunchtime game against Chelsea.
Liverpool’s problems have been in attack and in defence, the Reds haven’t scored in their last 3 games and are conceeding too many goals. The performance tonight reminded me of the Liverpool performances of last season, their pressing was excellent and Borini was one of the main examples of that – that’s possibly why the Italian got the nod ahead of his countryman Mario Balotelli.
Livepool had no Sterling and Gerrard tonight,who were both missed tonight – but their are good signs after tonights performance, that’s coming from a Manchester United fan!
The Bearded Captain 