Football is a very unpredictable game. There are so many different possibilities and outcomes but more often than not, the things that are most likely to occur are that which define the ninety minutes. We knew Stoke were going to be overly physical and that it would be difficult to break them down but that was a task the team would have to be up for. As such, it then turned in to a very frustrating afternoon for the manager, players and fans alike.
Following up from last weeks comprehensive victory against Norwich, it was no surprise that the same starting line up was sent out to try and secure back to back Premier League wins for the first time in a long time. No sooner had the game kicked off than the Stoke players to a man made it their mission to get in our faces. The ball refused to come down for the opening minute or so as the pressure forced us into some early aerial passes. Naturally this played into their hands and because of their sharpness were the first to really gain any territorial advantage. Crouch was looked for often and early and on the break we were unable to get anything going. Not even the relief of the referee's whistle could save us as Suarez being manhandled by Robert Huth went unpunished and allowed them to attack again. This would become something of a running theme throughout the day, as would Stoke being able to create chances through our own sloppiness. Reina played a ball to Sahin early on which he tried to play back without really thinking about it, causing the Stoke attackers to descend on it and force Reina into a save from Charlie Adam. The away side had started much the better.
Going so close to being a goal behind seemed to wake us up a little but still there were few players who could get to grips with the way Stoke wanted to play. Andre Wisdom looked very good in trying to barge aside a few Stoke challenges and despite his slight frame Raheem Sterling looked eager to get involved and not shy away from that kind of thing in any way. As the game had started in a very predictable way, our first real chance to score came from our most likely source. Suarez isolated his man on the left hand side of the penalty area, went inside and outside before going beyond him on the byline and laying it back for Sahin. The shot that followed would have almost certainly opened the scoring but for the unintentional block by Sterling who couldn't get out of the way. These are the kind of things you need to go your way as in a game like this the longer it stays goalless the harder it becomes. And so it got harder.
For all the problems that Tony Pulis' men were giving us with their style, there were a couple of ways in which we could have helped ourselves. Throughout the game it was painfully obvious that we needed a couple of runners from midfield. The team had pushed on so well against Norwich and it would be even more imperative here against a side that's likely to sit people back behind the ball. Early on Daniel Agger strode forward, burst from midfield into an attacking position on the left hand side and fizzed a ball in with only Suarez in the box. It could easily be said that Agger may have done a little better to hold onto it for longer but at the same time as soon as he goes forward there should be more movement ahead of him. Nonetheless we were starting to get a foothold into the game at the very least.
The constant stop-start nature of the game with referee Lee Mason having to get involved on a regular basis meant that there was no real flow to proceedings. We had a free kick that Gerrard played right into the hands of Begovic moments before Glenn Whelan curled a deep ball in and around the defensive wall and forced Martin Skrtel to give away a corner. Set pieces were always going to be Stoke's most likely source of productivity and as such we had to be very watchful but seemed to cope with them relatively well. Getting it forward was much more difficult with there being very little of the cohesion in midfield that we'd seen at Carrow Road just over a week ago. Sahin and Suso gave away the ball in quick succession and the only chance we were able to create was when Suarez intercepted a pass from Nzonzi and had to run half the length of the pitch to get a shot away. To re-emphasise the point of having very few numbers forward, from the resulting corner there were only three Liverpool players in the penalty area. We may have been weary of - and indeed susceptible to - the counter attack this season but Stoke are hardly the quickest of teams.
One thing that our opponents did do very well that made it certain we couldn't run them over in midfield is track the runs of Sahin and Gerrard. This meant that with a man sat permanently on them, it was a lot more difficult in turning and facing the goal with the ball at their feet. With nobody then being able to properly support them, Stoke squeezed their defence in narrowly and were able to make sure that Suso or Sterling weren't able to get ahead of steam. Suarez was particularly isolated and in turn they were able to keep him away from the goal and force him into areas where he would have a lot of work to do. Again this frustration of not being able to create anything led to another chance for Stoke as they pressed our defence and Reina misplaced a pass outward, giving Kightly a shot on goal which he then tipped over. Fortunately for us, the set pieces that followed were of the Charlie Adam variety and posed no threat.
Having failed to get a real grip of the game in the opening ten minutes, Stoke were now determined to push referee Lee Mason as far as possible in terms of what they were allowed to get away with. The familiar sight of Luis Suarez gesticulating to the officials was never that far away as Huth, Shawcross and whoever else was in his immediate vicinity would take turns in leaving a leg trailing or whatever it took to bring him down. All over the park there were disruptions in play which was exactly how they had set up to approach it and we were simply unable to build anything. The cohesion that has been there all over the park looked a little off colour at times as simple passes were going astray and that led to a few overly ambitious long balls up from the back being played in to no-one in particular.
One thing we had managed to come to terms with was the threat of Stoke as an attacking force. A lot of their play is based on nothing more than being sharper to the second ball and while we were expending a lot of energy in trying to keep up with their overly physical play, defensively there had been a coming to terms with them. Crouch was being forced to come a lot deeper and although there was no real prolonged threat to deal with, the aerial bombardment kept coming and we were resolute in our repelling of it. Andre Wisdom in particular impressed with both his attitude and the way in which he applied himself but at the very least he was built for such a game. Someone who doesn't share Wisdom's physical stature is Raheem Sterling but that didn't stop him from doing his utmost to get involved. There wasn't an awful lot he managed to create - partly because whenever he would build up a head of steam someone would take him down - but it's clear to see that the tussles he had with Kolo Toure and confidence gained therein have pushed him on and it's great to see.
It took half an hour for Robert Huth to receive a yellow, a card that was a certainty to arrive eventually and it could be argued still took far too long in coming. Prior to the game I had built up the importance that set pieces would play in the game, both offensively and defensively but given the way Stoke sit deep and defend it may be our primary route to goal. We'd been more inventive and precise with our set plays this season but today it just never looked likely. The dominance that Skrtel and Agger have in these situations was always going to be tricky against a team that defends so well - although there was a half chance for Agger as the half drew to a close - so if we were to make them count both our imagination and accuracy needed to be better than it was.
Perhaps the most frustrating thing - and this is a by-product of impatience but also a credit to how well they were set up defensively - is the frequency in which we bypassed midfield. Reina's distribution wasn't at its best and there were times when Suarez was forced so deep that the defenders were able to pick him out with a short pass. What we don't need is him having to turn and be thirty or forty yards away from goal. Having said that, at least there was some semblance of a method on our part. We probed and looked and even though there was very little in the way of direct penetration, Stoke were far more interested in the players than the ball. Glen Johnson was taken out by a flying leap from John Walters, with the forward then having the nerve to complain about the decision after ward. I understand it seems a little condescending to go on like this, no one way of playing football is better than another and everything has to be taken within relative terms but this simply wasn't a way of playing, it was entirely focused on preventing us from doing so.
The frustration continued to boil over as half time approached. Sterling was again taken out, which prompted an irate Steven Gerrard to have a word with the ref. It's not often you'll see the Liverpool captain in the referees ear like that and it was a sign of how the game was going but by now it was too late. There was very little in the way of chances in what time remained and it was deja vu all over again as we had struggled to break down a side at Anfield. There was plenty of time remaining however and if anyone was to make the breakthrough it did look like we were the more likely, having said that it's happened so often lately that we've been the side in the ascendancy only to be punished for profligacy.
An early sign of how things might be better in the second period was that right away we had men pushing forward and getting into dangerous areas. Glen Johnson carved out an opportunity which Daniel Agger was on the end of and merely seconds after we had kicked off again it looked as though there was a renewed vigour. The interplay and passing between midfield and attack was a little sharper than it had been at times in the first forty five minutes but again there was a severe lack of penetration as we were unable to transition this play into the final third. A major factor for that was due to Stoke having an absolute wall in front of Begovic. There were so many players back it was always going to take something special to get beyond them but at the same time that something is what you'd expect we'd be capable of.
Regarding the physicality of our opposition, the thing that made it laughable was that as soon as we started to look threatening, they would hit the deck as if the wind had knocked them over. It's amazing how a side can be so hard and aggressive in trying to win the ball back but when any of our players went near them suddenly that strength seemed to completely abandon them. There was a time in which all they could do to relieve the pressure was to draw the attention of the referee, something which in turn continued the theme of the afternoon in regard to our continued dissatisfaction with the lead official. We'd now settled completely into the game and really tried to build a head of steam, Glen Johnson being at the forefront. Having had what was for him a relatively quiet half, it was good to see him once again looking so dangerous.
Bemoaning Pepe Reina's kicking of the ball does show one positive aspect in that there was very little wrong with our game defensively. The one real chance that came for Stoke at the start of the second half came several minutes in when a collision between Skrtel, Wisdom and Walters left Michael Kightly in on goal where Reina was forced to make a smart save. Having said that though, we were being forced to play in our own half a lot by the sheer volume of pressing the ball whenever we would cross the half way line and as such the ball found it's way back at the goalkeeper more often than not and his passing wasn't up to it's usual standard. We were clearly disrupted in our rhythm whenever it would go back there and at times there looked like there may even be an opportunity for Stoke to nick the ball away and things get even worse. In an attacking sense that really was all they had.
Our slackness with the ball wasn't restricted to the goalkeeper. Even Joe Allen was having the odd loose pass. A change was needed and Joe Cole was brought on in place of Suso. Having had a real rough time of things at Liverpool, this was a perfect chance for the former Lille midfielder to make a real mark. On the other flank, Raheem Sterling seemed to be going from strength to strength. I want to see him in attacking areas with the ball at his feet but at the same time it's so wonderful to see him barrel into these challenges with no regard for either the reputation nor the actual size of the player he's attempting to tackle. There was a chance for him at the back post when Joe Cole's cross went over everyone else but his first time effort - which was all he could do - hit the post. There may be a confidence surrounding the new regime at Anfield, but the woodwork is as much of a bane now as it used to be.
The media does not need Luis Suarez to dive to castigate him. His character and narrative has already been decided. So when he does throw himself at the ground in an attempt to con the referee into awarding a penalty, all he's doing is making this harder for himself. Forget the fact that he was stamped on and had stud marks on his chest. The team that did that were perfectly fine. Ignore that Gareth Bale goes one better on the same day without so much as word tells you everything you need to know about what is and isn't tolerated in this country. Potential xenophobia aside, that does not get him off the hook for what is a really poor fall inside the Stoke penalty area. I completely understand his reasoning for doing it, having been assaulted on several occasions without any punishment being given out but in inevitably all this will do is make it that much harder for referees to give him anything in the future.
With the clock running down, the attempts at goal were infrequent and not particularly menacing. Joe Cole laid one off to Sahin and his shot went well over, adding to the number of long range speculative efforts that we'd been forced into over the course of the game. Assaidi was subbed on in place of Sahin with just over ten minutes to go in one last attempt to change things around a little but all that followed was more of the same. Gerrard looked completely off the boil, whether he was tired or out of it is neither here nor there. Despite your best efforts sometimes it's not going to be your day and this was one of those occasions. With one of our biggest weapons not at the races, Suarez was still trying but in the end the two who looked most like doing something were Raheem Sterling and Glen Johnson.
It won't have been the comeback he was dreaming of, but very little has gone in Joe Cole's favour since coming to Liverpool and being sent off in his debut. One thing you can tell about him is that he's desperate to make this work and his efforts were commendable in tracking people and getting the ball but ultimately he was as toothless as the rest of the squad. He did cross the ball for what looked for all the world like it would be the winner, Martin Skrtel just managing to poke a foot out and prod the ball toward goal only for it to hit the far post - really summing up the day. In the end, whatever onslaught was expected never real materialized and there was an absence of any real imagination in the final third. Anything we did try in a positive sense was negated by the approach and tactics of our opposition and it's awfully bitter to have to say that against a side who had no intention of winning a football match. It shouldn't be dwelt upon too much but we're going to have to be a lot better than that following the international break. A point, a clean sheet and very little else to speak of. I hate playing Stoke.
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