KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum Suarez the RAT!!

Yeah cruel is a very good way of describing it. We play the same at Anfield we have a chance. Don't forget this team capitulated in Rome last year. An early goal will haunt them.

It reminded me how valuable he was. It was interesting to be on the other end. He's a nightmare to play against.

I thought both Suarez no Messi showed a distinct lack of class by their antics during the game last night, nothing to do with them celebrating when scoring, but their consistent falling down and their rolling around on the ground as if they were mortally wounded. Also their constant hassling of our players and indeed the ref. Robertson was particularly targeted and Mane got a lot of hassle too. It wasn't in keeping with the quality of the game or the quality of the football which was brilliant at times.
We can still beat them in Anfield if we can get an early goal, and of course stop them scoring, which is paramount. I'm very disappointed by our inability to score when given golden opportunities. However those opportunities gives us hope for the return leg, but we have to take them.

He's well suited to Spanish Football because they will do anything to win...lie, cheat and steal. I wish he was still at Liverpool because we miss that kind of player who will push the boundaries and get under the skin of rival teams like he always does.
His antics of celebrating after scoring is psychological genius because it affected the Liverpool players seeing him do that.

I don't begrudge him I will just remember he was our player once upon a time who we lauded and rightly so because he gave us so much joy when he was with us.

I'm not buying the team selection excuse - it's a complete kop-out (literally!). Firmino was injured and couldn't play the whole 90 minutes - and Klopp just doesn't trust Sturridge or Origi to deputise in that position because they don't close down and track back well enough. So he played a false 9 with a harrying player - and we had plenty of chances to score. In fact, Mane often rotated into the middle and he got behind a couple times. TAA has been caught out of position in recent games - and although he's a great prospect, he doesn't always time his runs right and sometimes leaves us exposed. Gomez is more solid defensively - and you just can't say that Liverpool would have secured another fate with TAA or Firmino in the side.

What we can say is that the team on the field was a little naive. Only a fabulous piece of optimism separated the sides in the first half - and we completely outplayed them for the majority of the second half and should have scored. Just like the Real Madrid final last year we were undone by the 'dark arts' of a Spanish team. We were outplaying them and they slowed the game down with dives, injury simulation, and trying to con the ref, which we played into. Just imagine if a Real player had been fouled in the box like Mane was early in the game - he would have rolled around and pretended agony to get the ref's attention. Klopp's teams are always honest and direct and need to learn to cope with the underhanded methods of teams like Real Madrid and Barcelona. The headlines will be about Messi's freekick... but I will forever remember his pathetic rolling around to try and get Milner sent off for running into him. We need to wise up.

People keep saying the formation was too defensive: No it wasn't. If anything we were too open and pushed too hard for an away goal, which left us exposed to the break on countless occasions towards the end of the game. Once it was 2-0 it could have 5 or 6. We should have played a bit tighter - it would have been better to get out of there with a 1-0 loss rather than risking the whole tie. We were so reckless that Allison wanted to go up for the corner at the end - and the coaching staff had to wave him back. But before that late period it really could have been 3-3 as Milner, Salah and Mane fluffed very attractive chances. Just like last year's final, the scoreline flattered the Spanish team who were simply opportunistic rather than good. Also, VVD was slightly at fault for two goals so all the boasting about him being the best defender in the world was probably a bit premature. I think the players are more to blame than Klopp - and they really should have put away one or two of those chances.

Of course the formation was defensive, we only had 2 true attacking players, ie, Salah and Mane, we usually have 3 with Firmino and last season we had 4 with either Lallana or the Ox playing. So Klopp reduced our attack by at least a third. However you are right to say we didn't play only defence, we attacked significantly but to score you usually need attack minded players, they are much more lethal in front of goal. Firmino created our best chance after being on the pitch for 29 mins.

We only had 2 attackers as Firmino was injured, if he would have been fit I am 100% sure he plays, the problem is we do not have anyone near the front 3 quality to replace/rotate any of them.

I think Klopp brought Gomes in as TAA has struggled abit recently and wanted extra cover for the defense, but looking at their LB (Lenglet), Salah was tearing him apart and had him on a yellow card, we should have brought TAA on to have a go at him.

We also needed abit more game management, at 2-0 maybe we should have battened down the hatches abit and accepted the loss, but make sure we didn't concede more, I understand we wanted the away goal, but at this level, something you need to be more cautious and we were over committing at times to try and get the away goal, Barca were exploiting that.

I ashamed of the hateful comments on this thread.
In am an older person, Liverpool born, LFC supporter and fan for 45 years but if this is a representation of the punters culture on Koptalk then I want not part of it.

Seriously really anal.

Come on. Don’t play whiter than white Chester. You have your fair share of pops at players too. I don’t agree with a lot of them but no need to bin it because of that.

That's the reason why our formation was defensive, didn't we all know that having only Firmino as a proper CF was a bit thin, I did.