James Milner Bemoans Early Hammers Goal
Liverpool’s unbeaten start to the season ended in spectacular fashion yesterday as West Ham United, who earned their first win at Anfield in over 50-years, bagged three unanswered goals to pick up their second scalp of the campaign after downing Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on opening day.
Despite numerous additions to the squad and a complete shake-up of the Reds back-room staff, the Merseysiders had no answer to a packed Hammers defence as Slaven Bilic’s men showed that they were not only content to hit their hosts on the break, but that they were going to take advantage of the nagging individual errors that have creeped back into Liverpool’s game.
“It’s a disappointing end to these first few games,” said James Milner following the final whistle. “It was tough to break them down – they had a lot of bodies behind the ball. They are organised as well and they have got a lot of speed and ability on the break,” explained the ex-Manchester City man, wearing the captain’s armband for the second match in a row with Jordan Henderson still sidelined. “Once they got the goal, it gave them a boost and something to hang on to.”
A poor clearing header from Martin Skrtel combined with young Joe Gomez’s poor positional awareness saw Manuel Lanzini open the scoring, Dejan Lovren’s botched attempt to play the ball out from his own byline ended with Hammers captain Mark Noble doubling the advantage and following red cards to both Philippe Coutinho and the Irons skipper, Diafra Sakho confirmed the rout with an injury time goal that saw the Senegalese striker elude the attentions of three Reds defenders before slotting past Simon Mignolet.
It was an upsetting performance by the Reds to watch but 2 days later and perspective setting in, it’s easier to accept that the Hammers did the same to Arsenal and that it’s just 4 games into the season. It has also helped to know that Chelsea and United had lost as well. I guess what most of us were upset about was having the feel-good from the first 3 games yanked down in such emphatic fashion. It’s back to chewing fingernails again.
I think the other results around the league just confirm that the quality of opposition and the standard of football in the Premier League is getting more competitive. That being said, our inability to fashion anything against West Ham on Saturday is the most unsettling park. There barely looked to be a Plan A let alone a Plan B — it was horrendous, blunt stuff and will do us no favours going forward.
Sturridge will certainly help whenever he’s back, but being completely and utterly unreliable, that won’t help for too long unless he’s somehow got his injury problems sorted out.
Henderson, Lallana, Allen, Milner, Mignolet these few player will not get Liverpool anywhere.
“Seriously? you spent HOW much?”
You forgot rogers on the list !!!!! Gimli.
Funny that only two of them played and that Mignolet had no chance on any of the three goals — there appears to be a flaw in your logic.
Mate, you should be looking at the reliability and quality of the player on their performance in every aspect and games., not just 1 or 2 match, if you dig.
Will Lovren, Gomez and Skrtel get us somewhere? I think they played a bigger part in the result than any of the players that you mentioned.
Since this article is about a specific match, it makes sense to discuss that. You know, if you dig that is…
It’s one thing to make sweeping, negative statements and it’s another to get down to brass tacks.
Mate, why would you wanna do negative statement on someone based on just one game.
I wouldn’t and I don’t — if I have something negative to say, I keep it on topic and as focused and concise as I can. Henderson, Lallana and Allen have nothing to do with the result against West Ham.
To be fair, Allen hasn’t even played this season; he’s injured.
You’re entitled to ur opinion mate