{"id":1450,"date":"2019-03-04T12:00:53","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T12:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/?p=1450"},"modified":"2019-03-04T12:00:53","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T12:00:53","slug":"does-the-disappointing-derby-draw-show-the-pointlessness-of-avoiding-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/does-the-disappointing-derby-draw-show-the-pointlessness-of-avoiding-defeat\/","title":{"rendered":"Does The Disappointing Derby Draw Show The Pointlessness Of Avoiding Defeat?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Is that it, then? Are we all throwing in the towel? Certainly judging by some of the responses from Liverpool supporters on social media you\u2019d think that the season was done and dusted and wrapped up once and for all because we failed to beat a well-drilled Everton team at a rocking Goodison Park. It\u2019s a bizarre attitude in my opinion, reflective of a section of the fanbase that never really believed we could win the title. They\u2019ve decided that it\u2019s all over already, in spite of the fact that there\u2019s around a quarter of the season to go and Manchester City\u2019s April will almost certainly look like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cardiff (h)<\/li>\n<li>FA Cup Semi-Final<\/li>\n<li>Champions League Quarter-Final 1st Leg<\/li>\n<li>Crystal Palace (a)<\/li>\n<li>Champions League Quarter-Final 2nd Leg<\/li>\n<li>Tottenham (h)<\/li>\n<li>Man United (a)<\/li>\n<li>Burnley (a)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There is, of course, no guarantee that they drop points there but if we were looking at Liverpool\u2019s fixtures and saw all of those in one month I\u2019m not sure how much we\u2019re looking forward to playing Crystal Palace, Tottenham, United and Burnley during the same period as a Champions League quarter-final. BabuYagu on Twitter made the point that <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/babuyagu\/status\/1102270476389371906\">Guardiola is currently like a dog chasing 4 bones<\/a> and I think it\u2019s a very good point. Will he get all 4? It\u2019s possible, but it\u2019s also possible that even City\u2019s squad takes a hit at some point during its quest and Liverpool supporter\u2019s lack of hope is depressing to see.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">When you walk through a storm<br \/>\nHold your head up high<br \/>\nAnd don&#8217;t be afraid of the dark<\/p>\n<p>Liverpool fans sing this before every match. And yet here we are, one point behind with nine games to go and a significant section of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LFC?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#LFC<\/a> Twitter are throwing the towel in. Pathetic. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/YNWA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#YNWA<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Simon (@bitginger) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bitginger\/status\/1102520065042403328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 4, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The league is very much on a knife-edge at the moment, with the winds of change likely to shift it in one direction or the other before the season has run its course. Liverpool have reduced all room for error with the draws against Leicester City, West Ham, Manchester United and Everton across the past six Premier League matches, which may well prove to be crucial given that Chelsea and Tottenham are still to come to Anfield. It\u2019s far from a done deal, despite what the press, opposition fans and even some of our own supporters would have you believe. The draw at Goodison Park did leave me with one big question, though: has the manager opted to go for the fewest defeats rather than the results that could win us the title?<\/p>\n<h2>Defeats Aren\u2019t An Issue If You Follow Them Up With Wins<\/h2>\n<p>It seems to me that the manager has adopted a cautious approach in many of the big games this season. He\u2019s looked at matches against what you would refer to as the \u2018big six plus Everton\u2019 and decided that not losing them is more important than trying to win them and falling short. Here is a list of draws we\u2019ve had so far in the campaign:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Chelsea 1 &#8211; Liverpool 1<\/li>\n<li>Liverpool 0 &#8211; Manchester City 0<\/li>\n<li>Arsenal 1 &#8211; Liverpool 1<\/li>\n<li>Liverpool 1 &#8211; Leicester City 1<\/li>\n<li>West Ham United 1 &#8211; Liverpool 1<\/li>\n<li>Manchester United 0 &#8211; Liverpool 0<\/li>\n<li>Everton 0 &#8211; Liverpool 0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of those draws, only the one against Manchester City could be said to be genuinely worthwhile in the grand scheme of things. It\u2019s worth noting that Chelsea were flying when we drew with them and Stamford Bridge is never an easy place to go, but otherwise all of those games were entirely winnable and we took the lead against all of Arsenal, Leicester City and West Ham only to throw that lead away and fail to recover it.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Think Liverpool with three fewer losses yet still below <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ManCity?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@mancity<\/a> has finally put to bed that daft Centurions vs Invincibles debates. A win better than a draw everyday.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 The Bertieful South&#x1f41d; (@BertiefulSouth) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BertiefulSouth\/status\/1102532421717757952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 4, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The manager\u2019s cautious approach is part of why we\u2019re battling City for the top spot, but it\u2019s also part of why we\u2019re not top on our own merit. There is no guarantee that opting for an attacking change in a game will definitely result in a win, but if the manager had gone all out attacking and re-found our \u2018heavy metal football\u2019 from last season in all seven of those games, isn\u2019t it likely we\u2019d have won at least one of them? Let\u2019s be negative and say we\u2019d have lost four of them and won the other three, well that would\u2019ve given us nine points instead of seven. Two more points from those fixtures and we\u2019re still ahead of Manchester City right now. Not losing matches isn\u2019t as useful as some people think.<\/p>\n<h2>It Demonstrates The Manager\u2019s Lack Of Faith<\/h2>\n<p>Liverpool\u2019s defence has been absolutely sensational this season. We have conceded fifteen goals in twenty-nine games. The manager and captain used their post-match interviews yesterday to say repeatedly that we defended well as a team and that\u2019s definitely true, but did the additions of Virgil van Dijk and Alisson Becker to the backline has turned it into one of the stingiest that we\u2019ve seen since the 1980s. In opting to put James Milner on for Gini Wijnaldum yesterday instead of Naby Keita, J\u00fcrgen Klopp did a like-for-like substitution that changed nothing in the way the game was going. That demonstrated not only a lack of faith in the Guinean but also a lack of faith in a defence that never looked like conceding.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Klopp: &#8220;Do you think we didn&#8217;t take enough risks today? That&#8217;s a really disappointing question&#8230; do you think it&#8217;s Playstation? Bring an extra attacker, and everything change? Football is not like that.<br \/>\nWe don&#8217;t lose our nerve, not like you obviously.<br \/>\nA question I don&#8217;t get.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Miguel Delaney (@MiguelDelaney) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MiguelDelaney\/status\/1102279923710996480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 3, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The manager might well feel \u2018disappointed\u2019 in journalists asking him about why he didn\u2019t take more risks, but not as disappointed as the supporters will feel if we miss out on the title by a couple of points come May. There are never any guarantees in football and it would be naive to suggest that simply throwing Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri on would\u2019ve meant that we\u2019d have won the game, but it certainly would have made it more likely than the choice to send on Milner and Adam Lallana did. James Milner can have excellent games, but lately he\u2019s been just as likely to stink the place out, which he did against both United and yesterday. Lallana, meanwhile, is looking every inch yesterday\u2019s man whenever he makes an appearance. You cannot guarantee that you\u2019ll turn draws into wins just by making attacking substitutions, but the majority of Liverpool fans would rather see this title slip away by going down fighting than limping home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is that it, then? Are we all throwing in the towel? Certainly judging by some of the responses from Liverpool supporters on social media you\u2019d think that the season was done and dusted and wrapped up once and for all because we failed to beat a well-drilled Everton team at a rocking Goodison Park. It\u2019s a bizarre attitude in my opinion, reflective of a section of the fanbase that never really believed we could win the title. They\u2019ve decided that it\u2019s all over already, in spite of the fact that there\u2019s around a quarter of the season to go and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1451,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions\/1451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}