{"id":1452,"date":"2019-03-04T13:49:36","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T13:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/?p=1452"},"modified":"2019-03-04T13:49:36","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T13:49:36","slug":"is-liverpools-away-form-a-cause-for-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/is-liverpools-away-form-a-cause-for-concern\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Liverpool\u2019s Away Form A Cause For Concern?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now that the dust has settled from our 0-0 defeat to Everton at Goodison Park, is it time to start having a sensible look at Liverpool\u2019s remaining fixtures? A \u2018sensible look\u2019 means that we weigh things up as fairly as possible, not pointing towards a world of doom and gloom and not thinking that we\u2019ll win every match in sight. It\u2019s entirely possible that we win all nine of our remaining fixtures, of course, but with matches against Tottenham and Chelsea in there I think it\u2019s more likely that there\u2019ll be at least a draw somewhere along the way. I wrote about how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/does-the-disappointing-derby-draw-show-the-pointlessness-of-avoiding-defeat\/\">draws were becoming problematic<\/a> earlier in the week, so I\u2019m not delighted at the prospect of those likely dropped points heading our way before the season has run its course.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Actually quite sad and pathetic all these football fans celebrating a 0-0 draw so Liverpool aren\u2019t top anymore &#x1f602; obsessed!!<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 James Gardner (@Jay_gardner1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jay_gardner1\/status\/1102519605602463744?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>Yet far more concerning to me at this stage than the draws is our away form, which is where the majority of those draws have come from. The Leicester match felt immensely frustrating at the time, but the weather was very much a mitigating factor that stopped either team from being able to get up any sort of momentum. The frustration comes in the fact that they have not been great this season and ended up sacking their manager a few games later, so really a team going for the title should have been able to beat them. Draws against the Foxes and Manchester City were the only ones at Anfield, with the rest coming away from home and matching the loss to Pep Guardiola\u2019s team in seeing us fail to pick up eleven points on the road. Is our away form suddenly something of an issue for J\u00fcrgen Klopp?<\/p>\n<h2>Most Of Our Unconvincing Performances Have Come On The Road<\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s important to put this season\u2019s achievements into some sort of context. We\u2019re currently just a single point behind a Manchester City side that became the first of the Premier League era to break the one hundred points barrier last season, matching them stride for stride and still with a very good chance of ending up as champions. When we talk about being poor on the road, it\u2019s crucial to remember that we\u2019ve taken maximum points from all but three of the teams outside of the top six. With one of those draws coming against an Everton side fiercely determined to stop us from winning and the other against Manchester United at a ground we\u2019ve long failed to do well at, it\u2019s far from an unmitigated disaster.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-conversation=\"none\" data-cards=\"hidden\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Liverpool scored five against Watford at Anfield on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Liverpool have scored five in their last six away league matches.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Andrew Beasley (@BassTunedToRed) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BassTunedToRed\/status\/1102270281089978370?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>Yet it\u2019s also true that most our our least convincing performances have come away from home. Forty of our sixty-four goals have come at Anfield, with the other twenty-four coming on the road across fifteen matches. Given that a genuinely diabolical Huddersfield Town managed to limit us to just one goal, Brighton did the same thing and Crystal Palace were struggling at the time we scraped past them 2-0, you can see why some people are quietly worried about what\u2019s going on with us on the road and has been all season. That\u2019s not to suggest that you should romp home every time you play, of course, but what happened between us demolishing a very good Watford side 5-0 at Anfield and us playing a frankly quite poor Everton side at Goodison Park other than the fact we were away from home?<\/p>\n<h2>We\u2019ve Fewer Games Away Than At Home, But They Won\u2019t Be Easy Ones<\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s easy to look towards matches against teams at the bottom of the league and feel as though they\u2019re definitely as good as bankers. After all, there\u2019s a reason that they\u2019re struggling to climb the table. Yet a lot that can depend on when in the season you play them. By the time we play Southampton and Newcastle, for example, it\u2019s entirely possible that they\u2019ll be safe. Equally, Cardiff and Huddersfield may well be relegated by the time we travel to their grounds. Yet if any of them are not then they will be fighting tooth and nail to stay up in that curious way that teams do when they realise their own fate. Why is it that Cardiff lost 3-0 to Newcastle and 2-1 to Arsenal yet were able to pick up three points against both Bournemouth and Southampton? Trips to St. Mary\u2019s, Cardiff City Stadium and St. James\u2019 Park are never easy, but how much pressure will there be on the home team to get a result by the time that we rock up?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Away performances are becoming an issue here on the sly<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Michael Lennon (@Nick_Vanhelsing) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Nick_Vanhelsing\/status\/1102269589965234177?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>There\u2019s also the question of whether a team thats fate has been sealed is automatically a better one to face than one that is in limbo. If Huddersfield know that they\u2019re down by the time they come to Anfield, might they play with a degree of freedom that they haven\u2019t been able to show until now? It\u2019s unlikely, with the idea that the just acquiesce to their fate far more understandable, but players have a sense of professional pride that sees them unwilling to simply slip away into that good night. With nine games left to play it would be understandable for Liverpool supporters to think that the away games should all be pretty much formalities, yet our form on the road over the past nine games doesn\u2019t fill me with hope. We\u2019ve played five times away from home during that period and walked away with just six points from a possible fifteen. Hardly the stuff of dreams.<\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_1453\" style=\"width: 282px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1453\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1453\" src=\"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Scott_Parker_2012-06-11-272x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"272\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Scott_Parker_2012-06-11-272x400.jpg 272w, https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Scott_Parker_2012-06-11-136x200.jpg 136w, https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Scott_Parker_2012-06-11.jpg 434w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 272px) 100vw, 272px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-1453\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Football.ua [CC BY-SA 3.0 GFDL], <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Scott_Parker_2012-06-11.jpg\">via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p><\/div>I wanted us to beat Everton for all of the obvious reasons, but more than anything else I wanted the players to remember what it\u2019s like to win on the road so that familiar doubts don\u2019t start to creep in as the pressure of the end of the season builds and the title comes tantalisingly within our grasp. We didn\u2019t get that signature away performance and now a lot of pressure has been put on our trip to a Fulham side that have got a new manager and are dangerously close to being cut adrift. Will former player Scott Parker have them playing for pride by the time we visit Craven Cottage? If they lose to Leicester City at the weekend then they\u2019ll need the points against us more than ever, so a win and a signature performance against them might just be enough to get our away day jitters out of our system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now that the dust has settled from our 0-0 defeat to Everton at Goodison Park, is it time to start having a sensible look at Liverpool\u2019s remaining fixtures? A \u2018sensible look\u2019 means that we weigh things up as fairly as possible, not pointing towards a world of doom and gloom and not thinking that we\u2019ll win every match in sight. It\u2019s entirely possible that we win all nine of our remaining fixtures, of course, but with matches against Tottenham and Chelsea in there I think it\u2019s more likely that there\u2019ll be at least a draw somewhere along the way. I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1454,"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\/1452"}],"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=1452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1455,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1452\/revisions\/1455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andcouldheplay.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}