Liverpool v Exeter City - Official Matchday Thread

[oxford don]

Great match for City fans to enjoy. Full house at Anfield. WOW

However, felt so deflated when I saw the team sheet. As so many have said why play so many old, slow players in the same team? We'd have lost at leyton Orient with that line up. No midfield to track runners, or stop fullbacks from marauding forward without being challenged.
Thought brown, JMT, Ribs and Bobby acquitted themselves well, but obviously ran out of steam with 25mins left. Wonder what Tilson and Nichols thought of the team selection, must have been soul destroying to miss out on chance to start at Anfield. Or even worse watch their replacements have expected shockers against a known lively, technical side.

Still great cup run, lots of dosh for the club, hope we spend sone of it on good loan signings to help us push on up the league. Suspect yesterday's exertions may punish us on Saturday. With very little in the way of midfield, our defensive players plus Nicholls and Davies ran themselves into the ground.

Behind us now. I'll try to move on.

Up the City

As I saw it too.. and as I said on the time for reflections post I’m not unhappy with the Players performances last night..they all tried as hard as there ability allowed them but it was patently obvious to all of the 6000 strong support that man for man the opposition was quicker, stronger, fitter and more skilful than their opposing number. 3-0 was in fact a good night’s work. 50 years from now History will recall that a lowly Division 2 side held the mighty Liverpool to a 2-2 draw at home but lost the replay 3-0. There’s no shame in that at all. What is a shame is that Tisdales tactical prowess and attitude to the game is as cautious and dull as his dress sense…if he were to dress like Boy George or Timmy Mallet it might be different…but Im afraid our tis is Beige and Brown, with the odd Blue day thrown in all too frequently.

 

[StroudGrecian]

Will do later.

I hope it's bad PR from Tis if that's how it came across (wouldn't be the first time), rather than an outright admission that he picked a team to lose.

That's probably against the rools...

 

[arthur]

Outstanding performance on the night from Liverpool's nippers, full of energy, invention and no little talent, and a big factor that's not been mentioned much, if at all, on this thread.

You are, of course right to highlight this fact and its almost total omission from the thread this far. The point is that this was a new young team who needed the time and space to gel and that's exactly what we gave them for 45 minutes. The first half was simply an extra training session for them and by the second 45 the gulf between the teams was beyond unbridgeable

 

[Red Bill]

Stroudy does.



It wouldn't have been dull as dishwater if at 0-0 or 1-0, which it was for the majority of the match, we'd have scored a goal. Any goal. Deflection, straight in from a corner, Mignolet own goal. It didn't happen, there was no 'big' memory. Deal with it, it's football. A League 2 side away at a Premier League side. Surprise, surprise, we struggled to get into the game.

Yes it would have been dull as dishwater if it had been 0-0 for the majority of the game and then we'd nicked one. Just because we' d got a lucky goal wouldn't make the rest of the game entertaining or exciting. On the one hand you're suggesting that Tisdale's tactics might have got us a result of and on the other hand you saying there no way we should have expected anything other than a pasting.

All I want is to be entertained. Football is an entertainment industry, it's not my religion or some cause I have to suffer for, and it's also not free, and I have to pay for it, but so I do have a right to expectations.

 

[Grecian O'Grecian]

Glad I support a lower division club, I know I'm in a minority but in terms of a day out give me Cheltenham away anyday UTC

I doubt you're in a minority. I certainly agree.

You know you're with City fans in those games, not people who are coming on a day out and who won't be seen again until the next big match.

Not just the result, but everything about Orient on Saturday was better.

 

[londonboy80]

I find it hilarious th

 

[BigBanker]

Yes it would have been dull as dishwater if it had been 0-0 for the majority of the game and then we'd nicked one. Just because we' d got a lucky goal wouldn't make the rest of the game entertaining or exciting. On the one hand you're suggesting that Tisdale's tactics might have got us a result of and on the other hand you saying there no way we should have expected anything other than a pasting.

All I want is to be entertained. Football is an entertainment industry, it's not my religion or some cause I have to suffer for, and it's also not free, and I have to pay for it, but so I do have a right to expectations.

You don't have to pay, you choose to.

I'd say that this cup run has provided us with plenty of entertainment (not to mention it will help to fund future entertainment).

You are a very different type of supporter to me, it seems - if we'd nicked a late one at 0-0 I'd have made it one of the best nights of the year (and I know it's only January), regardless of the quality of the rest of the game.

 

[londonboy80]

I find it hilarious that in one breath Tisdale can state that he named a side to contain the opposition yet post match he states that we had no chance of winning the game anyway. Erm...ok...
Then UNBELIEVABLY, this on the official site today 'The reality is that we're a League 2 team; we have some players in the side who are in their late thirties, and it was just a difficult night for us' WTF?? I repeat, WTF??? To come out with that when he has better/younger options on the bench that he could and should have picked from the start is an utter **** take to be frank!!

 

[CREDYGRECIAN]

Contradiction after contradiction - it's been happening for years.

 

[Rivercider]

Before the replay I had a faint hope that if Klopp picked a very similar young side we might just nick it, though that was unlikely.
In the time since the first game the Liverpool players will have had time to get to know one another and for some to get up to speed.
When I saw the starting team I guessed that Tisdale was hoping to use experience to stay in the game and then use younger fresher legs to mount a later challenge, which would seem to be a plan of sorts.

I watched on TV and in the first minute thought there was a lot of room out wide on both flanks.
Checking the stats am I right in thinking that the Anfield playing surface is 101m x 68m against the Park which is 104m x 64m?
If so as well as the state of our pitch the narrowness must have helped us defend in the first game.

We will never know what would have happened if Tis has set out to attack from the start, but I think if we had started trying to chase the
game early it might well have been 4 or 5 at least, and I was glad we avoided that,

cheers