[Archived] Liverpool 0 - 0 Rovers

[Cocker]

Just found these snips on the Liverpool Forum:-

Blackburn are really tough

What do you think about Steven Reid? For me has been quality tonight, particularly going forward, and he ws the same against the Blue scum

WE PLAYED ******* BLACKBURN NOT BARCELONA

Well, we played without two best players and they are robbie savage and paul dikov. (Not sure about that )

This is the best of the lot - very bad losers (even though they didnt lose)

i think beitez needs time to build if he decides to stay,but if he goes what about sam allardyce to manage us.

[Hughesy]

Another point on the board and another clean sheet. Cant be bad. How many clean sheets we kept this season now? After a torid time we are now starting to look very strong at the back. Mokoena is also doing an excellent job in the holding position just infront of the back 4.

Once again we made a so called ‘big team’ look ordinary.

Full credit to the lads for the effort. Unfortunately MGP chose last night as his bad day at the office, but not to worry. Class is permanent.

[jim mk2]

Oliver Holt in The Times is also pretty fair to us

Are you sure ?

Oliver Holt has worked for the Mirror for the past three years.

[FourLaneBlue]

A dumb thought, but perhaps this Rovers team with Shearer up front would be Premiership challengers although the Chelsea of 04/05 would easilly beat the Man U of 94/5 in terms of quality of title contenders.

I'll get my tin hat.

Well...you invited a response so here it is.

The title-winning side is different to this one because it was full of goals. We may have played some similarlarly dodgy football at times in 94/95 and were definitely route one (to Shearer and Sutton) at times but it also contained, in Wilcox and Ripley, two wingers who put cross after inviting cross into the box. Three caps between them while at Rovers...

We are similarly very solid and defend as a team like the side of 95 but we lack attacking options. Sometimes we annihilated teams under Dalglish but this season we have only managed that against Norwich and we needed a dodgy goalkeeping performance to help us there. MGP shows creativity and the occasional unexpected piece of genius but is still learning about the Premiership and as such will have good games and, like last night, not so good games.

The greatest asset Ripley possessed was that he was never afraid to take the full-back on. Sometimes the opposing left back would dispossess him time after time yet Ripley was a battler and it only took him once to be able to beat the left back and create some space to set up the winner on a tee for usually Shearer but also other times for others. On the left we also had Le Saux who, as befitted a former left winger, also provided many chances from that side. Matteo and Johansson have precisely zero attacking ability and are nobodys ideas of left wingers. Solid yes, light-footedly skilfull...no.

While we are similarly tough to beat and hard to break down we need more than just a striker to make us into a really good team. We also need more players to get the ball to the frontman/men. Hughes has managed to create a drilled, disiplined eleven. Keeping that while also making us mokre dangerous in attack will be the real test of his next year or so in charge I believe.

Edited March 17, 2005 by FourLaneBlue

[Bobby G]

On a side note when Matteo came on my heart stopped and he had a couple of moments which i thought he would do us.

[stuwilky]

Talking of Stuart Ripley keep bumping into him in the library at work. Proper nice bloke.

[Duff's Minder]

when January came I and others were a bit worried that Hughes had no experience of the transfer market.

Savage, Nelson and Mokoena must rank as the best bits of business we have done since Kenny was here.

Nelson and Mokoena look absolutely world class. I can't think of a single player from any club in the last few seasons who matches them as value for money signings except maybe Yakubu.

If you told me back at the start of the season that we would have one of the most feared defences in the league I would have wet myself.

It's a long road ahead but for the first time in a long time I'm excited to be a Rovers fan (even if noone else will come down the pub to watch our games any more).

[SuperStella]

I was very very pleased with the performance – each player did their job well. I thought that if we had 2 decent strikers up front, or had played with at least 2 of our existing strikers from the start we could have won it. Nelsen and Todd were superb at the back and Morientes / Baros hardly got a sniff.

Mokoena did well in the centre of midfield – he looks more a holding midfielder than a centre half (what we initially got him for). Pedersen’s set pieces were rubbish last night which was disappointing – our most creative player having an off night.

Anyway, one point closer to safety!!

[Bobby G]

Luckily MGP's day off was an away match to Liverpool where we had set our stall out and wouldnt really realistically expect more than a point and not a 6-pointer at home!

[tmap]

da da dadada da da da da da

da da dadada da da da da da

da da dadada da da da da da

woooah Mokoena

[streakyb]

Mokoena did well in the centre of midfield – he looks more a holding midfielder than a centre half (what we initially got him for).

Did we though? Hughes said he wanted to bring in players who would be first teamers. Since Todd had made 1 CB berth his own, there was only one going, Nelsen has that.

Perhaps Hughes had allways seen Mokoena in that holding defensive midfield role.

[LeftWinger]

We've only conceded 11 in last 21 games now (12 clean sheets- only Cardiff and Newcastle managed two against us). I had a look, and in the ten games Ryan Nelsens played for us, we've only let in 3 goals (Chelsea, Boro, Burnley).

LAST 21 GAMES

P21 W10 D6 L5 F21 A11

NELSENS 10 GAMES

P10 W6 D2 L2 F11 A3

OTHER TEAMS LAST 21 GAMES (GOALS AGAINST)

Man United 9

ROVERS 11

Chelsea 12

Arsenal 18

Newcastle 18

Liverpool 21

Without Henry on Saturday, you've got to fancy our chances of getting at least a point out of the game. Hope they're not too tired after a few games close together though.

Edited March 17, 2005 by LeftWinger

[SuperStella]

Last nights match ratings: -

Friedel

Nowt to do really other than sort defence for corners and free kicks 7

------------------------------------

Neill

Needs replacing in the summer to create a 'super defence' 5

Nelsen

Bit like a jew, gives nothing away 8

Todd

Man of match 9

Nissa

Get that stupid hair cut, simply the ugliest footballer in prem 7

------------------------------------

Emerton

Needs to get fit and cross more 7

Flitcroft

Ewwwwwww nasty, but did the job 7

Reid

Squad player on this performance, Everton performance warranted start 7

Pedersen

Boots on wrong feet 6

Mokoena

Frightened me all the way, causes injury to key players in every game 8

Stead

Worked hard in a non attacking game 8

------------------------------------

Subs: -

Matteo

Future captain............ of fat camp........ did ok 6

Gallagher

Loan out beckons 4

[LeftWinger]

Nelsen

Bit like a jew, gives nothing away 8

Ha Ha- are you allowed to say that?

[M-K]

I was well impressed by Stead's first touch. Must have been wearing his velcro boots last night.

[CAPT KAYOS]

Good result - got be happy with the point - would have taken it before the match and we got what we went for.

Rather than boring, I found it a very interesting tussle from a Blackburn view - although could understand for the neutral.

As we all know, Hughes has to work with what he has at the moment but we seriously need to sort out our attacking ways - otherwise we will get found out sooner rather than later.

Do we have the ability to play differently?- If the ref had given the penalty (how did he not for the pull on the shirt?) could we have got a result - I doubt it.

Thought as others Mokoena had his best game -

MGP looked liked he had taken on the Blackburn curse now of 'Thou shalt not take a good corner or freekick whilst an established first team Rover'

Emerton - was just Emerton - cut in turn around and do the hokey cokey

Johannson - looked liked he was auditoning for a part in Bugsy Malone

Flitcroft - was just the ususal ruffle a few feathers Flitcroft

Stead- thought he did excellent under the circumstance - no decent balls but worked is socks off and laid on a a good few balls can't understand him being subbed unless he is being rested for Saturday

Reid - thought he had an excellent game and probably should have scored at the start of the second half - our driving force.

Matteo - somebody already mentioned about him looking fast for some reason - great tackle towards the end

Todd & Horatio - Its already been said

Neill - Had is usual 5 min nap but did ok otherwise

Gallagher - ??

Friedal - think he was there - saw him having a cup of tea and a prawn sarnie in the boxes

Anyway another point towards salvation and hope for next season.

[cole]

i've gotten to be a big fan of Mokoena lately... he's just plain nasty.

did you see him get in that liverpool player's face when he thought they had given him a late tackle? he popped right onto his feet and got right in his face... the look in his eyes was crazy... not "ohh.. i'm tough" kind of crazy, but the "i'm the king of the 7th layer of hell" kind of crazy gave him a look like "you can't play dirty against me... i'll beat you... i've got experience"

i love his fire. i'd love to see him make a nice little home with blackburn, and stay here for years.

what's his nickname? the axe-man?

[Hughesy]

What has happened to gallagher. Hes gone from being a talented lad who looked good to looking very poor on the premier league stage

[Tony Diamond Inc]

As the players were coming off the opitch at the end Sky cameras focused on Hughes congratulating his players, and you could clearly hear him say to Mokoena " well played AXE!". Well it made me chuckle

[RoyRover]

I forgot to say how bad Pedersen was last night. Recently he has been putting in some top performances but last night he was dreadful. It was funny listening to Andy Gray, who just couldn't put into words how bad his deliveries were from set pieces. As for the rest of the team, the defence looked solid again, Emerton did ok, as did Flitcroft. Even though the performances of late have been very good and we are no longer conceding lots of goals, I do hope that this isn't going to be our style of play, under Hughes.

[Nayef]

Talking of Stuart Ripley keep bumping into him in the library at work. Proper nice bloke.

didn't he have a degree in french or something?

Read most of the posts above and agree that a clean cheet was what was required of us. Nelson is looking very consistent now. Todd was great. The whole team worked hard closing down opponents. the opposition, no longer a team to be feared - Morientes and one other liverpool player whose name momentarily escapes me had to resort to diving under the slightest of touches to get free kicks near the box. I hope they get stuffed on Sunday.

Strangely I felt comfortable watching the whole match. I was quite bored but I never felt tense like I do when I watch our team.

Room for improvement: Stead needs to learn to dribble. That's twice I've seen him dribble the ball out like an utter buffoon. For goodness sake I don't see that level of incompetent dribbling in the premiership elsewhere.

Gallagher - on that cold night in December 2003, I watched him score his first goal for Blackburn. I thought this could be our hero in times to come. Last night - a shadow and that's all he was.

Set pieces - MGP's corners always seem to be low (even against leicester).

[philipl]

Oliver Holt in The Times is also pretty fair to us

Are you sure ?

Oliver Holt has worked for the Mirror for the past three years.

I saw Oliver in the by-line. It's actually Oliver Kay.

[stuwilky]

Talking of Stuart Ripley keep bumping into him in the library at work.  Proper nice bloke.

didn't he have a degree in french or something?

Hes doing some course in Sports something or other.

[Yorkshire Blue]

Set pieces - MGP's corners always seem to be low (even against leicester).

I think he worked that out about 20 minutes from time last night. Two free kicks, which represented our only real chance of nicking a goal, sailed right over everyone and out for goal kicks. Not good. Needs to find his range.

If we can sort out the delivery from set pieces, I think we are good enough in the air to start scoring more goals.

[benhben]

The team seems to be more fluent with stead in attack, h holds the ball up well, has a good first touch and links other players better than Dikov. Hughes was a striker as a player and you can be sure he will sort out the attack in the summer. At the moment, there is no transfer window, Hughes cant do anything, he has to work with what he has got, and that means not conceeding. If we can get one quality forward and a crative midfielder i can see us finishing top 10 next season, with our now solid Defence. I never thought id say, "With our solid defence". How things change.