Review: Wigan 0 Liverpool 0

WASTEFUL LIVERPOOL LUCKY TO GET POINT AT THE DW

Do i sound like a broken record yet? another game with more points dropped. This is a frustrating state of affairs and i hope that it gets resolved soon.

On a positive note, the lads shown here above during the warm up are seen showing their support for 'Pool front man Luis with T-shirts and a smile, great to see!


Now the game; i thought for at least 30mins of the first half we were the better team. creating all sorts of headaches for the Wigan defense without adding the killer touch.  For some reason it seemed like the team wanted to walk the ball into the net instead of creating space in the box for shots on goal. We did test the Wigan keeper a few times but he was on form and we found it hard to get any sort of serious pressure on him.

Maxi leaves the wigan player for dead

For all our first half domination we couldn't take the lead and as the half went on Wigan started to break on the counter causing us some grief. As half time approached 0-0 was the score and a fair reflection on how well Wigan kept us out.


For all of Wigan's competitive play i thought we were poor, more so in the second half as we seemed to run out of ideas. Both Downing and Maxi played bit parts for the whole game not being that influential. Adam and Henderson worked hard in the middle of the park, and Suarez had one of his off nights it seemed like nothing could go right for him with the ball at his feet and was quite ineffectual. Maybe this was a result of the news frenzy surrounding is 8 match ban he received yesterday. 

Wigan really did well to stick to their game plan, and made it hard for us to break them down yet they still posed a threat going forward once they won the ball. Our slow short passing game was perfect for Wigan to get 9 men behind the ball, for which they would explode into attack when Liverpool lost possession. 

Handball, Liverpool's chance to take the lead in the 2nd half

Mid way through the second half a hopeful ball into the box found Suarez attempt a bicycle kick shot on goal only for a Wigan defender's out  stretched hand to get in the way and a penalty was awarded.
Charlie Adam stepped up to take it, his shot was hit well and hard to the keeper's left hand side and the Wigan keeper made a great save to deny us the 1st goal of the game.

To be honest, looking at our record from set pieces, and penalties specifically i wasn't confidant we'd score. Before Adam stepped up we were 1 of 4 with 4 different takers and true to form this penalty save made it 1/5.

After that we seemed to lose a little energy and drive, and Wigan appeared to be galvanized by it pushing on to give us lots to worry about for the rest of the game. Even with Bellamy, Maxi and Carroll being subbed on we still played the same predictable style, slow and wide thanks to the wall of blue shirts we couldn't get past.

After about the 75 minute mark there wasn't allot to shout about. Both teams created half chances but nothing definitive enough to win the game and 0-0 it ended.

On reflection of the game i think that we played pretty poorly with Downing, Maxi, Suarez and Kuyt being particularly disappointing. Credit to Wigan though, they played the game their way and forced us to try and break them down, which we failed to do. 0-0 is probably the right result, but we really should be beating teams like Wigan if we want a European spot.

FTK MoM: Ali Al Habsi (Wigan)

I have chosen Al Hasbi as the FTK MoM because i thought he was the best player on the pitch for the 90 minutes. Apart from the penalty save Al Hasbi made some crucial stops in the first half, his distribution was good and overall i though he had a great game.





pics: liverpoolfc.tv, wiganathletic.co.uk