Liverpool 2- 0 Villa; Questions

Well, at least it wasn’t the thrashing that many of us were expecting.
And to be honest, I thought we did quite well.
Let’s face it, noone has taken a point at Anfield this season, so I don’t think we should feel too bad.

Of course, it’s not good that I perceive a 2-0 defeat as not too bad, but I really don’t think that was a 2-0 game. A 1-0 or even a draw would have been fairer, to my mind.

There were a few good points to come out of the game, in that we looked like we cared, fought as best we could and most importantly, looked like we actually had a plan.

Smith set us up with a 4-4-1-1, with the defence looking a lot better drilled than it has done for most of the season and us looking to hit Liverpool on the counter.
It was mostly effective too and we’d stopped them creating pretty much anything for the first hour or so.
I was actually feeling quite confident up until then, but as the game went on I always had the feeling that the Reds would score.
I wouldn’t say they were particularly better than us, but we just look so impotent up front, that a defeat had a bit of inevitability about it.
It’s sod’s law that we’ve improved the defence, but now look totally devoid of any scoring ability.

I’m not going to slate anyone particularly today, because I think the overall effort was very reasonable.
But I could probably name at least four or five players who just frankly weren’t good enough today.

Which is our problem, I feel.
There are too many players who just aren’t good enough, certainly to compete with a sub-par Liverpool and we just don’t have the replacements to call on when they’re tiring and need replacing.

Ah well, that’s just where we’re at as a team and there’s nothing we can do about it.

But I find I’m asking myself questions.
I’ll tell you in advance that I don’t think Man Utd will cane us either.

And if we do put up a decent, albeit probably losing, performance against a Utd side that is bang on form, does that mean we should be able to beat lesser sides?

Have we actually got the fight and desire needed to scratch some points?

From what I saw today, I’d say it’s still a possibilty.
And I still haven’t given up hope.