Video: Jose Enrique v. Sunderland

One issue I'd hope gets discussed this week is why Dirk Kuyt didn't start. I know we paid millions for our new midfielders, but given the consistent quality of play last year from Kuyt how does he not start over both Henderson and Adam? I don't think either of them played poorly I just don't know they played at a level to remove Kuyt from the Starting XI. Also, no doubt in my mind Kuyt would have slotted home that PK Suarez airmailed as he didn't miss any last year in his time taking over PKs for Stevie G.

Im new here (new as an posting a comment) but i enjoy reading everything on this site the articles to the comments. but anyways Enrique IMO played well on D, but the main point i been trying to figure out is why play Hendo if i remember right we played a 4-2-3-1 why not play Suarez out wide and put Aqui in the CAM spot to help control the game and make something happen, which begs the question as to why he wasn't even on the bench, Aqui is just a better playing then Hendo IMO, and if your going to play Hendo why not put him in the CAM spot and Suarez out wide, i spoke my mind at peace now. But this is one of the best sites ive read when it comes to talking about football 

Given the performances that players often put in against their former clubs, I can see why Henderson was played (though I thought it was a risk when I saw the teamsheet - including Adam & Flanno).

I'd like to say I called it right in advance, but the first half was actually quite good. They pressed our midfield while we had plenty of out-balls; they had the ball and tried to go long every time to Gyan (which was a lesson in how EASY it is to defend against that sort of thing!) In the second half the teams swapped tactics. I know why THEY did (it got them in the match)but I can't for the hell of me work out why WE opted to go long with such predictability whilst vacating midfield at the same time.

Anyway, I was depressed and on suicide watch the rest of the weekend - like most of you, I guess. But I'm able to see and listen with a little bit more reason now...

...Yeah, the King is dead; Long Live the King!

ps disappointed to miss out on that Enrique highlights clip, he's going to be class for us!

Anyone who still needs reminding about the horror that was Hodgson managing the mighty Reds last season, needs only to watch his Man U pre-game interview. It was cowardly, sickening arse-licking and negativity. We dodged a big bullet by being rid of him. The naysayers doing the blogosphere rounds bagging their own team don't understand how good things are at Anfield now. This group will gel sooner rather than later and I think they'll be brilliant. Some people need to get with the program.

After reading through the comments everything seems to have properly discussed. So, all i can add is atleast Joe Cole didn't play.

Are we still kicking Joe Cole down the stairs. The poor lad has hit the bottom landing 35 times and has already had 3 concussions!!

And he'll keep getting more till he's not a Liverpool player anymore!

No chemistry between new & old players as yet, hopefully time will integrate them together.

In my personal opinion, Henderson did not play well, so did Adam. Downing was playing well while operate from the wide area, in the 2nd half he went missing, not sure if instructed to play more center.

Lucas seem not on his usual self. Sunderland strikers manage alot of moment and hold ball quite easily, not enough cover from the midfield.

Too many high long ball up front, predictable. Carroll still yet to establish himself in Liverpool, a one match performane against Man City was not enough to prove any.

Suarez is a terric player, not sure he was treat very roughly, but seem that he went to the ground too easy.

Enrique was the best player as far as I am concern in this match.

We draw 1-1 with Arsenal last season opener, then we fell apart afterward, I hope it don't repeat. Draw at home was never a good result, let alone, against opponent that is not at the Top 8.

Can't believe this guy only cost us £6 million

Thx for the vid. Enrique was great -- by far our best summer signing. Can we give back Carroll & Henderson and get another 8 Enriques please?

Why in the hell would LiverpoolFC TV have the above Enrique video yanked from youtube for a copyright infringement?? I was only able to watch it once!!!! And Enrique did look good, especially for a debut. How will I be able to see it again? What's up with those guys. And I was just starting to like John Henry.

As much as I want to take positives from the match, lets be true to ourselves for a few minutes.

To start things off lets talk about our inability to keep the ball for more than 1 whole minute, what I'm about to say will upset some Liverpool fans, but Carra has to go, when we have the ball in deep our midfielder's don't seem to have the ability to create space for themselves to receive a pass, only Agger has the ability to pick out midfielder's when we have the ball at the back. this leads to our very solid and no nonsense Carraback :) to hoofing the ball to andy carrol, this is very disturbing when it come to possesion of a football. 
Now dont get me wrong i'm not expecting to be like barcelona and out posses every team we come against but missing our captain shouldn't lead to Sunderland being on par if not better at keeping the ball at Anfield against a liverpool side that cost in excess of £120m.

Secondly to reiterate what i was saying about hoofing the ball up field, not sure if you fellow red brothers noticed this but when we had the ball late on and we was .... pushing for a goal ?? if thats what you want to call it. did it once look like we was going to score? in my opinion the answer is no, we didnt look like scoring because all we tried to do is hoof the ball up to big andy and hope for someone to get on the end of flicks, now i will say it again... dont get me wrong... I'm not expecting to make clear cut opportunities at will however i do expect us to at least try and carve out chances with inventive passes.
The kind of free flowing stuff that i was led to believe king kenny would bring back has clearly not happened, i'm all for optimism and i do believe we will be challenging for those top four spots but at the same time that feels like i'm a slave of the old days waiting for the scraps of their masters meals. Liverpool fans should be saying i believe we challenge for the title not for the top four.

Lastly... as always lets end on a positive, the new boys didnt let the occasion get the better of them and they conducted themselves really well considering the pressure that our beautiful club brings, was surprised jose E was selected but i think he fit in well and his rep no harm at all charlie adam wasnt that bad either as for downing and hendo it could have been worse but at the same time it could have been a whole lot better. And going to say it one last time... Dont get me wrong... i'm not expecting the team to gel straight away and we win our 1st title in since i was 5 :O but lets at least show that we want to be a team that has other ideas to breaking teams down. 

YNWA 4eva

From the current squad i believe that our best 11 should contain Jamie Carragher. With Agger alongside him and Jonno and Enrique on the flanks, we have a fantastic back 4. Kelly, Flanno, Robinson and Aurelio ( once a year ) provide excellent cover as does Skrtel in the centre. Wilson needs a season playing and the Greek is a write-off. If we can get in Cahill or even Dann, then Carra loses out but as it stands his reading of the game and tackling just outweigh the infuriating hoofing. Just. Many would favour Skrtel and Agger but I think Jamie still shades it.

To be fair Bob, you can't say that free-flowing football "just hasn't happened" after only one game ( there was even evidence that it HAS happened in the first half and the entire 2nd half of last season ).

I was 12 when Kenny first took over and I watched him build a team that was the best club side ever to play in the English top flight. The presence of Carroll gives Carra and others an all-too-easy out-ball and definitely needs to be minimised. When we pass-and-move with the likes of Adam, Downing, Gerrard, Meireiles, Kuyt and even big Andy we will be hard to live with ( as we were fleetingly in the first half yesterday ).

This ain't blind optimism. I ain't burying my head in the sand. This is the considered and hopeful opinion of an old guy who remembers the best and the worst of times at Liverpool Football Club. If it all goes to shit and others are proven to have been right to doubt Dalglish and criticise from day one....well shit, I'll just hold my hands up but until. then positivity don't cost a thing and frankly keeps my 37 yr old blood-pressure in check!!

Flanno over Kelly? 

Huh?

I have no idea, sorry - I was not in the proper state of mind when I posted this

Bang on fella.

This is off-topic like every other thing I post on this site, but does Phil Dowd looks to you guys like a fatter, more British-looking Steve Carell?

I tried to post an image with visual evidence of this claim but I think Disqus ate it.  I'll stop talking now

40 year old virgin lol. Only this time he raped our chances of taking all 3 points! Honestly why on earth would some one disallow Carroll's goal. Anyone seen Torres' goal vs Madrid (4-0) or even Messi's goal in tonight's match.

Adam, Downing, Henderson and Enrique make debuts. ( the spaniard is an excellent player and made a classy debut ). Carroll and Suarez again operating with one of the pair below par (luis at the moment, andy looks lean and strong). Flanagan makes his 4th or 5th start ( the kid is brave and skillful but had a torrid day with not enough protection from Hendo). ALL of these are Kenny's players. They've NEVER played together before. We saw how good it can/will be.
Let's have some freakin' perspective, eh? I nearly got sick into my own mouth reading the reactionary shite on twitter last nite and I was more than a little perturbed at the overwhelming negativity by some commenters on here too. Kenny does not make pronouncements ex cathedra. He's not infallible. But to feel you can spout off like you know better than Dalglish means you are a fucking idiot. I wanted to see Dirky play. I wanted Downing to just stay on the left. I would have preferred the more muscular presence of Kelly in front of Flanno. Does this make me superior to KD as a coach and all-round football guru?! Does it fuck. Calm your shit down. Support your team and remember the cesspool that was LFC 12 months ago. Then try being grateful and just a wee bit positive....Jeeeeeeez.

"nite"? 

Flanno cost the points, KK picked him. We know not why. We didn't test their keeper. We were poo after a positive start.

Sod off troll.

Lol you're trolling him by calling him a troll...Flanno didn't cost us points, 9/10 times the guy on the end of the cross would try to bring it down instead of scissor kicking it and not score.

Get a grip, soft lad. This fella talks sense, you're spoutin' shite.

10 months and 154 comments and you reckon I'm a troll?! I'm gonna make relatively nice here outta respect for the hosts and other intelligent commenters. In the meantime why dont you read my comment for a succinct two-word description of yourself, then go join the other mouth-breathers and type furiously about the manager's failings. Cretin.

lol he called you a troll. That made my day. I mean in any other forum maybe but here where there are next to none trolls he goes and calls YOU a troll. HAHAHA

Is a Cretin worse than a troll? Just wondering. No one should really be able to question Dalglish with any legitimacy. Just based on what he did last year. Steadied the team, brought back a belief and a chemistry, started to introduce "pass and move football", and got results. He even has Wee John quoting "pass and move football" in interviews. And that from an American owner who was not sure at the time if the football was round or oblong. I know he's bringing in a statistical analysis of players. (Thank God doubly for Dalglish, and God save us from that statistical analysis applied to football) Can't wait to see what he's able to do this year, with the personnel he's got now.

You go boy. That team looked great first half. Ran out of gas in the second. Game should have ended 4 nil. Everyone's disappointed in a 1 1 draw.
So that means Kenny got it wrong, and we are shit, and everyone has all the answers. And all the geniuses point to the poor kid Flanagan who swithced off for 2 seconds. And Larsson volleys a cross that he will not replicate in the next 40 fucking years.
Just never forget the Hodgepocalypse that was and no money to spend and 2 shitass owners and calm that shit down. The team has obvious quality this year, and it WILL be a great year.

Er... I'm not sure if I said something wrong or not but... um... sorry?

The answer seems obvious. Cancel your twitter account and stop getting sick into your own mouth. (Point your head down when you feel it coming on!)

Dude, my indignant rant was not aimed at you at all!! Just using the best forum I know of to appeal to people not to confuse this year with last. Just breathe guys....

I know, but you did seem pretty annoyed. That and it's going to pretty hard for us not to do our best to break down a few of those subjects in more detail in the coming days if we want to have stuff to talk about. But yes, some of the overreactions to the draw were a bit much.

Just to be clear, I was/am 'pretty annoyed' Noel...but only at the idiotic knee-jerk tabloidistas screaming about managerial inadequacies and how players clearly aren't up to it after one freakin' game. This is understandable, no? But yeah, went a bit attack-dog there I guess. Just sickening to see people so eager to be pissed-off and pessimistic and knowing the popularity of the site, I wanted to make an important point before even level-headed Redmen got sucked into the vortex of gloom. 

This has NOTHING to do with the excellent work done by yourself and Ed. I look forward to the reasoned debate that always occurs round here over the coming days. Criticism is vital. Idiotic shouting about how shite our players and coaching staff are is not.

First time commenting here, long time reader of this excellent site. I reckon what you're saying is fair enough redtrev. I agree that there seemed to be a rush to dive straight back into the shouty anger of the hodge-era. Why? A little patience and a lot of measured analysis (the norm around here) will see us through the bad days and help us enjoy the good ones. Let's give that "vortex of doom" a wide berth.

Keep up the good work Ed and Noel

There were so many positives from the match. The defense played well. Sunderland really only had two decent chances the whole game. Flanagan just switched off and got caught ball watching for a few seconds. But, that cross should have never come in. There were three players half heartedly contesting the ball on the end line. Nobody dropped off to pick up the open player who delivered that cross.

The game should have ended 4 nil. PK, Downing should have scored, Carroll's goal should have stood. Suarez looked really good till he ran out of gas, late in the first half. Richardson should have received a red card, although I like that Phil Dowd used his "judgment" and gave him a yellow. So, there were so many ways that Liverpool should have won, and really no way that Sunderland could have won.

General team quality and commitment is obvious. Just hope it continues for Arsenal next week, who looked very average without Fabregas and Nasri. Wenger is in for some year.

As a Sunderland fan I agree possibly Kieran might have walked for the penalty however Suarez is a disgrace for waving the imaginary card at the referee.And if Richardson goes then Carragher shoulld also have gone for the dreadfully late tackle on Gyan before half-time.
 As for the game itself.............well you had more than enough chances to win but you were so so wasteful and you appear to be as far away from challenging the title as ever.
 At the end we were very comfortable with Liverpool and another five minutes would have seen only one winner and that winner would not have been Liverpool.
  After the match Wes Brown was arrested as he left Anfield with £35 million in his pocket!!!!!!!!

Um, did you not notice Carroll scoring a perfectly decent goal to be ruled out by the corrupt officials? 

Your cheats should have been playing with 10 after 5 minutes, and been two down. Bruce obviously gave the ref one up the bum, or a brown packet pre-game om HR style.

Shut up fool. Suarez regularly takes the ball wide to poke into an empty net. Your cheating defender should have been off immediately. Why he wasn't, despite the laws of the game, only the dodgy ref can only lie about.

Wes did not have Carroll in his pocket, Carroll missed 5 decent chances. On another day, some of them would have been in the net. 

Good luck in your relegation battle fscktard.

..........ALLEGEDLY LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway a trip to Liverpool is always a pleasure and best of luck for the season.

I think its also illegal to reply to yourself. So the cops may be showing up at your house tonight. Wes Brown played OK. But he's just a shadow of what he used to be at United. It was more of Carroll and Suarez not yet being fully fit. When they are, Wes Brown is going to have to repay that 35 million with interest.
I was happy with Phil Dowd not giving Richardson a red card. Don't really like red cards unless there is a really bad foul. Ruins the game. Phil Dowd is one of the few refs who is able to use some judgment. Yes Carragher's foul was not a good one, but most refs would not give it or him a red card for that.
I think Liverpool may well just challenge this year for the title. Last year we had the best record in the EPL against the top teams. Just did not perform away from home and against some average teams. And we picked up a few good players this year and the manager and owner are gems. But there are many good teams and a few teams with money to burn. IT's always a challenge. So, we'll see.
Second half was a draw, you guys were able to have some possession, but never really created ANY good chances. First half was a total blowout.

Well basically JPR it would be better for the game if Liverpool could mount a serious challenge to United as in my opinion Chelsea and Man City are just a rich-man's plaything and I certainly saw a side more reminiscent of the Liverpool FC of old however for you to reach your objectives then there is still much more hard work to be done.
  Listening to your local radio  when leaving Anfield Dalglish mentioned the beach-ball,the controversial "goal" that should never have stood, the penalty given for the foul outside the box in the reverse fixture and then the non sending off yesterday and remarked that latterly games between the two sides have never been dull so long may the good debate continue. 
 Would totally agree Liverpool blew us away in the first-half but a one goal lead is never enough and after Asa headed straight at Reina before we scored I guessed something was there for us and in the end I thought you guys either ran out of steam or just took your foot off the pedal and a draw was a fair result.
  ALL THE BEST!!!!!!!!

seriously carroll not fully fit yet??? he has had all pre season, if you can not get yourself fit with a whole pre season you really need to ask yourslef if you should be a footballer. 

I know you wanna be loyal to liverpoolfc but come on now making those kinda excuses for a palyer we clearly got ripped fro is just not on

Yea, takes a few games to reach full fitness. Especially for the bigger guys. That, and integrating 3 new players into the side. And we ran out of gas in the second half after expending so much energy in the first half. My hope for Liverpool is to end up in the top four. The wish is to challenge for the title. (Possibility) There is a rumor that Pepe Reina did not need a shower after the game. Probably just a malicious rumor though.

Actually, I thought Carroll seemed fit enough. It was Suarez that was lacking in pace towards in the end of time on the pitch. 

Yea. Carroll was OK and will get better as the midfield and he integrate their play a bit better. And there is a rumor that Wes Brown promised the linesman 17.5 million for disallowing any Carroll goal! I swear I saw a foul!!!!!! His fitness was OK but will also improve. Suarez lost his wheels toward the end of first half.