Leicester City vs Liverpool

 Leicester City vs Liverpool (3-1)

Liverpool got off to a lively start where you could see them press high up the pitch since the very first minute, this lead to Leicester looking hesitant while passing around the back as most of their passes were getting intercepted or misplaced. Salah and Mane both missed out on game changing opportunities where it looked like Mane felt that he lacked confidence infront of goal and Mo Salah appeared to rather go down in the box and claim a penalty rather than take on the shot. Most of the first half was played in Leicester’s half but the foxes did show threat on the counters with an early scare to the Debutant Kabak who slept of and let Vardy slip into the box while lobbing the ball over Alisson on to the roof of the net. Vardy even got a chance at goal again where he struck the crossbar but that may have been offside. Thiago still hasn’t shown his brilliance and seemed to lose the ball quite a lot, but he has been a good sport and has his thumb up almost through out the game.

In the second half, the foxes got off to press in the Liverpool half but that doesn’t last for long as Liverpool get back to their pressing ways.  At the 67th minute, Firmino gets a beautiful ball into the box in front of goal and he decides to play a beautiful pass back to Salah who then goes on to score on his first touch to break the deadlock. In my opinion, even though Firmino deserves credit for his footwork and pass, a strikers instinct should be to shoot if he’s clean through on goal rather than playing it safe, this showed how he is out of his depth playing at strike and is much more suited at cam or a supporting striker. Not long after, Madisson managed to sneak it in from a wide angled freekick scoring past a hesitant Alisson. In the next 3 mins, Alisson and Kabak have a misunderstanding and Alisson rushes out the box to clear the ball right into Vardy’s feet who walks the ball into the net. This goal could’ve easily been avoidable as it looked like Kabak had it covered and it was completely unnecessary for Alisson to rush out which totalled his count to 7 errors leading to a goal in the premier league. In the next minute, Harvey Barnes was through on goal which Alisson managed to save and deflect it towards Vardy again,  and against all odds he made a ridiculous diving save which almost made up for his previous error, this just shows that he is lacking confidence and should return back to his best in no time. This highlight of a save was taken away from him as Harvey Barnes again was clear through on goal and this time made no mistake and buried it in the bottom right corner. 

 

Brendan’s plan worked to perfection as he managed to hit liverpool during the end moments of the game where their press was less affective and the foxes could easily find key passes through them and managed to convert their chances. Liverpool need to get a number 10 to create better chances at goal from the middle rather then depending on crosses from their fullbacks as even though they had 15 shots, only 4 of them were on target.