Tonto

He was a little vague but it was along the lines that their set pieces were creating too many second ball situations near our goal so the idea was to try and defend further from goal. Assume we fancied our chances of defending the space behind the high line better than the lottery of the ball pinging around the goalmouth.

He's a natural selection through the middle.

Wasn't it "a hobbit running up a volcano"?

Our offside side trap was phenomenal. It's a whole new capability to our defending now. The speed we were able to step out was amazing, especially from their short corners.

He's a Firmino-like forward rather than a striker though isn't he?

Don't disagree with those points, but for me the criminal thing on that goal was Arfield being left in splendid isolation in the single most dangerous spot on the pitch.

Except that Kerr was talking through his a***. Dear Sir, I saw this article: http://www.balls.ie/football/ragnar-klavan-liverpool-brian-kerr/343511 Mr Kerr is quoted here: "He actually played against the Faroes when I was with the Faroes, and I remember studying him before the matches and thinking he was a bit of a weak link. I never thought he was a fellow that would be playing for Liverpool in the Premier League. We got three goals against him with the Faroes, and we'd a load of part-time lads. A load of lads working in the fishing industry and so on. They were good enough to expose him." There are three big mistakes in these quotes: 1) Faroe Island have never scored three goals against Estonia as claimed. They scored two; 2) In that game when Mr Kerr was coaching Faroe Islands and they scored two goals (07.06.2011), Klavan did not play. Match sheet can be found on Estonian FA website: http://jalgpall.ee/protocol.php?st=style_fp.css&nteam_id=1&proto=509&game=423; 3) Mistake number two means that the last sentence "A load of lads working in the fishing industry and so on. They were good enough to expose him." is not true as Klavan did not play in that match. Thank you in advance for correcting these mistakes! Best regards, Mihkel Uiboleht Estonian Football Association Media Officer

This. There was a moment in the 2nd half, at 2-1 and with the game on a knife edge, when Can went for a 50/50 on the halfway line and Gini and Salah, either side of him, broke forward in anticipation of Can winning possession. He didn't and we suddenly had 3 men wrong side of the ball in that part of the pitch with Gomez totally exposed behind them. Defenders make mistakes when they're pulled out of position, isolated, constantly scrambling. It often looks like our defenders can't do the basics that well-trained kids can but then, as was pointed out in the City game thread, our defenders don't even play in the sort of standard defensive line that is drummed into kids. We can surely do better than some of our defenders but this team will continue to make decent players look ropey when we play the way we do. Klopp has shown in certain games that we can be a bit more conservative and solid, so it's not that it's beyond him. This is a choice.

Did you see Stevie had to stretch the armband out a bit before putting on Henderson?

When Coutinho scored he ran off pointing to someone (in that "I only scored, it was all down to this lad" kind of way) )on the Centenary Stand side. I couldn't make it out on MOTD but was he pointing to Flanagan?

He also reported the term of abuse as being a different word at different times.

He played his part in a midfield that dominated Villa's for most of the game, albeit without creating enough chances. We seemed to be able to retain possession in Villa's half in a way that we haven't done for most of this season. That's not all down to Aquilani of course (Gerrard's improvement probably being the main factor) but again, he played his part in this. Given the conditions, the opposition, our form and his lack of match fitness, I think he did fine. One thing that stood out was his inclination to play the risky, quick ball, through the middle to Torres' or Gerrard's feet, when there were safer, easier options in wide positions.