Whatever the circumstance of the game are, we had too many at not quite where they needed to be.
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Liverpool’s goalkeeper Simon Mignolet (L) reacts as West Ham United’s midfielder Michail Ant …
“We won 2-0, the scorers will probably grab the headlines, but it was a real team effort, the scorers are the cherry on top of the cake”.
Five minutes after the restart, Philippe Coutinho’s excellent pass set Alberto Moreno free on the left and his low cross found Benteke, only for the striker to side-foot wide. And Carroll could have piled on the misery with another header from Cresswell’s cross, but Mignolet made a fine save.
Yet Liverpool could still have snatched something from the game, as Emre Can hit the crossbar at the end of the first half and Lucas had a header cleared off the line towards the end of the second.
Speaking on LFC TV’s year review, Lawrenson said: “It was on the back of the win over Chelsea wasn’t it, because you are going to look at Chelsea and think obviously, they have been hopeless and you thought did we catch them on a bad day or were we really good?”.
“Andy was brilliant, not just because of the goal, but for his performance, everything: defending, holding the ball up”, said the Croatian.
Jordan Henderson will miss the trip to The Britannia again with a heel problem.
Since he moved to West Ham United, Andy Carroll has struggled to stay fit. An £11.8 million ($17.4 million, 16.1 million euros) signing from Red Bull Salzburg in September 2014, he impressed during his first season at Southampton, scoring 10 goals in 32 games.
“It would be easy for me to say “Come on, let’s try, we have problems, we don’t score enough goals, let’s see what will happen” but we have to wait and be patient”.
“It’s no day for being disappointed, it’s a day for being angry”, Klopp told BT Sport after the game, and that emotion lasted until his full press conference. Despite conceding two goals, Liverpool’s defence operated much better than the midfield or the attack. We could have come back but we didn’t. You can’t win a game with 90 per cent. “It [the draw with United] was the third consecutive game we didn’t lose but that’s not enough”, said Hiddink. “Two-nil – it’s deserved”.
West Ham’s win put Bilic’s side into sixth position in the table as the club eyes off European football next term.
“We defended well because you have to”.
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He declared that “the thing” is that Liverpool “have to avoid the crosses” because it’s “50/50 in the box in the air” but if it’s one of Carroll or Benteke then the odds become more like “60/40” even though he acknowledged the first goal was not Carroll.
