Both of the football teams I support, Plymouth Argyle and Liverpool started their 2012/13 league campaign with a loss. The Pilgrims losing 0 – 2 at Home Park against Aldershot Town while Liverpool lost 3 – 0 away from home against West Brom at The Hawthorns. Not the start that either manager would have wanted but newly appointed Reds manager Brendan Rogers will be the most embarrassed and under pressure of the two managers, Liverpool would expect to beat West Brom in the league, especially with Premier League champions Manchester City next up for the Reds.
I’ll start with my home town club, Plymouth Argyle, in manager Carl Fletcher’s own words “we didn’t cut the mistakes and it cost us”, despite owner James Brent proclaiming that manager Fletcher has a promotion winning budget, today’s performance seems to suggest otherwise. It’s only the first game of the season and still 45 games remaining but it would have been nice to get off to a strong start, let’s hope the trend does not continue like it did in the first third of the season in 2011/12.
The Pilgrims went behind early in the game, Aldershot’s Troy Brown heading Anthony Tonkin’s free kick in from inside the box in the fifth minute of the game. Josh Payne doubled the visitors lead from the penalty spot in the 54th minute after Maxime Blanchard brought down Michael Rankine.
Looking at the tale of the statistics, Argyle looked like the away side, only having 29% of the possession and a total of four shots, only two on target while the visitors had a total of 18 shots, 13 of those on target. It seems that last season’s problems with the lack of attacking talent continues, Argyle can’t win games without scoring goals, that promotion budget means nothing if the money is not used wisely! Let’s hope for an improved performance against Dag & Red on Tuesday!
Liverpool were equally as poor against West Bromwich Albion inflicting a 3 – 0 defeat on the Reds, which begs the question; was it a good decision to sack Kenny Dalglish and bring in Brendan Rogers? I have heard commentary that Rogers made a huge tactical mistake, leaving Andy Carroll out of the starting line-up as the Reds needed some much needed height upfront. One thing is for sure, Liverpool will need to up their game significantly to compete for a top four place, competition will be stronger than ever this season. Brendan Rogers can blame ‘harsh’ referee decisions all he wants, but ultimately Liverpool simply were not good enough and the better team won on the day!
WBA’s Zoltan Gera’s strike from outside the 18 yard box put the home side into the lead just before the half time break. In the 64th minute, Martin Skrtel fouled Shane Long conceding a penalty, which Peter Odemwingie converted into a two goal lead. Liverpool were lucky to not go three down in the 60th minute after a second penalty and red card for Daniel Agger, Long missing from the spot for the Baggies. Romelu Lukaku did make it 3 – 0 in the 77th minute, killing off any hopes of Liverpool salvaging anything from the game. Let’s hope that the Reds can step it up against Manchester City next weekend, if they perform like this weekend, Liverpool are in for a pounding!