Player Ratings vs. West Brom

After a pretty dismal display at the Hawthorns there can't be too many good things to say about the players but nonetheless here are the ratings for players in my opinion.

Reina - 7

Despite conceding 3 goals I actually felt that Pepe had a decent game and without some really good saves from the Spaniard Liverpool could easily have gone down to a 5 or 6 nil loss.


Kelly - 5

For me Kelly was not enough of a threat in attack given the system that Rodgers likes to play with. In the 4-3-3 the full backs need to offer attacking width and I just felt that this was not shown by Kelly. I also saw Kelly caught out of position a few times which allowed West Brom to hit LFC on the counter attack.


Skrtel - 5

Not a great match for Skrtel, he didn't look particularly solid and despite the fact that the penalty he gave away was hardly stone wall, there should never have been any danger in the first place if the Slovak had have shown a little bit more urgency on the ball


Agger - 4

Despite the fact that I didn't feel Agger had a particularly bad game up until the sending off and he was the only player back covering, the sending off was the key moment in the game and I'd rather he had not taken the risk of giving Long a nudge. I'd rather Agger just put a little bit of pressure on and let Long try his luck at finishing because as the penalty showed he's hardly clinical.


Johnson - 6

An occasional good dribble forward and a fairly competent display despite being out of position earn Johnson a higher rating than the rest of the defence. However I feel that had José Enriqué been playing the team would have been considerably stronger.


Lucas - 6

Lucas wasn't quite his usual superb self despite trying to put himself about a bit. A yellow card shackled him slightly and hindered his breaking up of the play. His substitution was necessary in order to make the team more attacking although personally I would have taken Johnson off and gone with 3 at the back given that Martin Kelly is naturally a centre back.


Allen - 8

The new signing looked really good in the centre of the park, he kept possession well, got stuck in and even played a couple of Charlie Adam-esque cross field balls. All in all a great debut for the little Welshman... apart from the score.


Gerrard - 6

Gerrard never really got into the game, his movement in behind the frontman was nothing like as good as we saw against Gomel and the usual link up with Luis Suárez seemed to be gone. Possibly a slightly mediocre performance from Lucas forced Gerrard to drop back and help the defence thus limiting his attacking influence.


Downing - 4

Quite a few useless crosses typified a poor display. It seems to me that Rodgers would have told Downing to cut in and either shoot or play through balls on his stronger left foot and instead he decided to take on the full back and put in crosses with his weaker foot when there was no real aerial presence in the box. I would say that despite this performance I believe Downing will be considerably better than last season and we should finally see some Premier League goals from him.


Suárez - 7

I felt that in the first half Suárez looked sharp and his turns and nutmegs were really causing problems for the West Brom defence. Of course his influence diminished in the second half as Liverpool struggled to attack and the referee did him no favours either by not giving free kicks or refusing to book the Baggies players for pretty bad fouls on the Uruguayan. I feel that the cross for the header he missed was just a tad too high and he should not be blamed just because he could not quite get up to meet it.


Borini - 6

Not nearly as sharp as we saw against Gomel and the link up play we saw with Suárez in this match seemed to be lacking a tad but not too bad for a Liverpool Premier League debut and I think there is much more to come this season from the Italian.


Subs
Carragher - 5

Carragher lacks a little bit of pace these days and in a team a man short pace is often what is needed. I felt Carragher was a little poor and got rolled far too easily by Lukaku when the Belgian set up a superb chance for the Baggies.


Cole - 4

Injured. Again. Not much more needs to be said, as good as he could be the fact that he is in a near permanent state of injury makes him a bit of a liability and his high wages mean that the club can't really afford to have him sitting on the physios table every week. I sense that a move away from the club may be coming up fast for Cole


Carroll - 6

Not much time to make an impact but the big Geordie did work hard for the team and even when the team are losing badly that is something the fans love to see.


Man Of The Match - Phil Dowd (West Brom)

Sorry to be so cynical but his decisions really ruined the game and as good as West Brom were, the result could have been so different without his influence.