OK, now I've calmed down a bit, here are my thoughts.
Firstly, what is the point of playing excellent football in the second half, when we're going to play like the Bournemouth Ladies Over 80's Blind Deaf Amputee Team in the first half??
No if's or but's, we were
appalling in the first half. This is why I think Adebeyor makes us tick. More on that later.
Their goal, and indeed most of their attacks came via route 1, or down the right (their left) flank. Eboue was all over the place, and I wont add fuel to what is already a forest fire with his name on it, but he was poor again today. Traore on the other hand (or other flank should I say) was exceptional, both going forward and defending. I think he really showed what he can do today, and was one of the few standout performers we had.
Saying that is actually a little harsh, since no single player actually had a stinker as such, but as a team, we looked utterly dire in the first half,one of the worst showings in fact, that I've seen from us all season.
The second half started, and someone had switched the light on it seemed. I'm not going to go too overboard with the praise, because we still made hard work of the game, and only managed a draw against a frankly average Liverpool.
Although Adebeyor came on and (in my opinion) changed the game (today was an "I'm going to control everything magnificently" day for Ade, I wish there were more of them!), I would give my Man Of The Match award to Theo, by a country mile. He was absolutely exceptional, and almost everything we created went through him. Mirror that with Cesc's game, which almost prompts me to use the term "headless chicken", since he looked like he was making most of his passes with his eyes shut!
The defending, on the whole was OK, apart from an absolutely ludicrous mixup between Gallas, Toure and Almunia, which would have been howler of the season had the ball found its way into the net.
Great to see Bendtner silencing his critics, and to be fair, it was hardly a sitter he missed earlier. I am still having trouble trying to fathom how Hleb managed to completely miscontrol what would have been the pass for the winning goal on any other day.
In short, today's game both backs up, and also refutes my long standing opinion that we are some way off being a "great team" yet. It backs it up because we are up and down more than Ronaldo in a penalty box, and without consistency, and more importantly
end product, the team will never realise its potential, and will continue to be troubled by average, and even below average teams. On the flip side, our performance in the second half shows what we can do, and what I had nearly forgotten, so long has it been since we last played with such fluency.
So there you have it. We're not a great team
yet, but if we can replace the horrific display of the first half with the sort of football we played in the second half (and add some all important END PRODUCT), we'll be serious contenders.
Incidentally, can someone remind me who the ref was today, because that was without a doubt one of the most blatant and disgraceful displays of one-sided, bent reffing I have seen in my entire life!