Little creativity, little service for Janssen


A great game to watch, a proper cup tie in which Liverpool had the greater creativity in the final third ultimately.

Vincent Janssen tucked away a penalty for us, but just like Roberto Soldado he is getting no service whatsoever. Everything played to him is with his back to goal.

There were at least two incidences where he made runs into the six-yard box, one with the ball on the left and one on the right. He attacked the six-yard box was in space and a low cross  might have picked him our, yet Davies blasted a high cross no centre-forward would have got anywhere near to the far touchline.

Then we were through on goal and Onomah I think had a shot the goalkeeper didn't spill but Janssen had a tap-in with the ball played across. He isn't fashioning chances for himself, but nobody is creating them for him either.

There was too much side-to-side passing when we could have attacked the box. Tom Carroll had acres of space in front of him 25 yards from goal in a line extending from the 18-yard box roughly. Instead of driving forward, he simply passed wide and N'Koudou was closed down with nowhere to go. That sums him up for me, he simply isn't good enough.

In those instances, you have to make defenders commit themselves and break up their defensive shield. We weren't going to do that with a ball simply passed out wide. It is an abdication of responsibility and demonstrates why we weren't good enough in the final third.

Lamela came on and tried to create, not everything came off, but that doesn't matter, you can't create unless you try and create without fear of failure. It's another mental thing we have to work on.