Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has admitted his side were “nowhere near” the required standard after Saturday’s 3-1 defeat in the Barclays Premier League to West Ham United.
Rodgers saw his team go 2-0 down after just six minutes at the Boleyn Ground as Winston Reid and Diafra Sakho capitalised on slack defensive work to score. Although Raheem Sterling’s goal before the break gave Liverpool a lifeline, the hosts repelled further attacks before Morgan Amalfitano broke away late on to clinch the three points.
After challenging for the Barclays Premier League title until the final match of the 2013/14 season, Liverpool have lost three of their opening five matches in the competition this campaign and the manager believes a lack of intensity is to blame.
“West Ham will be delighted, they played well,” he said. “I’ve got to look at my own team and, for us, we were nowhere near the standard today.
“We made a really slow start and before we knew it were two down. Lots of elements of our game have been very good over the last couple of seasons but it’s not really happening for us at the moment. So we’ve got a lot of work to do. Today was very disappointing in terms of performance.”
Liverpool’s performance was in stark contrast to that of their last trip to London, a 3-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane. Rodgers suggested that the absence of Daniel Sturridge and Joe Allen, both of whom are injured, has had a huge effect on his team’s effectiveness.
“We showed the potential in the Tottenham game this season,” he said. “When we have players fit, we showed in that game the real quality and intensity of the team. When those guys aren’t available it can really hurt us.
“We still should be better than what we were today so there’s no doubt we need to go back out on the training ground and continue to work. We’ve set a new expectancy at the club, which we have to deal with now. We’ve got lots of games and Liverpool as a football club is a club teams want to beat but we have to deal with that and we will do.”
‘We stunned Liverpool’
Sam Allardyce believes Liverpool were left “stunned” by West Ham’s first-half performance. The West Ham manager praised the tireless workrate of his players after the win, hailing their efforts in the opening moments as crucial in setting the tone.
“Our higher pressing game was the reason we dominated Liverpool so much in the first half and to score two goals in that early period really stunned the Liverpool players,” he said. “We carried that right through to the end of the first half and we really took them to task.
“We played outstandingly well and didn’t let Liverpool play at all so the only disappointment was that it was 2-1 at half-time and not more. Having said that, we’ve won the game, we deserved to win it.
“We’ve had to give a more solid defensive performance in the second half when Liverpool were going to throw caution to the wind and we’ve managed to pop up with the third goal at just the right time.
Allardyce went on praise the contribution of his summer signings to a morale-boosting win over title-chasing opposition. Goalscorers Sakho and Amalfitano were among those brought to the club during the recent transfer window, as were starters Alex Song, Enner Valencia and Cheikhou Kouyate.
“It’s [Alex Song’s] first competitive game that he’s started today,” Allardyce said. “He didn’t play any games in pre-season for Barcelona, so he did tremendously well with the pace of the game to last as long as he did.
“The front two looked like they’d been here for a long time. The energy that they’ve got, not just in possession but out of possession terrorised Liverpool’s back four. And we’ve got Cheikhou Koyate who loves football, loves life, loves being in every day. He’s looking like a promising player for us. We’ve got really good players that we’ve recruited this season and that has lifted everyone else for me.
“That performance today just shows what level we might be able to achieve this season.”
source:premierleague.com
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 