re: tOfficial Liverpool 2018/2019 Thread: CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE!

I didn’t think Mane had a bad game. It wasn’t his best, but it wasn’t near as bad as Salah. Mane was getting in behind the defense a lot and putting some decent balls across the face of the goal.

Milner was motm for me. He was everywhere making tackles.

On an unrelated note, the tv broadcast was driving me nuts. They had the field audio turned up too high so you could barely hear the analysts. I typically would rather not hear the analysts, but when the alternative is PSG’s annoying arse ultras banging drums and yelling for 90 minutes, I’ll take the analysts.

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- I thought everybody played well except for Mane and Salah.

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Sort of agree - I don't think Mane played bad (he actually played pretty well - he just didn't have a lot of final passes/ball). But a lot of the attack was built around him. I also don't think Salah played horribly - he looks to be forcing things around the goal and he's made a few lazy passes, but he worked hard out there and did a lot of good things too. If that was an off day for both, I'll take it.

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think the above is true because Mane and Salah have come to depend so much on Bobby. - For almost 2 years now, Bobby has been this squads MVP.

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Agree. He puts in a shift every single time and does exactly what is needed to compliment other players. I was watching one of our breaks yesterday and studge wasn't able to sprint past Mane/Salah (can't remember which one was dribbling) and I was thinking that Firmino would have created a ton of space for them to shoot or have an opportunity for the pass by sprinting by and taking a defender.

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I don't think VVD's defensive "lunge" on the Mbappe goal was bad at all, I think he was just unlucky that after getting the ball it bounced right over to Mbappe like a perfect pass. His idea and intent were sound, karma just fricked the execution.

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It wasn't strong enough, but he's trying to get a foot in and I think it was just unlucky. Both of their goals were basically bad luck for us.

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I found the midfield selection by Klopp curious prior to the game, but Klopp was right of course. Our midfield dominated the center of the pitch.

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PSG had a winger and a defender in their three man midfield, this while most of their front three either doesn't play defense or puts in minimal effort. Our midfield completely bossed the game. Milner was fantastic. Wij was fantastic. Hendo was fantastic, but possibly a half rating point behind the other two.

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- MotM? Pick one between Milner, Robbo, or Gini and you'd be right IMO

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I could go with any of those. Given the attackers we faced, I think the entire defense did a great job too.

Just because I haven't seen it posted yet, but Red Star and Napoli drew 0-0.

Just looked at it... So basically Red Star parked a double decker bus it looks like

To an extent. Napoli had a lot of chances but everything seemed to be right at the keeper.

I thought Mane had a good, not great match...

VVD made a great tackle on Neymar.. unfortunately, the ball fell straight to Mbappe's feet...

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the ball fell straight to Mbappe's feet...

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And he still had a fair amount to do with it. Easily could have sent it wide.

Just unlucky and things you can't do against that good of a team, but we still won, water under the bridge.

Salah can't be that careless with the ball, he's got to be better, bottom line, if you're going to be "world class".

You can have off games but you can't hang your team out to dry like that when you have 3 other wide open passes.

I do find it funny that we all pretty much thought we'd have an entirely revamped midfield this season (see thread title), at the beginning of the summer... yet it was the same MF3 that started the UCL final last night...

To be fair, I do think we'll see that change as the season goes on, but competition and depth is a good thing...

I honestly am not 100% sure of our best three right now (personnel or positionally).. and can see it going a few different ways as we progress..

I still think Lallana is the odd man out... It may be next season when the Ox gets back to health though... and I still want that playmaker, with a killer final ball too...

I wouldn't demote either of those two right now. But I will say that if we are going to beat RM, Barca or Juve we need Keita in the XI. Fabhino is another player I would like to see adjust to our style. I love our guys but Klopp is ruthless and I think the time is coming when he feels they are integrated fully and then we'll see where the dominoes fall (see Ox last year).

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I love our guys but Klopp is ruthless and I think the time is coming when he feels they are integrated fully and then we'll see where the dominoes fall (see Ox last year).

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And Robbo. He'll unleash them when they're ready, and Shaqiri said it best in his post match interview. The reporter asked about how difficult is was to break into our starting 11 and Shaqiri laughed it off and said something to the effect that we have a ton of quality that pushes everyone to improve and we also have a ton of games. He wasn't worried about playing time.