I don't even think Farris can necessarily plan to score from the first shot, but they do make a habit of it. But we also make a habit of conceding. There was a stat after the game, and I sort of tweeted something about it yesterday, but I said I'm interested in talking about this today about how much of it is how much of it is bad luck how much of it is bad goalkeeping because it is the goalkeeper who's the last line you know how much of it is are we letting three shots go someone came back to me and said you know this idea of you know being bad defender and I was like well that would that mean a lot of shots not necessarily that you're more likely to conceive from them, but we sort of got into it in a little bit. And obviously a friendly way about this idea of, you know, if there's no pressure on the shooter, then actually is XG sort of accounting for that, which is, you know, an interesting thing. I don't necessarily know the answer to. I mean, XG is developing all the time. But, you know, whatever it is, it is happening. I'd like to think it was bad luck because that would suggest that it will, it will change, you know, know, at some point. But this idea that since Alisson's come back in, he's had 15 shots on target and conceded in nine of them, that's a lot for an elite goalkeeper. It is a lot. And it's alarmingly a lot, the kind of thing that you would notice, even

if he wasn't such a great goalkeeper beforehand. But it's difficult because the thing I always think about is when you can see the goal, more often than not, it's not one mistake. It's a collection of one or two mistakes or maybe three mistakes that lead to someone getting a goal. But if you look at the three times when the team has scored with their first shot against us that have stuck in my mind recently, Fulham, Leicester and now Forest, in all three situations, there were people saying, well, I'm not sure maybe Ali could have done a bit better there. Now, obviously, the the Fulham won against the deflection of Robertson just in front

of him, but still. Same with Leicester.

Yeah. Leicester was deflected as well. Still not a great position that he's in. But the thing about it is kind of what Josh was saying before about what we were expecting. That's what was so frustrating about that goal against Forrest for me was if you look at when Hudson-Odoi wins the ball on the halfway line, if you watch Alanga and Wood, they are immediately running straight into positions and they're not doing things that we shouldn't be expecting them to do. So why are we not immediately running into positions alongside them? And so I think it's seven seconds from winning the ball to the ball game in the back of our net four touches between three players so they know exactly what they're going to do and they execute it perfectly and clinically you can say yep that's a team who've won seven on the bounce or wherever it was they're looking very sharp and very clinical but we should know that we should absolutely know that they were trying to do that because they've taken the lead in more games than anybody else this is their mo in order to be able to play that low block successfully you need to have a lead and so giving them a lead was literally the worst thing we could have done so i was as frustrated with that moment as with some of the shots. But in general, I just feel like kind of what Josh was saying before, I was looking at the first half just thinking, well, what's our plan? What's our plan to make them do what they don't want to do? And I couldn't see it. And you've seen it sometimes in games where what we want to do is also what the opponents want us to do but generally the team with more quality over the course of a period of time will get the upper hand in that but forrest are so good at doing it like i looked on the kind of average positions of the forest and it was like they basically had a line of six just across about just on the edge of their defensive third. And then a gap. And then the front four. And so whenever the line of six were able to win the ball and pass it to the front four, front four went off and did their business. And we saw that a few times in the second half, but we were able to cut them off. But they were so entrenched in their position. We weren't dragging them out. We weren't making them go wider. We weren't creating any gaps in this line of six. They were just happy to sit there. And again, if you think back to the Man United game, kind of a similar thing happened. They just sat there. We didn't drag them out of position enough. And obviously the second half comes and they get a little bit more tired and then there's a bit more spaces. But we need to get better at opening up the spaces in those earlier moments. Because, again, taking the lead against teams who are playing that way makes them have to change what they do. Maybe not immediately, but certainly over time. If they are happy to just keep doing the same thing

again and again and again and again, we aren't going to get anywhere. They seem to panic a little bit me to rob when the goal goes in i actually think they start the game pretty well and there's a decent purpose to our player then i felt that their reaction to to liverpool scoring sorry to forest scoring was almost over caution and i think you know there's there's a bit of a lack of movement there's you know we're not pulling teams around like you saw some Moe's saying and I wonder how much of that was you know just just a bit of fear about giving the ball away because we've just seen what can happen when you do it what did you make of the first half is it because it's hard to separate what happens before the goal and what happens after because it's such a short amount of time but it did feel to me like I was you, when people around me on the ground were saying sort of similar, you know, quite happy with sort of how we started or we look on it here. And then the goal happens and obviously there's the atmosphere as well, which needs to be brought into it. You know, it was, you know, quite something else really to sort of, you know, and I imagine it was great for them to play in. But from a Liverpool point of view, it makes you just maybe that little bit edgier to do something. I don't know. How much of it do you think it was the goal or how much of you think of it as just our general kind of first-half malaise? The

first-half malaise has been too common now this season to say it's not a thing. It is a thing, and I'm not sure entirely what it is. I've got a theory or aouse in a second, I do think the danger with what happened when they scored first is it fulfilled the prophecy that we didn't want to happen because all the build up to this is Forrest are going to low block you and trying to hit you on the counter and the worst thing you can do is concede the first goal because then they've got something to hang on to they'll

block their asses off, right?

So, and all the preparation all week will have had this message drummed into the players. We are going to get that first goal. We are going to be set. We're going to be compact. And yet we've got these ways of breaking. And we're going to find a way to break down their low block. I do think there was a plan to break down the low block, which involves doing what I've seen against other teams that have set themselves low this season, which is basically to dink one to the back post. Gakpo being particularly useful at that, and that's why I think he's increasingly become a mainstay of this team, because the minute a team sits deep against you, well, actually, not just Gakpo, Salah can also do it. Salah can dink one for Gakpo, and Gakpo can dink one for Salah. And that's kind of, we're looking for those kind of overloads so that that can happen. But when the prophecy's fulfilled and Forrest score, then I think psychologically it's in your head that you knew it was going to be tough. Now it's tough plus one. You know? It's really, really bad. And there's another factor in all this, and Slott said it at the end. It's really hard to break down teams that want to sit that defensively against you it's just really hard and you go back to all kinds of iterations of lfc down the years i've seen us toil good and bad liverpool teams that expected to dominate games toil against low blocks uh i think we we're in an age really where managers are a tad lucky that not that many teams low block it, certainly in the Premier League, the way they used to. Since the advent of the press or the play out from the back fashion, it's not quite as simple as teams just sit in and say, you can have the ball, do your best. We're happy with the nil-nil. It's not quite as simple as that anymore and it gives the sides that don't want to face those low blocks a slightly better chance. What Liverpool did do, which was the oldest fashion way of breaking a low block, and we come to it in the second half, is just wear the fuckers out, make them tired, and then eventually, you get a gap.

Lots of teams, I mean, Rob's already to point out, not as many teams low blockers is sort of used to but what i would say as well is there's not many teams you know in in history really who normally you're low block if you're shit to be honest with you uh whereas technical whereas forrest have got some good players and so it makes it sort of even more dangerous really when you've got players like hudson adoyan and langley were good technical players they've come through academies or clubs where you know they're not coaching low block put it that way they're coaching getting on the ball and I think both of them could have you know in different scenarios made it at the clubs that they were at you know I think I'm sure there's plenty of Man United fans looking at Alanga thinking why is he still still at the club in fact I know there one or two of them are because, you know, I speak to them about football and Hudson-Odoi, you know, with a different manager at a different time. I think, I think Sosa could have made it at Chelsea and Chris Ward's obviously the best striker in Europe. And so, so when you've got those situations, it does make it sort of even more dangerous, does it? Because we've seen teams, especially to Anfield, come on low block, but then when they get the ball, they just give it back to you because they're not very good or we pressured them or there's no out. Whereas when they've got that out, it makes it, it does make it harder to play against. And I guess this is my way of saying, like sometimes playing against a good team can be something that, you know, a reason for why the first half didn't

go well as well. Yeah, we spoke about that dynamic on the Monday show, I think, didn't we? Like, you know, getting that balance between doing enough whereby you're creating enough and you're breaking down their block and moving them around and all that, versus giving the ball away and conceding transitions going the other way. That's what you obviously don't want. That's what Forrest are trying to establish, trying to achieve. So striking that balance is tricky. And I think we did relatively well with that. I think we did as good as you possibly can against Forrest, I think, when it comes to creating a fair amount. I think we created enough to win the game in the end. And it seems like what we faced, we faced a few things, and the Chris Wood chance is too clear cut. But beyond that, and that was probably because they had a lead, to be fair, but beyond that, I don't think we give away too much.

Have you seen the XG race or whatever they call it? The race, man. Yeah, that's it. Thank you. The Forrest one just stops mad early, doesn't it? It's like, right, done. That's exactly... What was the XG on the Chris

Woods chant? It's not that hard, is it? I'm not sure

what that was. I'm not sure what that was. The thing is as well, that's his left foot, that as well. Yeah. So I do think... Not been two five, Andy says. Not been two five, yeah. I do think Alison is just worth keeping an eye on. That's probably the best way to put it. When I looked at it, since he came back, I think he came back in December. In all comps, he's faced 31 shots, I think, and he's conceded 10. So that's not the best. That's a save rate of about 60 odd percent or something like that. So that's low, you know, and that's not what we're used to seeing with Alisson. But going back to last season. But Josh, to interrupt, that could be a factor

of the team giving away higher XG shot chances than it was prior. Because definitely as a whole, before Alisson gets back, we conceded about two league goals all season. It can't all be on him that we've conceded a goal since. So there's a systemic thing which is giving higher XG chances away, I'm going to guess, since he came back. So it's at least a bit of both, I'd say.

Yeah, yeah. We're giving away a little bit more. At the start of the season, we took the lead a lot at the start and then managed the game and things. Now we are just going behind once and then once you're behind, you have to open up a little bit more. I think we're facing a little bit more in terms of shots and clear-cut shots, if you want. Maybe we're not getting as many players behind the ball before the team takes a shot and stuff like that. There's some stuff in there, yeah. I think defensively, we just need a little bit of tweaking. The goalkeeper needs to hopefully get a bit of sharp and smack, maybe. Do you think Can was a bit of a fault about goal? I mean, I thought he's not his aggressive self

and that's where he leaves himself stranded up the

pitch in the first place. I think Virgil's out of spots. I think Salah, I think it is going for the ball, really weak. So I just think it's a really, really bad goal to concede, to be honest, all round. From the shot, to the way the ball's lost, to the ball that's played into Chris Wood's feet. It's just a bad goal to concede. And that goes back to my naive punks at the start. I just felt it was a really amateur goal to concede in a game with that magnitude. So, first rating. But yeah, I don't know about the goalkeeping thing. I was on earlier this week on my podcast with Beasley, and he mentioned an interesting... He said that going back to the start of last season, Alisson is about minus one, minus two in comparison to expected goals. So he's not... He's actually underperforming going back to the start of last season, which is... That's a fair sample, You know what I mean? But the season before, he overperformed by 10. So, you know, you can get this fluctuation when it comes to overperformance, underperformance with expected goals and that. But I think when we initially got him in, when we paid the money for him, he was a difference. He went points on his own. I think of late, that's just not happening and remains to be seen whether it's a form thing, a sharpness thing or he's just I mean he's 32 now so I don't know It's

difficult because I think you can really look at everybody who's come back from injury and say they aren't at the levels they were at beforehand yet and again I think this is something we saw a bit last season. It's what kiboshed our title charge yeah so you wonder whether or not that's a squad wide thing something that we are doing or not doing which is having an effect but when it comes to alison i just think of so do you i don't know how much you guys remember the crystal palace game he got injured in like yes the chances that we were conceded up to that point in that game he was having to do a lot and i mean that kind of contributed to him getting that injury but there were quite a few where it was like oh my god they're gonna score no wait we've got allison it's fine and he did it i haven't seen him do that once since he's come back yet and yeah we don't know if this is age we don't know whether this is just the nature of the fact that the injuries that he's had over the last 18 months have all kind of been similar so it's like if you're getting the same kind of thing again and again and again even when you're coming back you are potentially weakening certain parts of you so maybe it's making it more difficult but I don't know it's just it's a hard it's a hard situation to be in because you think of all that and you think but no he's been so good for so long but then there's also this nagging thing in the back of your mind it's like why did they spend 30 million pounds on the keeper in the summer do

you