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James Milner, Liverpool’s first half substitute who came on for an injured Jordan Henderson, spoke after the game about his frustrations at Liverpool’s shaky defense. His concerns mirror all of ours as, week after week, this team’s incredible fire power up front is canceled out by a total lack of discipline in the back. Defense has been Liverpool’s problem for half a decade now, but somehow they go one transfer window after another without addressing the issue.
But enough bellyaching, let’s talk about how James Milner used the catalyst of this disappointing draw to morph into his final form as the Boring James Milner twitter account.
“I think when you’re in a position like that at this level you’ve got to see the game out,” the vice-captain said.
“We’ve got to be more boring. Obviously we’re very good going forward but those are the times in the game when you’ve got to tighten up, not make mistakes for those five minutes.
“All the goals were our fault, really, and that’s something we have to learn from and we need to do it quick, because it seems to be a thing for us this year.
“We play such good football and sometimes we just need to switch that off for five to 10 minutes in a game and learn about the game, sense the situations when it’s time to take it easy, play a bit tighter and keep the ball a bit longer rather than trying to break every time.
“Against good teams at this level you get punished and it happened today.”
Nonsense, James. Liverpool have proved this season that it isn’t just good teams who can punish the Reds for missing chances and being sloppy and haphazard in defense. Perfectly mediocre teams have been doing it all season, a trend which will continue until upgrades in defense are acquired. With any luck, they’ll start in January.