Laivasse

Does Benteke really not understand the offside rule or something? He dropped off the ball when it was coming to Ireland, because he'd been offside, but then continued to drop off even after he'd come back well onside. Then he refrained from pressing the Spurs defender along with Ireland, as if he was afraid a whistle might blow or something. Or maybe he's just lazy when faced with a negative scoreline.

Well ****.

One of many lovely little touches from Ireland, followed by a Delph trademark tackle. Which player started? The shit one, obviously, we're Villa.

Guzan was trying to second guess Bale, which was smart. 3 Spurs players were clean through, it would have made no difference.

Terrible from Lowton.

Nice counter. Need to make those count because it's all we're going to get. Nice attempt at the 'fickle' argument but I think you'll find that the prevailing opinion on Bannan hasn't ever changed much. I've certainly never considered him good enough. Better than Delph, maybe, but that's a shocking low bar.

Except the same thing happened last game with Bannan in the team, as one of the worst offenders for surrendering possession.

The whole games being played in our defensive third, with us having none of the possession. This formation really stinks. Essentially you're taking a player out of midfield in order to put Herd at the back with all the responsibilities of a CB. Both of those are terrible things to do.

I thought it was a big improvement on the first season, HAI FAAAAIVE

I know you weren't asking me, but personally a 7-1 scoreline would bother me less. A 6 goal winning margin is about as shameful and shitty as it gets, and the player reaction after the 7-1 defeat duly reflected that. Remember Collins' "ashamed to be a footballer" tweet? But to perform so badly that the margin is 2 goals worse than that is another category of disgrace. Consider that winning by 2 goals is a nice solid win. Granted, there may not necessarily be much difference between the kind of performance that nets you 7-1 or 8-0 losses, but in our own case, I think there was a difference between those losses. The 7-1 defeat boiled down to a 20 minute period where the players just appeared to stop giving a ****. Yesterday, I missed the second half but we obviously weren't even in the game from the moment the whistle blew. From reading about it, it sounds like Chelsea deserved every inch of the scoreline and could have had even more. There are tiers of disgrace, and that loss is on the very bottom, quite apart from any single result result I've seen from this club.

I think Bennett has more potential than any of our other FBs, seems technically competent, attack-minded and little things he does suggest to me that he's smart, but he's a long long way from the finished article and he wasn't what we really needed at this point in time

What has shocked me most is how tactically naive Lambert seems. When he was appointed, we all dared to hope about all the things we might bring with him - positive possession footballing mentality, attacking philosophy, the desire to build a team from the ground up, an eye for talent, and so forth. He's brought all those things, which has been a cause for delight. What he doesn't seem to have brought is any kind of tactical sharpness. People will point to how he got everything right at Anfield, which he did, but we were massively assisted by the fact that Liverplop got everything wrong in the final third so we were given second and third chances which you can't count on in most prem games. Earlier in the season we started with this narrow diamond rubbish, using Delph and KEA as 2 players to perform the job of 1 player, which left us playing too deep and with no width. Now we've got this 5-3-2 stuff which still leaves us completely insubstantial in midfield, trying to play dynamic possession football but with a formation that's more suited to work on the break. He doesn't seem to have a clue what to do when we concede and if we're not in the lead after 55 minutes we may as well pack up and go home. He seems to be taking ages to figure out that cloggers like Bannan and Lichaj aren't good enough, just as their performances over the last 2 years have suggested, while he's sidelining more talented players whom we really need to come good for us. We can attack well, but we require Benteke to be on form or else we have no attack at all. So yeah he's brought a load of good things to the table but a pretty **** big piece of the managerial puzzle seems to be missing right now, and that 0-8 drubbing is evidence of it. That's the kind of scoreline a League 2 side might occasionally expect against Chelsea, not a prem side, no matter how inexperienced we are. Ultimate responsibility is on the manager and I honestly don't know what to think of this guy at the moment. Building for the future shouldn't necessarily start with the building site getting nuked from orbit.

Finished the main storyline of Arkham City without realising I was about to do so. Now I need to decide whether to finish all the side stuff I left hanging or if I should dive on into Batman Arkham Asylum which I picked up in the sales for a fiver. Gosh, what a game though. I never read the comics and my memory of the animated series has all but faded, but for me every single character was brilliantly interpreted. Mark Hamill's Joker > Heath Ledger's Joker. There, I said it. Hugo Strange was also superbly voiced. I love how he pronounces 'the batmun'. I'm also an hour or two into Gemini Rue, which seems like a solid little point and click game apart from a godawful timed sequence or two. Maybe my thinking's too narrow but I don't think adventure games should feature fail states and player punishment. I felt the same way about Primordia when I locked myself out of one of the 'good' endings thanks to a random click I'd made within the first hour. That's just not to my taste (although Primordia was otherwise enjoyable in an understated, don't-write-home way). Now I've got a backlog yet to play consisting of Arkham Asylum, the Icewind Dale games, Darksiders (1), Metro 2033, Deus EX:HR, Civ 5, and the Binding of Isaac so I should be able to come through this Steam sale with my wallet pretty unscathed. Speaking of which, though, anyone who hasn't played Psychonauts yet should pick it up now for 75% off. Fantastic game.

It really looks amazing with everything cranked up. The character detail is superb.

I only got round to playing Batman Arkham City a few days back after picking it up for 80% off at GMG. It's blowing my mind, really an amazing and near flawless package. Some short passages are poorly designed, but on the whole the character design, environment design, voice acting, open world acrobatics, stealth and melee mechanics are all fantastic and obscenely satisfying. Thus far, about half way through, it's one of the best games I've ever played. Shame it has a stupid install limit and GFWL but that's why discounts were invented.

There was a wicked spin or swerve on it, it changed angle after the bounce. And then it kisses the inside of the post... I'm just going to say it was a class strike.

That was a beautiful strike. This is the type of player you should spend 30m on, unlucky Scouse clearings in the woods.

I think Bennett will come good. And at least Baker is great.

Anyone who thinks Lichaj isn't our weakest option at LB should keep an eye on this one.

Surrendering all the possession in these first 10 minutes, giving them chance after chance. Thank **** it's only Liverpool and not the world class team our lads seem to be treating it as.

So wasteful with crosses.

Lichaj, you clown, ffs.

The problem for me is that Benteke has tired, it's just that simple. Once his legs go it doesn't matter what our attacking link up is like, we don't have an attack to link up with.

The lads are standing their ground well and giving as good as they get. The problem is that standing our ground is fine but we need to create something. Stoke give every impression of having come here for the draw, but in terms of playing football they should be there for the taking. They have offered no threat.