Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has praised his players despite the 2-0 defeat against West Brom at Anfield last night.
Last nightai??i??s defeat means Liverpool have now won only one of their last six matches, which includes a FA Cup exit at the hands of Oldham. Although it must be noted that Brendan Rodgerai??i??s side has faced Manchester United, Arsenal and Manchester City (all away fixtures) in their run of recent games.
Liverpool started brightly against West Brom and created lot of openings, but failed to make the most of any of those opportunities. Ben Foster was in wonderful for West Brom in their goal and the Englishman thwarted every Liverpool attempt to take the lead.
Late In the second half it seemed like the home side would finally open the scoring as Jonas Olsson was adjudged to have fouled Luis Suarez in the box and referee Jon Moss pointed to spot. Steven Gerrard stepped up to take the penalty but Ben Foster, once again, came to West Bromai??i??s rescue and made a crucial save.
That save proved to be the turning point in the match as West Brom scored two late goals and grabbed all the three points in a determined away performance.
Brendan Rodgers stopped short of criticizing his players despite this surprising loss at home. The Liverpool manager insisted that the ai???players gave everythingai??i?? and praised West Brom for a ai???good away performanceai??i??.
“The players gave everything. It was just one of those games with all those shots that we couldn’t make the breakthrough.
“We’ve been on a terrific run. I’m very disappointed with the goal. That first goal was crucial.
“I can’t fault the players, though. We weren’t at our best but we were on the front foot for most of the game. It’s a good away performance from West Brom.
“If you can keep it to 0-0 you always have a chance. And Ben Foster has made some fantastic saves to keep them in the game. Losing is a big disappointment but we’ll be back in tomorrow and get going again.” ai??i?? Rodgers said in the post-match interview.
For West Brom it was an wonderful result and one that could provide a fresh start to their Premier League campaign. This win was their first in 2013 and it has helped them leapfrog their opponent Liverpool to 9th place in the table.
West Brom manager Steve Clarke was delighted that his team finally got the result that their performance deserved and hoped that it would provide the spring board for greater success.
“It’s not been the best start to the year so it was good to come here and play well. It was a terrific win.
“Things haven’t gone our way this year. We’ve been producing perfectly decent performances but we’ve not been getting the results. But to come to Anfield and beat a Liverpool team who are probably playing as well as they have all season is great.
“To get that kind of result and level of performance from the players…well, I’m absolutely delighted. They have put in so much effort to get that reward.” ai??i?? Clark was quoted in press.
The West Brom manager also felt that the penalty awarded to Liverpool was ai???harshai??i??.
“When it was given, I thought it was really harsh. I’ve since spoken to people about it and they say it’s worse than harsh!
“When Ben saved that penalty, it gave us a positive momentum and I think we started thinking we could win the game. But we’ve always been one result from kick-starting the season again.
“Hopefully that result came tonight and we can kick on from here and start chasing the teams above us.” ai??i?? Clark added.
West Bromai??i??s hero of the night ai??i?? Ben Foster ai??i?? expressed his delight at getting their first win since defeating QPR in December last year and moving one step closer to the 40 points mark, which was their initial target at the start of the season.
“We needed that. We have been on a poor run but the performances have been decent.
“We knew we had a chance if we kept our performances up. We always knew set-pieces would be a big one for us and we managed to get one.”
“We have a tough game against Sunderland who themselves are on a decent run, we just have to take it a game at a time.
“We got off to a great start to the season and we are within touching distance of 40 (points).
“If you had said at this stage of the season we would be above Liverpool, we would have taken that.” ai??i?? Foster told Skysports.
Highlights
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