Villarreal 1-0 Liverpool: Further Reflections

More tense than exciting, very interesting to see how tactics played out.

Villarreal playing Pina instead of Trigueros to partner Bruno was a sign that we were going for more defensive stolidity and ball control in the middle of the pitch.  Expect to see him again in Anfield.

Liverpool did a nice job of recovering the ball quickly in the middle of the pitch, was able to get it quickly to the wings, but Ruiz and Bailly dealt comfortably with the crosses that followed.  The shot Asenjo tipped against the post on the 65-minute mark was really the only time I remember a diagonal run created danger.

Marcelino won the substitutes battle-- he brought on fresh legs up front with Adrián for Soldado, and Castillejo, a much more direct player than J dos.

Some 0-0 games feel as if the 0-0 is inevitable.  This one didn't.  Liverpool were defensively pretty sound for 85 minutes.  Then Suarez opened them up with the chipped pass that Bakambu thought he had scored from--great save by Mignolet, and then Bruno, who to be honest had hit some horrible passes throughout the course of the match, played a brilliant ball to Suarez, and his first-time control and vision was great.  Can't imagine Adrián will ever have scored an easier goal.

Referee was excellent, and as expected, a lot of challenges that are whistled for fouls in Spain were not.  But he was very fair and consistent throughout.

Only time our defense was really breached over the top was called offside (Lallana wasn't).

1-0 is a slim lead and Liverpool will surely have more attacking intent in the second leg.  Of course, that will also leave them more vulnerable to the counterattack.

Key in the second leg is going to be for Villarreal to score at least one goal, I feel.  It should be a more open match than today's was, for sure.

Endavant!!

BBC announcers describing goal: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03sj9c6

Haven't heard a clip of Javi Mata's call yet!