It Happens: Liverpool 1 -Wigan 1

I suppose, as others had pointed out, if Liverpool had drawn with Chelsea and beaten Wigan, it would be about what we expected. But the point of beating Chelsea is the bonus of points you weren't counting on, and thus losing out on that hurts and shouldn't have happened.

If Saturday proved anything, it's how short our squad is. You could blame Hodgson for that if you wanted, as if he'd done better with the money and salary allotted to Joe Cole or Christian Poulsen maybe we'd have more useful alternates when the big guns aren't around. Injuries didn't help, but this is mostly the squad Rafa left us with. David Ngog, Milan Jovanovic, Maxi Rodriguez were depended upon with Steven Gerrard and Andy Carroll hurt, and Meireles sick after the first half. They couldn't deliver. Once again, Dirk Kuyt was active but his lack of pace or touch keeps getting exposed, especially when he's getting weary which is what it certainly looks like. In the end, after four wins on the spin there was always going to be a clunker, and I can't get too much in a twist about it. 13 out of 15 points the rest of the way would see the Reds land around 67 points or so, which would at least make things interesting. Other thoughts:

-When Meireles went off, did anyone have any idea what formation we were playing? 4-2-4? Does Maxi have a position, or once again was he just let out to wander around and stretch his legs?

-I stopped counting in the first half of the amount of attacks that were broken down by Kuyt's poor touch or a poor pass.

-Why didn't Suarez take more freekicks?

-Speaking of Suarez, I can't wait to see him along a more stable frontman than Kuyt, namely Carroll. I don't know if Carroll will have the vision that Kuyt has to spot Suarez's runs (though he can't ultimately pick the pass), but Suarez was so far and away the best player on the pitch it's kind of silly.

-Yes, Wigan's goal may have been offside, but just barely and you can't count on always getting those decisions. Should have been buried before that anyway.

In the end, it's disappointing but it's a measure of how far we've come in such a short time that we can shrug off a draw instead of treating it as another arrow through our heart. Two Europa League games to deal with before we get back to the league, should be a nice distraction.