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Downing: We have to kill off teams to win

Comment: 0 December 13th, 2011 by: admin

LIVERPOOL winger Stewart Downing recently remarked that his team is at the point where they must take advantage of weakened teams in order to survive in the Premier League race.

Although bearing a comparatively favourable form with only 1 loss in 10 Premier League matches, the Reds have only recently ended a mediocre 4-match draw streak at home, and with a lukewarm 1-0 victory against the Queens Park Rangers.

The match threatened to end in another draw until Luis Suarez found the net by the 47^th minute.

The final result, although reflecting a Liverpool win, added to the growing trend of the Reds not scoring more than 2 goals since late August.

According to Downing, the Reds must break out into a more ruthless team in order to garner the big wins that they deserve.

‘Our performances have been very good this season, and we have created plenty of chances, but the biggest issue so far is we haven’t converted enough,’ Downing admitted.

‘We haven’t scored enough goals and that means we haven’t killed teams off.  We all know we have to finish them off when you get those sort of chances, because if you don’t they invariably punish you at this level.

‘Hands up,’ he continued, ‘if we’d taken more opportunities this season then we’d be in a much better position, and we all know that.’

Aside from the overall final scores, Liverpool have also shown a lack of conversion in its individual players, with star striker Luis Suarez being the sole member to have scored over 2 goals in the Premier League this season.

Despite this, Suarez himself has shown a lack of fire power with his 5^th EPL goal, scored this weekend against QPR, being his first conversion since the opening of October.

The same lack of goals has also reportedly plagued striker Dirk Kuyt who, despite usually having over 10 goals in the League, is yet to score one goal this season.

‘The strange thing is, we are top when it comes to the number of times we’ve hit the bar and the post this season, and that is almost uncanny,’ said Kuyt.

‘It seems that every goalkeeper who comes to Anfield is playing the game of their year.  We have to manage that and believe in ourselves.

‘Sometimes,’ Kuyt continues, ‘it comes down to that bit of luck that can change things, because I’m a believer these things go in cycles – sometimes football is like this.  You just have to keep working hard and keep going.’

With regard to the apparent lack of conversions from individual players, Kuyt explained that there is something to be said at least from the fact that while their goal tally has not been impressive, their rate of yielding goals is a different story.

‘It’s not like we’re creating chances,’ said Kuyt.  ‘We all feel like we are really close.  We have the confidence to keep going and I’m sure soon we will score more of our chances.’

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