For a team that won 5-1, Liverpool had a disappointing amount of possession. The first two goals came after Leicester had the reds on the back-foot and both were on the break. That shouldn’t detract from the quality of the moves, or the finishes but it was unbelievable that Liverpool were 2-0, and then 3-0 up.

When Liverpool did have the ball, they didn’t do much with it. They hurried their passing and struggled to string more than 3-4 passes together. As the game openened up, the reds were guilty of losing the ball in important areas of the pitch. A move like that resulted in the Leicester goal but it could have been so much more. They had two 1-on-1s with the goalkeeper and hit the woodwork three times.Even the excellent Andre Wisdom had a tendency to get rid rather than take time and pick a pass.

The passing was often over-ambitious all night and the objective appeared to be catching Leicester for pace rather than building sustained pressure. This meant that when Liverpool had broken up a Leicester attack, too often they found themselves on the back-foot soon after. It would have been better to see the players know when to make the ambitious pass and when to play it simple.

Leicester didn’t make it easy for Liverpool, often by-passing midfield completely. But the holding players didn’t stamp any authority on the game, disappointing for someone with the footballing abilities of Michael Roberts in particular.

Liverpool were also a bit rash in the tackle. Although the second of the two bookings was harsh, Roberts could have seen red at a higher level and Coady dived in too frequently for a player in that position.Coupled with this, the team was particularly effective at closing down Leicester. They didn’t hunt in pairs, as the first team does at its best and rarely hassled Leicester into a mistake in midfield. That left a lot of work for the defenders.

There were also individual things to work on:

• It was disappointing to see just how often Michael Ngoo was beaten in the air by the centrebacks
• Matty McGiveron was caught out a couple of times, though once rescued it with a brilliant saving tackle
• Deale Chamberlain was indecisive coming off his line and this led to a couple of great opportunities for Leicester
• Tom Ince often gave up when he lost the ball rather than track back

The point of all these negatives is not to be overly-critical (although I am a grumpy bugger). But when you bring in coaching staff from Barcelona, you aspire to a quality of football that was often missing tonight. Liverpool have assembled some great cup-tie winning teams at this level over the last few years, without developing players who can play consistently at the next level (Darby and Spearing not withstanding). If the new philosophy is to work, it needs to depend less on results and more about the style and ethos of the football.

But at least the team has more confidence and gets to play on in the competition. Next up, Watford or Hartlepool at Anfield.

Related posts:

1. Liverpool v Leicester City FA Youth Cup Preview
2. Liverpool v Wolves FA Youth Cup analysis
3. Liverpool reserves v Hull City post match analysis

“Henry Winter is a poncey gobshite who watched football from the study window as a child rather than playing it.
“He is the Martin Tyler’s Monkey of Sports writers. He’s in with the old boys club and that includes Liverpool players. Nothing is every the fault of Gerrard or Carragher.

Juan Loco, Red and White Kop

“Henry Winter is a fairweather friend to us. It was cold and foggy tonight, therefore he’s being a c*nt again
macca888, Red and White Kop

“Everyone from Collymore to Hansen to Merson to to Lawrenson to Bright to Cascarino to Henry Winter are spreading lies and making false accusations against our number one.”
Captain-Carra on RAWK

So I’ve looked back at Henry Winter‘s track record to try and assess whether he’s a journalist Liverpool fans can trust.

I’ve no doubt that Henry Winter respects Liverpool Football Club. He wrote last season:

“walking up to Anfield is always one of the most emotive match-day experiences possible in English football.”

and

“If Robbie Keane and Andrea Dossena do not appear £27m well-spent, Benitez’s overall record is good. It is too premature to turn against him.”

He also has a track-record of association with the club. Henry Winter was the ghost writer of Kenny Dalglish’s autobiography and co-wrote Steven Gerrard’s excellent autobiography. It’s inconceivable that those two, in particular,  don’t trust him and whilst they may not have his number on speed dial, I’m sure that he gets more private insights into the club from them than many other journalists do.

Last season, he was occasionally critical of the club’s performances – although none more so than many fans. Whilst Winter didn’t cover himself in glory by declaring in February:

“Another year wasted, another title campaign in ruins and another blow to Rafa Benitez’s reputation: Liverpool’s credibility this season now rests on progress in the Champions League – and that’s a fact.”

Henry Winter has a strong track-record of saying nice things about Liverpool’s star players: Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher.

“In an age of change, Gerrard’s devotion to one cause is remarkable.

“Steven Gerrard has all the trappings of fame but he will never be trapped by them.

“Not many footballers have Cup finals named after them. Gerrard has two: the Champions League epic of 2005 and the FA Cup climax the following year.

And when Gerrard dived to win the last minute penalty against Athletico Madrid in the Champions League, Winter made no reference to Gerrard’s embarrassingly dramatic dive but focussed on the Madrid players ‘losing their discipline’.

It’s not that Henry Winter thinks Liverpool is a team man team. He praised Mascherano and Alonso for a couple of performances last season. He also wrote:

“The question has never been about whether Liverpool boasted the spine to win the title, certainly not with a backbone of Reina-Carragher-Gerrard and soon Mascherano and Torres. The problem has been the supporting cast. The arrival of Martin Skrtel, a mixture of the no nonsense and nimble, and, more recently, the indefatigable Robbie Keane and promising Albert Riera has given Anfield reason to hope.”

Unfortunately he also wrote: “Ryan Babel could emulate [Ronny] Rosenthal – if used through the middle. Liverpool have options.” But it would be wrong to hold that against him; many Liverpool fans have thought something similar from time to time.

However, Winter has never been particularly complementary about Benitez. Last season he produced a full-range of subtle criticisms of El Gafa:

“When Benitez eventually quits these shores, his leaving do will feature few members of the managerial community.

“Jose Mourinho is 1,000 miles awaybut remains at the forefront of Benitez’s thoughts.

“So no more rotation please and it is known that Liverpool’s players have held inquests into why they dropped points at home to lesser foe.

“Maybe all the “negative Liverpool’’ jibes made him loosen up, eschewing his usual caution” [After the Real Madrid second leg].

“When assessing whether Anfield’s love affair with Benitez has soured because of some crazy tactical decisions by the Spaniard in domestic combat, certain realities need remembering. There will always be Istanbul 05 when Liverpool played poorly (but won), always be the memory of his tactical destruction of Barcelona in Camp Nou, always be the reality that he also reached Athens 07 when Liverpool actually played well (but lost) . . . Any Kop dissent towards Benitez may come only if the coach fails in his usual European Cup trick of outwitting distinguished opposition. Real Madrid lie in wait and passage to the quarter-finals would reinvigorate Benitez’s standing.

“Keane’s treatment simply exposes the reality that Benitez is a cold manager, clearly an individual raised at icy Real Madrid rather than in Liverpool’s more compassionate, family-driven atmosphere. Gerrard’s famous lament about Benitez, that his career ambition remained a desire for a “well done off Rafa”, has never rung truer. Benitez’s approach to man-management has always been a hand at the throat not an arm around the shoulder. Cold, cold, cold. Benitez is a one-man cold snap.

Winter has occasionally resorted to statements that are just inaccurate:

“Then the murmurs of disapproval towards Benitez might become a chorus. Then the annoyance over why on earth he takes off Gerrard and Torres will spill forth . . . Benitez has erred with his substitutions, with not drilling the players enough in combating corners, corners and free-kicks and with that naïve outburst at Sir Alex Ferguson.

That, after we’d just beaten Real Madrid in the Bernabeau, Portsmouth away and were yet to lose to Middlesbrough.

That notwithstanding, there has been no inaccurate transfer speculation (although he urged the club sign Emile Heskey last winter), no inaccurate quotes about zonal marking, substitution by numbers, resting Torres or rotating more than other managers.

One of Winter’s most controversial articles this season was ‘Rafael Benítez will blame everyone but himself for Liverpool’s plight‘, which triggered my exchange with Gareth Roberts. In that article, he claimed that:

“some people tire of the self-absorbed Spaniard. We’ve heard all the excuses before. We’ve seen the utter reliance on Gerrard, Torres and, for all his recent woes, Carragher.”

And the passage that concerned me:

“Liverpool can afford to sack Benítez. Compensation would be less than £5 million under the “mitigating the loss” principle if he found employment, but no desire can be detected within the club for a regime change.

“The impressive managing director, Christian Purslow, is not the type for knee-jerk reactions. But it is known around Anfield that Purslow has talked to Benítez about his style of management, notably his cold detachment from the players.

“Sensible businesses plan for succession and any defenestration of Benítez should take place only in the close-season. Who knows? Benítez might win the FA Cup.

That particularly worried me – it sounded like a passage that could only have been written after a private chat with someone senior in the football club.

Henry Winter might not be your favourite journalist – and I haven’t written about the nice things he’s said about Everton and Manchester United. But he’s not antagonistic towards Liverpool Football Club – and apparently has good relationships with key figures inside the club. Although he is a Benitez-sceptic he stops short of the foolish uninformed criticisms that others make.

Verdict: Henry Winter is no Benitez fan but has good enough relationships with the club to respect what he has to say.

Related posts:

1. Journalists Liverpool fans can trust
2. George Gillett says sack Rafa? Don’t believe the papers
3. Why sacking Rafa Benitez opens a wound that won’t heel

There’s a view amongst Liverpool fans that you can’t trust any journalists. I’m not sure I can change anyone’s mind but in my research, I’d like to discover whether there are some journalists that can be trusted.

Others have a particular those that work for the Sun and some of those, by extension, with other News International titles. I have some sympathy with that – particularly when those fans are Liverpool born and bred. The Sun’s coverage of Hillsborough is at the root cause of this, but there’s also a perception that many journalists (think Boris Johnson) have consistently denigrated the city.

Some fans critise journalists that they don’t like (eg. participants on Jimmy Hill’s Sunday Supplement) - or those with which they disagree by attacking their motives (bitter blue, closet Manc). I hope to bust some of these myths but also highlight when particular journalists have a clear track record which makes their work biased or untrustworthy.

So how can you assess which journalists to trust? It’s not simple, but I’m going to use Journalisted - an index of every journalists’ output – and look at the articles that they’ve written over the last couple of seasons in order to find out:

1. Are there themes that they write about consistently? eg. zonal marking, Rafa being defensive
2. Do they repeat statements which aren’t borne out by the facts? eg. conceding from setpieces in 2006/07 and 2007/08 or Rafa rotates more than other managers
3. Do they speculate about things that haven’t come to pass? eg. transfer speculation
4. When they criticise, are such criticisms put in context? eg. Rafa’s net spend

This is the list of journalists I will analyse, so do suggest others I should look at:

1. Henry Winter
2. Patrick Barclay
3. Richard Williams
4. Chris Bascombe
5. Steve Wilson
6. Rory Smith
7. James Ducker
8. Oliver Kay
9. Matt Dickinson
10. Ian Ladyman

Related posts:

1. Henry Winter: Should Liverpool fans trust him?
2. Liverpool defending setpieces
3. Victims of Crime Trust mystery

The child’s parents, and members of the local community provided evidence undermining some of the claims in the article – particularly that he had been expelled from a number of schools (he had not).

The PCC ruled against the newspaper on for a breach of the code on accuracy (clause one) and children (clause six).

However, the ruling was not straightforward. On the basis of the evidence available, I believe that the Scottish News of the World was unfairly censured and should have the right of appeal. Here’s why.

The PCC’s adjudication is only 127 words long – less than half the average length of recent adjudications. That means it’s difficult to identify all of the different factors in its decision. However, from the information that is available, the PCC’s adjudication appears to be inconsistent with previous cases.

The ruling against the accuracy of the boy’s truancy appears to be justified. The boy’s parents provided clear evidence to refute the claim and the newspaper did not. However, the ruling against the claims of anti social behaviour is less clear cut. Whilst the parents galvanised the support of 100 local people, the newspaper had a diary of his behaviour from local residents, letters from local politicians as well as three interventions from the police that summer. The PCC is not there to determine whether the newspaper was correct – just whether it had made reasonable efforts to ensure the accuracy of the article. On that basis, the Scottish News of the World appears to not have broken the code and its earlier offer of a right to reply would normally have been enough for the PCC – as it was in Peaches Geldof v Daily Star.

The second part of the PCC’s ruling deals with the fact that the case concerns a child. It is on this part of the code where the PCC’s ruling appears to be inconsistent with previous cases. Newspapers are allowed to report issues concerning children if there is a public interest in “exposing crime or serious impropriety”. In the case of Brian Souter and son v Scottish Sun the PCC rejected the complaint because criminal behaviour (the son stealing his father’s car) was not part of the child’s private life.

The Scottish News of the World further justified its coverage on the basis that it “had not named the child and taken care to obscure his identity”. Based on previous cases, this should have been enough to comply with the code. In A man v Northwich Guardian the PCC rejected the complaint on the basis that clause six was not intended to place “a blanket ban on publishing (childrens’) photographs or stories about them without their consent”. In two further cases the PCC rejected complaints because the newspaper did not publish information which was further detrimental to the child’s welfare (Carolyn Cunningham and Paul John Ferris v Daily Record) and because there was already information in the public domain (Ian Cooper v Cambridge News). The identity of the boy was clearly known by the 100 local residents who supported the complaint against the Scottish News of the World, so it is hard to understand how the newspaper revealed additional information (and the article is no longer available online).

That the case also took 15 months for the PCC to determine the outcome demonstrates that it was not straightforward. The PCC say that the average case is adjudicated within 35 days. It does not generally accept complaints that are made more than two months after publication of the article. The Scottish News of the World article appeared on 10 August 2008 and the adjudication appeared on 23 November 2009. So at the very least, this case took 400 days to assess.

This adjudication against the Scottish News of the World appears to be a threat to freedom of expression. If a newspaper cannot report a neighbour’s reports of anti social behaviour of a child (even if they pixellate the child’s face and try to obscure the identity) then many issues will go un-reported until they reach court. And one of the reasons for the introduction of anti social behaviour orders was the difficulty of bringing such issues to court.

The case may be more complicated than the adjudication reveals. It does make a passing reference to “the child’s medical condition”. But from the available information, the ruling is both at odds with the PCC’s previous decisions and a threat to the freedom of expression and the public’s right to know.

Related posts:

1. What should the PCC do about the Sunday World front page suicide photo?
2. Why Jan Moir and the Daily Mail will escape disciplinary action
3. Press Complaints Commission’s farcical investigation of Keith Vaz affair

The settled line-up has undoubtedly helped Liverpool – as has the break-through of players such as Amoo and Eccleston. Pacheco is really finding his feet at this level, too. It has, though, meant that players such as Flora and Weijl (international duty this week) not getting a look-in and first team fringers – Spearing in particular but also the likes of El Zhar when he’s fit – not playing regular football. That’s a real challenge for the structure of the league, and the setup at the club. 

The match

The first goal came after 25 minutes as I was wondering if we’d see any end product from David Amoo, although Hull played ot his reputation and regularly doubled up on the quick winger. He’d seen a lot of the ball but the final pass was consistently poor. A nice pass from Irwin out to the left found Kacaniklic who beat the defender and Amoo, with his back to goal did well to control the ball, turn and score with his left foot in the near post. However, for most of the first half the reds were totally dominant but sloppy in the final third.

 The rest of the goals came after half time. The second came after good work from Pacheco who set up Eccleston. The third was a welcome goal for Saric after a powerful run from Amoo.

There was support from across the Liverpool setup with Sammy Lee and TLW favourite Owen Brown watching on (apparently he heads up the scouting system now with Marcia) as well as Christian Purslow, the MD. Although, frankly, if I worked for LFC my wife would need to offer me significant inducements to stop me seeing every live game a Liverpool XI played.

In the first half in particular, there were frequent examples of the main problem for the reserve team: taking too much time in and around the penalty area rather than delivering the final pass decisively.

However, Liverpool reserves are great at winning the ball back in midfield: committed, tenacious, and determined. This was largely down to Irwin but also helped by Ayala reading the game well and a committed performance from Dani Pacheco.

Individual performances

Nathan Eccleston was again lively, playing across the front line. However, he would do well to try and pick out teammates more often, frequently ‘going solo’. He’s good – but not good enough to beat the whole Hull defence himself.

Mendy looks more solid every week.

Kacaniklic played well – an improvement on last week – was direct and looked to get the ball into the box. But David Amoo really caught the eye. He applied himself more than the last couple of weeks. His final ball wasn’t consistent but he ran at defenders and often did well, despite the amount of attention he received from Hull defenders.

Saric great close control, physically good but desperately needed a goal – he was at risk of becoming a kind of Morientes type figure.  Saric will be helped hugely – I hope – from scoring his first goal of the season and greater confidence in front of goal will add another dimension to his great build-up play. So far, he’s probably helped by the lack of alternatives in that position without the injured Dalla Valle and Nemeth out on loan.

Martin Hansen may have been unlucky with the penalty that led to Hull’s consolation goal – but he did dive in, even if he did get the ball. I still fail to understand why he gets picked ahead of Dean Bouzanis who gives a much greater sense of commanding his area – as well as being a solid shot-stopper.

Pacheco watch

Dani Pacheco is working hard on his all-round game and it’s not detracting from his attacking play. Just before half time there was a great example when Pacheco closed down an apparent lost-cause, won the ball and got away a good shot, saved by the keeper. He is developing a good understanding with Irwin, dropping deeper to cover the centrebacks when Irwin broke forward. He faded out of the game in the second half but went on a blistering run near the end down the right hand side, which should have resulted in Amoo’s hattrick. 

Next game: 24^th November – Wigan Athletic v Liverpool reserves:

Related posts:

1. Liverpool v Manchester City reserves: post match analysis
2. Liverpool reserves v Bolton reserves post match analysis
3. Liverpool reserves v Sunderland reserves post match analysis