Man City vs. Liverpool FC || December 26

sportsczy wrote:So you guys really feel that Liverpool played well here?

Without a hint of a doubt . . .   

sportsczy wrote:Meh...  City was without Aguero too.  Games like this better show management the true quality of players.

Midfield needs a complete overhaul.  None of them are top quality.

We did not lose this game in Midfield today. We lost it on offensive errors. Our midfield created enough chances to win

Every single City fan on Bluemoon is saying we are by far the toughest team they've played at Etihad this year. 2nd toughest after Bayern in all competitions.

defensive midfield... not talking about the attack. City was getting to Liverpool's back 4 with extreme ease. The saving grace was that they had to respect Suarez and the Liverpool attack; so they were more conservative in how they attacked compared to usual.

Remember... No aguero either. Bluemoon guys are forgetting that their team was missing their best player on the attack.

Good game in the first half... very good. Second half wwas poor imo.

sportsczy wrote:defensive midfield...  not talking about the attack.  City was getting to Liverpool's back 4 with extreme ease.  The saving grace was that they had to respect Suarez and the Liverpool attack; so they were more conservative in how they attacked compared to usual.

Remember...  No aguero either.  Bluemoon guys are forgetting that their team was missing their best player on the attack.

Good game in the first half...  very good.  Second half wad poor imo.

Yes, they were missing Aguero, but we were missing Sturridge (who would have very likely finish the chance Sterling missed, and was voted MOTM in the same fixture last season).

And yes, they were more conservative than usual, because they knew they'd get punished by us if they commit too many forward.

Some player ratings from me:

Mignolet: 7 - Negredo's shot went in too easily.
Johnson: 7.5 - Fine in attack and looked more up for this one than a couple of previous games.
Skrtel: 7 - Was marking Kompany when he scored, but otherwise defended well.
Sakho: 7.5 - Good performance apart from some nervous times on the ball.
Cissokho: 8 - Better than Flanagan against attacking talent the calibre of City, imo. Performed well both ways.
Lucas: 7 - Not good, not bad.
Allen: 6.5 - Did his usual, nothing special and again coming up short offensively.
Coutinho: 7.5 - Scored our only goal, but perhaps could've been better.
Sterling: 7.5 - He is getting in such good positions, but needs to work on his touch and finishing. Denied a clear goal...
Henderson: 8 - A work horse once again and although wasn't that involved in attacking moves this time, managed still to be a key contributor and links up with Suarez really well.
Suarez: 8 - Set up a few good chances but was kept otherwise quiet. Still looked our most dangerous player.

Very happy with our performance. Unlike other big teams; we actually took the game to City in the Etihad rather than reactionary and sacrificial CT plans which are without identity. Rodgers spoke big words within the pre-match and did not back out.

Was very impressed by our midfield in the 1st half as Allen was positionally excellent in recovering balls in recycling them. Henderson (who was our best player today) has once again shown how his command of the midfield and intelligence within central areas is excellent in all aspects. Lucas on the other hand while committing to his role adequately in the 1st half, was completely outshone within the 2nd and looked out of his depth. After the admirable performance vs Cardiff I expected much more from him yet once again it is testament to his atrocious season.

Cissokho given my expectations of him performed above his depth and was rather responsible defensively. Unfortunately, Navas destroyed him in the 2nd half as Cissokho also failed to track back responsibly, numerous times. Terrible how a much superior Flano had to miss this game.

Sakho defensively was our best yet criminal to some daft errors in possession to which were committed in an unforgivable series of frequent events. Rather sad given his bursts forward and long passes catalysed many counters.

Skrtel I will maintain has little idea how to read a game instead resorting to (wonderfully) timed last-ditch tackles to which actually cover for his positional errors. Disappointed in his timing for the jump vs Kompany while his positioning in the 2nd goal was shockingly bad. Agger while poor in the air provides a much better presence on ground and stimulates our counters fluidly.


Glen Johnson, I am absolutely tired of. Not only he is slack in defence in his pathetic workrrate and positioning, he offers little to nothing in the offence and has seemingly lost the agility and flair that made use of his ambidexterity. I see a player on a decline despite the age of 29 as fatigue or form cannot fit my book of excuses for him any more. Would like to see Kelly indefinitely until he fixes his act.

Happy with Suarez' performance. I would have liked him to drop deeper to get involved within the link-up needed yet it was only testament to how sorely we missed the direct-threat of Daniel Sturridge. He didn't show frustration or petulance, continued to find solutions and created 2 chances; one of them missed awfully by Sterling.

Sterling was excellent in the 1st half with his movement and some intelligent passes yet physically overwhelmed within the 2nd; bringing in the sensation that he was out of his depth in taking on Zabaleta eventually.

Coutinho was brilliant until his influence waned which has me see that his movement has been figured out on the left (as an LAM) which is why I yearn for his central deployment. His inside drifts from the left and passing options have been cancelled out well recently as compared to drifts central outside the box, to which his final ball is well used.

I was happy with Rodger's tactics yet not the response of the subs. I did not see the point of replacing Coutinho with an out-of-form Moses who would merely provide pace on the counter. Noticeable difference in our quality when Coutinho was in and out.

Aaspas was another unlucky inclusion given his lack of playing time would not provide anything to provide us the direct threat to which we needed. Rodger's didn't seem to realize that we were being outmatched physically in almost all our battles for possession; essentially the key crux in our loss tonight.

I would have liked Rodger's to find solutions in reinforcing our midfield to provide more service to the starved forwards. Yet, that is forgiveable given our lack of depth within the contingents of our squad.

As a whole my disappointment will be quelled if we defeat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, essentially regaining some footage after a deceiving drop to 4th place. I cannot stress enough the importance of that game.

Here's the biggest thing missing... Lucas Leiva needs to regain form. IF he can get his confidence somehow and return to his pre-injury level, then Liverpool will be great. That's the missing ingredient. Going forward, Henderson is improving and Allen is ok (his control is criminal near the box; but what can you do lol). If I were Liverpool, i'd get some backup in case Lucas remains in his current form...

For example, i would pay a lot of money for Cabaye lol. He may not be a ton better defensively. But he's scrappy and he will make the midfield flow so much better.

If Cabaye goes to another team (seems likely given who's interested), then i'd go after Gonalons of Lyon. He hasn't had the best year so his price of 30 mil that Lyon wanted has dropped to something reasonable. He's being exposed by a truly horrible CB pairing at Lyon... he has a lot of talent and he's tough. Very much worth a shot. Liverpool have more money than Roma, which is where he's being rumored to.

If PSG get Cabaye, then i'd approach them and try to get Rabiot on loan for 2 years. Kid is a beast in the making. Arqi will attest to the fact... this year, he's FORCED Blanc to give him 20+ appearances already and he's only 18.

Reason i'm mentioning these are they're available and affordable other than Cabaye probably. Worth it for Liverpool imo.

Liverpool can become a beastly defensive team to go with the attack if this gets solved.

In this moment Suarez is the best in Europe... Mourinho will be worried. Zabaleta has played another great match ( best RB of Premier by a mile ) but for example in the 2nd half the Argentinian was humiliated with embarrassing ease by Suarez on a couple of situations.
Simply irrepressible.
Unfortunately today El Pistero never had chances to score but  he was forced simply to create  chances for others. .Then  wasted by his teammates . the miss by Sterling was terrible.
He missed a similar goal against West Ham United.
It is not the only chance that will increase the regrets . In 1st half Coutinho had an enormous chance as a  penalty on the move , it  would have been 0-2 .....

How many points has lost Liverpool for  outrageous mistakes this year. How don't forget the miss by Allen in Merseyside derby . . It was the ball for 1-3 . The sliding door for Premier League of Liverpool probably..

impossible to forget refereeing errors then, it perplexes me all .... from beginning to end ...  culminated with the yellow ridiculous to Suarez  household refeeering today..

The great performance  of Liverpool remains anyway , a great Improvement in MENTALITY  compared to 2-0 with Arsenal, a brick on which to start.

Uunfortunately today  Mignolet betradyed, just today....  he was impeccable so far.

We're going to run roughshod over them at Anfield in the second half. If this is what happens away, we'll be unstoppable at home, even with Aguero involved.

Take heart from this game. While it's one of those we may feel "what could have been" about, it was also the biggest statement of heart I've seen from this team since I started following. I have a feeling we're going to see a stunning performance this weekend... these players are HUNGRY.

stevieg8 wrote:We're going to run roughshod over them at Anfield in the second half.  If this is what happens away, we'll be unstoppable at home, even with Aguero involved.

Take heart from this game.  While it's one of those we may feel "what could have been" about, it was also the biggest statement of heart I've seen from this team since I started following.  I have a feeling we're going to see a stunning performance this weekend... these players are HUNGRY.

just what i wanted to read...SG

Top post Stev

Like I said before the match, even if we lost really badly this match wouldn't hinder our season in any way.

We should take heart from this match. Amazing performances of grit and determination form the lads. Top marks to Brendan.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
EDIT Months Later






Their Goals

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

McAgger wrote:Top post Stev

Like I said before the match, even if we lost really badly this match wouldn't hinder our season in any way.

We should take heart from this match. Amazing performances of grit and determination form the lads. Top marks to Brendan.

I think a devastating loss could've been a blow to morale, and it would've been a test for BR to see how he got the team responding just three days later. If we had lost 6-0 here, it could've easily sent us into a tailspin.

Instead, the narrative in the dressing room is that we can go punch for punch with the media's darling, the team that everyone was saying had the best shot at the title WHILE WE WERE TOP. They'll feel robbed after this game, not just by the refs but by their own unlucky finishing, and their own lapses of judgement, and by making it close they'll want it that much more.

While I'd obviously prefer to pick up three points, I think this loss may be good for this team. It wasn't a last minute heartbreaker; instead, it was hard fought, we held our own, and came up just short, and it will remind them what it's going to take moving forward.

Gerrard, Sturridge and Enrique will be back, and reinforcements will be added. The depth issue will be better in the second half. And meanwhile, this team is ready to take it to anyone in the league.

Go work on finishing on the mini-size training nets for two days, come back out and put 5 past Chelsea. If we play like we did today it won't surprise me in the least.

sportsczy wrote:So you guys really feel that Liverpool played well here?

In all previous games, no one went to Etihad and pushed City. You feel we didn't play well because of the 'it could have been so much better' factor. Yes we had some bloopers without which a commendable performance would have been an outright thrashing.

Typical game against City then... a mistake from a keeper, and a conceding from a set piece.

City may have been the "better side" looking at stats, but we had all the clear cut chances.

We deserved ATLEAST a draw, let's just hope the players get some confidence out of this. This is the first time City at home have looked nervous; they couldn't play their game. They were there for the taking in the first half yet came out on top towards the end. In the second, it was a different story. We didn't want to concede, so we slowed down the tempo. My boy Raheem was probably MOTM before that miss. :(We had no chance of winning after he missed that one.

@Sports: Cabaye is not what we need. And he wouldn't have made a difference yesterday.

stevieg8 wrote:We're going to run roughshod over them at Anfield in the second half.  If this is what happens away, we'll be unstoppable at home, even with Aguero involved.

Take heart from this game.  While it's one of those we may feel "what could have been" about, it was also the biggest statement of heart I've seen from this team since I started following.  I have a feeling we're going to see a stunning performance this weekend... these players are HUNGRY.

Well said. We completely missed Sturridge today. Kompany and Suarez were going at it, it was 50-50 in terms of their duals. But we need someone in this team to take off the burden off Suarez scoring.

We had "easy" chances yet fluffed every single of one of them... if only Luis was played through.

EDIT: Also, am I the only one pissed off at Moses?

He can't play against Chelsea, he's very rarely played in the past. Yet he looks lazy. He didn't close down, all his passes went backwards... I'm starting to believe he's some sort of secret agent from Mourinho to make Chelsea finish above us.

ROFL at the Mirror attacking both Suarez and Rodgers.



Also, Glen and Lucas have got a lot of stick from this game.

I don't buy it.

Yes they're not at the level they once were at, yes they're not doing anything to make you go "wow" this season (yet), but they're doing a solid job. They're both starting to become the most underrated players in the team right now. Without them, the whole team would break apart.