City v Liverpool Post Match

[BillyShears]

Surprised so many people are being critical of MdM. Thought he was for the most part very good. He made the odd loose pass but in comparison to the 20 million Lovren he was a veritable rock.

 

[aguero93:20]

Just seen the foul on Dzeko. Expect nothing else from Skertel but can't believe he gets away with it season after season.

Skirtl is a thug. Raked his studs down Dzeko's left thigh..

Deliberate or accidental?

100% deliberate

 

[Henkeman]

Anyone pick up on Tyler for the second goal. It was a sensational piece of play all round, retain possession, clever flick, pinpoint cross and delicious finish, Tyler's comments "when it's going your way that happens" like it was a scruffy Rag like goal involving a cross and 3'deflections. Then Smith pipes up with "the challenge is to retain the title like Manchester United have done so many times" the bias is beyond belief. Are they briefed to be like this or is it just sheer hatred for City?

Not really sure that can be levelled at Smith. He's one of the few who consistently purrs about City.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Strange that so many think that Liverpool were the better team in the first half. To me it looked very much like we toyed with a little in it. They didn't really get close to Hart whilst playing their best football. We on the other hand were quite happy to keep them out and almost toy with them at times with our passing. They wanted to play on the break and we didn't let them because to a man everyone in our side did their defensive duty with real gusto. Everytime we went forward we had Liverpool on the rack and it was only our own decision making at times in the final third rather than Liverpool's defending which kept us out.

So yeah, for me we were the better team first half and second. We bullied them without really getting into 4th gear (we were definitely in 3rd gear though!).

I thought they had the better of the first half overall without necessarily dominating, with more possession and us looking somewhat disjointed but I wonder how much Pellegrini had deliberately set us up to avoid the problem we had in the first half-hour at Anfield. There was no space for Sterling or Sturridge to run into this time and our full backs were less inclined to break forward as we've come to expect. I also think the fact we played Clichy over Kolarov said a lot about our defensive intent.

As we've seen with Liverpool, they tend to run out of steam after the first 30 minutes and that's when we started to exert some sustained pressure, leading to the first goal. We were well in control after that, apart from that spell around the time of their goal when we went into headless chicken mode for a few minutes.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Skirtl is a thug. Raked his studs down Dzeko's left thigh..

Deliberate or accidental?

100% deliberate

Absolutely. The replay from behind them clearly shows Skrtel raising his right leg and driving down on Dzeko's thigh as he meets him.

It was intentional and could have done serious damage (though, hopefully didn't) but no retrospective action will be taken just as his rugby tackles in the box during corners are always ignored.

 

[uwe rosler 28]

I too thought MD had a good game but fellow blues after the game in the pub thought different. Weird one the split in opinion on his performance last night.

Some people just don't like/rate him and they won't change there mind he'll always be the scapegoat to them and they'll be ready to jump on any slight mistake he makes. Thought he had a good game along with clichy fernando and jovetic. A bit scary go think we've not really got out ov first gear yet and we're still comfortably winning difficult games. Thought silva nasri yaya and vinny still looked short of sharpness and thought pellers got it spot on with tatics liverpool always fade after 30 mins and thats when we took over .

 

[oakiecokie]

Anyone pick up on Tyler for the second goal. It was a sensational piece of play all round, retain possession, clever flick, pinpoint cross and delicious finish, Tyler's comments "when it's going your way that happens" like it was a scruffy Rag like goal involving a cross and 3'deflections. Then Smith pipes up with "the challenge is to retain the title like Manchester United have done so many times" the bias is beyond belief. Are they briefed to be like this or is it just sheer hatred for City?

Not really sure that can be levelled at Smith. He's one of the few who consistently purrs about City.

I watched the game this morning and overall Smith had nothing but praise for City and as you say,he really does think we`re the bees knees.

 

[BillyShears]

apart from that spell around the time of their goal when we went into headless chicken mode for a few minutes.

I've got a real problem with this - it's not the first time it's happened. You can see that the team is just so used to attacking and moving into spaces further and further up the pitch, that when we do need to sit tight like that for 10 minutes, we inevitably end up looking worse defensively than we do when we're attacking at full throttle. We could've and should've buried them when Dinho came on. Passed through them and scored one or two more. Instead everyone decided it was time to play hoof ball. Bizarre and unnecessary with that many ball players on the pitch.

 

[BillyShears]

Anyone pick up on Tyler for the second goal. It was a sensational piece of play all round, retain possession, clever flick, pinpoint cross and delicious finish, Tyler's comments "when it's going your way that happens" like it was a scruffy Rag like goal involving a cross and 3'deflections. Then Smith pipes up with "the challenge is to retain the title like Manchester United have done so many times" the bias is beyond belief. Are they briefed to be like this or is it just sheer hatred for City?

Not really sure that can be levelled at Smith. He's one of the few who consistently purrs about City.

I watched the game this morning and overall Smith had nothing but praise for City and as you say,he really does think we`re the bees knees.

Disagree. I'm not really an "agenda" sort of guy, but honestly if anyone believes that the commentary would've been the same were it United putting Liverpool to the sword or Arsenal even, then they're just wrong. The biased and negative nature of the commentary from both of them was beyond the pale from so called neutrals. Actually I can only speak for the first half, because second half I watched the local broadcast rather than the English one because I was sick of listening to those two muppets talk down everything we did.

 

[taconinja]

apart from that spell around the time of their goal when we went into headless chicken mode for a few minutes.

I've got a real problem with this - it's not the first time it's happened. You can see that the team is just so used to attacking and moving into spaces further and further up the pitch, that when we do need to sit tight like that for 10 minutes, we inevitably end up looking worse defensively than we do when we're attacking at full throttle. We could've and should've buried them when Dinho came on. Passed through them and scored one or two more. Instead everyone decided it was time to play hoof ball. Bizarre and unnecessary with that many ball players on the pitch.

This will perhaps sound odd, but I think we didn't adjust well once Sterling went off and Sturridge moved to our left side. Clichy moved farther up the pitch instead of dropping back as far as he had when Sterling was in the game, and that left MDM one-on-one with Sturridge and that cost us.