Watched it. Every one of their four goals had similar aspects. Cut-backs/corners with deep runners in literally acres of space without a City player within yards. We defended in a line quite deep and invited them on to the ball. Unfortunately for us each of their finishes were wonderful but that doesn’t change the fact that our midfield was either too deep or not engaged. We have to find a way to defend the space immediately in front of the penalty box.On another night Haaland puts us 0-1 up with his first chance that hit the post and nothing else that happens after that occurs and the game ends up a boring 0-1 win and nobody mentions Kalvin Phillips maybe being an answer or Pep needing sacking. Yet we’d not have ended up with one of the great games of football this decade.
It was just one of those once-every-five-years mad games that was all about great attacking moves and cracking goals. It doesn’t need overanalysing, just watch the full game back and enjoy it.
Attempting to make some offhanded comment on the state of our standards and then lumping Kalvin and Grealish simultaneously into said comment is more than a tad daft.It shows how low our standards have fallen, people on here are praying for Calvin Phillips to start against Sunderland, and for Grealish to come back.
I agree, the fact that Phillips can’t make the side suggests he will see out his contract without playing. Grealish had a purple patch when we got the quadruple, but for me he never impressed, he seemed to piss about on the left wing whilst the opposition organised the defence. Doku is much more tricky to defend against.Attempting to make some offhanded comment on the state of our standards and then lumping Kalvin and Grealish simultaneously into said comment is more than a tad daft.
Not in my opinion mate. Litetally one of the worst I have seen.Abysmal footballer, a bit over the top don't you think ?
Watched it. Every one of their four goals had similar aspects. Cut-backs/corners with deep runners in literally acres of space without a City player within yards. We defended in a line quite deep and invited them on to the ball. Unfortunately for us each of their finishes were wonderful but that doesn’t change the fact that our midfield was either too deep or not engaged. We have to find a way to defend the space immediately in front of the penalty box.
I think Jack never was able to rise to the expectation of his price tag at a major club. He's a grittier- scrappy player and I think he is ideally suited right where he is- mid table low expectation club. As much as I'd love to see Jack in City blue chucking in scrappy goals, getting off hip shot crosses to Erl, getting into physical mix ups with opposing players and winding everyone else up --- I'm under no illusion if he did come back to City that he'd likely not hit the ground running to the speed he's currently at and fade to the bench again.I agree, the fact that Phillips can’t make the side suggests he will see out his contract without playing. Grealish had a purple patch when we got the quadruple, but for me he never impressed, he seemed to piss about on the left wing whilst the opposition organised the defence. Doku is much more tricky to defend against.
I agree completely with your wider point, but in a thread that's specifically related to last night's game, I would suggest that when 5-2 suddenly became 5-3 and 5-4, we probably needed Grealish's ability to repeatedly slow the game down, win a free kick, and then waste 20+ seconds complaining to the ref.I agree, the fact that Phillips can’t make the side suggests he will see out his contract without playing. Grealish had a purple patch when we got the quadruple, but for me he never impressed, he seemed to piss about on the left wing whilst the opposition organised the defence. Doku is much more tricky to defend against.
thats why I said I generally agreed with youFair comment, but I'm not wrong about the referee's attitude to it though, which is the bigger point I was making. When did you last see a referee at Anfield making an absolute show out of penalising Liverpool for every single second of 'time-wasting', the way that Omega miming fascist did last night?
Now not to be accused of being a happy clapper but lets have some perspective here, two dreadful performances BUT two wins any other team would be praised for finding ways to win when not playing great but for us the world is falling in.
To listen to the press we could be relegation candidates not two points behind the greatest tarquin team of all time also according to the press.
We all have the right to complain and some things absolutely need addressing but a bit of balance sometimes doesnt go amiss.
Luck. They were lucky with the 2 shots. Half the time those balls hit the rafters and are a mile off.Three points and five goals, fucking fantastic!
But wtf is wrong with us, letting them almost snatch a point from 5-1 down? Concentration? Fitness?
I think part of the problem is we have had our two main midfielders in Rodri and Kovacic out for a long time. Savinho will never be a defender and it's not really Nunez' game and he struggled when they put a Brazilian international on, but we can only play what we have got.What an incredibly weird match. We were brilliant at times and woeful for most of the second half.
Although Nico didn’t have his best game, his substitution showed how important he has become. That said all our substitutions were a little strange. Bernardo was out on his feet been played on.
Savinho came on and mixed one sublime cross with brainless decision making and the corner that led to their was incredible stupidity on his part.
Nunes does some great work but he gave away the ball badly for the first and was beaten time and again late on.
Gvardiol similarly mixes excellence with awful defending, his careless clearance gave them the corner which led to their first.
Haaland had a goal, 2 assists and hit the post twice, he was fired up of not quite ruthless
Foden was exceptional save for a couple of really poor decisions when we had counterattacks on.
Delighted to see Reijnders score but he does nothing out of possession.
Doku had a brilliant cross to Erling but after that couldn’t stop giving the ball away.
There’s a carelessness about this team at the moment, it’s not always apparent when we’re winning but we give away cheap possession from simple misplaced passes way too often at the moment. Equally we can be so wasteful on transitions and counters. In recent matches we won the ball high repeatedly but wasted great opportunities and tonight we had at least 3 gilt edged counterattacks but led to nothing through awful decisions.
We need another midfielder and really need a right back.
To be fair, to listen to a lot on here we could be relegation candidate sometimes. Hard to believe that despite how dire we apparently are we've clawed our way back to second in the league.Now not to be accused of being a happy clapper but lets have some perspective here, two dreadful performances BUT two wins any other team would be praised for finding ways to win when not playing great but for us the world is falling in.
To listen to the press we could be relegation candidates not two points behind the greatest tarquin team of all time also according to the press.
We all have the right to complain and some things absolutely need addressing but a bit of balance sometimes doesnt go amiss.
Once Gonzales and Doku went off everything after that for me is irrelevant! Pep teams mainly work with a 6 once he went off we were all over the place it was like the other players were clueless in stopping the midfield of Fulham! Plus 2/3 of Fulham’s goals were great!
Livramento was reported to say he was happy where he is. We looked at several alternatives and rejected them. We will be back in for Livramento I think.
We’re not reacting to teams changing their tactics like we used to. Guess it’s inevitable with a younger team.
Hence GD had to get treatment for Pep to tell the players what to do.
Hopefully we regain the ability to adapt quickly.