I have a long old drive up on Matchdays and back down again, and so to pass the time I usually have either 5 Live or Talk Shite on in the car until I come off the motorway when its usually time to listen to GMR. (I could talk to my boys but you know how it is).
Listening to the pundits on the way up, they were all so certain Liverpool were going to win that when came off the M6 my eldest said we might as well turn around and go straight home. Grizzled old scouser after grizzled old scouser was trotted out to say that Liverpool had the experience, the pressure was all on Mancini,Torres was back, City were poor given what they had spent, Liverpool were starting to hit form etc etc. I doubt any of them had seen anything of City other than the Stoke game (and maybe the Bolton game) on telly. Not one pundit that I heard (and I was flicking between the channels so I may have missed some) gave City a chance. Not one pundit I heard referred to the facts that we have not lost at home at all this season, only lost one league match at home in the whole of 2009, and have already beaten United, Chelsea and Arsenal (twice) on our patch this season.
Then on the way back down, cynical old hack after cynical old hack was wheeled out to say what a poor game it had been how dire both teams had been, how negative both sides had been, blah blah blah. I really did think these people had watched a different game to me. (Sure it was 0-0 with few goal mouth chances but there was a lot to enjoy on both sides – Gerrard was anonymous but every now and then did something very cute, Ade had a great game but with little service, Adam Johnson got no change out of Carragher but did much better when he switched with Sweep, Lescott had his best game in a City shirt, Skirtel’s challenge on Ade when he was clean through was absolutely top-drawer, etc).
And despite all these expert analysts, no-one that I heard referred to Liverpool’s six yellow cards, not one of them referred to Mascherano’s challenge on Barry (poss a straight red, definitely a second yellow), none of them referred to Benitez’ lack of ambition, none of them referred to Agger’s shove on Ade in the area even though Torres got booked (booked ffs!) for the same thing later on, none of them saw the other glaring refereeing inconsistencies which a lot has been said about on other threads. In other words, the things that were the talking points for those at the game were pretty much ignored completely.
I don’t think all this is anti City bias, I just think it is lazy journalism; a load of scousers and ex Liverpool players get dragged out onto a radio show hosted by a dipper and what do you expect them to say? Give a load of journalists a game with few chances and what do you expect them to say? For the most part, a fairly high proportion of posters on this forum actually go to the games and the posts on this forum are a truer reflection of the game than much of the media coverage which I have seen or heard. For any blue-mooners who didn’t go, a word to the wise: completely ignore whatever the media said about City before and after Sunday’s game.
What they said was utter shite.
