Do they think they've just won the league? Bloody hell, I've never seen a player and fans celebrate a friendly win like that, genuinely embarrassing. Imagine being them. When's the parade? For contrast, leicester won it last year for only the second time in their history, first in 50 years, they acted accordingly, similar to any other pre-season game with a trophy attached, they didn't act like they've just won something significant. Make no mistake, they're celebrating this wildly because its City, they know deep down we're the best around, if any no mark scouser ever comes out with an oh so witty remark about not caring about City, no rivalry, our titles mean nothing etc, just point them towards their ridiculously over the top celebrations today and ask them to repeat that. We're deep under their skin.
They're so so desperate to compare Nunez with Haaland. Undeniably a good day for him but he missed a 1v1, had a free header that was off-target and fortunate to end with a penalty and then scored a tap in in the 97th minute after some truly dreadful marking from Dias, not exactly frightening if that's him "arrived".
I expected more from some of our players, especially going forward but overall it went largely as expected, we're severely undercooked. they looked on it, considerably ahead of us and fully deserved the win.
Doesn't matter for today but we're a week away from the first game and we're miles off it. Why did Phillips not get on? He should have started really but to not even get on is just weird, Rodri looked fucked for the last half an hour and Phillips needs minutes. I presume he's not injured as he wouldn't be on the bench so I can only imagine he's way off getting it if he's not even making an appearance.
Pleased for Alvarez getting his first goal. Energy he gives us is very foden-like. Its currently early foden but I expect him to improve quickly. I don't think we will see anywhere near his full potential for a while though until he's fully settled, scored a few and feels like a key player so getting his first goal should help push him on towards that. Haaland was encouraging despite 2 bad misses. great movement, a firing kdb picks him out a few times today, foden in instead of Grealish provides for him too. Still slightly fear we will be too heavily reliant on Foden and Mahrez this season out wide.
Not much to take from that for the established squad members, it's another 60-90 minutes for most of them and it's badly needed. The starting 11 today will be very similar to West ham next week I suspect, Just have to hope our superior quality can get us through the first few weeks with little damage in terms of dropped points before the fitness comes. I know it's worked for us in the past but it's still less than ideal playing just 3 friendlies and having. Shorter pre-season than others. the world cup is likely to destroy any benefit later in the season our usual late comeback and slow build up gives us, I also think there's less chance of putting one of our famous long runs together because of it too, so we need to be ready next week.
Also worth noting we completely outsung them until the last 10 minutes despite the fact we were never even leading that game. All you heard from them was a truly pathetic and disgraceful boo for the national anthem which should be talked about more in the media and then them celebrating the friendly win at the end like a first ever league title.
