Just watched the match again. Absolutely hilarious how far our midfield was off their attackers and midfield with every chance they had.
Here's the CWP on the game. Feedback always welcome. :)
Sorry mate but I have to disagree with you on this one. Knowing what Klippety would come with and taking injuries and Wednesday into account, I would have probably started with the same line-up as we did in Sevilla (obviously swapping Bony for Kun) with the intention of bringing off Sergio, Fernandinho and Toure off for Kelechi, KDB and Delph. Yet again we were guilty of underestimating the opposition and believing that Toure can operate in a midfield 2 against high level opposition.As a contest it was well and truly over by the half hour mark: only as a humiliation did it last the full 90 minutes and more. Liverpool were slick and assured: City were truly abysmal. Now we are hearing from pundits and fans who say they saw it all coming from the time the teams were announced. When I got the team news I was surprised to see that Otamendi and Fernandinho were on the bench but there was nothing in the starting eleven which caused me any alarm. It seemed that the question facing Pellers was one of availability rather than suitability for the fixture. Sergio was fit, but we all knew he would not play more than an hour, Eliaquim was a certain starter if you take account of where our players had been and what they had done during the international break and if one had to pick the best eleven from the 22 named to start the match, it would have been the City eleven, with Coutinho the only Liverpudlian in with a shout. Some City fans were worried, not about our team, but because "it was against Liverpool" - as though the same kind of magic lurks in the muddy waters of the Mersey as used to inhabit the Manchester United badge, which means that mediocre teams become world beaters. Klopp is not a manager but a wizard just as Ferguson was always going to "get things right". In face Liverpool had played 7 games under Klopp and won 3 - only one in the league, at Chelsea. The others were 1-0 against Rubin Kazan and Bournemouth. Their last league outing had been a home defeat to Palace. There was nothing in Liverpool' form (going back over 5 years!) to suggest anything more than an upper mid-table team.
We got massacred and it's this that gives some spurios support to claims that it was inevitable with the two teams picked. I would ask which PL teams City would have beaten on Saturday? It was not the selection but the performance of the players which produced such a miserable hour and a half. Pellegrini has some responsibility in this, in particular as to weather Sagna and in particular Mangala should have been anywhere near a football match after the ordeal they have been through but the club are better placed to decide than I am. We do have a problem in central midfield and this has dogged us under Pellers since day one, but never so disastrously badly as on Saturday and usually only against opposition of a rather higher class than Liverpool. So, I'm not saying that everything in the garden is rosy and 4-1 defeats should not happen, but I don't think it's time to panic or rant and rave.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but you don't seem to take account of 1 why did we play 2 not 3 in central mid against a team who would pack that area 2 leaving our front 4 starved of possession and not involved enough in the game and 3 given Kompanys absence was it really the right match in which to play Mangala and Martin together for what I think was the first time?
A draw would be good enough in Turin, beating scouse would have put us top, should have been our strongest last night and a bore draw in Italy, we won't fucking win the CL anyway.
I think the big issue for Pellers is whether he thinks in his heart of hearts (not what he says to the press) that he can learn some things from Saturday. My personal view is that he is stubborn, like he was with 4 4 2 but stubbornness can cost you, and whether he concedes that playing 4 attacking players against the better (equipped or managed) sides leaves us too exposed - it clearly did on Saturday, in my opinionThings clearly went horribly wrong on Saturday and one of the reasons appears to be the complete and utter breakdown in midfield. We seemed unable to keep hold of the ball, though de Bruyne still looked a class act, but Sterling and Sergio were starved of service and Navas was never really brought into the game. My quarrel is with those who argue that all this was inevitable because we were playing Klopp's Liverpool and because Pellers picked the team he did. I think that it was as much to do with the whole team having a nightmare day, though obviously Liverpool played very well.
I have always thought we need five in midfield with three CMs. I think we were all beguiled by our performance in Seville when the team was beautifully balanced. The argument went that a central midfield of Fernando, Fernandinho and Ya Ya gave us this balance. Unfortunately, this hasn't always been the case. The three played together at Spurs when we shipped four! I hasten to add that Toure went off after an hour and Ferna 10 minutes later, but the game was already lost by then. I admit also that two terrible refereeing decisions and a poor goalkeeping display also cost us dearly, but the balance of Seville really wasn't to be seen. The other times we've seen the triumvirate in the PL were at OT and at Villa park - both 0-0 draws! Admittedly 0-0 on Saturday would have been a lot better than what we got, but these results are not a ringing endorsement of 3 CMs. In face Pellers did go with 3 in the second half, replacing Ya Ya with Delph and bringing on Ferna for Navas. There was no major improvement after the first few minutes. I actually thought Ya Ya was the only one who seemed to move the ball forward in the first half (though rarely, I admit). Too often in the second half we went aimlessly long in a rather pathetic attempt to bypass mid field. In the eleven matches since the Spurs debacle we have played two CMs in seven - and have won all seven, scoring 26 goals and letting in only 7!
The CD problem was obvious during the match but I'm not sure we're in a position to criticise. Kompany couldn't play so Pellers went for Eliaquim and MdM - the pairing in the last six matches (all won) at the end of last season and in the 5-1 hammering of Palace - the last team to play and beat Liverpool! I don't know what condition Otamendi was in, but I suspect Eliaquim's (and Sagna's) problems only became obvious when the game started, as Sagna himself said to the Guardian. Pellers has been blamed for not using substitutes earlier, but Sergio could not be risked for a full 90 minutes, and boy! did we need Sergio! The question then became who deserved to stay on, as much as who should we drag off!
I do have reservations about Pellers, I always have, but I think he's done an excellent job. I didn't like what I saw on Saturday, my son was apoplectic after 10 minutes and got worse, while I felt sick as the nightmare unfolded. But I do have sympathy with Pellers and the team he picked and I certainly didn't see it coming. I feel now as I did on Saturday lunchtime, that if we played that Liverpool team 10 times, we'd win 8.