Liverpool Post Match

[BluessinceHydeRoad]

I hate listening to the usual crew on Sky and having to agree with what they say. Souness was hard to contradict when he argued that in many ways it was all to be expected. Our midfield was, like the rest of the eleven, better individually than their Liverpool counterparts, but they were outnumbered and none of them suited to the business of stopping opponents in their tracks and winning the ball back. Neville got it right, the City midfield doesn't work hard enough when we don't have the ball. We thought Fernando was brought in to be the third man in a three man central midfield when we played good teams. Despite the fact he's been poor since August this is not the case: Pellegrini likes 4-4-2.

I think we could see considerable activity in the summer. If City have been hindered over the last few years it is by the economic crash rather than FFP. Big money is available for August. The rebuilding may begin with the manager, if Guardiola is prepared to leave Munich for Manchester. If Pellegrini is replaced, the first area to be restructured will be midfield, to make sure we don't end up out of the game, or having to come from behind after the first half hour. Even less do we want to see the resort to the worst kind of pinball in midfield that we saw today, and certainly not to the Gaalesque hoofball that wasted Aguero today. If Guardiola won't come, we may have a repeat of this season.

 

[kiam06]

Unacceptable losing to that Liverpool side they were poor but simply out worked us in every department.

 

[willipp]

how can we blame the manager? He is not on the field. He does not control our passion, he does not control if we miss placed the pass, he does not control if we miss a shot. He can tell us what to do but it is up to our 11 to execute.

Maybe I watched a different game, but I think today our tactics were shocking. We purposely played a lot of long balls today which I've not seen before. It was totally clear after 55 minutes we were poor and players like yaya just kept giving the ball away and not picking up their players. For me pellers takes a huge piece of the blame today.

 

[IcriedwhenTueartleft]

Pass marks for Kolarov, Mangala, Silva for the 1st half and Kun for trying. Dzeko still seems to think that scoring a goal means he can spend the rest of his game doing zip all. Carragher and Souness both don't rate the guy and it's time we took a similar view.
Like the Sky team said, we're like flat track bullies, swiping mediocre opposition aside and then falling down against genuinely decent teams.
Since the takeover our record at Anfield continues to be poor, we haven't beaten Chelsea in the last 4 league games, haven't beaten Arsenal in the last 3 league games and I consider them to be the best 2 teams aside from us in the league in the last 2 seasons. Against the truly big teams in the CL, when the result counts for both teams, we've beaten nobody (don't class Roma as anywhere near a top 15 Euro club).
The guy from the Telegraph summed it up after the Barca match, trying to match their central midfield best with Milner and Fernando....it's not going to happen.
That 2nd half performance was awful, aside from Kun's header over the bar early doors we never looked like scoring and ended up chasing shadows in midfield.
For gods sake MP, give the already beleaguered defence half a chance....stick to the same 4 for the next few weeks and try to give them a chance to get some cohesion going before Barca away.
Disappointed by the result and performance today but that's about it, never expected us to win the league this season after so many sloppy performances well before today. Just got to write it off and start looking ahead to next season, we need to sort out our midfield and defence for next season.

 

[themanc]

we haven't beaten Chelsea in the last 4 league games, haven't beaten Arsenal in the last 3 league games .

thats because of our manager.

 

[Dribble]

I’m in total shock. Not by the defeat but by the manner of it. No excuses, we've got almost everyone available and fit but yet we turn in such an embarrassingly tepid display.

It took 3 years to construct a defensive machine that was the envy of the Premier League and 18 months to dismantle it into a rocky defesive shambles. Once solid players like Kompany and Zabaleta look shadows of their former selves as if they've lost confidence in themselves and with our tactics. I've made no secret I'm no fan of 442, but to go away to Anfield and play that formation with the Dippers in such a rich vein of form was disrespectful to Liverpool and was tantamount to committing footballing suicide and that's the SECOND TIME I've said that this week!

We were clueless in midfield and had a 30 year and an almost 32 year old being given the runaround by a midfield which had an extra man and whose player's were years younger. I'm all for a proactive manager who's not scared to adjust things to maintain an advantage or to redress the balance, but the changes I saw today just seemed like clueless panic decisions rather than a coherent plan of action.

Just like last season everyone seemed to know what to expect at Anfield apart from Pellegrini who came with the same plan as last season and ended up with the same result. Just because we have the better players it doesn't follow that we'll beat most inferior teams. At some point it must be realised that a viable tactical plan needs to be put in place.

I fuckin hate Maureen with a passion, but our display at Anfield last season and Chelsea's should tell us all we need to know about how far behind we have fallen as a tactical unit. Someone summed this up yesterday by saying some managers rely on tactics, other on their philosophy, but the very best managers have a philosophy and rely on tactics to enforce it.

Today's inept performance in particular the 2nd half was embarrassing and unacceptable. We need to play a system that suits the players we have. Nasri, Silva, Toure and Kolorov are not suited to a high pressing game, so why oh why have we gone to Anfield with those players starting and a 2 man central midfield?

I'm seriously pissed the fuck off with what I saw today. I'm not calling for the manager's head, but what I am calling for is someone at the club who can see what we and all the pundits can see, to tell everyone involved with buying, selecting and coaching our players to wake up and do something about our team selections and tactics before our season completely implodes.

This week I've heard Nasri, Kompany, Yaya and Pellegrini talking about we're used to the end of season chase and how confident we were that this season would pan out like 2012 or 2014. I'd love to hear their views now. Pellegrini sounded like a broken man at the post match interview which doesn't bode well. The last man I heard who sounded like him was Paul Lambert. Where he should have given us the confidence that today's performance would not be repeated and the faults resolved, he dogmatically stuck by his 442 mantra, defended our performance and in the process just sounded utterly clueless. It's worrying folks, very worrying.

 

[CatMan]

I hate listening to the usual crew on Sky and having to agree with what they say. Souness was hard to contradict when he argued that in many ways it was all to be expected. Our midfield was, like the rest of the eleven, better individually than their Liverpool counterparts, but they were outnumbered and none of them suited to the business of stopping opponents in their tracks and winning the ball back. Neville got it right, the City midfield doesn't work hard enough when we don't have the ball. We thought Fernando was brought in to be the third man in a three man central midfield when we played good teams. Despite the fact he's been poor since August this is not the case: Pellegrini likes 4-4-2.

I think we could see considerable activity in the summer. If City have been hindered over the last few years it is by the economic crash rather than FFP. Big money is available for August. The rebuilding may begin with the manager, if Guardiola is prepared to leave Munich for Manchester. If Pellegrini is replaced, the first area to be restructured will be midfield, to make sure we don't end up out of the game, or having to come from behind after the first half hour. Even less do we want to see the resort to the worst kind of pinball in midfield that we saw today, and certainly not to the Gaalesque hoofball that wasted Aguero today. If Guardiola won't come, we may have a repeat of this season.

If, but, maybe. What happens in the summer is for then. Fact are that all success is 10% talent and 90% sweat!

In short we were once again outworked by less talented individuals and were well beaten. As I've said before it's leadership, be it captaincy or management that are responsible for motivating and installing work ethic. Sadly both are failing badly.

 

[robbieh]

Playing an XI with Kun, Silva, Nasri, Yaya, Dzeko in a team is suicide.

If Dzeko and Aguero had an understanding like Bergkamp and Henry maybe you play 2 up front. They don't. So it has to be one up front.

Don't play all 3 of Yaya, Silva and Nasri at the same time. Milner or Navas, one of them plays.

So Back 4

then

Fernandinho, Fernando

Navas, Yaya, Silva

Kun

Long term Fernando not good enough but atm he plays.

 

[ped]

I hate listening to the usual crew on Sky and having to agree with what they say. Souness was hard to contradict when he argued that in many ways it was all to be expected. Our midfield was, like the rest of the eleven, better individually than their Liverpool counterparts, but they were outnumbered and none of them suited to the business of stopping opponents in their tracks and winning the ball back. Neville got it right, the City midfield doesn't work hard enough when we don't have the ball. We thought Fernando was brought in to be the third man in a three man central midfield when we played good teams. Despite the fact he's been poor since August this is not the case: Pellegrini likes 4-4-2.

I think we could see considerable activity in the summer. If City have been hindered over the last few years it is by the economic crash rather than FFP. Big money is available for August. The rebuilding may begin with the manager, if Guardiola is prepared to leave Munich for Manchester. If Pellegrini is replaced, the first area to be restructured will be midfield, to make sure we don't end up out of the game, or having to come from behind after the first half hour. Even less do we want to see the resort to the worst kind of pinball in midfield that we saw today, and certainly not to the Gaalesque hoofball that wasted Aguero today. If Guardiola won't come, we may have a repeat of this season.

somebody else made the point about Fernando being brought in for the big games,a three of ya ya and the two ferns allows all 3 to play to their strength but have we seen it this season?,at the beginning of the season I thought that was the whole point of the signing

 

[Sergio<3]

Why do we not press teams when they have the ball, Barcelona and even Liverpool today did it really well. We just let them have as much time on the ball as they want, as soon as they lost the ball the other night they went hunting for it back straight away. We looked so lethargic and uninterested. No tempo or urgency , time for big changes in the summer I think/hope