Liverpool Post Match

[plongo]

Why are our players so one dimensional?
We have and have had defensive midfielders (Fernando, Garcia, De Jong) who are just that - defensive, offering little creativity
We have attacking "flair players" Silva, Nasri, who are just that -attacking, offering little in defensive duties
A "box to box" type YaYa who doesn't have the legs for the job

Chelsea have Matic, who as well as being a mobile midfield giant and difficult to pass by, is the springboard to much of their attacking play, Hazard who as well as being a creative genius, now understands (Jose improving players) and delivers the defensive side of the game

Liverpool have a very quick and athletic and fluid midfield and forward line, that we evidently can't cope with.

Furthermore we lack pace, penetration and energy - As a result of either or - lack of motivation /desire / guts, or physical capability ie too old and over the hill, I see little room for improvement in our squad which is a major worry

Time for an overhaul starting with, and I hate to say this but, replacing the Manager

 

[East Level 2]

Part of the problem is that Pellergrini is a dead man walking, similar to Mancini's last few months this.

Kompany played like a hysterical three legged bambi again he needs to be benched and keep his mouth shut for a few weeks the bloke is becoming tiresome all the talking shit and tweeting he does. Vince get your head down shut up and concentrate on the football.

As for the formation we got worse when Milner came on effectively lost us the game so hindsight says should have left Dzeko on. Bony , oh dear this is what happens when you sign a player because he scored against us remember John Macken?

It is the worst performance I have seen for decades in view of the cost of the squad against performance level, apart from Aguero, I felt sorry for him just hope he does not look at the mercenaries and think fuck this I'm off at the end of season.

You didn't see the 3-0 defeat at Anfield before the semi in 2011? You didn't see the recent performances against Burnley and Boro? You didn't see the 2013 cup final? Or the Charity Shield last August? Or the League Cup capitulation against Newcastle? Or several visits to Stoke and Sunderland?
Today was shite, but there have been plenty worse. And those were just in recent seasons. If you want to go back decades then try remembering cup ties at Bury, Bolton and Halifax. Those squads were bloody expensive when compared to some of the performance levels they achieved.

You have forgot Shrewsbury FA cup it sort of a given when Halifax rears its ugly head

I hadn't forgotten Shrewsbury, I just didn't want to list every cup cock up as it would take up too much room. And piss poor performances in relation to player cost (far worse than yesterday) are hardly rare in the league over the 45 years I've been watching. For info: Our heaviest defeat over two legs is still 5-1 against Lincoln even though we've played significantly better teams in Europe, and that 4-1 loss at Sincil Bank is amongst the worst performances I've ever seen.

 

[Chippy_boy]

In theory yes. But in reality no matter how poor our opponents or great our defenders are , they will still have some shots especially shooting from afar. Its when they have more than 40% or more success rate with their meagre no. of shots ( 5 shots or less) we have to ask ourselves why.

The 2nd goal is a perfect example. Did Hart adapt (or that he is plain not up to par) after letting in the first goal which was almost similar.
We can't blame Pellers for this shortcoming.

No keeper would have stopped either of those 2 goals, the problem lies in the time they were given to take the shot in the first place not with Joe

Sorry to say Hart had the time & space and LOS. The shots were way outside the box & Hart was ready & set for them.
2nd shot , if Hart was up to par & had adapted, is not difficult to save the shot (70/30% between goalposts)

Don't agree mate.

Hart wasn't at fault for either of those goals. And even if he was, and we won the game 1-0, the rest of the debate remains. We didn't deserve to win that game. We set up wrong, we were sloppy and gave the ball away repeatedly, we didn't press anything like enough, we made some shambolic mistakes, too many individuals underperformed. We had our fully fit, fully rested A team out and have no excuses, and we managed one shot on target against a flaky defence. Depressing.

I think the fact this thread is only 30-odd pages long - and not the usual 60+ - is because most fans are so totally and utterly fucked off and depressed, they can't even be arsed to post.

 

[City1974]

In the end it was not a surprise to lose both games this week,

Hands up who thought the worst and always had the feeling that we would get beat yesterday by Liverpool (I maybe optimistically hoped for a draw at least but always thought we would concede goals and thus would have to score 2 or 3 to draw or win). The nonsense about travel and tiredness from mid week European games surely now holds no water for any team

We have not progressed really since we won the league in 2012. Since then Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal are stronger and perhaps Spurs and Utd weaker. Thus if we finish 2nd , 3rd or 4th that will probably be about where we are at present.

Forget tactics, formations in the end the team\squad is no better and we were largely outplayed yesterday.

Nearly all signings in the last 2 seasons have been poor to average at best. In the end we have wasted significant money or players no better than what we have. Surely we can now conclude that Sagna, Caballero, Mangala, Fernando, Jovetic and possibly Fernandinho have not made us better and have either cost a lot in transfers and\or high wages. When\if buying in the summer we need to buy players for the first 11, not squad players (is the latter not what some of the EDS is for ?).

Utd, Spurs and Palace away still to come. Who thinks we will win all 3 of them ? There is likely another defeat at least at one of these places (please not Trafford Rangers !). We lost at Spurs in spring 2013 to end our Title hopes, maybe there is an omen again.

Pellegrini possibly in trouble. if as now looks. we end up empty handed, but perhaps last years good will should get him another year. I hope he stays and succeeds but it would not be a surprise if we start in August with a new manager. Still think it is first down to the players mostly though, and then Pellegrini and others who have bought players that have not performed.

Anyway. Come on City, lets regroup !

 

[BlueAnorak]

In theory yes. But in reality no matter how poor our opponents or great our defenders are , they will still have some shots especially shooting from afar. Its when they have more than 40% or more success rate with their meagre no. of shots ( 5 shots or less) we have to ask ourselves why.

The 2nd goal is a perfect example. Did Hart adapt (or that he is plain not up to par) after letting in the first goal which was almost similar.
We can't blame Pellers for this shortcoming.

No keeper would have stopped either of those 2 goals, the problem lies in the time they were given to take the shot in the first place not with Joe

Sorry to say Hart had the time & space and LOS. The shots were way outside the box & Hart was ready & set for them.
2nd shot , if Hart was up to par & had adapted, is not difficult to save the shot (70/30% between goalposts)

Here we go. It's blueplan with his broken record. City have multiple problems far more pressing than our goalkeeper who wouldn't actually be a problem if the team was defending properly.

 

[blueinsa]

No keeper would have stopped either of those 2 goals, the problem lies in the time they were given to take the shot in the first place not with Joe

Sorry to say Hart had the time & space and LOS. The shots were way outside the box & Hart was ready & set for them.
2nd shot , if Hart was up to par & had adapted, is not difficult to save the shot (70/30% between goalposts)

Here we go. It's blueplan with his broken record. City have multiple problems far more pressing than our goalkeeper who wouldn't actually be a problem if the team was defending properly.

The modern football fan and the internet means any goalkeeper who concedes is shit, any team that concedes cant defend, any striker who misses is shit etc etc etc.

This place after a poor result is full of them.

 

[Chippy_boy]

They have to get back to basics and stop teams cutting through us at will try and come up with a system that works. At the end of the season at least two hard working tough tackling mobile midfield players have to come in and the defence needs looking at too but at the moment they just have no protection at all.We face a tough fight to finish in the top four at this rate.Today was one of two away i thought we would get beaten,Spurs being the other one and i would even say a fired up rag team would beat this lot unless they grow some bollocks,start working together as a unit and team and take some responsibility!

I think it's one clean sheet in 13 in the league now (the Newcastle game). Which kind of illustrates your point.

 

[rnblade]

Awful display. Victimpool clearly wanted that more than we did. Can't wait to read VKs motivation speech about how we can improve blah blah blah.
Fuck off!
The Chavs have the title to lose now. If we continue to play in this way we will be luck to stay in the top 5.
Another lack of interest performance will be evident against Leicester.
I dread to think what Barcelona will do to us in the CL next leg.
Looks like MP will be out the door come summer. His tactical decisions and inability to diversify our game makes us very predictable.
Not sure what is going to happen, just hope we can stay within 10 points of Maureen and the chavs. After that display, it seems unlikely.

 

[JamesMCFC]

Still seething this morning thinking about that bag of shite

 

[franksinatra]

They have to get back to basics and stop teams cutting through us at will try and come up with a system that works. At the end of the season at least two hard working tough tackling mobile midfield players have to come in and the defence needs looking at too but at the moment they just have no protection at all.We face a tough fight to finish in the top four at this rate.Today was one of two away i thought we would get beaten,Spurs being the other one and i would even say a fired up rag team would beat this lot unless they grow some bollocks,start working together as a unit and team and take some responsibility!

I think it's one clean sheet in 13 in the league now (the Newcastle game). Which kind of illustrates your point.

What I fully do not understand is why the defence is not protected? Many on this site blame 4-4-2 (I also think that needs to be adapted) however 4-4-2 worked successfully as a unit when Gareth Barry was alongside Yaya in the midfield and we had one of the best, if not the best, defensive record in the country.

Is it just we have not replaced Gareth Barry effectively or is it because the team does not have the shape to enable us to defend when without the ball. MOTD was painful to watch last night as a number of times it illustrated the void between the defence and midfield intelligent footballers punish. In fact our own David Silva is an expert at this.

For me I think it is a combination of both. Fernandinho although a good player is not suited to playing the holding role and that should have been considered at the time. For me the fact 4 months after signing Fernandinho we were then pursuing Fernando highlights the type of player chosen was a mistake however when we did resolve this we purchased a player not good enough.