Liverpool Post Match

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

Rags had it won, bin dippers had it won, chelski have got it won, see where I'm going with this.

Couldn't agree more.

So much football to be played and many twists and turns left.

We have a proven record of coming back from far worse situations than this.

We do. Very worrying how little we seemed to be up for it yesterday though. Always a tough place to go obviously, but we had a chance to put Chelsea under a bit pressure and we just didn't look up to it. Reminded me of the cup final against Wigan.

Haven't got much to say, still hurting from yesterday. Fuck, but that hurts. I didn't expect it to hurt as much as 2012-13, but it does. It may even be worse.
Thing is this: I like your optimism, everybody, I really do. Mathematically possible, and we fight to the end and all that. It's not completely impossible that we go on a mental run and win everything here on in. Very little sign of it, difficult to see where it's going to come from, but not impossible. Stranger things have been done by this City team.
The plain fact is, though, that we're no longer in control of it. We've put it squarely in Chelsea's hands. They'd have to balls up in an entirely unexpected way. United in 2011-12 — that was a team playing past its sell-by date, running on the adrenalin created by the fear of one man. That they folded in the end is not that unnatural. LIverpool last year — a team that was dodgy in several areas, everyone could see that, but fuelled by an attack that was walking on air, and at the heart of which was a player, cannibal or not, who had a season that I am confident he will never repeat. This Chelsea team are not fantastic, but they're good managers of games, even when they're not all that impressive. They're far more balanced than Liverpool were, and they don't have the ageing problem that United had. I'd be astonished if they imploded the way the other two did. Hope you're right and I'm wrong.

 

[BlueTG]

Players still talking the talk before the matches, and STILL failing to back it up on the pitch. Becoming a joke now, are we in this for the drama/soaps or for the glory ffs.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Couldn't agree more.

So much football to be played and many twists and turns left.

We have a proven record of coming back from far worse situations than this.

We do. Very worrying how little we seemed to be up for it yesterday though. Always a tough place to go obviously, but we had a chance to put Chelsea under a bit pressure and we just didn't look up to it. Reminded me of the cup final against Wigan.

Haven't got much to say, still hurting from yesterday. Fuck, but that hurts. I didn't expect it to hurt as much as 2012-13, but it does. It may even be worse.
Thing is this: I like your optimism, everybody, I really do. Mathematically possible, and we fight to the end and all that. It's not completely impossible that we go on a mental run and win everything here on in. Very little sign of it, difficult to see where it's going to come from, but not impossible. Stranger things have been done by this City team.
The plain fact is, though, that we're no longer in control of it. We've put it squarely in Chelsea's hands. They'd have to balls up in an entirely unexpected way. United in 2011-12 — that was a team playing past its sell-by date, running on the adrenalin created by the fear of one man. That they folded in the end is not that unnatural. LIverpool last year — a team that was dodgy in several areas, everyone could see that, but fuelled by an attack that was walking on air, and at the heart of which was a player, cannibal or not, who had a season that I am confident he will never repeat. This Chelsea team are not fantastic, but they're good managers of games, even when they're not all that impressive. They're far more balanced than Liverpool were, and they don't have the ageing problem that United had. I'd be astonished if they imploded the way the other two did. Hope you're right and I'm wrong.

And United had to come to us. With our incredible home record and performances that season, that always looked like a game thaht would narrow the gap. Liverpool had us and Chelsea to navigate past and were basically needing to win every game in order to not let their title hopes slip.

Basically, both United and Liverpool were not as far ahead, nor had such a manageable run-in. I would be utterly utterly gobsmacked if Chelsea didn't win it now, depressing though it is to type that. We need to win every single game from now on to have any chanceimho. And still if we do that, I don't think it will be enough.

 

[oscarG]

Gutted about the result. We only want to shine with the ball in our possesion. No pressing liverpool when they had the ball. Could'nt believe what i was watching. As soon as i seen the starting line up with kolarov at left back, against all that scouse pace and two up front i was worried for us. i'm no anti-Pellegrini but he gets the big games all wrong for me. His stubbornness is costing us and he does'nt learn or adjust when he gets it totally wrong. I'm now hoping we change manager at the end of the season, credit to pellegrini for what he has done for us. But he's not the future.

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

One other thing though. I don't have this match recorded, but if I did, I'd want to play it back and count the number of times the ball was hoofed away directly to a red shirt, especially by everyone in the back four but also by Yaya, with no pressure whatsoever directly on the player concerned. My impression was that it was many, many times. For twenty minutes before the second goal came I kept saying to a mate, "We keep doing this, they've just got to score. We're begging for it."
In 2011-12 there was a real comfort thing to be able to say, well, whoeve they are, they're going to find it very hard to score against us — we build from there. That's absolutely gone.

 

[cibaman]

11/12 we still had United at home to play

13/14 we were never that far behind, it only took Liverpool's defeat by Chelsea to put us back in the driving seat.

But the main difference between this season and those two years is that in each of those seasons we put in several sparkling displays that give you confidense that if we could re-find our form we could turn things round. This season the highlights have been relatively few and far between. We just havent played well by our standards. It seems much more like 12/13 than 11/12 or 13/14.

All true. But all we can do is trying and win all our remaining games and you never know. Even if Chelsea coast to the title, at least we will ensure a good second place finish and take momentum into the off season. That is majorly important - and to say we have nothing to play for, completely misses the point. 18 other PL sides would give their eye-teeth to be in the position we are.

And we then have a 4 year record of 2 first place and 2 seconds. That's pretty darned awesome.

Clutching at straws, Chelsea's trip to West Ham might be the equivalent to Wigan v Utd in 11/12. If Chelsea think they've got it sown up, as United did, they might slip up. But its a very long shot and even if they do we dont look like putting a run together.

 

[northstander]

2nd best in every department yesterday, well pissed off, we didn't just lose the match and the title we lost our style, no pressing up the pitch, long balls, hoofed out of defence to at times a non existant midfield, strikers couldn't hit a barn door, did company have slippers on in 1st half ? the amount of times he slipped was ridiculous. where do we go from here ? a good performance against Leicester is required.

WE FIGHT TO THE END.

 

[Centurions]

Gutted about the result. We only want to shine with the ball in our possesion. No pressing liverpool when they had the ball. Could'nt believe what i was watching. As soon as i seen the starting line up with kolarov at left back, against all that scouse pace and two up front i was worried for us. i'm no anti-Pellegrini but he gets the big games all wrong for me. His stubbornness is costing us and he does'nt learn or adjust when he gets it totally wrong. I'm now hoping we change manager at the end of the season, credit to pellegrini for what he has done for us. But he's not the future.

If Aguero's shot had gone in off the post rather than back out and both he and Silva hadn't squandered an excellent chance each, we would have won 2-4 and you'd be praising Pellegrini for his guts. And don't forget that both of the dippers goals came from outside the box and left Hart with no chance.

We lost a very good game of football, it happens.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Gutted about the result. We only want to shine with the ball in our possesion. No pressing liverpool when they had the ball. Could'nt believe what i was watching. As soon as i seen the starting line up with kolarov at left back, against all that scouse pace and two up front i was worried for us. i'm no anti-Pellegrini but he gets the big games all wrong for me. His stubbornness is costing us and he does'nt learn or adjust when he gets it totally wrong. I'm now hoping we change manager at the end of the season, credit to pellegrini for what he has done for us. But he's not the future.

If Aguero's shot had gone in off the post rather than back out and both he and Silva hadn't squandered an excellent chance each, we would have won 2-4 and you'd be praising Pellegrini for his guts. And don't forget that both of the dippers goals came from outside the box and left Hart with no chance.

We lost a very good game of football, it happens.

Along the same lines mate, you could say we lost the league, it happens. I am not meaning to be glib about that either: we have no god-given right to win the league every year and if for whatever reason we don't manage it this year, the earth will keep spinning.

 

[Blueside]

Gutted about the result. We only want to shine with the ball in our possesion. No pressing liverpool when they had the ball. Could'nt believe what i was watching. As soon as i seen the starting line up with kolarov at left back, against all that scouse pace and two up front i was worried for us. i'm no anti-Pellegrini but he gets the big games all wrong for me. His stubbornness is costing us and he does'nt learn or adjust when he gets it totally wrong. I'm now hoping we change manager at the end of the season, credit to pellegrini for what he has done for us. But he's not the future.

If Aguero's shot had gone in off the post rather than back out and both he and Silva hadn't squandered an excellent chance each, we would have won 2-4 and you'd be praising Pellegrini for his guts. And don't forget that both of the dippers goals came from outside the box and left Hart with no chance.

We lost a very good game of football, it happens.

Along the same lines mate, you could say we lost the league, it happens. I am not meaning to be glib about that either: we have no god-given right to win the league every year and if for whatever reason we don't manage it this year, the earth will keep spinning.

These two all day long.

The more I think about it, the tougher yesterday's game gets and they needed two wonder strikes to win it. Set those strikes aside and look at the chances we had and it tells a different story doesn't it. As for the Zabaleta penalty - not a thing said in a season when a feather duster tap on the shoulder in the box is a near certain penalty. Remember last year at Anfield, Kompany makes one mistake that fell directly to Coutinho and its in the net, and we lose the game and no-one other than us talks about how brilliant we were in that second half (especially Silva). Then when Gerrard slips a couple of weeks later and Chelski win, all we hear about how tough that was...but not how tough Kompany's miskick at the same ground. We are in danger of letting the media tell us what to think - and they really do want us to struggle, same way they wanted Liverpool to win the league last year (..because they 'deserved' it.)

Yesterday, Kompany was clearly struggling on his feet...on the same dodgy pitch that Gerrard made his fateful slip on.....so maybe its one of them things.

People on here are slagging off the defence yesterday - well I'm not having it. They were under immense pressure yesterday and stood up to it pretty well; they played safety first when they had to (long ball) and passed it when they could (given the relentless pressure and that dodgy pitch). I thought Managala was sharp too and generally I was happy with our back five. Two wonder strikes and that's it. {And on the very same day last year, our two wonder strikes won us a Cup and changed the whole complexion of that game as well.}

People want us to play a fast run around style game when we simply don't have the players for it (Liverpool do evidently): our game usually involves quality players encamped on the edge of their box and that's the way we do it (mostly.): I would rather have Silva, Yaya and Aguero doing that than adopt any other system without them.

The only player I'm not too happy with is Dzeko because he seems to amble around like he's preserving his 'puff' for extra time plus penalties instead of running himself into the ground (like Silva, Tevez, Aguero etc): we needed that kind of hassle on their defence yesterday, and it just isn't in his physique is it? Another thing that annoys me is that he seems happy to settle for a soft throw-in when he should be looking to hold up the play and create pressure, when he does this he displays in the process such an offhand 'can't be ar*ed' demeanour - like someone 'playing out' the last ten minutes of their shift on a Friday afternoon. At least Jovetic looks like he gives a t@ss every minute he's on the pitch.

Gutted about yesterday but then again - hasn't that been Man City away at Anfield for the last four decades.