The shitty part about last night was that it just reaffirms this whole notion that the Anfield atmosphere got the better of us. If you watch those first 10 minutes, we were comfortable and kept them at arms length; we were handling the atmosphere. We shot ourselves in the foot again though by conceding so early. Even before Sam Lee tweeted something very similar last night, I was talking to my brother about every time we lose at Anfield and how we concede in that first 15 minute period. It's a huge correlation. The two times recently that we haven't (under Mancini), we walked out with a score draw, which would have been invaluable last night. Once you give the Scousers something to hang onto, and they can see that what they're doing is working, they get a huge lift that is very hard to come back from. Once the second went in, you could see us buckle. As soon as I saw Otamendi needlessly charge out into midfield, I knew what was going to happen.
Pep does have to take the blame unfortunately. I have bigged him up all year long, because for me he is brilliant. We have put the league to the sword and he has given me the one thing I was waiting for: a year where we (seem to be) walking the league. However, Gundogan's inclusion was a huge error. He went against his word and changed his approach. Yes we were still playing our passing game etc. but one of the biggest strengths of our team is the ability to stretch our opponents by having our wingers get chalk on their boots and he packed it in. I fully understand the theory behind Gundogan's inclusion; the idea of getting an extra man in the middle to bypass the press from the midfield three of Liverpool looks good on paper. However, you could see that it disrupted how we usually play and how we normally press. The amount of times I saw Fernandinho press ridiculously high in the first half, leaving a gaping space behind him, was mad. We needed to stick last night, not twist.
