Manchester City vs Liverpool Pre Match Thread.

[mosssideblue]

Mario won't arrive in time to save them

Mario won't save them, full stop

 

[Chippy_boy]

Is this happening?

If it is, it will be interesting to see if, wearing a red shirt, he gets persecuted by the refs like he did wearing a blue one.

It will be quite a dilemma fir them, won't it. Bad, bad Mario who needs booking if he so much as looks at you in the wrong way, but wearing a red let-them-get-away-with-murder Victim shirt. What to do???

 

[Chippy_boy]

And in response to our Scouse visitor, I would agree Rogers has done a remarkable job. Perhaps even more so at Swansea when he had them playing terrific football with FAR less at his disposal. At Liverpool he was remarkably lucky to find himself with arguably one of the best three players in the world playing as striker. Which kind of helped just a teeny little bit.

We'll see how "remarkable" a job he does this season without this advantage and having spent a shed load of money of his own. Will 4th place be remarkable enough for you? Or 5th? Because you sure as hell aren't getting any higher than that.

 

[Blue Til Death]

Yeh well they only NEARLY won stuff because of their money...!!!

 

[cheddar404]

from Flagpole corner:


<a class="postlink" href="http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=315760.0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/ind ... c=315760.0</a>

quite amusing really

Another one quite funny from the site
How to Beat man City
Two Hail Mary's and an Our Father..

at least they're honest about it.

they're getting the serious analysts out now

A couple of points that I've noticed at a quick glance (and from what I remember from watching the game):


- Their fullbacks alternate being attacking/defensive about every 15-20mins or so. If we can identify these sections of the game when one of them is attacking then there's a lot of space to attack in behind them. Having Sterling switch flanks now and again to target the attacking side when they alternate could be a good option.
- Demichelis is often left quite exposed and sits deeper than Kompany, who himself likes to step forward quite often. Making blindside runs behind Kompany off our left (similar to how Sterling scored this weekend) could be particularly lucrative, since Demichelis could play our attackers onside when Kompany pushes up more.
- Newcastle had a player pushing very high to run in behind their defense - first Gouffran, then Cabella, then Reviere. They did this to great effect, and having Sturridge, Sterling, or Markovic in a free roaming role (perhaps taking it in turns like Newcastle did) could make them difficult to pick up for City's CB's.
- Newcastle managed to get Colback in behind Toure several times, and that was one of the keys to breaking on them in the first half particularly.
- We need to have Henderson playing centrally (perhaps in the Colback role). Looking at the position tracker of our game with Southampton its noticeable that Henderson was really isolated out wide. Against City we need the extra body in the middle, since Silva, Nasri, and Toure all overload that area. Unless Navas or Milner are on the pitch the fullbacks are essentially left 1v1 on the outside, with the key battles being in the middle.

With this in mind, I'd like to see us play a 433 (or lopsided diamond as PoP calls it, or "rhombus" if you prefer :)), with Can playing just ahead of Gerrard to add some physical presence and occupy Toure. Henderson's vertical runs will be key to breaking the Toure-Fernando partnership, though I suspect they might opt for another holding player in there instead of Jovetic to contain that threat.

The rhombus? FFS. I think we should counter this with the dodecagon although we will need 12 players to achieve this.

 

[pml79]

And in response to our Scouse visitor, I would agree Rogers has done a remarkable job. Perhaps even more so at Swansea when he had them playing terrific football with FAR less at his disposal. At Liverpool he was remarkably lucky to find himself with arguably one of the best three players in the world playing as striker. Which kind of helped just a teeny little bit.

We'll see how "remarkable" a job he does this season without this advantage and having spent a shed load of money of his own. Will 4th place be remarkable enough for you? Or 5th? Because you sure as hell aren't getting any higher than that.

Me personally i believe that the amount of games they had to play after xmas helped them big time get to were they finished last season

 

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

And in response to our Scouse visitor, I would agree Rogers has done a remarkable job. Perhaps even more so at Swansea when he had them playing terrific football with FAR less at his disposal. At Liverpool he was remarkably lucky to find himself with arguably one of the best three players in the world playing as striker. Which kind of helped just a teeny little bit.

We'll see how "remarkable" a job he does this season without this advantage and having spent a shed load of money of his own. Will 4th place be remarkable enough for you? Or 5th? Because you sure as hell aren't getting any higher than that.

It's funny how people forget that a certain Roberto Martinez started the current way Swansea play, yet all following
managers have been quick to accept all the praise with no reference to Martinez.

 

[Theengelbert]

I'll be a lot happier if Liverpool don't have mario in their starting 11. I can only imagine what'll happen if they do. He'll probably have the game of his life, score the winner and unveil a t-shirt saying "always a red" or something

 

[carlos tevez is a blue]

Did I ever mention I hate Liverpool? Stevie GBH should have been locked up for his vicious attack on the DJ.



P.S Captain Armbands is a ****.

 

[vismaybuch]

We need to be careful of Suarez.

Which world are you in, mate? Get out of your slumber