Topic: Man City 3 - 1 Liverpool - Full Time Discourse

[peachybum]

Not too bad 

[Brentieke]

Barely created a chance in 180 minutes of football this season.
Was pretty much the same at the start of last season.

Only difference is there's no Suarez to come back any time soon.

Said it in the Summer: Prepare for a hard season. It will take time for us to adjust to life without our main goalscorer and main creator.
I hope everyone will be patient with Rodgers if it gets rocky at times.

[Zaffarious]

find it hard to see skrtel starting vs spurs. what the hell was the for the second goal? as rodgers said you cant teach people out of things they do naturally. both him and glen.

i actually thought we played well. dont give a shit what the pundits say, we played a very good team and controlled large portions of the game until the mistake by moreno. they genuinely made no individual errors that led to clear chances all game. we made 2 and half.

i still dont think sturridge was offside for his goal. lambert should have put away his second chance instead of passing. i take a fair few positives out of the game...

but lets be clear. if we dont cut out the individual mistakes we are in for as rude awakening this year without suarezs genious.

[lessthanmatt]

Ps Mignolet needs to buck up his ideas this season.

Should have done better with the third goal. Don't think he saved anything, but first and second goals he can't be blamed for

[Fruity]

Overall their quality in the final third was the difference. A couple of defence splitting passes and a mistake and that was it. When chasing the game against City it will always be difficult.

In fairness to us though we have two new defenders to bed in so hopefully the defence will become a little bit tighter.

We need coutinho to play well to help us create and today he wasnt quite on it. We started looking a bit like england hoping sterling will make the breakthrough. With Lallana to come hopefully there will be other options.

Lastly I would like to think that by the next time we play City we will be much more of a settled team and a far greater handful.

[RK7]

De ja vu with our defense.

Is Lovren an improvement on Agger?

Where is Sakho?

Not a chance, said it at the time we were spending 20m without improving. He wasn't the player we needed.

Just wish we would realise it isn't a case of replacing defenders like for like and instead a problem with the system and defence as a unit, we must have spent close to 80m on players that can play in that back 5.

[Chig]

Hope Glenno, Skrtel and Moreno will be all fine. It is a defeat and hopefully a defeat that we could bounce right back of. Not a good day in office for the lads but we go again next week. Come On Redmen!!!

[SerbianScouser]

We don`t have a single elite defender. It`s a huge problem going forward for us.

[bravoco]

Probably best to avoid this place for a couple of hours.
The reigning champions, at home, got a comfortable win, despite being 2nd best 1st half.
Shit happens. We beat Spurs next week then we are at 2 points per game, after a very tough opening and everyone should be happy.

Spot on.

[Red Eyed]

Bad day at the office, we got into good positions and were the better team in the first half but we couldn't make that final pass or take our chances. City on the other hand made the most out of almost every chance they had.

And then when we pull one back and add some pressure, Johnson get's injured and we finish with 10 men, killing any momentum we had. I don't know how bad Skrtel and Moreno's injuries are but hopefully not too bad if they were still able to play.

Moreno was culpable for the first goal, but considering that it was his first premier league match and at the Etihad I thought he had a good game. I also can't wait to see Balotelli in this team as sometimes Sturridge can struggle on his own.

Oh and classless from the City fans for cheering when Moreno went down injured, but I didn't expect anything better from that lot.

[Geppvindh's]

Need the link player between the 3 in the middle and sturridge. The wide players are all good but we need someone releasing Sturridge and stretching them up. Next game at Spurs I'd play Sterling behind Balotelli and Sturridge, and play Manquillo and Moreno (if he's ok) out wide. Moreno has showed that he can be quite a handful coming forward.

Also thought Henderson had an anonymous game. No major mistakes but just anonymous. Needs to grab these chances and step up.

[Red_Potato]

undeserved???
How?
We were shocking....

Watched the game on ceefax did you?

[Circa1892]

Ps Mignolet needs to buck up his ideas this season.

Yeah, positionally poor for a couple...

[Ray K]

Oh bollocks it.

ShitBollocksFuckshitbollocksfuck.

2nd half was utterly grim.  We're now conceding all sorts of goals, not justthe one where we don't track the run from midfield.  Need fixing quickly.

[Stringer123]

Disappointing. Can't wait for the week long blame game though.

[Gonebay]

Gerrard should play more advanced.

[Father Ted]

Sobering stuff.

We were alright for 40 minutes, lacking in a bit of penetration but playing well. Then we made a mistake, got punished and never really looked like getting back into it. Even in the early stages it seemed like they were controlling us rather than us running them ragged. Nice for Lambert if that was his goal, aside from that it was one to forget.

[Party Phil]

Liverpool - had a good spell of possession football in the first half and tried hard to take the game to them but ultimately mistake prone in defence and blunt in attack.
City - quality to spare all over the park, barely got out of second gear and clinical in attack on the break.

The resources at our disposal are incomparable but sadly for us they are the benchmark right now.

[RainbowFlick]

I guess it got City home out of our way, I can imagine them dishing out similar to pretty much every side that goes to the Etihad. Out of all the top teams they have the most settled squad with a familiar setup. I think Spurs will be a better indicator for us next week as to how we're doing.

I feel we were caught in limbo a bit today in terms of the system we want to play and the shape of the team. Perhaps Balotelli in the starting 11 might bring in some balance.

There were some positives in terms of link-up play, passing and movement, but the final third was lacking.

Asides from the mistake, Moreno had a decent-ish debut. Put in some decent balls into the box.

[Ski]

Very little between the 2 sides for me. Only difference was that they made the most of their opportunities and we didn't. Despite how Martin Tyler tried to rewrite history with his summing up. Though we were well in the game until the 2nd goal. Sturridge millimetres offside at 1nil.

[The G in Gerrard]

Surprised we didn't make more changes in midfield

[Fromola]

We didn't play badly tonight. I thought we played well overall but our main problem is Rodgers hasn't got a clue how to set a team up defensively and without Suarez we can't expect to score 4 goals a game to account for it.

[rob1408]

A few good signs in the first half and the beginning of the second, fell apart after their second.  Moreno at fault for the first, but its his first game in English football, don't think he'd make that mistake in a couple of months.  That aside he looked promising and showed grit by staying on, hopefully he's okay.

Disappointed, but we'll have to dust ourselves off and put things right against Spurs.

[Pricey]

Good first half but we never looked like scoring, Sturridge was completely isolated, in my opinion he can't play alone up front, he needs a partner.

Lovren out of position and partly at fault for all 3 goals. Absolutely fucking diabolical performance.

Mignolet's positioning on the 3rd goal is absolutely laughable, he's given Aguergo 3/4's of his goal at the near post. He should arguably do better on the first not only as it's straight at him but commanding his area and screaming at Moreno to clear it.

Coutinho couldn't get in the game, Allen was excellent, our MOTM. Johnson was his usual self, hopefully now he's injured Rodgers will try something new.

Overall it's shown that we've largely not changed at the back, solid but we gift teams goals. Literally throw games away at the back. If you're playing Liverpool keep it tight and we'll shoot ourselves. Oh well, i thought we'd lose but i didn't think we'd be that poor defensively.

[RichardM]

We were awful tonight, but give credit to City, they're bloody good. I do hope Johnson is okay but I'm thankful we've got Moreno and I'm confident he'll come in and do well, I really thought he should be starting ahead of Glen anyway.

Moreno looked decent aside from the mistake, rather he did it early on in the season than late. Lovren was quite poor tactically, hoping it was just the occasion and not a sign of his ability.

I just have to get my one quip out the way. Why does Daniel Sturridge ALWAYS, WITHOUT FAIL try to do something elaborate and flashy instead of the simple pass? I'm a huge fan of his and he's an excquisite footballer but it's like he's doing it in an attempt to show off. Every. Single. Time.

[1892tillforever]

Johnson looks like he's out injured

That's not on. I don't think he is good enough for LFC anymore but being happy with him being injured? Poor stuff, very poor.

[Rattleduser]

city didn't have to play that well 

[The Fletcher Memorial]

Well, glad that's out the way.

[redalways]

Not worried. Could have done with this fixture later in the season.
We'll get the 3 points at Anfield so all square.
Don't read too much into this result.

[J-Mc-]

Moreno had a baptism by fire and apart from getting caught out of position a few times, did well.

Lovren has a bad night, as did Skrtel and the less I say about Johnson the better, the lazy bastard.

They won at walking pace by the end of it, we barely looked like scoring all night even though we had the chances to. Need a lot of work on the training ground this week!

[Gus 1855]

Toughest fixture done, not too disheartened. Would have liked something, but didn't expect it.

[clinical]

Not too gutted to be honest, basically knew we had little chance tonight. Big game for Lovren and Moreno. Lovren needs to get back to the standards of last week. Sakho should be in the defence, he's still our best defender imo. They were better than us tonight, no shame in admitting it.

Johnson just not really bothered is he

[lessthanmatt]

On a side note, Can very very lucky not to pick up a red there...

Dreadful technique for the old stick your leg out and make contact chestnut

[Red Cez]

Did I glimpse a flat-ish 4-4-2 out there when Lambert came on?

[wheresnemeth]

We got schooled today by a professional outfit who took their chances. There wont be many teams that will do that to us this season. Also, thank heavens we bought another striker.

[Just Dan]

Played very well first half and in bits second.

Johnson did a couple of good crosses. Other than that awful.

Moreno had a very good game I thought for his first game. Made one mistake and paid for it. But other than that I thought he did extremely well, going forwards aswell as defensively. Hope the ankle is alright.

Lovren got caught out a few times, he's supposed to be commanding the back 4 and holding the line. But he seemed to be the one who was too forwards. Back 4 will get better in time. Still early days and we had 2 new players playing on our left side. That has to be taken into account.

Thought we lacked legs in midfield when going backwards.

Sturridge impressed me as did Sterling in parts.

Hendo made some nice forward runs into the box.

We need to limit Gerrard sprinting back towards his own goal as much as possible.

Not many teams will go to Man City and get points. Its gone. Move on to Spurs, make up for it and deck them twofold.

[Midekima]

Pretty obvious we set up to counter City and instead Pellegrini has played a blinder. City defended deep put men behind the ball (9 at times) and totally reversed the game. As usual we gave a soft goal away and then proceeded to get counter attacked by the best team in the league.

Pellegrini had it spot on. Luckily for us our season wont be defined by a loss at the Etihad.

Lets hope other teams dont do the same! Its fairly obvious the way we play. 1st and 3rd goals were poor but we miseed a few good chances where City were equally shambolic. Hendo twice recieved the ball in the box and turned the wrong way!

[MrEazi1]

At least its out of the way. We're not the first team and won't be the last to lose at the Etihad. Markovic looked sharp as did Sterling. Moreno was decent but one mistake and it went downhill from there. Lovren had a poor game compared to last week and Johnson again struggled.

Ultimately City are so clinical at home and Pellegrini got his tactics spot on.

Let's get back on track vs Spurs and after that the fixture list eases up a bit.

[DonkeyWan]

No doubt some will look at the scoreline and judge the game by that alone (Guardian I am looking at you).

Personally I felt that was a good performance, despite the occasional lapse.

2 City goals came against the run of play and it was really only 15 minutes that saw Liverpool unravel. Even the defensive lapses were mostly down to the raft odf new players in the side.

I was actually impressed by most of the new players, Moreno had a fine game, I thought Lovren did well again, Markovic really impressed and Lambert scored.

Only Can looked a little out of his depth, but give him time.

[bakstabba]

City were very, very good. We were decent. They were just far more clinical.

Jovetic is some player, and we all know about Silva's quality. It says a lot about their squad when Dzeko comes off for Aguero to come on and score.

Markovic looked good when he came on, Moreno has some serious pace.