Topic: FAC:ManU 4 vs 3 Liv McT 10’ Mac 44’ Salah 45+2’ Antony 87’ Elliot 105’ Rash 113’

[Nick110581]

Agreed.  The game v Prague on Thu was like a training game anyway.  Just a few too many players off the pace yesterday esp with poor decision making up top when Utd was begging to be put to bed in second half. 

Then a couple of basic mistakes to give UTD their last 2 goals.

To be honest, the second half yesterday felt like a training match and that’s the most annoying thing.

Their heads had dropped and they offered fuck all until the last few minutes.

[Knight]

I don't think we deserved anything out of that. We seemed mentally checked out and our performance was error-strewn. To their credit (euughh!) United never gave up - I don't think they were jammy and the xG bears that out:

HT: Man Utd (1.86) 1-2 (1.19) Liverpool

After 90 minutes: Man Utd (3.13) 2-2 (1.93) Liverpool

After Extra Time: Man Utd (4.25) 4-3 (2.18) Liverpool


All the same, hate losing to these but we've got bigger fish to fry and with the upcoming recovery period hopefully we have enough fuel to fire us home.

ouch. Not pretty on xG.

[Shankly998]

I'd be more bothered if we were on for a genuine quad ie Champions league instead of Europa. I'd also be more bothered if City were out of the competition even if we got past United it would have still been a 50:50 chance of winning. You can't ever prove it but if this result means we're not complacent and go and win the league game against these then it's worth it. Similarly I'd rather have been knocked out by Arsenal in the FA cup and won there in the league.

Trophy wise I only really care about the premier league and Champions league. The others are nice to have but are more of a nice bonus. If getting knocked out of the Europa league would help us turn a loss/draw in the league into a win I'd take that deal.

[Chris~]

But if you’re talking about the players on the pitch in extra time, then look at our back four. How often have they played together? They’re all great players but three of them don’t play if Matip, Trent, Ibou are fit, or if Robbo isn’t coming back after a lay off, or Joe hasn’t run himself into the ground. Injuries mean more fatigue and more changes, and we’ve had a dozen players out as of very recently, 9 or 10 of them first team starters. This, combined with the sheer number of games played, will inevitably affect us and I think it showed in extra time yesterday.

Time to reset and get ready for the run in. Get the international break out the way, hopefully get them all back in one piece (and keep any with even the slightest issue at home please!) and then bring it on. Yesterday will soon be forgotten.

I don't think I could even tell.you who was playing back 4 for.them at the end, some combination of Dalot, Maguire, Fernandes, Diallo?

Not an excuse but it’s a valid point. We’ve been fighting on 4 fronts, with constant intensive games. Players dropping in and out with injury etc. All we can do is accept the result and go again.

We have and if you play a lot of.high level games you get a bad result with a dip in performance as we saw. Cumalitive minutes over a season shouldn't be a factor for that though yet for most players. Maybe I'm reading in to it to literally

They said on ITV this was our 18th game of the calendar year, it was United’s 12th. That’s 50% more games. Whether it works out as more minutes or not, it’s more preparation, more travel, more mental fatigue and tons more pressure to perform.

Being at home was the big advantage for them yesterday. We can’t gas Anfield up like we do for picking the team up when we look flat and not expect them to have a similar type of lift when their season’s on the line against their biggest rivals.

For me, we did look knackered, not just physically, but we looked like we’d lost our control and ability to execute our tactics/gameplan. We just started pumping long balls up for Maguire to head, it’s literally his bread and butter, with very little in terms of players looking to pick up second balls. I thought all of our full backs were pretty poor going both ways and United exploited that.

That's part of being good though. You play more than the bad teams. We're a bit fucked of that's already hitting us in March as we're only going to end up playing even more than the midtable clubs going forward.

[spider-neil]

It's so crap we have to sit and stew on this result for two weeks. I might even watch some internationals to forget about this result.

[Shankly998]

It's so crap we have to sit and stew on this result for two weeks. I might even watch some internationals to forget about this result.

Let's not do anything crazy here

[Crosby Nick]

Do you think the not being clinical enough thing stems from us playing in second gear so much recently? Not a criticism, but with so many games so close together it feels like we just do enough rather than go for the jugular (ignore Sparta, they were clearly levels below). Normally that’s fine but yesterday it came back to bite us.

[Nick110581]

Do you think the not being clinical enough thing stems from us playing in second gear so much recently? Not a criticism, but with so many games so close together it feels like we just do enough rather than go for the jugular (ignore Sparta, they were clearly levels below). Normally that’s fine but yesterday it came back to bite us.

Maybe. It all felt very lazy in and around the box when attacking.

It might and have been one game too far with all the injuries but we handed them that victory.

[cissesbeard]

really odd game. at 2-1 up we should killed it off, I really thought we'd win about 4-1 at this point. utd were really open and unorganised but we attacked really slow and just seemed to be walking around, almost as though it was too easy. the other week neville said utd just play in moments and hes actually right, they attacked well at times (mainoo looks good) and rashford shouldve scored.
with the run we've been on it felt like we were going to lose one along the way. I said to my daughter last week that we won't be utd twice at old trafford in the space of a few weeks and if we can only win one i hope its the league game.

[Red_Mist]

Do you think the not being clinical enough thing stems from us playing in second gear so much recently? Not a criticism, but with so many games so close together it feels like we just do enough rather than go for the jugular (ignore Sparta, they were clearly levels below). Normally that’s fine but yesterday it came back to bite us.

I think our biggest loss (and I groaned at that one more than any of the others when it happened) was Diogo Jota. He’s the man to walk up to a punch drunk opponent and knock them out.

[Funky_Gibbons]

Do you think the not being clinical enough thing stems from us playing in second gear so much recently? Not a criticism, but with so many games so close together it feels like we just do enough rather than go for the jugular (ignore Sparta, they were clearly levels below). Normally that’s fine but yesterday it came back to bite us.

I'm not sure we've played in second gear much recently, we always seem to go hunting for goals even when leading comfortably like the two Sparta games.

But that second half yesterday was a level of casualness I've not seen for a long time (probably since the 5-0 at Old Trafford when we took our foot off the gas to avoid any injuries). We were just passing the ball around with no intensity or purpose. At one point there was two players just hitting backwards and forwards between themselves like a training exercise. 

United showed absolutely no sign of getting back into the game but all it takes is one chance. The problem with us playing like that is that it's very hard to switch the attitude back round.

[Barneylfc∗]

I don't think we deserved anything out of that. We seemed mentally checked out and our performance was error-strewn. To their credit (euughh!) United never gave up - I don't think they were jammy and the xG bears that out:

HT: Man Utd (1.86) 1-2 (1.19) Liverpool

After 90 minutes: Man Utd (3.13) 2-2 (1.93) Liverpool

After Extra Time: Man Utd (4.25) 4-3 (2.18) Liverpool

xG is nonsense. It doesn't take into account Rashford was offside at the end of 90 mins. It also doesn't take into account we defended like schoolboys for the winner.

[crewlove]

One of the most frustrating matches in a long while. I know we lost finals and leagues recently, but it just hit in a very bad manner.

That 45-80 period was an accident waiting to happen. Not for once I thought the game was ours to take. I don't how to describe our final third play in this period. Lazy is not enough, but I don't have a better word for it. I don't think I've ever seen us that casual. Just not once. You just knew that without third goal there will be problems.

United are weird to watch. There is no clear structure, but they can definitely hurt you on the counter. They smell blood and out of the sudden they are not camping in their penalty box anymore and are bursting forward in a way they haven't for many minutes before.

I don't think this was some turning-point game for them, but I also don't think it was something of a waking call (as some posters say) for us. Negatives we had yesterday were also negatives we have seen across the season. Slow starts happen often, nevermind whether it is Sparta in Prague or United yesterday. And there was also no killing-game instinct and we saw it few times already. Jota helped with that a lot, unfortunately he is off. These things are more of a feature for our side unfortunately. I think Klopp also saw it yesterday, he was pretty mad at times during second half.

Shame really. I hoped for another Wembley trip but unfortunately there won't be another one this season. I'd like us to play as soon as possible now to brush it off, but maybe we will have more players available in few weeks time for Brighton and coming back to that OT shithole.

[Elzar]

There was some clear tiredness in the legs, with plenty of players that have put mega shifts in during our injury crisis and also returning players struggling to even get through the 90.

They got back into it with a few changes due to the midfield being unable to press and cover out wide with Macca and Endo probably knackered. Then they dropped their ball players deeper and Nunez/Diaz were absolute done in and unable to press them and cover. Gakpo's performance was a massive disappointment, and really has to be better in those circumstances. He will be getting plenty of deserved criticism for that showing.

It was a massively frustrating game to watch as our mistakes came lack of thinking on the pitch, which was disappointing and unlike this team. Sending everyone up for that corner, I immediately thought "Don't get caught on the break now". Passing to Nunez in that deep position was silly when he had no options around him apart from going back, as much as you should trust everyone on the pitch, he isn't used to that stage of build up and is always going to look forward instead of playing it around to get the space.

I think Klopp got it wrong too, and like the players, he is going to do that sometimes. The subs didn't provide what we needed, and Clark could have come on earlier if he was fit enough. I was hoping we would continue to trust the academy lads even in these massive games, Danns should lots of fight and willing to get stuck in during his showings so would have been a good replacement for Diaz/Nunez to get fresh legs and a bit of chase on. Instead we were basically giving them the ball back and letting them build constantly.

Fernandes should definitely have been off, and at the end of the day, they likely wouldn't have got the equaliser had the correct decision been made and they were down to 10.

Frustrating match all around, especially before an international break. The team need to use that disappointment to fuel the last push once we are back.

There is a clear game plan we can try and exploit more in the league match, as they love to man mark Salah, but often that leaves gaps, which we started to expose but Salah had to come off after 75 minutes due to having to to do the 90 in midweek with Clark's injury. Bradley or Elliot could get in that gap between CB and LB they leave when marking Salah so tight, Dom probably isn't the type to do that as much, but hopefully it's highlighted as once we picked up on it yesterday we got a some success and they looked on the edge.

[KillieRed]

Beaten by a pumped up pub team 

The decision to play so many first teamers on Thursday now looks terrible, but this loss was mostly down to sloppy finishing when we were utterly dominant. If we’d got that 3rd it would probably have been another cricket score.

[Redley]

Still absolutely baffled by the meltdown over that. Its shit to lose a game, its shit to lose a quarter final, its shit to lose in that manner and of course its shit to lose to that shite...but some perspective please! We've already won a domestic trophy, we're joint top of the league, we're big favourites for the Europa and we've got big players due back shortly.

I dont think we particularly looked knackered or anything, we just looked like we almost enjoyed toying with them too much and ended up passing the momentum out of our own play and giving them a punchers chance. Hopefully that gives them the confidence to be more attacking when we go there in the league and they dont park the bus.

[William Regal]

Was a frustrating game, I thought we were brilliant the first 30mins of the 2nd half, completely dominant, Quansah stepping out brilliantly on the ball, the frustrating part was not finishing them off when they were groggy on the ropes.

Taking off Robertson, Szoboszlai, and Salah for Bradley, Elliott,  and Gapko around the 75 minute mark was a big turning point in the game, we lost our grip on the game from that point on, which is unusual for us this season because we have in general been brilliant from the bench.

Fair play to Man utd, they gambled and went for it, seemed like Fernandes spent the last 40 minutes as a centre half so it was frustrating that we never got the chance for Nunez or Diaz to expose him on the counter attack.  Utd are pretty much garbage when they have to play against park the bus sides but playing against an expansive side like us gives them a chance with the speed of their wide men on the counter.

[Fromola]

It's so crap we have to sit and stew on this result for two weeks. I might even watch some internationals to forget about this result.

Fucking hell, I wouldn't go that far. I might go and watch a local non league game at the weekend at least.

[Fromola]

I'm not sure we've played in second gear much recently, we always seem to go hunting for goals even when leading comfortably like the two Sparta games.

But that second half yesterday was a level of casualness I've not seen for a long time (probably since the 5-0 at Old Trafford when we took our foot off the gas to avoid any injuries). We were just passing the ball around with no intensity or purpose. At one point there was two players just hitting backwards and forwards between themselves like a training exercise. 

United showed absolutely no sign of getting back into the game but all it takes is one chance. The problem with us playing like that is that it's very hard to switch the attitude back round.

Which is the problem once they equalised. I was comfortable watching the second half as they weren't in it, but it got to the last 10 minutes and I thought this can't just peter out, they're going to have to go for it now in front of their own crowd.

The thing is City do it all the time. They kill a game dead by just playing keep ball once they're ahead - whether we've just tried to do the same but we're not a team who can see out a game like that. 19/20 we were experts at seeing a game out.

[William Regal]

Which is the problem once they equalised. I was comfortable watching the second half as they weren't in it, but it got to the last 10 minutes and I thought this can't just peter out, they're going to have to go for it now in front of their own crowd.

The thing is City do it all the time. They kill a game dead by just playing keep ball once they're ahead - whether we've just tried to do the same but we're not a team who can see out a game like that. 19/20 we were experts at seeing a game out.

That's true, milner would have spent the last 10 mins of the game winning throw ins and free kicks in the corner

[Gerard00]

Lets face it, they were always going to score whenever we fluffed it in the second half. I mean Antony scored - if its not meant to be at that point then they really are cursed.

Anyway Coventry or The Cheats will do them and it will all be for nothing so i'll let them enjoy their DVD at the end of the season with the highlights of 6th place and a win against us in the cup - small time!

As for us it was clear the subs cost us, For once Elliott didn't offer as much as he normally does and Gakpo was atrocious - couldn't pass the ball 10 yards! We seemed to panic when they got near the box and i think the crowd and occasion ruffled some of the players. We were no where near our best but still should have won that in 90 minutes. We move on and learn from it.

[mrchimps]

Yesterday felt a little bit like some of the times we would turn up at a bottom 6 club and just expect to roll them over only for them to come out fighting. Felt absolutely dejected last night, but it is what it is. Like others have said bigger things await (hopefully).

[MonsLibpool]

I may be in a minority of one, I don't know, but 'the quad' never crossed my mind. It's little more than a pressure-inducing media construction. I don't really see it as now gone, because I never for a moment thought it was actually on. To me, talk of a 'quad' with months of a very tight season to go, were just fanciful rubbish.

We are good enough to do it based on quality and squad depth. Could have had an easy semi too. We just bottled it.

We need to learn how to kill games off. Very few of our games this season are over in the first half when we just need 2 goals to finish it. That's additional strain.

Conceding 2 goals in the second half of ET is criminal. You should be taking it to pens at the very least.

[MonsLibpool]

Which is the problem once they equalised. I was comfortable watching the second half as they weren't in it, but it got to the last 10 minutes and I thought this can't just peter out, they're going to have to go for it now in front of their own crowd.

The thing is City do it all the time. They kill a game dead by just playing keep ball once they're ahead - whether we've just tried to do the same but we're not a team who can see out a game like that. 19/20 we were experts at seeing a game out.

You should do that when two goals not one. It was folly to not push for a second.

[Funky_Gibbons]

Which is the problem once they equalised. I was comfortable watching the second half as they weren't in it, but it got to the last 10 minutes and I thought this can't just peter out, they're going to have to go for it now in front of their own crowd.

The thing is City do it all the time. They kill a game dead by just playing keep ball once they're ahead - whether we've just tried to do the same but we're not a team who can see out a game like that. 19/20 we were experts at seeing a game out.

Like I said the last time I remember us doing that was the 5-0 game but we were 4-0 at halftime and 5-0 when Pogba got sent off. We were out of danger from any kind of response from United.

Yesterday we were one goal up and decided to keep tapping the ball to one another which is asking for trouble. United were always going to give it a bit of a go int he last 10-minutes.

It also highlighted the mistake of pushing Nunez wide left later in the game. United had taken off most of their centre halves and Maguire was constantly pushing up front to play as a target man. But we had no-one through the middle with any pace to exploit the big gaps they left at the back.   

[DelTrotter]

We just bottled it.

Yeah this shit can fuck right off.

[MonsLibpool]

Yeah this shit can fuck right off.

Do you ever have an opinion or you're the forum police?

In football, to 'bottle' or to have 'bottled' something is to throw away a lead or a good chance of winning when you've been on the front foot.

We bottled it. I am not getting into any childish argument with you by the way.

[JP!]

I don't think we bottled it or any of that, because we were never particularly in control of the game.

We just made some absolutely baffling tactical decisions. There's a lot of focus on arrogance and tiredness and bottling and etc etc when to be honest it was mostly just piss-poor tactically.  We had no protection against United's counters which is everything they have attack wise.

We were arguably a little complacent from 60 onwards but that might be it.

[DelTrotter]

Do you ever have an opinion or you're the forum police?

I have plenty of opinions on how clueless you are, a grim, sportswashing worshipper, bet you've been saving the "bottlers" thing up for months haven't you? Imagine using that word given all these players have achieved this season with the most horrific injury crisis.

[MonsLibpool]

I don't think we bottled it or any of that, because we were never particularly in control of the game.

We just made some absolutely baffling tactical decisions. There's a lot of focus on arrogance and tiredness and bottling and etc etc when to be honest it was mostly just piss-poor tactically.  We had no protection against United's counters which is everything they have attack wise.

We were arguably a little complacent from 60 onwards but that might be it.

Throwing away a lead twice and losing in ET is the textbook definition of bottling a game.

Like I said, it's just a lack of experience and having young players. We need to learn from this.

[bird_lfc]

Really disappointing. They are absolutely shite. I suppose they were going to get one over on us eventually

Oh well, league cup, Europa league and title challenge it is…

[Slippers]

Let's not do anything crazy here

Desperate times etc.

[JackWard33]

Throwing away a lead twice and losing in ET is the textbook definition of bottling a game.

Like I said, it's just a lack of experience and having young players. We need to learn from this.

Bottling implies some kind of cowardice which wasn’t present the simple fact is tired players make mistakes

[JP!]

Throwing away a lead twice and losing in ET is the textbook definition of bottling a game.

Like I said, it's just a lack of experience and having young players. We need to learn from this.

It's not bottling when your setup is flawed to start with.

[PhilV]

Unfortunately, the worst thing to be said about yesterday wasn't losing to that absolute shower. It was the fact we lost the game to ourselves, we really didn't look like the team we have been this season, just a yard off the pace, some players lacking intensity, others not on their best game... it felt like a weird performance for me, some of the shots toward the end were clearly desperate, such as Harvey's goal, without the deflection that was a comfortable save as it was from such a poor position.

I seemed to me we were mentally tired out ther, it really sucked because some of their goals were created by us, but we need to move, one player for me put in less than required effort and stifled us but I save that comment for his own individual thread.

[MonsLibpool]

Bottling implies some kind of cowardice which wasn’t present the simple fact is tired players make mistakes

We shouldn't be losing it in ET. We were tired and got pegged back but we should be taking it to pens at the very least. That what makes it frustrating.

Bottling can also be complacency and shooting yourself in the foor. If Spurs lost like that, then no one would hesitate to call it a bottle job.

It's just a lack of experience that is normal when we have so many young/new players that aren't used to competing at this level. I hope we'll learn from this because it's easier in a cup game.

[MonsLibpool]

It's not bottling when your setup is flawed to start with.

No. We threw it away and that had nothing to do with our set up.

The 3rd and 4th goals were very avoidable. What does playing a square pass have to do with our set up?

Or throwing everybody forward and getting countered so easily?

[JP!]

No. We threw it away and that had nothing to do with our set up.

The 3rd and 4th goals were very avoidable.

Okay mate. I can't be arsed with you, so carry on.

[MonsLibpool]

Okay mate. I can't be arsed with you, so carry on.

Neither can I be arsed with excuses. Playing a square pass isn't a setup issue.

We just needed to be sensible to at least take it to pens.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

No. We threw it away and that had nothing to do with our set up.

The 3rd and 4th goals were very avoidable. What does playing a square pass have to do with our set up?

Or throwing everybody forward and getting countered so easily?

We're still missing key players. We've played a shit loads of games and we looked fucked at the end.

I think we've done amazing to still be in the mix with half the squad out.