Before this one I mentioned to a few people that the last time I felt this confident before a big game was Chelsea last season, and we all know what happened that day. Little did I know this one would be so eerily, gut wrenchingly similar. Steven Gerrard was unfortunate against Chelsea, this time he was just reckless and irresponsible. I’ll get to that in due course though, as his stupidity had no bearing on what had gone on in the 45 minutes before his introduction.
The players just didn’t look that arsed in the first half and it was difficult to comprehend what was happening. Second to every ball, shitting out of tackles, not bothering to show for the ball at throw ins, not closing anyone down, allowing Fellaini to just do whatever he wanted…. it was just shite. I’d suggest it was as bad as anything we saw between August-December when we mostly sucked donkey balls.
This was our biggest game of the season by a mile yet over half the team simply never showed up. Maybe it was nerves, maybe it was complacency or perhaps we’re just not as good as we thought. Whatever it was, we were utterly abject.
United didn’t even do anything extravagant formation wise, yet they completely shut us down. If Van Gaal had come up with some sort of unusual system or strategy that confused us I could have understood it, but it looked to me like they just worked harder. No doubt there will have been some little subtle tactical wrinkles in there and Van Gaal will know better than anyone the strengths and weaknesses of this system having often played something similar during his long career. To my untrained eye though it didn’t appear that they were doing anything we hadn’t faced and overcome before.
United passed it around well and they stopped us from doing likewise by pressing us high up the pitch and that was the difference in the first half. They wanted it more. That and the fact they could just frequently launch it at Fellaini who would then bring it down and find team-mates and allow them to have good possession in our half, whereas we had no out ball as Sturridge was largely anonymous and had little support.
They were comfortably the better side before the break yet they only had one real chance of note, as did we. The difference was that Mata put his away and Lallana missed his. For all their territorial dominance that’s what it boiled down to; one chance for each side, they scored and we didn’t. The second half was much the same story actually. One great chance each (until their stoppage time penalty), both of which were converted.
The biggest difference was that they looked like a team, a cohesive unit with everyone working together, while we were just like a rag tag bunch of strangers trying to do their own thing, at least in the first half.
Skrtel and Sakho played to their usual high level, Mignolet was fine too, but everyone else was below par. We didn’t dominate the midfield, we were pitiful on the flanks, the two attacking midfielders never influenced the game and Sturridge was starved of any service and never really looked up for the fight.
Sterling was woeful in the first half. Prior to kick off I liked the idea of him playing on the right against Blind, as the Dutchman isn’t the quickest and it looked like an avenue we could exploit. It never happened though as Sterling was a complete non-factor for most of the game. It’s starting to feel like the last time he was looking for a new contract, when his form went to pot and everyone was pissed off with him.
Back then it was “you want 50k a week and you’re playing like that? Get to fuck!” Two years later and it’s “You want 150k a week and you’re playing like that? Get to fuck!” Inflation sure has a much higher rate in football than anywhere else doesn’t it. Not even fuel goes up like ticket prices and player salaries.
Far be it for me to stick up for Sterling, as he’s not a sympathetic figure by any means and I’m of the mindset that if you’re wanting big boy wages then you’re going to have to deliver big boy performances virtually every time you step onto the field. He’s not doing that consistently enough this season, but in this game he played three different positions (technically four as it looked like he was playing up front for the 30 seconds Gerrard was on the field) and it’s not the first time either. That can’t help him really, and it needs sorting out.
I really like this system but I don’t think we can continue playing it while we have such problems at both wing back spots. Markovic briefly looked like he could do the job before reverting back to his pre-December form, Sterling is wasted out there, Lallana the same, Manquillo is crap going forward, Enrique has made more appearances at Knowsley Safari Park this season than he has for the first team and while it’s kind of flown under the radar a bit, Moreno has actually been bang average at best for most of the season.
He’s been living off that Spurs goal all season as he’s really not contributing much. Against the Mancs he was painfully bad and Mata had him on toast the entire game, it was embarrassing. Ibe looks to be the only good option we have for either wing back spot and unless Rodgers comes up with something he may have to revert to a back four until he can bring in specialists to fill the roles (Milner would look to be a good fit on the right for example).
Some feel that other teams have now sussed out how to play against this system and that may be the case. There are some very clued up coaches out there and given enough time they’ll figure out how to nullify any system. At the beginning of the season teams looked like they’d figured out our midfield diamond too, but a lot of it is down to personnel. The systems will work if the quality of player is high enough. Had Suarez still been here the diamond would still work because you can’t shut down a player like that, especially when he’s got Sterling and Sturridge alongside him.
Likewise, the current system could still function effectively with better wingbacks and Sterling up front in place of Sturridge. Not that I’m advocating that, far from it. Sturridge is arguably our biggest asset and we need to be looking at how we can get him looking like himself again rather than dropping him for someone who can’t finish.
Sterling makes the system work a lot better than Sturridge does, but given that Sturridge is the only reliable goalscorer we have then Brendan needs to tweak things to make it easier for him. Whether that’s an extra striker instead of one of the duel number tens, or a return to the 4-4-2 diamond or something else entirely I have no idea, but he’s got the international break to figure it out before we travel to Arsenal.
The introduction of Gerrard was the right call and had he not been such a dick then who knows what would have happened. Rodgers had reverted to a back four and a diamond and usually he gets these things right. He’s turned many a game with his tactical nous but we’ll never know if his tactical switch would have changed the course of this game because 36 seconds later we were down to ten men.
The crunching tackle Gerrard put in immediately after the restart was exactly what we needed and was probably the reason Herrera then tried to go through him. Job done, he’s got the crowd fired up, his team-mates will have got the message that they need to get stuck into these fuckers and he’s drawn Herrera into a stupid foul that would earn him a booking. So why did he then undo all of that good work by needlessly stamping on him? After all, how many times has he had people fly in at him like that during his career? Hundreds? Thousands even? And he’s never reacted like that until now.
That stamp had nothing to do with trying to bring a more physical edge to our game, it was just a scouser who hates United and who let them get under his skin. People can speculate all they like about whether he was frustrated at not starting, or that he was irritated at how passive we’d been in the first half. Both may be true, or maybe it was something a bit more simple: He’s one of us.
He’s played countless games against United before and never acted like that, but having spent the entire first half either sat on the bench or warming up yards away from them and listening to all the vile, disgusting shit they were chanting about Heysel and Hillsborough (plus all the crap about him 'costing us the league'), he’s just gone out there wanting to go to war.
Usually he’s on the field for the entire time we’re playing them so probably isn’t really too aware of what they’re chanting, but imagine how steaming he must have been listening to them going through their full, hideous back catalogue of offensive chants. “Justice for the 39” “Always the victim” and “The S*n was right, you’re murderers”… It’s a wonder he never took to the field with a baseball bat.
I’m not excusing what he did though, he’s the captain and the most experienced man at the club so he needs to set an example and be more responsible. He let everyone down and played right into the hands of the pondlife in the away end. They won, he lost, and so did we as a result of it.
He let everyone down and it’s inexcusable for someone of his experience. I understand why he had such an angry head on him but he's paid an awful lot of money to rise above that shit. I wish he’d have channeled his anger a lot less stupidly, or at least waited until stoppage time before stamping on one of them, like Skrtel did.
Martin Atkinson can fuck right off though, the shit bastard. Gerrard should have been sent off, that was the correct decision, but he let that gormless gurning twat Phil Jones get away with fucking murder. Rooney too, just what does that weetabix headed, S*n collaborating little scrote have to do to get a yellow card? And he can fuck off with his “fans were amazing” bullshit on twitter. Amazing? Does he even know what they spent the entire game chanting about? I know he’s thick as shit, but is he THAT stupid? He’s a disgrace to his city.
I’m not blaming Atkinson for the loss though as it was entirely self inflicted. It’s not sour grapes, but it still needs saying that this fella was simply awful throughout. He booked Allen for a minor tug on a United player near the centre circle, yet allowed Jones to poleaxe Lallana with a clumsy, wild body check. If that isn’t a yellow card offence then we may as well all give up.
While our players were immediately handed cards I lost count of the amount of times he opted to merely ‘have a word’ with their players after fouls, and Fellaini seemed mohave license to just run around fouling whoever he liked without punishment. It was the lenience towards Jones that infuriated me most though. Having escaped a yellow for the assault on Lallana he was then booked for a shocker on Henderson. That on it’s own should have been a straight red but the fact he’d already escaped a yellow made it even worse.
We’re lucky Balotelli didn’t go the same way as Gerrard and he’s got a couple of fans in the lower Centenary to thank for that. Smalling left a little something on him and nudged him into the boards, and Mario - already on a yellow after a brainless kick out at Jones - looked like he wanted blood. Thankfully he was held back long enough to prevent him doing something daft.
Bringing him on was a massive gamble by Brendan but it was one he probably had to take. We were 2-0 down after Mata’s brilliant volley so had to get another forward on. The problem is that you can’t trust him to keep his cool in a cauldron such as this, and being a man down means you need everyone putting in an extra shift, which is not really his thing.
The kick on Jones must have had Rodgers tearing his hair out, and too often he was just ambling about while the likes of Sturridge and Coutinho were chasing down the man with the ball. He was decent enough with the ball though and maybe we need to start him now to give Sturridge the help he needs.
Sturridge pulled one back with a slightly deflected shot after good work by Coutinho. It was good to see Sturridge just hit the shot first time and not mess about trying to get back onto his left foot, and he got his reward for it. There was still plenty of time left for an equaliser but it never really looked like coming.
There was plenty of huff and puff and the players deserve some credit for how they played in the second half. It didn’t always look like we were a man down and had they shown the same work rate in the first half maybe we wouldn’t have lost the game.
Overall though it just wasn’t good enough, too many players didn’t perform and few come out of it with any real credit. Sakho stood head and shoulders above everyone, he was outstanding. Skrtel was alright and defensively we held quite firm, although Can didn’t look comfortable at all and his afternoon was summed up by the clumsy penalty he conceded in stoppage time.
The only crumb of comfort was that Mignolet managed to keep out Rooney’s spot kick. It didn’t make any difference to the outcome of the game but at least that little scruff didn’t get to celebrate scoring at Anfield in front of all the mutants in the away end. It doesn’t make the loss any easier to take but at least it wasn’t more painful than it needed to be.
Maybe we should have seen it coming as let’s face it, our performances have been in decline for a while even if results have been good (in the league anyway). The City game was the one exception as other than that we’ve generally got by on a solid defence and haven’t looked good in attack for weeks. When Coutinho isn’t banging in 25 yarders we’re often finding it tough to score.
This result means fourth place has probably gone now, and second or third has sure as hell gone out of the window. Before the game I didn’t think a defeat would be the end of our top four hopes, but I’ve changed my mind now. Firstly, we don’t look capable of winning seven of our eight remaining games, and that’s probably what it will take to catch those above us.
Secondly, United are better than I thought they were. They’re nothing special, but after seeing this I’d say it’s far from nailed on that they’ll lose to City and Chelsea. I had them losing both of those but I don’t think that will happen now, which leaves us with a mountain to climb.
It hurts and it’s demoralising, but at least it didn’t cost us the title like the Chelsea loss did. Missing out on fourth place? Bothered. The club accountants will be suicidal about it but I won’t lose any sleep over it if we don’t get in. Everything about our club is about money these days and it’s leaving me cold.
It wasn’t just events on the pitch that made this such a shitty day either. The first sight I was greeted with as I got out of the car in front of the Kop was some tool getting his picture taken in front of the Shankly statue with a half and half scarf proudly raised above his head. He’s wearing a Liverpool shirt and he’s raising a scarf that’s got the United logo on it, and he's doing it in front of Shanks!! He wasn’t alone either, there were fucking hundreds of them knocking about, easily the most I’ve ever seen.
One of the lads I speak to before the game told me he was chatting to a scarf seller outside the Kop and he’d sold out of half and halfs. It’s Manchester United for fucks sake, just what the hell are these people thinking? Do United have the same issue when we play at Old Trafford? I assume they do, it can't just be us.
Even worse than the whole scarf thing, within a couple of minutes of me starting to sell the fanzine some fella decked out in LFC swag from the club shop comes up and asks me where “the memorial for the 69” was. No really, he actually said that. It could have been a language issue, but he sounded Scandinavian and most of those lads speak better English than I do. Utterly depressing.
It was tourist central though, they were everywhere. Now here’s the thing, I’ve got no problem with anyone who wants to watch the Reds and if someone is prepared to pay a load of cash to fly thousands of miles to go to a game, fair play. It’s no different to the likes of me and you going to watch Madrid or Barca. The problem I have is that it’s blatantly obvious that for the biggest home game of the season the club have sold a shitload of extra tickets to Thomas Cook or whoever. There’s never normally this many tourists, I mean why would there be? There’s not the same kind of demand for a home game with Hull or Burnley for example. So on those days, the club go to their fallback option to fill the ground: the loyal fan. When the big games come around? "Sorry suckers, you can watch on TV".
So all of you regular match goers without season tickets who tried and failed to purchase tickets for this one in the online sales via the club website, now you know why you couldn’t get tickets. It’s disgraceful how little regard the club has for it’s loyal fans, and it’s killing the atmosphere inside the ground too. It’s been on the decline for years but it really is at an all time low right now.
You know what the worst thing about it is? They dine out on all that “Anfield atmosphere” bullshit too, even though they’re killing it year by year by pricing out many of the regulars and making it even more difficult for people to get tickets. And how cringeworthy was all that bollocks with Pele on the pitch at half time?
“What do you make of the famous Anfield atmosphere?” he was asked, as thousands of United fans laughed their cocks off. I don’t blame them, it was utterly embarrassing. The whole thing was in fact, none of us could understand a word Pele was saying and I doubt anyone even cared, I know I didn’t. I was just saddened by the whole thing..
Nothing highlights how repulsive modern football has become when you see Pele, FUCKING PELE!!, having to whore himself around advertising butties to make himself a few quid when you have the likes of Sterling and others looking down their noses at £5m per year contracts.
Modern football ladies and gentlemen.
Team: Mignolet; Can, Skrtel, Sakho; Sterling, Henderson, Allen, Moreno (Balotelli); Lallana (Gerrard), Coutinho; Sturridge:
Recommended Comments