Report by
Dave Usher
Wow. Just wow. The Reds, eh? It was straightforward enough in the end, but it still felt harrowing sitting through it. I don't think I'm getting too carried away in describing this as one of the finest two legged performances we've ever produced. Going through is one thing, but a 5-1 aggregate score and winning both legs was quite something.
Even Phil Thompson, who has been part of some of our finest European achievements as a player and coach, took to Twitter at full time to declare it "one of THE greatest European results in our history". It wasn't shaping up like that early on though. *shudders*
I’d got myself into such a state of worry in the first half that even when we had a 2-1 lead on the night with only 15 minutes left I still had that nervous, sick feeling. In the end my brain had to have a word with my body at that point and tell it to relax, because this one was over. I don't think I completely relaxed until about 85 minutes though.
Klopp’s beaten him three times in four months now. Does that mean he gets to keep him on his mantlepiece and polish his little bald head to keep it nice and shiny? Guardiola and Klopp seem to get on very well, but secretly the City boss must fucking hate our Jurgen.
Klopp is definitely in his head. After the first leg the onus was on City to attack but if it had been us chasing the game I would have wanted us to be clever about it. You don’t need to get all three goals back in the first ten minutes and I think Guardiola got it wrong, just as he had in the first leg.
Guardiola’s starting line up for this one was ridiculously attacking. That didn’t scare me at all though, in fact it was the opposite. You want to attack us? Sound, bring it on. Attacking us should come with a government health warning.
So despite the collection of talent in their side I wasn’t concerned about what they would do because if we could take advantage of their lack of defenders then it would be moot anyway. I didn’t think they could keep us out even if they had played two centre backs, but to go in with only one (and one who is a fucking liability) was madness.
Guardiola was trying to show how clever he is again, only to outthink himself. Again. What I loved about it is that Klopp didn’t blink. A lot of managers would have shit themselves and brought on an extra defender or midfielder, especially the way the first half went, but Klopp rightly kept all his danger men on the pitch knowing that eventually they’d produce something decisive. And they did.
The first half was an absolute nightmare though and it was the start we were all dreading. A goal inside two minutes? Really Liverpool? You couldn’t even hold out for TWO MINUTES?!?!? All our worst fears were realised in that moment and all sorts of horrible thoughts were coming into my head for the next 45 minutes or so.
We couldn’t just have gone there and got the first goal and made it easy for ourselves could we? Of course not, it wouldn't be Liverpool in Europe if there wasn't some tension and drama.
Of course the goal shouldn’t have stood, but at the same time it was totally avoidable. I’d have preferred Karius to be just clearing up for the field until we’d eased our way into the game and based on his hand gestures it looked like Van Dijk felt the same way.
Still, it’s not like Van Dijk didn’t have plenty of time to clear the ball. I’ll get to all that shortly though as there are a few decisions that need to be dissected, some that went for us and some against. The goal immediately put us on the back foot though and gave City all the encouragement they needed. That moment set the entire pattern of the first half.
We couldn’t get out of our own half after that but I put that completely down to the early goal and the impact it has on how the players think. It’s a natural reaction to try to just sit back and not concede again but it’s also the worst thing you can do against City, especially when they were so short handed in defence they were ripe for the picking.
All of this is a learning curve for us though. We haven’t really been in these kind of situations for a while so it’s even more impressive what we’ve been able to do. The players will be better for the experience of what happened and next time they are in a similar situation hopefully they’ll handle it better than they did in the opening 45 minutes here. The lads actually defended superbly but they forgot how to play their style of football and couldn't get out.
The midfield were given the runaround in the first half but it wasn’t specifically their fault. It’s easy to point the finger at them but the back four were so deep that the gap between them and the forwards was too big, meaning the three midfield lads had to try and cover that space. It was an impossible task because of how many world class players City had in there. Trying to get the ball off de Bruyne and Silva alone is hard enough, but when they’ve got Bernardo Silva and Sterling also getting involved, and Sane hugging the touchline to stretch us, it’s a fucking nightmare.
Wijnaldum was invisible in the first half but it wasn’t the usual ‘disappearing Gini’ act, it was just that the three midfielders didn’t stand a chance against all the quality players City had in there. We struggled to win the ball back (which is usually where most of our attacks start) and when we did get the ball the players were too far apart and City were winning it back really quickly.
And because we couldn’t get on the ball, we were unable to get the front three into the game. It was torture to watch and we rode our luck at times. City hit the post (decisive little touch from Lovren to prevent a certain goal there) and also had a goal wrongly disallowed (I’ll get to that shortly).
They also had countless situations where they passed their way through and got into those dangerous areas on the byline where they enjoy so much success. We were at full stretch all the time and it was all hands to the pump, but sometimes you’re going to have to come through spells like that and generally the defending was brilliant.
While it would have been a lot less stressful had we played our normal game, it’s actually encouraging that we had to go through this and didn’t wilt under the pressure. Yeah we got lucky with the disallowed goal but to be honest I’m fucking sick of hearing about it already. Cry me a river, City. No-one is talking about the blatant foul by Sterling in the build up to their opening goal. Why is that?
BT’s coverage was ridiculously one sided I thought, but it’s understandable I suppose. The storyline that neutrals wanted was for City to come roaring back and make it a dramatic occasion. Us scoring was going to kill the tie as a contest and have neutrals reaching for the remote control, so it felt like the coverage was slanted heavily in City’s favour. That doesn’t excuse the bizarre take virtually everybody had on the foul on Van Dijk though.
There was only Stevie who thought it was a foul but even he added the caveat that “you don’t get those away from home”. It’s baffling. Sterling shoved Van Dijk out of the field of play. He doesn’t lean into him, he shoves him. His arm is extended as he pushes him over. It’s a clear foul but just because people wanted the goal to stand they seem to be ignoring it.
Guardiola is crying over decisions that went against him but made absolutely no mention of that one, funnily enough. Fuck him the big bald baby. There’s no doubt we got lucky with the disallowed goal and had that stood there would have been some accusing fingers pointed at Karius for a fairly weak punch, but you win some you lose some.
I didn’t see City complaining when Fat Jon Moss sent off Mané in the league game. They were too busy crowing about their hollow 5-0 win. Funny thing is, over the four games this season we’ve clawed that deficit back and it finished 9-9!
The ref was erratic, wanted to be the centre of attention and he got a lot of things wrong, but he clearly thinks ‘Pep’ is a gobshite so he’ll do for me.
Guardiola had tried to put pressure on him in the build up by complaining about decisions he’d made against them in previous games and it backfired on him when he was sent off at half time. “I didn’t insult him, I just told him it was a goal”.
Yeah, it’s the way you did it though, you arrogant fuck. Making a point of doing it in front of the whole world. Refs don’t like being made to look like knobheads, especially ones with an ego the size of this fucker’s. Made up he sent Flat Track Pep off. Fuck him, the whopper.
And fuck that keeper too, the ugly bastard. Fuck him and his neck tattoo and his braces. His antics in trying to get Mané sent off (again) were a disgrace. Same with Otamendi, rolling around like he’d had his cock cut off. Sadio didn’t even challenge him, he put the brakes on and then slipped, making minimal contact.
The keeper was lucky to stay on. If raising your hands and shoving someone is a booking, then surely doing it three or four times to a player who has his arms raised in a conciliatory gesture and isn’t reacting to obvious and extreme provocation has to be a red? That keeper was a disgrace. And fuck Sterling and his dives too. How many times did he do it? Three? Four maybe? I dunno, I lost count.
He was DESPERATE to win this game. I doubt he’s ever tried harder in any game he’s ever played. Defensively he was brilliant and he single handedly stopped about five promising counter attacking opportunities by chasing people down and winning the ball, and at the end he looked utterly distraught to have lost. GOOD!!!
I’m not going to say this result shows he was wrong to leave. He wasn’t wrong. The way he went about it was, but he’ll argue his decision to leave is completely justified by the success he’s enjoyed at City and he’d be right. It’s still nice to be able to stick it to the little fucking knob though. Maybe he can meet up with Suarez and Coutinho and they can all watch the semis together.
Obviously the disallowed Sane ‘goal’ was a big turning point but I also felt that the attack we had in the closing stages of the first half was very significant. Having not been able to get out and mount any kind of counter attack, the move we put together that led to Ox almost scoring was a big moment as it showed what can happen if we just keep our heads and play a bit of football.
It was virtually the only time we got near their box, yet City were WIDE OPEN. All it took was a couple of passes and a bit of clever running ahead of the ball and we were in. Presumably Klopp will have pointed that out at half time. We’d defended very well but if you don’t attack then even the best defence is going to find it tough to hold out. So half time came at the right moment for us as it allowed Klopp to get them together and regroup.
Whatever he said at half time worked a treat, because that second half display was majestic. The perfect away performance. Defensively brilliant (did Karius even have to make a save?) and clinical when the opportunities arrived. Who thought we had a performance like that in us? Not me. I’ve been in ‘prove it’ mode with this team and still am to a degree, but if they can beat City home and away like this then they can beat anyone.
As stressful as the first half had been, at half time I didn’t actually feel too bad. If anything I was relieved and enjoying the brief respite. Don’t get me wrong, during the first half I was a mess, but having got the break of the disallowed goal and then seen that attack where Ox could have scored I felt as though we’d put up a much better showing after the break. All we needed was one quality counter attack and it would be over.
Stevie had it spot on before the game and at half time. He looked at City’s side and kept saying that all it was going to take was one mistake from them or one quality move from us and they were going to come unstuck. They had no margin for error with that team they picked and once we regrouped at half time we took control.
The first goal looked simple enough but it was because we played football. Gini was fucking great in the second half. He was strong defensively but more importantly he was brave on the ball and he got us playing. He was going past players and beating City’s press, which opened things up further up the pitch. That’s how the goal came about.
He stepped forward and found Ox in space. He played it early to Salah who moved it on to Mané and just like that we were in the box. Sadio’s first touch through the legs of Laporte was ace and he was clearly then fouled (by Fernandinho I think). Whether we’d have got the pen or not who knows, but Mo made sure it didn’t matter with the latest in a long line of cool finishes.
Remember early in the season when he kept missing sitters and we were all saying “if he could finish he’d score 50 goals this season”. Well he can, and he might. He’s got ice in his veins in front of goal now. Absolutely lethal he is, the beautiful little bastard. 39 goals and counting. Incredible. If he fires us to number six I think we could make a strong case for this being the best individual season in club history. I can’t remember anything like it, especially as it is so unexpected.
When we signed him I was made up but the extent of my expectation for him was that hopefully he could give us the same thing Mané gave us last season. If he’d done that he’d still have been a great signing but he’s exceeded that to the point that it’s almost impossible to do justice to the season he’s had.
That goal effectively ended the tie. You could see by the reaction of the City players that they knew it was over, and our players knew how vital it was too as to a man they charged over to mob Salah. Even Karius sprinted up the pitch to join in.
Pissing myself at Ox though. He didn’t run to Mo, he just ran to the fans and started yelling like a madman. Then when he was done with that, he went to Mo and just yelled in his face too.
We were so strong defensively after that. City kept trying to push forward but they were banging their head against a brick wall. The back four were all great and Milner seemed to be getting in the way of everything. He was immense again.
The icing on the cake came when Bobby robbed the hapless Otamendi and rolled one into the corner before celebrating as only he can. Made up for him, the shift he put in was incredible. With us being under the cosh Klopp wisely moved Mo to centre forward and had Firmino help out on the left, but the amount of work he got through was incredible.
He’s been brilliant all season but he’s really excelled in this competition where teams actually want to attack and play football rather than just pack the defence and hope for the best.
He was tremendous but then they all were. It’s hard singling people out when they all did such a great job. Mo and Bobby will get the headlines and they deserve it, but Milner was inspirational, the two full backs were great (Trent was targeted again and came through with flying colours once more) and Van Dijk overcame his difficult start to dominate.
Nice to see Lovren getting some recognition as well and he was voted MOTM on the club’s official twitter poll. I’ll go along with that, although Trent, Milner and Bobby all ran him close.
I like Lovren more than most, always have. It’s just you know that there’s always going to be a mistake in the post so it’s hard to completely trust him. Plus he talks too much which makes like more difficult for him than it needs to be. Even after this he was running his mouth a bit too much, but better to do it immediately after a big game than immediately before one I guess.
Loads of our fans hate him and loads more think he needs to go. What I would say is that when you look around our rivals, aside from the two Belgians at Spurs there’s no-one who isn’t prone to dropping the odd clanger. Lovren is no worse than any of them, and he’s probably better than most. The nature of how we play means he’s always on the edge and running the risk of getting caught out, but overall he’s had a fairly solid season.
After the first leg I wrote this:
“I’ve said all season that City’s defence is crap, but the problem is nobody (other than us) is prepared to try and exploit that. Teams are so scared of them they won’t attack, so more often than not their dodgy defenders have an easy ride.
Seriously, Otamendi is just a terrible defender. If he’s not committing fouls he’s getting caught out of position. If he’s not getting caught out of position he’s doing something stupid on the ball (see the third goal for example). Poor old Dejan must look around at the likes of Otamendi and Stones and think “how come they don’t get the stick I do?”. The reason is that they’re top of the league and their mistakes don’t usually prove costly. Except when they play us”.
I’m not the kind of guy to say “I told you so” but if I was the type of guy to say “I told you so” then right about now I’d saying “I told you so”. But I'm not. I did tell you though.
Say what you like about Lovren but I’m taking him over Otamendi every day of the week and twice on Sunday. Otamendi is fucking terrible and Bobby dispossessing him and scoring was classic Otamendi as well as classic Firmino. If one goal summed up both players it was this.
Funny how there’s hardly any talk of what a liability he is though. Had Lovren made a decisive mistake like that we’d never hear the end of it. Otamendi seems to be bullet proof though where the media are concerned. I wonder if City fans hate him as much as some of ours hate Lovren?
Enough about City though, they can console themselves with the Premier League title. It’s really because of what we’ve done to them people are downplaying how great they are. They’re likely to end the season with all sorts of records and statistically they’ll be one of the greatest sides we’ve seen. Getting taken apart by us doesn’t change that.
City are a great side but they have no pedigree in this competition and the way we play is like fucking Kryptonite to them. Both of those facts contributed greatly to us going through. Apparently a lot of their fans aren’t enamoured with the Champions League, no doubt because they can’t win it.
My mate John was having a nose at one of their forums and they were saying “fuck this shit competition”. John summed it up perfectly - “When you don’t belong, you don’t belong. They know it too.”
He nailed it there. This is our competition, not theirs. They don’t belong. Same with PSG. That’s why they got spanked by Real Madrid, who will almost certainly join us in the last four. Us being there is no fluke. Yes, we had to play a qualifier to even get in, but we’ve been the best team in this competition so far.
Scored the most goals, played the best football, haven’t lost a game and in the knock out stages we have an aggregate score of 10-1. No-one will want us in the semis but I’d like to get Madrid for a couple of reasons. Primarily I would much prefer to play them over two legs than one because they are the kings of this competition and know how to win finals regardless of how they play on the night.
Over two legs, we can do them. In a one off game it would be more difficult. There is another reason for wanting two cracks at them though. The last time we met it was embarrassing. We were a shell of the team that had qualified for the tournament and just weren’t equipped to take them on.
Now we are. We’re equipped to take anybody on. Bring it on.
Oh, one more thing. Barcelona hahahahahahahahahaha!
Team: Karius; Alexander-Arnold (Clyne), Lovren, Van Dijk, Robertson; Wijnaldum, Milner, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Salah (Ings), Firmino (Klavan), Mané:
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