Just imagine how we’d be feeling today if City hadn’t lost at Newcastle. As it is, things are alright actually. In fact, they’re more than alright. We’ve turned a four point lead into a five point lead. Sound.
Yeah, we’d all have been happier if it was seven, but the bottom line is we’ve got a bigger lead than we had going into this week’s fixtures, and we’re one game closer to the finish line too.
We didn’t play well against Leicester and a draw was a fair result. That being said, if Martin Atkinson does his job properly then we win the game comfortably. He failed to send off Harry Maguire for a clear red card offence and Maguire then went on to score the equaliser.
Atkinson then refused to give the most obvious of penalties when Keita was tripped in the act of shooting. Is it an excuse for not winning the game? Well yeah, it is actually.
Of course we could have played better and some will make the point that we didn’t do enough to deserve the points, but as I say, if Atkinson does what he’s paid to do then we’re not having this discussion and instead we’re talking about a good, professional job and another three points.
That’s the main difference between the dropped points here and some of the games that we managed to win despite not being at our best. Small details can settle games. A bit of luck here, a refereeing decision there. We’ve had some good breaks this season, but not in this game.
City’s loss means it’s easier to be fairly relaxed about this and take an objective view. The way I see it, this was always going to happen sooner or later. We had a 100% record against everyone below 5th place in the table. That’s incredible at this stage of the season but it’s not really sustainable.
If anyone was going to ruin that record, Leicester were probably the most likely. Claude Puel has some kind of weird voodoo curse over Klopp and outside of the ‘big six’ I think Leicester are the best of the rest.
Wolves might have something to say about that, but Leicester won the league a few years back and still have a number of that side playing now. On their day they can beat anyone and they are particularly well suited to playing against good teams.
We should beat them and probably seven or eight times out of ten we do, but there’s always a risk of dropping points against a team like that if things don’t go quite according to plan or if you don’t get the rub of the green. Things certainly didn’t go according to plan and we definitely didn’t get the rub of the green.
The first thing to go wrong was the blizzard just before kick off that left the pitch much slower than usual. It’s hard to zip the ball around when it’s dragging in slush. That split second delay can make all the difference when you’re trying to play your way through a packed defence.
So that didn’t help, but we still went in front after a couple of minutes. Apart from the opening seconds when they had kick off, I’m not sure a Leicester player even touched the ball before we scored. It felt like we made a hundred passes and had the ball for two whole minutes before Sadio burst into the box and cleverly made space for himself to roll it in the corner. Great finish that.
He was boss all night I thought. He was a constant menace but we didn’t utilise him enough. We looked great in the opening stages of the game and Bobby almost scored a stunning goal when he brought the ball down on his chest and immediately managed to shift it to set himself for a shot that was saved by Schmeichel. Incredible technique that.
Mané flashed a header just wide from a corner and we were looking dominant until Leicester suddenly started causing us a few problems. A better way of putting it would probably be that we started causing ourselves problems.
At this point I’ll refer to something I wrote in last week’s Round Up…
“Patricio was almost embarrassed early on by Vardy, who dispossessed him when he was dallying on the ball. Luckily the keeper managed to just about get it away for a corner. It deserved to be punished really though. He took three touches. Even taking two touches is probably unwise when Vardy is around (nobody closes down quicker than him, he’s the closest thing I’ve seen to Rushy when it comes to that), but three? Do these pricks never study the opposition?”
Obviously they don’t, and nor does Alisson. Or he just chooses to ignore it. He has to be smarter than this. He was asking for trouble early in this game. Taking too long on the ball and inviting pressure, or playing risky passes.
He put Hendo in trouble with a sloppy one that was seized upon by Maddison. He went looking for a penalty but Hendo clearly never touched him, and the incident was just outside the box anyway. All just so unnecessary though and it gave Leicester encouragement.
That was nothing compared to the next one though. The ball was played back to Alisson and he could clearly see Vardy steaming in. He either has to clear it first time, or take a quick touch to the side to give himself a bit of space for the clearance. Instead, he acted like he had all the time in the world and his clearance was half blocked. Within seconds Maddison has a free header at the back post which thankfully he made a complete mess of.
It’s all very well being a footballing keeper but there are some occasions when you have to remove the risk element. Such as when Vardy is around, because he’s quicker than a hiccup and he can make you look very stupid.
The key incident in the whole game though was definitely the Maguire foul on Mané. Sadio was clean through and no-one was catching him, so therefore that’s a clear goalscoring opportunity. There isn’t even any doubt.
Not only that, Maguire’s foul robbed Andy Robbo of what might have been the greatest assist by any left back ever. The run from the edge of his own box was fucking ace and deserved to end in a goal.
Atkinson bottled it but I wasn’t surprised because refs always seem to take the easy way out on these kind of decisions. If there’s a defender within 40 yards they’ll use that as reason to not produce a red card, but Mané had a ten yard start on Johnny Evans, which means he’d have had time to go and sign a few autographs in the Main Stand and still retrieve the ball and beat Evans to the penalty area.
At the time of the Maguire foul we were on top and playing very well. That was a huge turning point though, especially as Maguire took full advantage of Atkinson’s generosity by equalising with the last kick of the first half.
It was entirely self inflicted and was such a bad goal for us to give away. We’d given the ball away but Gini had done superbly to chase back and snuff out the danger. Then out of nowhere comes Robbo with a needless, reckless foul.
The initial ball in was cleared but Van Dijk switched off and left Maguire, and Matip was unable to prevent the ball dropping over his head to the big goon, who rolled the ball into the corner and then celebrated in front of the Kop. Big ugly goon.
It was a terrible time to concede and it clearly had an effect on the players as they started the second half badly and could have been punished twice in the opening ten or fifteen minutes. First Maddison wriggled through but somehow managed to totally fluff his kick. I thought Alisson had saved it initially, but watching the replay it looks like Maddison just scuffs the ball away from goal. Huge let off.
We had another one soon after when Bobby almost put one into his own net. Alisson reacted well to get it off the line and the danger was cleared. It should never have come to that though as three Leicester players were well offside when the ball was crossed, including Maguire who won the header at the back post.
The linesmen were as shit as the ref. Just awful. The other lino flagged Sadio offside when he was nowhere near. That denied us a great opportunity, which we could really have done with because we weren’t creating much at all.
I thought the players settled down after their wobble at the start of the second half, and Leicester didn’t really look much of a threat after that other than one quick counter attack that ended with Gray shooting straight at Alisson. Had he squared it Albrighton would have had a tap in.
The lads kept plugging away but Leicester were well organised and weren’t giving much away. We should have had a pen when Naby played a nice one two with Firmino and surged into the box. He was obviously clipped by the full back and Atkinson was looking right at it but gave a goal kick. Disgrace.
Bobby had another low shot saved by Schmeichel after good footwork again, but other than that we didn’t really come close. I thought some of the decision making was poor and players were doing stuff they wouldn’t normally do. For example, Robbo trying a 25 yard volley when he could have just brought the ball down and drove into the box. What the fuck?
It felt like the pressure was getting to everybody though. If it’s like this in January, how’s it going to be in April? The crowd need to chill the fuck out as that nervy, anxious energy doesn’t help anyone. We’re all worried that we might fuck it up and we all want this so badly that we’re not really thinking straight, but we need to put that to one side as it’s only going to hinder the players.
We’re not going to win every game 3-0 so there will be plenty more of these types of games and the crowd really has to be better than this. Grow some balls. Moan afterwards if it’s needed. Be defeatist afterwards if you like. Hell, we’ve all had our wobbles and there are times when I’ll be thinking this is all just a big elaborate set up before we have our hopes crushed by the football gods once again. It’s ok to think that, it’s perfectly natural, but inside the ground when the game is on, show some backbone.
There are plenty of negatives to come from this and it would be delusional not to suggest otherwise. There are positives too though, not least the fact that we’ve increased our lead at the top and extended our unbeaten home record.
I miss that miserly defence though. Remember a few weeks ago and we’d only conceded six goals all season? Now we’re letting in soft goals all over the place. An unsettled back four hasn’t helped.
I thought Matip played quite well but the defence isn’t looking secure at the moment and part of the problem could be that he hasn’t quite got the understanding with Van Dijk that Gomez and Lovren both have. That is concerning me.
The right back situation is too. Hendo did alright but for him to be having to play there at all seems irresponsible when we’ve just sent an England international right back out on loan. Weakening a squad that is challenging for the title is an unnecessary risk but we didn’t drop two points because Hendo was playing full back.
I’ve seen a fair bit of criticism of Keita’s performance, but I thought he was fine. He was in a midfield two so it wasn’t his job to just go bombing forward all the time and I thought his performance was very similar to that of Wijnaldum. He was unlucky to be subbed, which is more than I can say for Big Shaq.
Taking him off was a no brainer as he just couldn’t make any impact on the game. How come all the other forwards are interchangeable and can go where they like, but Shaq is always marooned on the right? I want to see him central, getting on the ball and threading passes through. We’re wasting his talents out there.
He was replaced by Lallana, which was completely pointless as he sadly just doesn’t bring much to the table anymore. It’s a shame, I’ve always liked him but the team has just outgrown him now I think.
Same goes for Sturridge, who replaced Firmino late on. I wouldn’t have had him anywhere near this game or any game we have in the future. Early in the season he looked sharp and was making a contribution, but he’s hardly played for months and the one game he did get he was shit and looked disinterested. He looked so rusty I could almost hear him creaking from row 19 of the Main Stand.
The attempted control of a high ball that ended with a handball and him ruining what would have been a two against one break just made me sad. Such a great player once. Origi isn’t an ideal solution but at least he looks like he wants to play and he’s much more deserving of a chance than Sturridge is.
The lack of game changers off the bench is a concern as is the lack of cover for the front three. But we’ve known that for some time. Shaqiri has had some decent games when he’s started but he always looks dynamite off the bench. Given the lack of any other impact subs it might be an idea to keep Shaq there and use him that way.
That would also mean we jibbed the 4-2-3-1 which is also no bad thing. Mo was fucking anonymous in this game. He’s done pretty well at centre forward on the whole, but when it’s not working can we not just get him back on the right and let him do what he did last season?
It might help Bobby too. He had two brilliant moments when he received the ball in the box, but for a lot of the game he was just a liability, giving the ball away cheaply and dropping deeper and deeper. He hasn’t been as consistent as last season and I’d say there’s a good chance the change of position has a lot to do with it.
For all these concerns though, we’re five points clear at the top so these are rich people problems. We’re having a great season and as long as we bounce back with a couple of wins this result is as much a point gained as it is two lost. It all depends on how we react to it.
We need to spank West Ham on Monday though just to settle the nerves a bit and to ensure we don’t give City any more encouragement. That’s the frustrating thing about this. I feel as though if we could get to nine or ten points ahead City would throw the towel in and prioritise the Champions League.
It’s not going to be handed to us though is it? There are going to be twists and turns all the way to May and we’re going to have to win it ourselves as City (or maybe Spurs) aren’t going to make it easy. We’re wobbling a little bit and January hasn’t been a convincing month, but a couple of wins will set us up nicely for the game at Old Trafford, and after that we’ll have a much better idea of where we stand.
Star man is an easy one. Mané.
Team: Alisson; Henderson, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Wijnaldum, Keita (Lallana); Shaqiri (Fabinho), Firmino (Sturridge), Mané; Salah:
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