This game was a microcosm of last season. We gave them a huge scare, we were the better side, but we missed chances while the woodwork and a goal-line clearance meant that we had to watch them walk away with the silverware.
Firstly, let me state that I know this game is just a glorified friendly. I think that teams who list the Charity Shield on their honours list are embarrassing and I’m fully on board with the notion that how we played in this game bodes well for the season ahead. There’s no reason to be discouraged about what we saw and there are lots of positives to take from it. My confidence in what then team can achieve this year has not been knocked in any way by this, far from it. It’s all good.
You know there’s a ‘but’ coming here though, don’t you? And the 'but' is that despite all I've just said above, I was still gutted when we lost that shoot out. I know I shouldn't be, and my head is telling the rest of me to stop being a dickhead, but it is what it is. You can't help how you feel.
If you have shrugged it off and are genuinely not bothered about us losing on penalties then more power to you. That’s the sensible, rational way to look at things. Me? The train to sensible and rational pulled out of the station as I was getting there, so I had to jump the 'fucking hate these FFP dodging manc pricks' train instead.
I’m far more pissed off about this than I should be. It's irrational but I’m proper wound up and that’s not a good sign because if I’m this bothered about a relatively unimportant game like this, then this season is going to be fucking hard going for me. It might be even more stressful than last year. The price of success I guess.
This is the problem now. The bar has been set so high by City that every game matters, every chance is important, every mistake can be crucial. Especially when it’s against them. Fucking hell, there’s so little margin for error that the games against them are going to be pivotal. We didn’t win the title last season because of the head to heads with City.
We know we can go toe to toe with them and this was further proof. We need to make that count though because a lot of teams don’t even try against them *cough* Everton *cough* which makes it vitally important that we take points from them. There were no points at stake in this one but I felt like it was still really important just for the psychological aspect. Beating them would have seen the seed of doubt they already have grow significantly.
We know we’re in their heads and they see us as the only threat to their dominance. Beating them would have helped with that, but I suppose this was the next best thing. We didn’t lose (the penalties were irrelevant in the grand scheme of things as it's not a proper trophy) and we outplayed them. Moral victories are hollow as fuck though.
I wanted to win though. I badly wanted to win. And it’s put me in a bad mood that we didn’t. Not because “it’s a trophy”. I could not give less of a fuck about that. It’s not a trophy, no more so than any of the other pre-season trinkets you see teams winning when they go on tour. Fuck the Charity Shield, we were only in it by default anyway as we didn’t win the league or the cup. The ‘trophy’ itself was meaningless, I just wanted to beat City.
We should have done too. The penalty shoot out shouldn’t have been necessary because they should have been dead and buried long before then. How many chances did we squander? Six? Seven? May have even been more.
So that’s a positive in the sense that we had no trouble whatsoever carving them open and creating great opportunities. We didn’t take the opportunities but we’re still in pre-season and the cobwebs are being blown off. We made them look ordinary in that second half though and on the balance of play we should have won by a couple of goals at least.
We didn’t though, and I’m pissed off about it. Not pissed off at any individual, just pissed off about not winning. It’s easy to point the finger at Salah for how incredibly wasteful he was, but he’s been back in training for less than a week and frankly, his performance was bordering on sensational all things considered. It’s just that his finishing was shite in the first half and he was a little unlucky in the second. He tormented them all day though.
The first half was weird. We didn’t play well and City were largely in control, yet we had three great chances that all fell to Mo. We could easily have gone it at the break leading but instead we were a goal down after we conceded a proper shitty goal to Sterling.
Mo played them all onside because he was chasing back while everyone else held the line. We never really got set and there were unmarked players all over the place. Alisson made a pig’s arse of it too. Just really sloppy play from us, but it was symptomatic of a lot of what we did in that half.
We looked a little disorganised and edgy at the back in that first half, especially down our right where City were having a lot of joy with balls played either in behind or over the top of Trent, and to a lesser extent Gomez. Both of them looked shaky early on but Gomez settled and actually went on to have a terrific game.
He got caught on the ball very early on by Sterling though and it almost cost us a goal, but fortunately Sane put his shot wide. Sane was looking lively but soon had to go off with what looked like it might be a significant injury.
On the one hand that could be a good thing if he misses a few months, but on the other it would scupper a move to Bayern, which we could really do with happening. If they lost Sane that would be a massive blow to them, regardless of who they bring in. There are few players out there who can do what he does so I hope this injury isn’t serious and that he fucks off to Bayern. I kind of feel like the injury was karma for going out in public with that hairstyle though.
Sane going off meant a reshuffle that saw Sterling move from the middle to the left and Jesus came on to play centre forward. It didn’t seem to impact them too much, at least not initially anyway as they scored within seconds. They continued to look dangerous for a spell and Alisson had to make a save from Sterling. De Bruyne looked particularly sharp and his runs in behind were threatening to catch us out.
We were struggling to maintain any kind of possession but still managed to cause them problems. Mo had earlier prodded one horribly wide after great work by Bobby to set him up, and then he hit the post after a brilliant run into the box. He should have gone far post with that but tried to squeeze it into a non-existent gap at the near. Bobby looked in great nick and went close with a brilliant effort on the turn after he showed incredible agility and control to pluck a ball out of the air and elude two defenders.
Mo had another chance later in the half that he skied after leaning back on it. All three of those misses were just really poor. The efforts he had in the second half didn’t go in either but I’d say they were more unlucky than anything else. He hit the post, he had one saved at the near post and then right at the end he was denied by Bravo before Walker spectacularly cleared the follow up header off the line.
The only player on the field with the speed and agility to clear that ball was Walker, so it’s frustrating that it happened in his area of the pitch. We were great in that second half though. Completely dominant. Virgil hit the underside of the bar and we were once again left cursing the goal-line technology that denied us what would probably have been a goal if judged only by the naked eye.
City were on the back foot for more or less the entire half and only really threatened on the break. The best chance they had came when Sterling fluffed a one on one. Walker started it by going right through Origi who was left in a heap on the ground. City didn’t put the ball out and Walker split the defence and sent Sterling clean through.
I knew he wasn’t going to finish it. I’ve seen that movie before. He’s terrible in that situation and he ran it harmlessly straight into Alisson. He then blamed Walker for getting in the way and confusing him. Walker had somehow managed to overlap him despite being the one who played the initial pass through. Impressive, although Sterling didn't think so.
Generally though they couldn’t get through and we kept catching them offside with our high line. We got caught a couple of times early on but the longer it went the more secure we looked and Gomez seemed to make countless interventions to snuff out potential danger.
At the other end we had loads of good moments. Keita went close but put his shot too close to Bravo. Great move that was too, it deserved a goal. We dominated that second half but it was beginning to feel like we’d never score. Then we got one from supersub Matip. Good ol' Big Bird was great when he came on and he took the goal well. Great ball from Virgil too.
Once we got level we were flying at them trying to get the winner and we should have done. Luck just wasn’t with us though. That chance at the end when Mo was denied twice was hard to take. Reminded me of the incident in the league game at the Etihad when Mané was denied by goal line technology and Mo just couldn’t get the loose ball.
You need luck against City and we’re not getting much of it lately. Next time we play them we’ve got to be sharper in front of goal though, it’s that simple. You can’t waste chances because they probably won’t.
I just can’t stand the fuckers but it’s different to how I felt about Ferguson’s United or Mourinho’s Chelsea though. With them there were so many players I couldn’t stand. It’s not really like that with City. I only really hate Guardiola, he’s a fucking bad knobhead him. I hate everything the club stands for these days, but as for the players? There’s loads I don’t like, but none who come close to the levels of hatred I had for Neville, Keane, Beckham, Cantona, Hughes, Terry, Drogba, Robben, Carvalho, Cole (both Ashley and Joe) and loads of others.
Probably the worst in the City team is Bernardo. I’d happily punch his stupid fucking face in for him. None of the others really bother me that much in the grand scheme of things. There's times when Sterling winds me up but mostly I find myself thinking that he's alright. So it's not the team, it’s just the club as a whole and the fucking egghead manager I can’t stand.
Guardiola was acting the cunt all day. He’s fucking weird him. I reckon his players think he’s a tit but because he’s such a great coach they overlook it. At one point he was doing that weird thing he does where he’s talking dead fast and waving his arms around like a hyper-active school kid all hopped up on skittles. Kyle Walker was stood there looking at him, and you could tell he’s thinking “oh shut up you weird baldy bastard”.
Klopp fell out with him at one point but made up with him at full time and you could see him saying “I’m sorry” before he slapped him on his bald head. Not sure whether Hendo was as keen to make peace with him though. He had to step in and tell him what’s what at one point.
Carra spoke about how winning the Champions League should change Hendo and give him a bit of extra 'football arrogance' and this looked like the first example of it. It was boss. Everyone was focussing on keeping Klopp away from him and Hendo just strolled over from the bench, unnoticed, and said his piece before being dragged away. I think Robbo had a pop too. Love that. I want to see the whole team giving him shit next time.
I also loved that body check Trent did on Bernardo too when he sent him flying. He had it coming to him, the snide little prick. Trent's little flick out with his boot afterwards wasn’t too clever though. VAR checked that for a red card but thankfully he didn’t make any contact. Robbo also seemed to have had enough of Bernardo and his antics too and he dumped him on his arse at one point as well. More of this please.
Neither side really has anyone who actively goes looking for aggro but you can tell there’s no love lost there. The next time we play them I want us to be all up in their faces because what I saw in the second half tells me they lack a bit of leadership now that Kompany has gone. They’ve got Fernandinho to come back and that will help but it’s going to be interesting to see how they cope any time they face a bit of adversity.
The problem is hardly anyone is equipped (or has the balls) to cause them any adversity. That’s why it’s so important that we beat them. We can’t rely on anyone to do it, we need to do it ourselves and based on how this game went we should feel confident that we can do them next time.
That’s a long way off though and we need to take care of business against the rest. We did that brilliantly last year and that has to be the target again. Win the games you’re supposed to win, and try to avoid losing any of the ones that look like they could be close ones.
I'm loathe to even mention the penalties as although it determined the winner it has no bearing on anything else. All I’ll say is Alisson’s efforts were pretty fucking shambolic. Even I’d have saved the pen from that shit albino left back, and I don’t know what he was doing for the final one from Jesus either.
Credit to our lads who stepped up and scored though. The pen from Ox was brilliant, while Shaq, Lallana and Mo all held their nerve well. The less said about Gini’s the better but I don’t know why he was even taking one. You could tell he was going to miss by the way he took a deep breath just before staring his run up. He looked nervous as fuck, whereas the other lads just looked focussed and confident. Should have been Big Virg for me. Or Alisson even.
As for the booing of the national anthem at the start, not sure why there’s all this outrage as we’ve done this for as long as I can remember, and justifiably so. Then again, it’s been a while since we were in a final and half the world generally seems to have gone completely mental over this kind of 'nationalistic' shit since. “Booing your own anthem! Shame! Shame!” they cry. Nope, it’s not my anthem. It’s a drab, dull song with ridiculous lyrics that most of us associate with right wing bellends.
You think you can continually taunt us about “signing on” and “Liverpool slums” and all manner of other shit and we’ll just take it? Fuck that. Take your flags and your anthem and your brexit and get in the fucking bin.
The people offended by it are the very people I’d most like to offend, so job done to everyone who booed. Well in, and fuck all those Tommy Robinson fanboys with their twitter names that incorporate union jack and/or George’s cross emojis. I hope we get to the cup final just so we can boo it again. Not even arsed about winning the cup, just want to boo it and stick it to the fuckers.
Star man is Virg, just ahead of Gomez. Special mention to Matip too who was fucking boss after coming on and also Lallana who was energetic and impressive. Had Mo taken just one of the many chances he had then it would have been him, but he didn’t, so it’s not. Wouldn’t surprise me if he banged in a hat-trick next week against Norwich though, as he looks in the mood.
Last year was a wild ride and stressful as fuck, but I have a feeling it’s going to be as bad if not worse this time. Hopefully at the end of it we’ve got something to celebrate again.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold (Matip), Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho (Keita), Henderson (Lallana), Wijnaldum; Salah, Firmino (Shaqiri), Origi (Oxlade-Chamberlain):
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