Manchester City 1 Liverpool 1 (Nov 8 2020)

We usually lose here so this is a good point. The onus is on the home team to win these fixtures, particularly when they’re behind in the table, so it’s a better point for us than it is for City. So I’m not disappointed or upset by this, especially as neither side deserved to win the game. The result is fine, the performance was ok and it’s a point gained on the last couple of seasons.

That said, we probably should be winning this as, whisper it, Man City are really not that great anymore. They’re still good, on their day very good even, but they aren’t great. If you look at that eleven that took to the field against us, man for man we’re considerably better in most positions, even without Van Dijk, Fabinho and Thiago, who all would have started had they been available.

City just aren’t as strong as they were. De Bruyne is phenomenal, Sterling is always a danger and Jesus is a constant goal threat. Other than that their side is very ‘meh’ these days. Still better than most and very easy on the eye, but there's been a big drop off from where they were and where they are. It’s the name and reputation they’ve built up under Guardiola’s time there that scares you rather than that actual line up they put out these days.

So really, if this game was played ten times I think we probably should win maybe five or six minimum, with the rest mostly draws and maybe one or at most two losses. So why didn’t we win this then? Lots of reasons but first and foremost because we didn’t make it count enough when we had them reeling in the opening 25 minutes. That was the time to make hay while the sun was shining, but we only scored once.

City were always going to come back into the game and have a spell of their own so we needed to get ahead before that happened. Klopp’s surprising team selection caught them on the hop and they couldn’t cope with it in the early stages. All the talk beforehand was whether it would be Firmino or Jota starting but Klopp shocked everyone by picking them both in what was virtually a 4-2-4 formation. Call it 4-4-2 if you like and at times it was, but that’s as close to 4-2-4 as you’ll see in the modern game.

Firmino wasn’t playing deep, he was in a traditional front two alongside Mo. That was the big surprise to me. He wasn’t playing a deeply withdrawn striker’s role and he wasn’t a number ten in a 4-2-3-1, he was playing as a second striker just a little bit off Mo. City weren’t prepared for it and we tore into them early on. As Neville pointed out on commentary, virtually every single pass we played was forward as we tried to get in behind them at every opportunity.

I loved that. There are two ways to play against City. Let them have the ball and counter attack, or just play direct and get in behind their high line. Playing the first way doesn’t really suit us that much as we’re a front foot team. So the all out attack philosophy is something I’m well on board with. I liked what Klopp tried to do and it worked brilliantly for a while. 

We led through a well taken Salah penalty after Mané had turned Kyle Walker in the box and been brought down. That was some lovely football on the left. Lots of quick, intricate passing and direct movement that City couldn’t cope with. Roy Keane was absolutely scathing of Walker at half time and it was fucking hilarious. “Mané’s done well but he’s up against an idiot” is arguably the best bit of punditry all season. Closely followed by “I keep hearing that he’s playing well but I don’t see it. He’s torty years old and he’s a train wreck”.

I see why Walker gets the stick he does and he does make mistakes but I think overall he’s pretty good and not the disaster some make him out to be. He’s often got a mad moment in him but he’s City’s best defender and he gets them out of trouble a hell of a lot. So I thought Keane’s criticism was over the top but still fucking hilarious. I didn’t think it was especially bad play by Walker in the first instance when he got turned. He just got tricked by Sadio and thought he was playing a one two with Robbo. Instead of playing the return pass though Mané turned and Walker was beat. Dangling the leg out like that was poor judgement though and yeah, kind of typical of what we often see him do.

The goal had been coming since the start though. We looked dangerous every time we went forward and Bobby had a couple of early half chances he couldn’t quite convert. Actually, I should probably mention that City wanted a free-kick just before we scored. Sterling was on the attack and was bumped by Jota but he stayed on his feet because he wasn’t in the box. His intention was obviously to keep on running, wait for another challenge in the area and then claim a penalty. That’s what he does.

Nevertheless, that was defo a foul and the ref should have pulled play back and given it. He didn’t though, he waved play on and a minute or so later Walker is bring down Sadio. City’s players were angry and confronted the ref but that’s standard stuff for them as they’ve never seen a decision they couldn’t dispute. In this case they had a point though as that was definitely a foul on Sterling. The boy who cried wolf perhaps applies here.

The first moment of danger for us was self inflicted as Gini got caught in possession which allowed De Bruyne to get clear on the right. As you’d expect, he delivered a great ball across the box that found Sterling, but Alisson stood big and made a good block before Matip hacked clear from near the line.

That brief scare apart it was all going well for us but then one lapse in judgement cost us. I knew we were in trouble the second Gini chose to charge out to close down Walker and left De Bruyne all alone in the middle. You could see that problem develop almost immediately and I actually gave an audible “oh no Gini” as soon as it happened. A few seconds later the ball is in the net. 

Call it sour grapes if you like but I don’t think Jesus meant that touch at all. Maybe I’m not giving him the credit he deserves and I'm biased because he's permanently got a face like an over indulged kid who's finally been told he's not having ice cream for dessert and he doesn't know how to deal with it. He annoys the fuck out of me because he always looks hard done by and is constantly complaining about something. On a scale of punchable faces he's somewhere in between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Richarlison. 

So yeah I think it was a lucky touch and he mis-controlled it. He reacted very quickly and finished well with a toe poke, so fair play to him for his sharpness but I don’t believe he meant that touch that wrong footed Trent. Doesn't really matter if he meant or not though does it?

I thought Matip could have blocked that if he’d actually made a challenge. It was a timid effort from him as he could have thrown himself in front of it and made a block, but instead he tip toed in there and arrived too late. Probably a lack of match sharpness, which is understandable. Overall he was fucking boss though and it’s great having him back, for however long it may last.

As for Gini, I think Carragher’s explanation of it at half time is probably spot on. Usually, in the 4-3-3 system we always play, Gini’s job would be to fly out there and close down the full back if Mané wasn’t in position to do it. So what he’s done is just muscle memory, it’s what he always does. In that split second it’s understandable that he’s made that decision but really he needed to just let Walker have it and ensure the pass to De Bruyne wasn’t on.

By and large we did a good job of restricting De Bruyne, but he got in down that right hand side again soon after and it cost us a penalty. I knew it would be given even though clearly that should never, ever be given as a penalty. Unfortunately the cunts in charge of making rules are doing everything they can to kill football, and they’re succeeding.

Kev the Red missed the pen so I can say this without it sounding like I’m just angry about it costing us a goal. Football is becoming almost unwatchable because of what the law makers have done with offside, handball and VAR. It’s genuinely shit and it’s ruining games. The penalty given against Wolves earlier that day was a fucking disgrace too. Then there’s the ludicrous offside against my boy Bamford in the Leeds game the day before.

This isn’t football. It’s shit. They’re ruining the game with their traffic warned like overly officious, jobsworth fucking bullshit. I’d love to get these cunts in a room and… I don’t know, blow it up. Honestly, these faceless, nameless, busy bastards have taken a great sport and made it almost unwatchable. 

There is literally nothing Joe Gomez could have done to prevent that ball hitting his arm. In fact, you can see he actually did everything humanly possible to avoid it. His arm isn’t stretched out to make himself bigger. It’s in a natural running motion, but when he realises the ball is heading straight for it he actually pulls it back into his body, turns his chest away and almost manages to avoid being hit by the ball.

I’m not going to have a go at Craig Pawson for giving the penalty because I’d be willing to bet if you were able to talk to him privately he’d say it’s not a penalty in a million years and he didn’t want to give it. But he has no choice. Not just because the VAR probably told him he has to give it, but because he himself knows that this is the fucking bullshit that the lawmakers want now.

I would like to know how the Gomez one was any different to the Cancelo incident in the second half. VAR looked at that and did nothing. Why? The ball hits Cancelo’s elbow. It wasn’t deliberate, he tried to pull his arms into his body, but it hit him on the elbow and it was a goal bound shot. So how is that not a penalty when the Gomez one was? 

Of course neither of them should be penalties in a normal world, but this isn’t a normal world. It’s a world where stupid cunts are allowed to make stupid rules that everyone can see are just fucking stupid. Football is basically just a microcosm of normal society I guess.

I’m so disillusioned with it all right now and it isn’t specifically about decisions that have gone against us. I mean yeah, that hurts more on a personal level (and there have been some fucking stinking ones) but it’s more than that. It’s the game as a whole. I’m genuinely distressed and irritated when I see a goal disallowed because Bamford is pointing where he wants the ball played and his arm is deemed to be offside even though his feet are on by about a fucking yard. How is that good for the game?

I’ve mentioned it before, but I was even fuming when Lindelof conceded a pen for handball a month or so back. It was scandalous and I didn’t even care that it was Man United. This shit is far bigger than club rivalries. It’s about the game we all love and how it’s being ruined by cunts who seem to have no idea about the sport that pays their mortgages.

Anyway, thankfully De Bruyne put the penalty wide otherwise we might be talking about another Goodison style screw job. That first half had been played at break neck speed and there were chances at both ends. We had the better of it and Emerson was incredibly lucky to see a shot from Trent squirm loose and under his legs but somehow stay close enough to him that he was able to dive on it ahead of Jota.

Just prior to that we had a glorious chance to score when Henderson’s incredible pass over the shoulder of Diaz sent Sadio clear. Ederson came out and for a split second the right foot chip was on as Mané cut inside, but he took an extra touch and the chance was gone. Eventually he worked it to Mo who played in Trent for the shot, but if Sadio could have got that chip away what a goal we’d have been talking about.

Ederson got away with another erratic moment in the second half when he needlessly parried a deflected Salah shot straight to Jota, but unfortunately by the time he got it under control his shot was weak and lacked conviction. Frustrating. Jota didn’t look anywhere near as lively as he has done of late, but a lot of that may have been down to the amount of defending he was expected to do, especially after the break when City were much more in control than they had been.

We didn’t really do anything in the second half and I thought Klopp should have changed it and got an extra midfielder on. I liked the initial idea of blitzing them with four forwards, but when Guardiola rested to it and changed City’s shape to combat it, that’s when we should have gone back to the normal 4-3-3 I felt.

The four up top was worth a try and it certainly caught City on their heels to begin with, but I don’t think I want to see it too often. I thought Firmino played ok and I don’t have anything negative to say about his performance. What I would say is I don’t think he’s special enough that we need to change a tried and trusted set up so we can keep him in the team. He’s either in a front three on merit or he’s on the bench.

In fairness to Klopp I think his hand was forced a little by Thiago and Fabinho being out. Do we really think he’d have picked this team if either or both of those two were available? I doubt it myself. After half an hour of this game we lost the initiative. I wouldn’t say that City had it either, but they did take it away from us and after that it was just an even contest.

I thought the forwards got a bit wasteful in possession and the rest of the team were trying to hit them too early instead of playing through City a bit more patiently. I’d have switched Jota and Mo at half time. Putting Salah on the right would have forced Cancelo into staying back more and given him a lot to think about, while we saw in midweek how dangerous Jota is running in behind. We definitely overdid that early ball over the top or into the channels and it gave City no trouble in the second half. They were waiting for it and cut it out time after time.

You know what this game really needed? Thiago. He’d have made all the difference to us in a game like this. Hendo and Gini were outstanding (although Gini did caught on the ball two or three times) in terms of the ground they covered and how they used the ball, but having an extra man in there would have made it so much easier for them. Ideally that would have been Thiago, but Fabinho was a big miss too.

Eventually Klopp changed after about an hour, but surprisingly it was Big Shaq who came on for Bobby. He was good. Very neat and tidy and he helped out defensively too from that right sided position. We just weren’t particularly dangerous anymore and in that second half it looked like both teams were playing not to lose rather than to try and win. City probably pushed harder than we did, but they seemed mainly concerned about not over-committing and filling spaces to prevent us hitting them with our speed.

Whatever changes Guardiola made to combat the early storm we unleashed certainly worked and both teams kind of cancelled each other out in the second half. Trent went off with what looked like a torn calf and was replaced by Milner, who did a great job against Sterling. Doesn’t look good for Trent that one as calf injuries are absolute bastards to overcome as when you think it’s fine it often isn’t.

Everyone is going to have to get used to this though as players will be dropping like flies over the next few months. This is why Klopp wanted five subs but it was foolishly voted down and now this is going to be the norm. The smaller clubs felt the five subs would be an advantage for the bigger clubs, but it’s actually not. If anything it’s the opposite. You’ve got some teams like, say, Burnley for example, who play the same eleven every week and have very little squad depth. That’s why they didn’t want the five subs, because they can’t bring Shaqiri, Milner, Mahrez, Jesus, Greenwood, Pogba etc off the bench.

Understandable, but what happens in the Christmas and New Year period when their players are fucked and starters are pulling up with torn hammy’s all over the shop? The teams with the deeper squads will be able to cope better than the Burnleys and Evertons of this world, but the five subs would have helped the smaller clubs keep their starters fresher.

Anyway, there’s nothing we can do about that now and Trent is just the latest casualty of what is likely to be a long list. This season is going to be a war of attrition as much as anything else. We’ve lost Virgil, there’s been no sign of Thiago since the derby and now Trent is going to be out for a while. Keita and Matip are back, but for how long? Presumably Ox won’t be too far away now and hopefully Fabinho will available after the international break.

Star man is tricky as no-one really stood out that much. Sadio was good, Robbo was Robbo, Gomez and Matip played well but I’ll go for Hendo I think. I wouldn’t argue if any of you say it should be one of the others I just mentioned, but if I had to pick one then it’s the skipper, but only just. Alisson deserves a mention too as we needed him to be alert on a couple of occasions and he was. Some of his kicking was shite though.

Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold (Milner), Matip, Gomez, Robertson; Henderson, Wijnaldum; Jota, Firmino (Shaqiri), Salah, Mané: