While it was a massive relief to get that late equaliser, the question needs to be asked; just what the fuck was that? Why do our players go to Old Trafford and completely forget how to play football?
It’s mad. Klopp’s “Mentality Monsters” (and they are, I’m not using that sarcastically) show up in Salford every year and complete shit the bed.
I don’t get it. I really thought this year would be different. I saw all the cynicism from fellow Reds predicting a 1-0 defeat because “it’s THEM” and “it’s THERE”. I understood why they were taking that approach as we never play well there and all the build up to the game was how great we are and how shite they are, and that this was the year we finally proved it.
It felt like we were being set up for a fall, but the bottom line is we are miles better than them and having completely fucked this game up last year I thought we’d learn from that and set the record straight. Instead we were just as bad and even after leaving it 24 hours to see if I calmed down, I’m still just as pissed off as I was during the game.
As great as these lads have been for us and as much as I love them all, I’d love five minutes with them to just tear a massive strip off them.
Let’s get this straight. Man United are fucking shit. They were shit last year too. We should be fucking battering them. If we’d played anywhere near our usual level we would have. But we didn’t. Yet again. We produced our worst performance since… I dunno, probably Belgrade or Naples last season.
The question is why? Don’t give me any of that shit about what United did tactically. Get the fuck out of here with that shit. You’re trying to tell me that Solksjaer has the coaching acumen to do what virtually no other coach in Europe has been capable of? No, it’s not that. It’s got fuck all to do with anything they did. It’s all about what we did. Or specifically, what we didn’t do.
United didn’t do anything special in terms of tactics. They didn’t even play especially well. They played like the plucky, bottom half of the table side they now are. They got behind the ball, they scrapped and they tried to break with two pacy forwards when they had the chance. They time wasted and they rode their luck.
They were basically Sheffield United, only not as good. And yet we needed a late equaliser from Adam Lallana of all people to spare our blushes. I’m seething about it, so imagine how angry this report would be if we hadn’t got a point.
If I had the chance to speak to the players I’d ask them what the fuck their problem is. Why when they go to Old Trafford do they suddenly start doing shit they’d never normally do? The decision making goes out the window and they play with all the zip and quickness of Neil Ruddock rolling out of his pit and waddling to the bathroom for his morning piss.
It was slow, pedestrian, just fucking shite. For virtually the entire game. I don’t understand, but you can’t just put it down to a bad day at the office because it happens every year. Three years in a row we’ve gone there and played like this.
Next week we’ll be back to playing our lightning quick, inventive, incisive football. The kind of football we are NEVER able to produce at Old Trafford. It would be ridiculous to call these players chokers or question their bottle, as they’ve proved themselves on that front time and time again.
There is definitely some kind of mental block whenever they go there and I’m fucking sick of it. At least it’s out of the way and we don’t need to go there in the run in like last year.
I could tell inside the first ten minutes it was going to be shit. We started the game exactly the same way we usually play there. Passes going astray, the ball not sticking up front, generally just looking lethargic. And it stayed like that for most of the game. It only picked up when we finally equalised late on and then began playing.
Watching this was torture. I was just getting more and more angry with every passing minute. I haven’t been this pissed off watching the Reds in as long as I can remember. I’m definitely over-reacting to it, I’m fully aware of that, but it is what it is. Every few minutes I was yelling at the telly “what the fuck was that??”
Next time I should probably not watch it at all and just check the score at the end, because it’s really not fun is it? Every season this is the least enjoyable game of the year. It shouldn’t be, because they’re fucking garbage, but it is because we never make them look like the fucking losers they are. Fucking Newcastle can beat them and expose them for how shit they are, but the best team in the country - the Champions of Europe no less - can’t. Fucking winds me right up.
One thing that needs saying though is that in spite of how shite they performed, once again this team came through when it mattered. They were on the brink of losing, nothing had gone their way and it would have been easy to lose heart and just accept it wasn’t their day. They didn’t though. They kept going and going and eventually they found a way. With a few more minutes they’d probably have found a winner too, as they were knocking on the door and United were shitting themselves.
What went before Lallana’s equaliser though was fucking rubbish. I could make a big thing about VAR but the truth is I’m angrier about how we played than I am about the absolute shitfest we saw from Atkinson and his little video helper.
I may as well address that now and get it out of the way. Klopp is completely wrong in his assessment of it. The point he made is right in general terms. Refs (and lino’s) are sometimes not giving decisions because they’re thinking that VAR will sort it out if they’ve missed something, but that’s not what happened here.
This was just Atkinson being a law unto himself, as usual. This is the same cunt who didn’t send off Maguire at Anfield last season and then in the same game failed to award a penalty for the clearest of fouls on Keita. He didn’t give the foul on Origi because he’s a useless cunt, not because he thought VAR would help him out.
And when he didn’t give the foul, I knew that was that. VAR wasn’t going to over-rule him because the only time they over-rule anything is with offsides or handball by an attacker. Which we then found out to our cost soon after when Sadio had a goal ruled out.
That was the correct decision under the new law. I don’t like it and I think the rule is a fucking joke, but if the ball hits an attacker’s arm/hand then the goal is automatically disallowed. So again, it went exactly as I expected. Harsh on Mané because not only was it unintentional, it was unavoidable. Linderloth was all over him and he was so busy trying to hold him off that the ball just dropped and hit his hand. It may have hit the defender on the way down too, in which case the goal should have stood according to how the law is worded.
But I’m not going to get bogged down on that because we’ve already established that VAR is a fucking abomination that’s killing football, and Martin Atkinson is a twat. We knew this already, and while it’s still fucking galling, if we’d played anywhere near the level we should it wouldn’t have mattered because we’d have put those losers to the sword.
It’s funny really, seeing United playing like at home, and listening to their fans cheering every launched clearance up the field. They’re so far behind us now and they know it. It seems to have happened so quickly as well. It’s not like we’ve just been steadily finishing a few points more ahead of them over a period of time. It was just BOOM! One year they’re finishing second and then all of a sudden they’re like 30 points behind us or something.
They played like plucky little underdogs. Defending deep and trying to counter attack on the rare occasions they could get out of their own half. They’re clinging to the smallest of victories too. Mighty Manchester United are now so fucking irrelevant that their fans are celebrating Big Virg losing his balance in a tussle with Rashford. It’s not like Rashford even did anything with the split second advantage it gave him, but their fans are all over twitter with their dicks swinging. Hilarious. Evertonian behaviour that.
They did work their goal well though to be fair. I mean, that is if you discount the clear foul that started the whole thing off. James got down the right hand side and delivered a good ball, and Rashford’s movement was brilliant to get in behind Matip. Alisson had no chance.
Origin made the most of the challenge but it was still a clear foul. What pisses me off is that prior to that Atkinson had given four or five free-kicks (mostly to United) for similar incidents. Then he just decides to ignore this one.
Klopp was furious, but he seemed to be like that most of the afternoon, which was understandable given how we were playing.
I thought he might sort it out at half time, but the second half was just as bad. United just retreated deeper and deeper and we were passing it around in front of them, looking absolutely fucking clueless.
At least in the first half we had a few moments in and around their goal. Bobby blazed wildly over the bar (classic example of what I'm talking about. Whan do you EVER see him take a shot in that situation??) and then shot tamely at De Gea, probably because he was trying to be 'safe' after his earlier wild effort. That second chance was from a rare moment of quality from Mané, who wasn't as bad as Origi or Firmino but was still way below par.
The front three never got going all day. It’s easy to say Mo’s absence was the reason for that but the last two years in this fixture he’s absolutely stunk the place out so I wasn’t even arsed when I saw the team.
Unfortunately Divock did fuck all, and by using him on the left we also lost the combination of Mané and Robbo on that flank. The whole team looked disjointed and as has been said so many times before, when the front three aren’t delivering that’s when the ‘three grafters’ midfield approach gets exposed.
I’d have changed that at half time as it clearly wasn’t working. Gini was alright in the first half and had some positive runs, but overall neither he nor Hendo gave us anywhere near enough.
Ox came on for Origi and at least he had a couple of shots. That was a change that most people probably would have made, but Lallana being the next one off the bench wasn’t something many expected (or wanted). He made a difference though. He got on the ball and he was positive, turning away from people and getting us on the front foot.
Keith too. He wasn’t on long but from the moment he set foot on the pitch he was involved in everything. Everything he did was simple, but it was also effective and helped us begin to apply pressure that eventually produced the equaliser when Lallana stole in at the back post to tap in Robbo’s delicious centre.
It took us 86 minutes to put together a move like that. No excuse for that really, but better late than never. After that we could have won it, which would have been fucking hilarious. We had a penalty shout right at the death but unfortunately the ball hit the defender on the shoulder rather than the arm. Who would have taken it? I’d probably have given it to Lallana you know, but it’s a moot point really.
So, shit as we were, at least we didn’t lose. The winning run came to an end but the undefeated streak goes on. United can enjoy their minor victory and we can leave them to their Europa League shit and battle to stay out of the bottom six. We don’t need to think about the cunts again until they come to Anfield and hopefully get the beating they’ve got coming to them.
What a rat that Dan James is by the way. Fuck me, he’s one irritating little shitbag. He’s got one of those faces you’d never tire of smashing with a frying pan. I called that after his first game though, in the PL Round Ups. I’ve got an uncanny ability to spot these twats before most others become aware of it. I’m rarely wrong either, I can spot them a mile off. See also Richarlison. I told you he was a cunt and now the entire world knows it.
And what’s with Matip putting the ball out so the little shithouse could get attention for one of his phantom head injuries? He’s had more fake ‘headaches’ than my missus. United’s players knew what he was up to, they’ve obviously seen it so many times before. They didn’t put the ball out, but we did? What the fuck?
But anyway, all in all the result wasn’t actually too bad in the end, it’s just the manner in which it was achieved left a bad taste in the mouth. You get days when it just doesn’t click, I get that, and if we’d played like this away at Newcastle or Watford I wouldn’t be reacting like a spoiled teenager.
It wasn’t Newcastle or Watford though, it was a game against our biggest historical rivals and a fixture in which we were due a performance. And we didn’t get it. So yeah, my toys are out of the pram but I don’t think I’m being too unreasonable.
We’re top of the league, six points clear, we haven’t lost a league game since January and we’re the Champions of Europe. There isn’t much to complain about really but these shit performances at Old Trafford are reason enough to be angry I think, for a few days at least. By the time we play again I’ll be over it, but for the next couple of days I’m going to just stew in my anger about yet another opportunity to destroy these fucking shitbirds that’s gone begging.
Star man is Adam Lallana. Mainly because of the goal, but also because he was one of the few who seemed to realise that United are fucking shit and went about his business accordingly. Unlike most of his team-mates he played his natural game, with a swagger, and I’m made up for him getting that goal. When Klopp sent him on you, if you listened closely you could actually hear the collective sneer from Reds on social media. But he came on and made the difference, so good for him.
As for the rest, Alisson did nothing wrong, Virg was fine and Robbo played well. The rest? Must do better. And they will, as long as they’re not playing at Old Trafford.
Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson (Lallana), Wijnaldum (Keita); Mané, Firmino, Origi (Oxlade-Chamberlain):
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