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Liverpool 3 Manchester United 1 (Dec 16 2018)


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Report by
Dave Usher

 

Beating these bastards feels good at any time, but when it extends an unbeaten start to the season and sees us go to the top of the table, it doesn’t really get much better than that does it? Just as satisfying though was the manner of the victory. We’re miles better than them and we showed it.

 

Mourinho claimed afterwards that they can still finish fourth. I’m not even sure they’ll finish sixth. They’re bang average and there are three or four other teams who look to be on a similar level to them. They barely laid a glove on us. Even Everton and Brighton put up more of a fight. Their worst fears were realised as they were humiliated. Not by the scoreline, but by how over-matched they were.

 

This wasn’t about them though. It might be all everyone in the media seems to be talking about, but they aren’t the story here. We are. At least we should be. As mediocre as United were it seems to be getting overlooked just how fucking good we are right now. United don’t need much help in looking bad, but the truth is they didn’t really stand a chance.

 

Most of what Mourinho says after games can be disregarded as agenda driven bullshit, but when he pointed out that United’s players couldn’t cope with the speed and intensity we play at, he was dead right. We were too strong, too fast, too good. In comparison, United were slow, ponderous, devoid of ideas. Why is that?

 

Two reasons. One, we’ve got better players than they have now. And two, our team is much, much better coached. We’re clearly better than them by some distance (19 points to be exact), but they still have enough talent to have caused us far more problems than they did.

 

They could have come here and played a front four of Lukaku, Martial, Rashford and Mata and had a proper go, like Everton attempted to do (albeit with far less talent). That’s a good enough group to cause anyone trouble if they’re given licence to attack. That’s not Mourinho though. He doesn’t go toe to toe with anyone, he’s a massive shithouse and it played right into our hands this time.

 

That spoiling approach has given us nightmares in the past but it always felt like this would be a game where those shithousing tactics wouldn’t pay off for them. We’ve had enough practice at trying to break it down and finally it showed. A team that came to Anfield with the sole intention of trying to defend and keep things tight, gave up 36 shots!! That’s the most shots anyone has had all season. What happened, did someone forget to put the handbrake on the bus?

 

 

This is only a teaser, click here to view the full article

 

Please note that Match Reports are only available to website subscribers. Subscriptions cost just £2 a month (you need to register first) and can be purchased here. 

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This is a serious team now. It’s got absolutely everything you need to win the title bar the trophy itself. Never mind all this, “We’ll have to be amazing to get past City”; they’ll have to be better than last season - when they set records - to retain their title ahead of us.

 

1990 was a long time ago, the game is transformed in how it’s played and run and obviously nothing is proven without trophies. However, this team looks far better than our last title-winning side. 

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We are the real deal... and that has really revealed itself since the the last international break - 6 wins on the bounce in a variety of styles - all with a mixture of resilience, occasional brilliance and a superb team ethic.  eg. Mane misses sitters, Alisson saves us with a world-class save... Allison commits a howler, Shaqiri comes off the bench and wins it.

Whenever there's a fuck-up, someone steps up and fixes it. 

I'm very confident we are GOOD ENOUGH to win the League, and that's a great feeling.

 

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I think it was clearly an error from Alisson, but it’s not only on him. Lovren was terrible in the build up to that. But look, in terms of goals conceded we are currently one of the best defences in the history of the game in England. You concede goals in football. It happens. I’ll be getting over it really quickly. He’s a worldy, and I don’t have any issues with him at all. It happens to all keepers. 

 

As for us as a team, we are clearly very special. As you say, the real deal. 

 

 

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I still make City favourites, they're just swatting teams aside. I look at Crystal Palace and just think 3 points straight away. We could literally go the whole season undefeated and still not win the title.

 

Yesterday was boss though. Fabinho was outstanding. He only made 2 backwards passes in the whole match. Robertson plays like he's got Red Bull pumping through his veins. Keita is not quite there yet, but he's improving and can you imagine when he clicks like Fabinho has? 

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Lovely. I thoroughly enjoyed watching yesterday as I just knew we’d score again, I simply knew it. In their glory days the mancs looked to have won games before a ball was kicked and it felt like this here, for us. And I’m not normally the most optimistic fan. Dave, write more reports please as I’m off work today and would just like to read about this win all day.

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Keane said in the studio before the game that Clyne is poor defensively.  I nearly spat my prawn sandwich out.  I think he was talking for talking sake and they’d pasted United for a good half hour  so needed to point some weaknesses out on our side. They also mentioned Fabinho not being up to it.  The pair of them showed him up.

 

I was a bit worried for Clyne though.  Apparently Milner was going to play up until the previous night which shows how far down the pecking order he is.  I find it odd because he nearly played every minute until his mystery injury.  I think it’s a testament to him that he played the full 90 and he wasn’t hiding (he was absolutely furious after a couple of Robbo style 100m sprints when Mane didn’t play him in).  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a player come in from the cold like that and be that fit.  It was phenomenal really.  He looked a bit nervy on the ball early on but that disappeared after a few touches.

 

Fabinho just looked like he plays in this game every week.  He’s probably thinking what the fucks all the fuss about?

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3 hours ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

I think it was clearly an error from Alisson, but it’s not only on him. Lovren was terrible in the build up to that. But look, in terms of goals conceded we are currently one of the best defences in the history of the game in England. You concede goals in football. It happens. I’ll be getting over it really quickly. He’s a worldy, and I don’t have any issues with him at all. It happens to all keepers. 

 

As for us as a team, we are clearly very special. As you say, the real deal. 

 

 

It was the third mistake on the run when we conceded: first we hit a shit corner out for a goal kick; second Virgil headed the goal kick straight out for a throw; and Alisson fucked up. Just one of those things in my view and happily one that few people will remember. 

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16 minutes ago, Paul said:

It was the third mistake on the run when we conceded: first we hit a shit corner out for a goal kick; second Virgil headed the goal kick straight out for a throw; and Alisson fucked up. Just one of those things in my view and happily one that few people will remember. 

Yeah, and we’ve conceded 7 in 17. It’s part of the game that we concede. Otherwise we’d be perfect all the time. 

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4 hours ago, The Guest said:

previous

We are an amazing team as others have said the real deal. But I tell you what we must be the worst corner takers in the league and we seem to be getting worse. Corner after corner we either hit it right to the keepers or fail to hit it over the first man. They seem to be all taking turns in them too to try and improve them but to no avail. If we ever suss out how to put a decent one in we’ll be untouchable haha.

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1 hour ago, TheHowieLama said:

The fact that Van Dijk can jump 12 feet in the air but we have not hit his head in 50 of them is cause for concern

He needs to get better at jumping downwards as most of our corners are at shoulder height. 

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Great report Dave, this bit had me proper laughing

 

" I fucking love that little guy and I want to invite him round for Christmas dinner at my house. My arl fella would be overjoyed. Shaq is like the son he always wanted. If he was my little brother I wouldn’t even be arsed that he was my Dad’s favourite. Hell, I’d choose him over me as well, the adorable little stocky bastard. "

 

I love his arms folded celebration as well, what a signing!

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On 12/17/2018 at 4:00 PM, shouter said:

We are an amazing team as others have said the real deal. But I tell you what we must be the worst corner takers in the league and we seem to be getting worse. Corner after corner we either hit it right to the keepers or fail to hit it over the first man. They seem to be all taking turns in them too to try and improve them but to no avail. If we ever suss out how to put a decent one in we’ll be untouchable haha.

Surprisingly, Gini's corners were actually really good. Not his fault no-one got on the end of them, but he put some right in the danger area. Robbo's were shocking though.

 

On 12/17/2018 at 4:05 PM, TheHowieLama said:

The fact that Van Dijk can jump 12 feet in the air but we have not hit his head in 50 of them is cause for concern

 

It's mad that he hasn't scored since the derby. It's an anomaly more than anything. When he gets his next one I reckon the floodgates will open. He's a six or seven goal a season player in the future I think.

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