Liverpool 1 Man City 1 (Aug 4 2019)

[tlw content 12,313]

 

 

 

Report by

Dave Usher

 

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.

 

 

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[AdamD 14]

Cheers Dave, thought Bobby F was sensational

[Manjo 4]

The missed chances from Mo reminded me a bit of Mané at times last season, he’d have one of those games where it just won’t go in and be almost guaranteed to bag in the next match. Expecting him to do a Suarez against Norwich and score a hat trick of worldies on Friday night 

[Spy Bee 3,392]

Salah actually didn't play them onside. I thought he did too, but someone questioned it this morning and when I checked...

 

 

The ball actually reached Zinchenko, who was miles onside. 

 

I thought we were awful at dealing with runners from midfield in the first half, but we seemed to deal better with that threat in the second half. 

 

I wasn't arsed about losing on penalties. I found it weird how much they celebrated.

[dave u 6,051]

I didn't see how much they celebrated as my toys were out the pram and I switched it off!

[Spy Bee 3,392]

4 minutes ago, dave u said:

I didn't see how much they celebrated as my toys were out the pram and I switched it off!

Yeah, our eight year old was asking to turn it off too! 

[Bad Red Bull 416]

Great report Dave. Had to Google microcosm

[Duff Man 1,657]

Spot on about the anthem. Fuck 'em.

[TK421 7,517]

For me all the pressure is off us this season and we just go out and play our natural game without worrying about the consequences.  The CL win has put to bed the "nearly men" tag that a lot of these players were carrying.  Go out and play with the confidence of European Champions, starting with Norwich on Friday.  Show them why we're six times European Champions and why they're newly promoted cannon fodder for a team like us.  Win the game and stride off the pitch like the fucking colossuses we are.  

[scudger99 1,536]

I loved Klopp giving Baldilocks the "Benny Hill" slap treatment at the end.

And they can fuck that national anthem shit right off too, pompous load of fucking pish that it is.

It'll be interesting to see how they cope through the season without Kompany.  He was their voice on the pitch, but he'd been spending less time on it over the last few seasons with increasing injuries.  Not sure how that will translate onto the pitch now that he's not there at all.  Hopefully it weakens them enough that we can slip past into pole position this season.  Hit the front of the pack on Friday night and do our best to stay in and around that spot, keep the pressure on those blue Manc fuckers right from the get go.

[DaveTucker 42]

Assuming they knew he was off, anyone else think it would've been a nice send off to bring the Mig on for the penalties? We could have dressed it up as sentiment to appease Alisson but for all his faults it's one thing he was bloody good at and he may well have made a difference. Alisson doesn't strike me as someone who would take it too badly anyway unlike that Kepa tool. Ancient history now though but would've been a fitting reward for being such a good pro this last year.   

 

 

[Butch 947]

Missed Sadio yesterday. He causes chaos. 

[aws 6,809]

9 minutes ago, DaveTucker said:

Assuming they knew he was off, anyone else think it would've been a nice send off to bring the Mig on for the penalties? We could have dressed it up as sentiment to appease Alisson but for all his faults it's one thing he was bloody good at and he may well have made a difference. Alisson doesn't strike me as someone who would take it too badly anyway unlike that Kepa tool. Ancient history now though but would've been a fitting reward for being such a good pro this last year.   

 

 

Agreed. If we'd have won then it would have been a great send-off. If we'd lost, who cares really? 

[Paul 7,019]

5 hours ago, TK421 said:

For me all the pressure is off us this season and we just go out and play our natural game without worrying about the consequences.  The CL win has put to bed the "nearly men" tag that a lot of these players were carrying.  Go out and play with the confidence of European Champions, starting with Norwich on Friday.  Show them why we're six times European Champions and why they're newly promoted cannon fodder for a team like us.  Win the game and stride off the pitch like the fucking colossuses we are.  

Yeah. This is exactly where I am. 

[Special character 23]

"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"

 

Very much THIS.

[johnsusername 2,249]

"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."

 

HEAR HEAR! 

[etho 215]

Time will tell, but think this may have been exactly the game we needed. Weird because we could have been ahead despite being pretty rubbish first half apart from Bobby and Mo, who look like theyre chomping at the bit, nooone was quite at it. Even Virgil didn't look quite his usual composed self. 

But you could visibly see us shake off the cobwebs and the CL hangover a bit, get real and realise the required standard, stepped up massively and became the team we ended the season as and that we will need to be this season. Definitely should have won, and City were on their legs and rattled come the end.

So don't give a shit about losing on pens...just looked and felt hugely positive for the season ahead.

[rb14 1,121]

Good stuff Dave. From where I was sitting though, the decision to award the free kick from which they scored, looked like a very poor decision from the ref (who otherwise did a pretty good job). Did i miss something obvious? I've not seen it on tv.

[RedSand 83]

Cheers for the report Dave.  I laughed way too hard at the Karma for Sane's hairstyle out in public line. I thought Bobby was superb. 

Loved this bit below:

"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."

 

Bernardo is right whiny little shit. Reminds me of Azpilfuckface at Chelsea. Always being snide and Always fucking moaning to the ref. 

 

Anyone else notice the fuckers almost always kicking the ball away during our throw ins? All of their players. I'll bet they've been told to kick the ball away. Similar to breakaways, whenever the opposition breaks those cunts put in a foul to slow the break or stop it. Pricks. 

[Peter Cormack 122]

Dave, you need to have a look at yourself.....how can anybody not hate the overrated shitbag that is Kyle Walker?

[dave u 6,051]

1 hour ago, Peter Cormack said:

Dave, you need to have a look at yourself.....how can anybody not hate the overrated shitbag that is Kyle Walker?

 

I dislike him, but it's not even a particularly strong dislike.

 

Probably the City player I had the most beef with was fake nice guy Kompany. Hated that dirty, bulb headed prick. Now he's gone, they're mostly in the 'dislike' category, with only Guardiola anything more than that. That may change during the season, and there's a good chance Bernardo will earn himself a promotion.

[dave u 6,051]

9 hours ago, rb14 said:

Good stuff Dave. From where I was sitting though, the decision to award the free kick from which they scored, looked like a very poor decision from the ref (who otherwise did a pretty good job). Did i miss something obvious? I've not seen it on tv.

 

Yeah I saw where you were sitting from the photo you sent. In the cheap seats, which disappointed me as I expected a man of your wealth and standing would be in the Royal Box.

 

I don't even remember what the free kick was given for. The ref did have a good game overall though, surprisingly.

[dave u 6,051]

18 hours ago, DaveTucker said:

Assuming they knew he was off, anyone else think it would've been a nice send off to bring the Mig on for the penalties? We could have dressed it up as sentiment to appease Alisson but for all his faults it's one thing he was bloody good at and he may well have made a difference. Alisson doesn't strike me as someone who would take it too badly anyway unlike that Kepa tool. Ancient history now though but would've been a fitting reward for being such a good pro this last year.   

 

 

In hindsight, 100% yes.

[El Rojo 8,833]

Dave U > The Athletic

 

On an unrelated note, when's the free t-shirt competition kicking off again?

[sir roger 6,056]

5 hours ago, El Rojo said:

Dave U > The Athletic

 

On an unrelated note, when's the free t-shirt competition kicking off again?

It's all been kicking off on that thread for years.