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Sheffield United 0 Liverpool 1 (Sep 28 2019)


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Report by
Dave Usher

 

Phew. That's the main thing to say about this. Phew. It was a tough watch. We weren't ourselves and they were a right handful. Unexpected it may have been, but we won't have many tougher games this season. Thankfully we survived. 

 

During the course of a season you get performances like this. There’s no point trying to analyse the whys and wherefores about it. They just happen. To every team, no matter how good they are. You can go back through history and look at every great team that has ever played the game and you’ll find a performance or two like this in even their most successful seasons.

 

It happens, you never know when it's going to happen and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. When it does happen all you can do is make sure you somehow find a way to get through it. That's how successful teams achieve success.

 

And we did get through it. It wasn’t pretty, it probably wasn’t deserved and you can argue it was somewhat fortunate given the nature of the winning goal. The counter point to that though is we missed three absolute sitters, which on another day we’d have converted and ran out comfortable winners. So yeah, we were lucky with the goal we scored, but Sheffield United were lucky with the ones we didn’t.

 

That’s not taking anything away from how well they played though. Without wishing to sound patronising, I thought they were great. I was really impressed. They gave us as tough a game as we’ve had in the league since…. I dunno, probably since the Etihad last season.

 

I mentioned last week how there are only a few games on the fixture list now that I look at and think “that’ll be tough”. Chelsea last week was one, Leicester away is another. A trip to Bramall Lane wasn’t supposed to be one of them, but you just never know. City wouldn't have been expecting to get done over by Norwich. As I say, it happens from time to time and when it does you need to be able to deal with it.

 

It had that awkward feeling about this one from an early stage. The first ten minutes or so were ok but then you could tell we were toiling. It was slow, pedestrian, predictable, and fairly quickly you could see that the Blades were growing in confidence.

 

The home fans were massively up for it, and although it’s difficult to know for sure when watching on the telly, from what I could tell this was the loudest opposition crowd we’ve played in front of in this country in a long time. It might just be the acoustics or where the microphones are, I don't know, but that sounded loud to me.

 

They were hostile, which we always come up against as it goes with the territory when you’re good, but they were also hugely encouraging to their own team. The crowd were rabid (in a good way), and their performance was matched by their team who gave us all we could handle. Ok, we didn’t play well and on another day we’d probably batter them, but they’re clearly better than a lot of people realised (me included) and Chris Wilder has done an incredible job there. 

 

I’d be surprised if we came up against a more well drilled side all season. They defended brilliantly and denied us a lot of the space that we usually thrive in. You know they did this well because we barely even saw Bobby for most of the game and the full backs weren’t able to make their usual impact either. That took a lot of our threat away.

 

Yet despite their brilliant defensive effort, they still managed to cause us several problems at the other end and could easily have scored two or three themselves. It’s one of those games where you know when you get to half time that you just want to get the win, go home and forget all about it.

 

And that’s what we can do. I know it’s a cliché, but a year or two ago we’d have lost this game. Ok, I’ll rephrase that. Pre-Virgil we’d have lost this game. We’ve lost shitloads of games like this over the last decade, but since Van Dijk arrived that’s virtually stopped entirely. It’s not JUST him (Matip was brilliant again too), but he’s been the catalyst for it.

 

 

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  • dave u pinned this topic

Huddersfield away last season was similar although was probably worse due to them being shite...

 

As you say Dave every great side has these sort of performances in them but that's what makes them a great side is that you find a way, not all the time  obviously.

I just wish for my heart we'd stop giving away big late chances that's three games now we could have easily drew, Saints, Chelsea and now this.....Although on the plus side that must piss everyone else off even more and you know with this side we'll get one and bury it.

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It was the first time since Madrid that I felt a feeling of dread in the build up to and during the game. It's been all "Champions of Europe, bitch!" since, and a more general feeling that the season had yet to shake out. Well, it's shook out and I can't pretend any more that failing to win the league would be anything other than a source of disappointment. Yeah, I know Liverpool are up against Ben Johnson FC and what Klopp and co are accomplishing is a footballing miracle. I understand that on a rational level, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and getting what the heart wants involves winning every league match against anyone other than BJFC, and even then Liverpool will need at least a draw in one of the games against them. It's going to dominate the next eight months of my life, and it makes me sick.

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For quite a few decades now I've watched many, many teams come to Anfield and deploy the usual range of tactics to knock our team out of its stride - make us play into the Kop 1st half, pack the defence, fall over under minimal/no contact......... and waste time from the first minute. And what do referees do? Fuck all. Maybe point to their watch half a dozen times whilst goalies take endless seconds over goal kicks, and only then because the Kop has drawn attention to it again and again. Do they ever get booked? Can't remember it happening too often. And yet we've had players booked in consecutive away games for time wasting. Funny old game.

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A bit surprised you didn’t mention the pen situation with Mane, the one where a Sheff. Utd player comes flying in studs first and hits Mane on the ancle (57 min). If you asked 1000 refs if that was a pen, I doubt even one would say no. Still, Taylor wasn’t sure and didn’t call it. VAR didn’t correct it either. To me that was the final straw. I’ve been very much in the pro VAR camp, but this was it for me.

It’s worse now than it was before. The ref is in doubt and doesn’t call it expecting VAR to correct if wrong. VAR for some reason doesn’t come to his aid, but somehow think they support the ref by not correcting him.

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Guest Pistonbroke

That block from Robbo was exceptional. It shows how good he is with staying switched on despite having one of his quieter games. 
 

I also mentioned in the match thread that us picking up another 3 points in the fashion we did will play on City's minds more than if we were going out and blitzing teams. 

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On 30/09/2019 at 09:42, JustTosh said:

A bit surprised you didn’t mention the pen situation with Mane, the one where a Sheff. Utd player comes flying in studs first and hits Mane on the ancle (57 min). If you asked 1000 refs if that was a pen, I doubt even one would say no. Still, Taylor wasn’t sure and didn’t call it. VAR didn’t correct it either. To me that was the final straw. I’ve been very much in the pro VAR camp, but this was it for me.

 

 

It’s worse now than it was before. The ref is in doubt and doesn’t call it expecting VAR to correct if wrong. VAR for some reason doesn’t come to his aid, but somehow think they support the ref by not correcting him.

 

I'm conflicted on the Mané pen incident. If it's outside the box its a foul every single time. A player makes a pass and gets fouled after he's played it, there's no question about it, the ref gives a foul unless there's an advantage.

 

In the box though it seems to be different. If a player gets his cross in and is then caught after it, generally a pen isn't given. I tend to agree with that in the sense that if a player has not been impeded from doing what he was intending (be it a pass, cross or shot) then it probably shouldn't be a pen as that just seems like excessive punishment.

 

If a pen had been given against us for an incident like that, I'd have been furious. So I didn't really appeal for it when Mané was caught and it didn't bother me that it wasn't given.

 

As I say though, outside the box it's given every time, so there is a double standard there.

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Definite double standard. If a player is cleared out after playing the ball it should be a foul wherever it happens.  Mane is lying on the floor,out of the game and unable to participate in the attack.

 

 I can sort of see the case where the ball goes straight out of play but not where the play is continuing. 

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