Manchester City V Liverpool

[hamstrung]

The time to rest Torres is away at Luton in the cup and to take him off in the last 20 minutes of games where we are comfortably in the lead. Sadly we haven't got good enough players to come in and replace him.

 

There's little point playing him for 70 minutes if he's dead on his feet like yesterday.

[StevieH]

There's little point playing him for 70 minutes if he's dead on his feet like yesterday.

 

I agree, but perhaps if we had been more adventurous away at Derby for example and killed the game off in the 1st half we could have give him a rest in that game. If he is knackered then I agree maybe it would be prudent to pull him out for 1 game, bu we haven't got the quality in the squad to replace him. One of the reasons why we have dropped silly points is because Rafa has tried to rest key players in the past & the players that have come in have not been of the required standard. Players like Kuyt, Voronin, Riise, Crouch, Sissoko etc are simply not good enough.

[Neil G]

The problem we now face is that if Torres is rested and we don't pick up maximum points then Rafa knows he is going to get shitloads of abuse... I do agree with you though I think playing 2 games a week at the intensity of the Prem is catching up with him...

 

I think that if Rafa was honest and said that Torres genuinely needed a rest he'd get cut a lot more slack than he has. People got pissed off with him after the Birmingham game because his explanation for leaving Torres out was tactical, which if true was nonsense.

[moxter]

Everything's already been said, decent performance, but just thought I'd add: Arbeloa had a bit of a stinker at the back, I felt.

[StevieH]

Everything's already been said, decent performance, but just thought I'd add: Arbeloa had a bit of a stinker at the back, I felt.

 

He looked very nervy early on & made a few errors but looked more composed after that. Excellent at right/left back, but not comfortable at centre half.

[Strontium]

Everything's already been said, decent performance, but just thought I'd add: Arbeloa had a bit of a stinker at the back, I felt.

 

I hope he has as much of a stinker every week; I could do with the 6 points in Fantasy Premier League.

 

I don't know how you can fault the defending when we kept a clean sheet. What more should they be doing - keeping the ball out of the goal while doing handstands?

 

Our problems yesterday were not at the back.

[Captain]

I don't know how you can fault the defending when we kept a clean sheet. What more should they be doing - keeping the ball out of the goal while doing handstands?

 

I can see where you're coming from, but Arbeloa probably had to change his shorts at half time. He was better in the second though.

[Redexile]

I thought, on the whole it was a good performance today. We dominated the match against a team notorious for their excellent home form.

 

However we still lacked that ruthlessness that marks out title-winning sides. We just couldn't turn our obvious dominance into a goal and that is slightly worrying, but again, it's not a major flaw like conceding flurries of goals for example.

 

I said before this one that a point and a good performance from this one wouldn't be the end of the world and I still maintain that. Far too often under Rafa Benitez have we played too cautious away from home and it has cost us. Today we dominated and despite having a full back as a centre half, we never really looked like conceding a goal. It is a sign that we are progressing, I feel. We have now taken 7 points from 9 over the Christmas period, and a win against Wigan on Tuesday would, in my opinion, complete a very successful Christmas.

 

I thought that Mascherano was imperious today. That Elano never got a sniff from the little Argentinian. Finnan dealt with Petrov relatively well and even found the time and space to get forward often, something which I doubted would happen, given Petrov's form of late.

 

Gerrard played very well from deep, although I'm sure he would have liked to have got further forward more often- but City's formation denied him that. Kuyt worked and worked and for my money had a better game that Torres, who was unusually quiet. Yossi also played well in fits and starts, and Kewell played well for 45 minutes before tiring.

 

I thought that maybe Rafa left it too late to bring on Babel; perhaps given half an hour instead of 11-12 minutes he may have done significant damage.

 

I refuse to become a pessimist though and have to say that I am quite satisfied with today. As I said, the lack of ruthlessness let us down but I'm sure that is not a major problem; at least not as major as other problems like conceding goals.

 

The fact that city really only played with one striker sums it up for me. Unlucky not to get the 3 points but we really need somebody else with pace alongside Torres. Kuyt works his arse off but TBH I feel he really slows us down at times because he lacks pace.

[ratcatcher]

Thought the game result was very disappointing. This points to the reason we wont win the title this season. Another opportunity to make up points on filth and the chavs missed yet again.

 

It cant be denied citeh set out for and got the point they wanted. Yet again, we looked not to stretch ourselves until the second half when we seemed to realise they were there for the taking.

 

Some piss poor finishing in front of goal and some even worse passing cost us 3 points. We need another striker of Torres' class, Kuyt once again worked hard but was hardly noticed in the game.

[RedBrian84]

Thought the game result was very disappointing. This points to the reason we wont win the title this season. Another opportunity to make up points on filth and the chavs missed yet again.

 

It cant be denied citeh set out for and got the point they wanted. Yet again, we looked not to stretch ourselves until the second half when we seemed to realise they were there for the taking.

 

Some piss poor finishing in front of goal and some even worse passing cost us 3 points. We need another striker of Torres' class, Kuyt once again worked hard but was hardly noticed in the game.

 

 

Didn't we already know this before the season started? We knew that winning it would be a bridge too far this time around- but as long as a challenge was mounted then that would be progress; and we're not out of the running yet.

[WaltonRed]

I thought we played very well indeed. City defended for their lives and it just didnt happen for us. I thought El Jefe was immense and we passed the ball really well, we just couldnt score.

 

It was probably our best team we could put out yesterday and they gave it there all. I was proud and happy yesterday.

 

United lost there, They've done brilliant at home this season and we battered them we just couldnt get the goal.

 

Wigan will get it day after tomorrow.

[ratcatcher]

Didn't we already know this before the season started? We knew that winning it would be a bridge too far this time around- but as long as a challenge was mounted then that would be progress; and we're not out of the running yet.

 

To be fair, the comment was more towards the people who seem to think we only need to turn up to claim number 19.

 

Im not certain we have made any real progress towards being capable of winning the league \ making a challenge. We are halfway through the season and again, we're 10 point off the pace. When filth, the chavs and asre slip up, we still dont comprehensively make up ground on them. We still appear unable to beat filth, the chavs and arse home and away.

 

Until we do these things, IMHO, we arent making reall progress.

[RedBrian84]

To be fair, the comment was more towards the people who seem to think we only need to turn up to claim number 19.

 

Im not certain we have made any real progress towards being capable of winning the league \ making a challenge. We are halfway through the season and again, we're 10 point off the pace. When filth, the chavs and asre slip up, we still dont comprehensively make up ground on them. We still appear unable to beat filth, the chavs and arse home and away.

 

Until we do these things, IMHO, we arent making reall progress.

 

 

Yeah I guess you're right on that score, but don't forget, while United slipped up this weekend, Chelsea faced an out of sorts Newcastle who never win in the capital, and Arsenal, although they struggled for 45 minutes, comprehensively beat Everton. We played a City side, away, who are no mugs this season. They beat United and looked pretty comfortable doing it.

 

Who knows, had the fixture list looked different we may have won this weekend and things would have looked different as far as points are concerned.

 

I think we have made progress, albeit slowly, but I can see where you're coming from.

[Paco]

There have been improvements:

 

we're scoring more goals and and I'm pretty sure we have more points than this stage last season.

 

we can definitely improve and games like yesterday, united, arsenal, reading and chelsea prove that we're still missing someone to finish and someone to create.

 

we're a much better team than we were when rafa took over and with torres we're capable of great things in the future.

[Guest Ulysses Everett McGill]

We're Liverpool not Everton.

 

What are you talking about?

 

The question was asked about alternatives to relying on Torres and Gerrard.

 

I think against City and the way the game was going, it wouldn't have been out of the question to play long to Crouch and get people in and around him?

 

And I hate all this romantiscised nonsense about having to "play" a certain way, granted though, it would be unpalatable if we were losing every week and playing with no invention or ideas, but that clearly isnt the case.