Well, that was fucking awful in every sense. It's been a long time since I've seen a performance that disappointing.
I never, ever, criticise a referee's performance as usually it just strikes me as looking for excuses but this time I am really fucking incensed. Say what you want about our performance, we definitely didn't deserve to come away with any points but in my mind neither of those were red cards.
Degen has clearly made a mess of passing it back to Eccleston and he's clearly just trying to make up for his mistake by sliding in and winning the ball. He's come in late with one -not two but one- foot and there was clearly no intent in that tackle. Never a red for me and he may not have played well Degen but I'll say that red card was out of order.
As for Carragher; firstly, the linesman was calling for offside when that ball was played into Zamora. Secondly, the two of them are having a tussle, and Carra hasn't even fucking brought him down, and when Carra is sliding in from the side he gets the entire ball - not a part of it - the whole fucking ball. Maybe I have to re-watch it but if anything, that was a yellow card in my eyes.
Our actual performance was poor, to say the very least. In fairness we were missing what, nearly an entire eleven of possible first teamers? Craven Cottage is a tricky place to travel and without Johnson, Skrtel, Agger, Aurelio, Aquilani, Riera, N'gog, and Gerrard it was always going to be a huge ask of us to win. Still, the eleven we started with should have had enough about them to win it but alas, it wasn't to be our day.
From the 18th minute of the match I had the awful feeling that the match reeked of that fixture between the Mancs and Fulham at Craven Cottage last year and ultimately it did. Us losing our bottle and our composure with two sending offs (debatable as they may have been) and them defending with ten men in their own half every time we had the ball. Never did we look like breaking them down and over the 90 minutes and actually, we probably didn't. That Nando goal was a goal of absolute quality rather than us picking them apart and creating a meaningful chance.
We're following the same manner of doing things as we have been doing for a few years now. It's (rightly) all doom and gloom at the moment and we've just come to the end of another one of those barren months. Six losses and one win in the month of October and at the moment in the worst case scenario we could be looking at getting knocked out of the Champions League and out of the title race by mid-December. Thankfully in the past when it's looked like we can't possibly sink any further the lads finally pick themselves up and go on one of those runs where we smash absolutely every team that is put in our sight. I'm praying to whichever God will listen that starting Wednesday that run begins.
It has to.
