DirkDiggledinho

I don't even think we have the mentality to win the league like but our own fans wanking over City and building them up as invincible is a step too far for me. I wonder how many of the people saying this stuff would be willing to go down to the bookies and put a significant sum of money on them winning 11 of 11.

Ah come on, Chelsea are pathetic but the reaction in this thread is silly. Game's been handed on a plate to them. They'll drop more points, just not in this one.

Spurs the ultimate bad smell/unflushable turd etc. Still not a single draw this year. Unbelievable.

Hopefully, there's definitely goals in it. I think the odds are we will score but Van Dijk will have to be on his toes to make sure there's no silly shit down at the other end. Key is to frustrate Pogba and don't allow him to create anything.

Good stuff, result we needed but Bournemouth were horrendous. For some reason they seem unable to keep possession when they play us, especially at Anfield. Finishing will have to be much better next week if we're going to give Frodo his first defeat, as we aren't going to get so many chances. Onwards and upwards.

He has been all season. You always feel he's going to run straight into a player or overcook the pass. Still coming up with the goals by and large though. And hits the bar as I type.

Great so far. Look like a team again, comfortable and passing calmly and patiently, but fortunately Bournemouth are doing everything they can to help us. Hopefully we can just close this one out now and have a much needed confidence boost going into the game at OT.

I think a lot of our second string were gone in the summer regardless of where we finish this year. The likes of Mignolet, Sturridge and Origi are on borrowed time. We can't sell everyone, but there don't seem to be many in this squad who aren't moping with their heads down. Robertson, VVD and Mane seem to be the only exceptions. Even Klopp looked sad and defeated toward the end of the first half.

City have wobbled also, but in the CP and Newcastle games they were undone by bits of individual brilliance and some bad luck. I didn't see any of the panic or hopelessness that we've shown in the last two games. That's what worries me most.

If he's going to do that then fuck him.

Yeah I'm far more level-headed now than I was watching us lose out to United as a 15 year old in 08/09. But I can't abide bottlers, and right now to me it looks like we are bottling it. That to me is what makes it so hard, playing to our maximum and being outclassed by a better City team would be much more bearable.

He looks too slow and ponderous for this league at the moment. He's been a liability for several matches in a row, letting the game pass him buy and playing suicidal passes straight to opponents. Very worried it's not going to work out for him here now.

It's very hard. To see us threatening to piss away such a glorious chance of ending years of hurt in such a manner as tonight is a borderline impossible pill to swallow.

That's it for me, we're not winning this thing. Our first XI with everyone fully fit is a rival for City's, but beneath that there is nothing, players with no spine, no balls and no hope. Origi, Matip, Lovren, Mignolet, Origi, Lallana, Sturridge in particular are no longer or never have been good enough for a team trying to win a title, and Keita looks completely out of his depth in this league. But the most gutting thing for me in the front players. Firmino and Salah in particular, trotting around for 90 minutes with their heads down. They look devoid of any belief, and the rest of the team is following suit. It looks like we've mentally thrown in the towel, we're frustatedly shooting from 30 yards, dilly dallying before playing a hopeless overcooked ball straight to their keeper. Mathematically we still have a 3 point advantage, but mentally I think we've completely folded, ever since the Palace game at Anfield which really we shouldn't have won. I'm now absolutely dreading the thought of that shower of goons with their hobbit manager striking a nail in our title ambitions. I'm shattered, don't know what else to say really. I maintained after the City game that it wasn't a disaster if we didn't drop silly points to shite, but it's happened now twice in a row and with the mindset the players have shown I can only see it being a regular occurrence.

Some half time observations: 1. Naby has been dreadful. I think the honeymoon is over now. I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that he excelled in a much slower league and is only going to be a liability for us. He fell asleep for the goal and I lost count of how many dangerous balls he gave away to them. 2. Matip has been dodgy at times also. You can see the panic he and Keita have put in the team. The cool calm and collected team from earlier in the season has gone and been replaced by the bad old defensive shambles that conceded so many goals. In the summer we must get rid of both him and Lovren and get 2 CBs in who can actually compete with Virgil and Gomez. 3. We may still win this because West Ham are shite, but regardless of the result I now think the likelihood we're not going to win the league. City will drop points, but what we have past the first XI is dogshit, and on this showing we will drop a lot more than them. I think this is easily our worst performance of the season, and we haven't even had any real injuries to our front 3 yet. We could be 3-0 down if the goal was correctly called for offside and WHam knew how to take glorious chances.

If we have any ambition of winning the thing we have to just get it done, it's West Ham at the end of the day. Shit fixture times happen to everyone, champions do the job regardless.

You're right it would have been great but at the same time who expected City to lose to the same team we played tonight, or CP or Newcastle? They are are very good team but far from invincible and I think it's foolishly pessimistic to just assume they're going to saunter through the rest of the games now with no more slips. I'm fairly confident they'll give us more opportunities. We've just got to show some grit and punish them rather than doing everything to excuse their bad performances and hand them the title like we did in 13/14. Like you though the lack of bottle we showed tonight has made me doubt we can do that. On a positive note I'd rather be playing our next few games than theirs, United aside.

I think that's a bit of an overreaction but we need the likes of Virgil, Alisson and Milly to be sending rockets up the arses of anyone not putting the work in to let them know this isn't acceptable. There's always nights like this but if we just allow the rot to set in and start gifting more points away in games like West Ham next week it's all going to end in tears. I wouldn't worry about Spurs. They've still got a million injuries and if there were question marks over our bottle there's none over theirs. They're huge cowards. It's between us and City and will be until the end.

Yeah completely agree. We're a very good technical side but the attitude of some players tonight, Salah in particular, was a disgrace. We should have been getting up in their faces, not accepting anything but a win, but instead the heads dropped and they went missing. That's worried me more than anything, I'm praying we don't go completely off the boil and start handing the initiative to opponents like we did tonight.

I'm far more gutted after that than the City game. First points dropped vs shite and what a bad time to do it, 7 points clear would have been such a massive kick to the nuts for City but instead we've let them off the hook. We've looked nothing like the confident controlling team we saw before Christmas in the last couple of games. We got away with it vs palace when they probably deserved something but couldn't do it tonight. On paper it's not really a disaster with City having Arse and Chelsea in the next two games, but god we've got to show more fight than we did tonight.

Another one of those theatrical dives-that's-not-really-a-dive. Can't really moan about it too much as Mo's gotten a couple of very similar ones in recent games. Was interesting 11v11, but the sending off's killed the game already. Oh well.

Nobody will ever convince me anyone called Winks is a good player.

Spurs doing their best bottle job once again. They have some quality players but they're never going to do anything with cowards like Lamela, over-the-hill lumps like Llorente and Harry fucking Winks in the squad. Brings it further toward being a two-horse race, which is good. Hard to ever get too excited about that lot winning, though.

I agree with Klopp's statement that this was our most "mature" performance of the season. What was really pleasing to me was seeing us going one up and just shutting the game down in a level-headed, controlled way. That's a quality I think you need in a title-winning team and it feels like these days once we go ahead it's probably curtains for most teams we're playing. They need to produce a worldie or bit of magic from somewhere against our rock-solid defence and given the quality of this league outside the top 6 that's never too likely to happen. 1-0 is never the most comfortable lead to have but it's a lot more comfortable now than it was even last year, when we'd be 3-0 up and wondering when Lovren and Moreno's heads were going to fall off and cost us dearly. We're a quality side and for me if (and it's a big if) our main 11 and first choice bench players can keep fit we'll go on to win it.

We're going to be sticking Fabinho in beside Virgil by the look of it, and waiting for Gomez and Matip to come back. But we're one injury away from throwing a 16 year old into a league game. That's fucking scary.