mike23

We finally have a week this season of feeling good and then they go and ruin it with a performance like that. I missed the first 20 minutes and we did apparently start the game pretty well by the sound of it, but from the first few minutes I saw it just had the look of the type of half-assed mistake-ridden performances we've just seen far too many times this season. There were so many different players who could have done better on the goal that I don't even know where to start. We looked completely clueless at the other end. Had Mo stuck away the penalty it might have inspired a better final 20 minutes and a winning goal, but it wasn't even a surprise that he missed the way the afternoon had been going. All optimism completely drained. A long wait until the next game now and then a tough run of 3 games after that which may completely kill our top 4 hopes. Does it even matter if we do perform in those games any more? They could beat Arsenal and then throw in another performance like that against relegation fodder the following week. You can't just keep picking and choosing what games you're up for. This team have managed to develop every infuriating habit that has plagued this club for the majority of the time since the 90s.

Missed the first 20 minutes. Sounds like we started pretty well. We've been dreadful since I've had it on though. Just back to some of the same garbage we've been seeing for much of the year. How on earth does van Dijk not even hit the target with that header as well? Starting to have Forest game vibes this. Please wake up. Dropping points to Bournemouth after beating United 7-0 really is inexcusable.

It's incredible how differently supporters of other teams can see the same game to us. I've seen a few United fans moaning about the ref today and even comments that we only won because of him. The ref was actually being kind to them towards the end when most of their team seemed to have just given up and seemed more interested in fouling than playing football. A few of them probably should have been sent off by the end yet I think only a couple were even booked. Somehow I think Fernandez still hadn't received a yellow card at full time when he should have been booked about half a dozen times. You've just got to laugh at their belief that Mo gets everything as well. I don't think I've ever seen a player get so little protection from refs. In today's game the ref and linesman didn't even give a foul when Martinez deliberately smashed his elbow in Mo's face to stop a run in the first half.

Just been watching them all back. Gakpo's 2nd for me. The pass from Mo is world class and the finish is lovely too. Mo's first comes 2nd. I'm also a sucker for ones that go in off the crossbar. They always look so spectacular when they go in that way.

Apparently I'm all out of rep for today. I'm sure I could have happily just kept going through the thread for the rest of the night finding other posts to rep. That was incredible today. There's no point analyzing it or picking out specific players as they were all brilliant. Hopefully it's the major lift we've been looking for to now push on for a top 4 finish and if nothing else it's just great to see United well and truly put back in their box. We might never see a better front 3 than Salah-Mane-Firmino, but that combination of Salah-Gakpo-Nunez is starting to look really good together. Add in Jota and Diaz and next season could be very exciting if we sort the midfield out.

I don't think Brighton can be ruled out. They've not been mentioned much but they're only a point behind us with a game in hand. They look a really good team when they're on it. I think they might at least end up finishing above Newcastle.

Genuinely sick of hearing about how great they are again. They'll still only come 3rd in what has been a really shit league and yet you'd think their treble team had been resurrected the way the media and their fuckwit fans keep crowing on about how great they are again. Even that modest achievement will have been massively aided by a ridiculous amount of favourable refereeing decisions. Three times this year they've basically rewritten the offside law to allow goals to stand for them. Yet it's undoubtedly been a big improvement from last year for them, and the most frustrating thing is we were complicit in beginning that revival by losing at Old Trafford. They'd have been under all sorts of pressure after losing the first 2 games if we'd gone to Old Trafford and won or even drawn. Instead we took all the focus and pressure off them by losing that game. Our best football this year has come against the best teams: the full game against City and the first half at Arsenal. Reproduce those 2 performances (minus the self-sabotaging opening and final minute of that first half at Arsenal) and we can kill the revival we helped start stone dead on Sunday.

I was surprised when I realized it was Warnock as he has always seemed like someone who genuinely loves the club when I've seen him on things before. You may well be right and it's more the case that, just like the rest of us, he's been frustrated with our performances this season and keeps thinking we can be so much better. The performance was pretty decent on reflection last night and yet until the goal I was doing a lot of grumbling myself about various things. I agree that ex players really shouldn't commentate on their own teams as it's just impossible for them to be impartial or for fans to perceive them as being impartial. It's how we get the weird paradox of Liverpool fans complaining Carragher is always biased against us in commentary while opposition fans complain of how biased he is for us. Warnock always seems like a decent commentator on other team's games. I guess the problem with our games is that it's really hard to find people who are actually really impartial. The alternative to former reds on commentary often seems to be having people like Alan Smith sounding suicidal if we're winning or full of joy if we're losing.

I'd never realized he was so negative about us before. You'd have thought Wolves were playing us off the park tonight the way he was going on at times, particularly in the first half.

Got there in the end. We looked a lot more solid tonight at least and it's probably the easiest game Alisson's had all season. It's only Wolves but by the same token this was a team who had scored 5 goals in their previous 3 meetings with us this year.

Really poor game so far. Odd flashes of good play but that's about it. It's all just too slow and ponderous. We still should be in front. Absolutely dreadful miss from Elliot. Add it to the long list of dreadful finishes we've seen this year. Fabinho and Trent have been a lot better. That's about the biggest positive I can think of.

I'd love it to happen and I hope the team prove me wrong, but I'm really struggling to see it at the moment. It's hard to take any comfort from anything they've achieved in previous seasons because this year, both physically and mentally, it's hard to believe it's even the same set of players. Whereas in previous years they seemed capable of constantly bouncing back from adversity, it seems like any sort of setback just completely derails any signs of recovery this season. We've seen mini runs of wins and it looks like they're getting back on track, but then they're always followed by another slip up which then usually leads directly on to a few more bad results afterwards. It even seems to happen within games where they often have 10-20 minute spells of looking good, but if this doesn't produce instant dividends then they quickly seem to lose heart and it all becomes very ragged again. A lot of parallels have been drawn with the dramatic recovery of a few seasons ago where they suddenly bounced back from a disastrous run to finish the season on a long unbeaten run; however, it just seems like the problems run much deeper this year than they did that season. The team had started that year looking imperious (Villa horror show aside) and until the freak run of injuries it was looking like they were going to walk another title. The injuries have been numerous again this year, but even before they started occurring it was clear that there were problems. Right from the first game something looked really amiss and it soon became apparent that it wasn't just early season rustiness. I kept thinking it would be sorted out within a month or 2 but it never has been. I was convinced the world cup break would really benefit us and give Klopp and his coaching staff a chance to sort everything out, but if anything the performances have been even worse since the season resumed. So many players are out of form and yet there aren't really many alternatives because the potential replacements are either injured or are in equally poor form.

Terrible today but by far the most annoying part of his performance was his failure to get out of the way of Trent's goal bound shot in the first half. Looked like it was heading right for the corner of the goal.

That might be the most depressing thing I've read in this thread tonight. It already feels like it's been going on longer than last year's quadruple challenge despite only having played a tiny fraction of the games.

Well, we didn't lose. That's about the only positive I can think of. Just another utter dogshit performance. Pathetic finishing when we did create chances. Yet more comedy defending. There was a spell in the second half where a Sunday league team would have been embarrassed with the standard of our passing. It wasn't really any better than the Wolves game - more just a case that Palace didn't punish our various mistakes. We're on a run of 3 league clean sheets which may be one of the most misleading statistics in the history of football as there has been nothing convincing about our defending in these matches.

Another dreadful 45 minutes. We seem to be doing everything we can to gift a goal to a team who have barely even attacked. Keita needs to be taken off before he gets sent off. I'm not sure we'd even notice anyway he's made such little contribution. Matip looks like an accident waiting to happen again. Trent may possibly be drunk he's been that sloppy. When was the last time Mo actually curled in one of his trademark finishes? It seems like every time now he's off target or it's a powder puff effort straight at the keeper.

It felt like we had a chance to completely settle the tie tonight after going 2-0 up early on. And we did ... just not in the way you'd have thought possible. That second half was an absolute embarrassment. Mistakes for every goal. Constant misplaced passes, forwards failing to control it in the box on the few occasions when we did have promising looking attacks, every single corner hitting the first man ... I could go on. I've genuinely never seen a team regress so badly in such a short space of time. In the end it resembled the 0-3 game against Madrid at Anfield under Rodgers where we just looked completely outclassed. Yet that team had no real experience in the competition. This was a team who have been to 3 finals in 5 years. Even in clear decline they should have had enough to at least make it competitive. Dave mentioned in the podcast that he thought this game would have no real bearing on our league revival ... unless we got completely embarrassed. Unfortunately that happened and it's hard to believe that this won't have also completely derailed our mini revival in the league. I'd say it doesn't really matter if tonight is all we're capable of in this competition now, but like everyone I'm hoping there are going to be major personnel changes over the summer and any rebuild is going to be a lot more difficult if we're not in the Champions League. I just had to laugh when the commentators started talking about a potential comeback in the second leg. My only hope is that we don't get completely humiliated (or further humiliated after tonight). I'm not sure what our record defeat in Europe is (2-6 on aggregate against Spartak Moscow under Souness or have there been any bigger ones?) but we're surely heading for that unless Madrid take it easy. If Madrid are up for it then we might concede double figures on aggregate because this team is incapable of doing anything to stop them if they want to score. Positives? I suppose going out means this utter shitshow of a season draws a little closer to a finish.

Way more annoying than Carragher is on our games. You can always hear the glee in his voice when he realizes there's a VAR check for one of our goals. 'Oh I think this might be offside.' Sounded like he was absolutely loving that second half.

Absolute fucking garbage, Mistake after mistake after mistake. Gift after gift after gift. I don't know why I'm even surprised after this utter shitshow of a season.

Frustrating. Felt like we completely had them on the ropes and then threw it away. In fairness this seemed to be what Madrid did in every single round last year too. Every single team they beat had big early leads and opportunities to go even further in front before letting them back into it. I'm not sure if it's poor from the opposition, great from Madrid, or just incredible luck. Maybe a combination of all 3. Their first goal just seemed to come from nothing and I'm not sure we did too much wrong. Alisson's been incredible this year but that was really bad from him for the 2nd. It just never looked like the pass he tried was ever on. We've played some cracking stuff going forward and there are potentially more goals here but it's also hard to see us not conceding again. That was an incredible bit of defending from Robertson at the end. Had they scored again at that point then I think this tie could have completely got away from us. As it is, halftime maybe came at a good point for us. It's an opportunity to clear our heads now and go again.

I've always thought it was pretty unfair that league suspensions get carried over to cup matches. It's something that's benefitted teams a lot in the past, however, when instead of an important league game they've ended up serving the suspension for a cup game in the early rounds that they wouldn't have played in anyway. On this occasion Pope was unlucky at the timing of the suspension, but it was absolutely ridiculous how so many pundits then felt this justified questioning the decision. It really needed Graeme Souness or Roy Keane in the studio to tell them they were talking utter shite. It seems to be driven by this horrible idea that Newcastle are these plucky new challengers to the established elite. A lot of people are so desperate for some different teams to compete that they seem happy to completely overlook the unpleasant reasons behind why they can suddenly compete. I was talking to a neutral fan about Newcastle the other week and they just shrugged off any talk of sportswashing and just kept wittering on about how refreshing it was to see someone else competing for the top 4. I certainly don't remember all this complaining about how unfair it was when Doni got sent off in a league game at Blackburn and was subsequently suspended for the following week's FA Cup semi final against Everton. It's probably a good job it was such a clearcut decision or Taylor would have found a way to bottle it. There were some incredibly strange decisions in this game. I genuinely wondered if I was watching a different game to the commentators when they made no comment about Trippier going right through Nunez, handballing it, and then somehow being awarded the freekick. There was an even more ridiculous foul on Mo near the sideline in the last few minutes where a Newcastle defender went right through him and a freekick wasn't even given. It was bad enough that the ref didn't give it but the linesman was literally stood about a yard away. But defenders have been allowed to do whatever they want to Mo for years (whereas if he so much as breathes a little too hard on them they get awarded a freekick every time). He really must have a Zen-like calmness about him as I genuinely don't know how he always manages to just laugh it off. I'd have completely lost it with one of them years ago if it was me.

They do whatever the hell they want with these lines. Nothing will convince me that 2nd United goal is onside. You could see it was offside with the naked eye without having to faff about with any lines. No doubt we'll get some more bullshit justification that greater leeway is given for offside this year like after the game against us even though I've not seen it happen in any other games this year. If greater leeway was given they wouldn't have spent about 5 minutes checking our 2nd goal yesterday when everyone could see it was onside even without the lines. The officials are doing everything they can to make a really mediocre United side relevant this year.

Better performance so far although it was so nearly very different. We really need to see this through now though. Everton are utter shite and even in our current state there's no excuse for dropping points to them from here. I'm genuinely starting to wonder what exactly an Everton player has to do to get booked in this game. Tarkowski and Iwobi both should have been booked several times now. Much more like it from Mo even before the goal. It was nice to see everything not just bouncing off him for a change.

Relegation would probably result in virtually all of their players leaving and necessitate a complete rebuild. Some of Juventus's best players such as Buffon did actually stick with them after relegation and help them to come back up and rebuild. That's not going to happen at City as none of their players are going to have any sense of affiliation with the club. Their agents would probably be ringing around looking for new clubs within seconds of the relegation announcement. City would be under a lot of scrutiny in terms of future spending too, so even if they bounced straight back it would be very difficult for them to re-establish themself at the top of the premier league.

You really have to wonder why it has been allowed to go on for so long. Had it been dealt with sooner then in addition to 2 more titles we might also have an additional Champions League to our name. How different might that Champions League final last year have been if we hadn't gone into it after the soul destroying blow of losing out to them cheats on the last day of the season yet again? If we hadn't had to go balls out in every single game in the run in for months while Real Madrid in contrast had their league wrapped up with weeks to go? The pessimist in me just feels that even if they somehow end up experiencing a severe punishment for this that it will all end up being too late for us and it will be other teams who benefit from it. Maybe Klopp can build another great team from the current ruins, but it all feels like a big if at the moment.