mike23

Might not be there if Nat Phillips hadn't come in and played so well at the end of last season either. Good to see him win promotion with Bournemouth tonight and a nice touch by Klopp to congratulate him on it at the end of his press conference tonight.

I feel a bit silly for being so worried at halftime now. I should have had more faith in this team after all they've achieved. It really was an absolutely horrific first half, though. We completely sorted it out in the second half, though, and were just as dominant as in the first leg. We got a bit lucky with some of the goals with their keeper (who also looked really dodgy in the first leg) having a shocker, but right from the start of the second half we just looked like a completely different team. Well done to all the players for sorting it out and reaching yet another final. Hopefully Madrid turn it around tomorrow night, but I think we're heading for the Champions League final with City that has been looking like it would inevitably happen at some point ever since Klopp and Guardiola arrived at the respective clubs. If we miss out on the league narrowly to them yet again then let's at least stop them from getting their grubby, cheating hands on the one trophy they really want.

What are we doing? Worst 45 minutes of the season by some distance. No one's been good but Keita's been absolutely horrific. Any time I start to think he's looking like he might be coming good he seems to turn in a performance like this. Swap him for Henderson. Didn't think there was any chance we'd go out tonight but don't fancy our chances at all at the moment. I spent the whole first half thinking this team is too good not to sort themselves out at some point and start playing their game, but they never did at any point in that first half. No composure whatsoever at any point. Like watching a team who have never played a big game in their lives rather than a seasoned team of winners.

Pathetic performance from Chelsea. Them and United are going to be to blame for Everton staying up. To be fair though, that was an incredible save from Pickford when he got across his goal to block the follow-up effort after the ball had come back off the post.

Really good second half after a decent but fruitless first half. Only frustration is that we didn't get at least the one more goal that our play warranted. But we'd have all taken that beforehand and we're in a great position to make the final now. On to Newcastle.

Ref made a big show of pointing to his watch to show he was noting the time to add it on when one of their players went down injured, then blows up dead on one minute. Unfortunately he's played right into their hands by blowing up for every little bit of contact and letting them time waste to their heart's content. I don't think we've done too much wrong. Thiago's hit the post, Mane and Salah have both had chances they perhaps should have done better with, and a few times the ball just hasn't really dropped for us. Their keeper looks pretty iffy and has been lucky to get away with a few unconvincing parries. Just keep going and surely the breakthrough will come sooner or later.

They'll finally get what they've all spent years wishing for if they're relegated. They would finally be the biggest team in the league. For a while at least they would be a massive name down there and a big scalp for the other teams. This will also have the downside of teams putting in a bit of extra effort when they play them, as we ourselves have found so often in recent years when we have so often seemed to get an opposition's very best effort. If they have a load of financial problems as well, as seems inevitable judging by the size of their losses in recent years even as a premier league club, then I really wouldn't fancy their chances of coming straight back up.

They're predictably blaming the officials for the loss on GOT, whilst in their relegation thread they're bemoaning the lack of help they've had from other teams who have played their rivals near the bottom. Until this week they've had absolutely tons of help with most results going their way for weeks. Here's an idea: actually stop looking for everyone else to do you a favour and win some games yourself.

Not even a warning for Pickford despite taking about 40 seconds every time he gets the ball. Watch the ref do it in about the 86th minute if we still need to score by then. Ref has been weak as fuck and is playing into their hands. That diving little prick Gordon, already on a yellow card, has twice thrown the ball away to stop us taking throw ins. 2 minutes injury time? About 20 would have been more accurate. We need to be better though. Some of our passing has been atrocious and it just seems to keep bouncing off the front players. Stop being so nice as well. Why were players hesitating about carrying on when Richarlison was trying to get the game stopped yet again towards the end. If the ref doesn't blow then carry on every time. It's obvious Everton are just going to stop the game every chance they get. Hope justice prevails and we score a very late winner. See if that little prick Pickford holds on to the ball grinning and winking then. Tyler and Carragher have been almost as infuriating as this match. No, Jamie, there's nothing admirable about what Everton are doing. And as for Tyler wittering on about how some refs would have given penalties for it after the replays had shown an embarrassing dive from Gordon. No, they wouldn't have unless they were blind. And even if they had, it was so bad that even the most incompetent ref on VAR duty would have overturned it. Really hope this is the last derby for some time.

Leicester do seem to concede a ridiculous number of late goals.

Lasted longer than most people thought they would. So many lucky bloody ricochets on that first goal that kept going in their favour. Infuriating. A bit longer at 0-0 and City might have started getting anxious like in the Palace game. Always looked like a second was on its way after that. Brighton were decent to a point but God they were shit whenever they got past the halfway line. Don't think even I can make a case for Watford at the weekend.

Yeah, there was a segment about it on sky sports news this morning. United have the highest net spend of any team in world football in the past 10 years, ahead of even City and PSG. I can't remember the exact figure but it was over 900 million. Saw a story about the highest earners in the premier league a while back as well and about half the players on the list were from United. Staggering some of the wages some of their players are on. Makes the rebuild all the more difficult for them because they're basically stuck with those players until the end of their contracts because no way is anyone else offering those sorts of wages to those players. Neville and United fans can whine that the money has been badly spent, but they certainly can't moan that it hasn't been made available. Incidentally, we were 14th for that period, behind Everton, Villa, and Wolves. Just to emphasize even further what an incredible job Klopp has done here.

Fans all around the home ground displayed class and empathy for Ronaldo after the terrible loss of one his newborn twins this week. United's travelling support respond with that. Bad enough if it it was a load of moronic teenagers in that video but it looks like mostly a bunch of very pathetic middle-aged men.

Thanks guys. Hopefully over the worse of it now. Still feeling lousy but a lot better than I did at the weekend. Liverpool certainly doing their best to perk me up with their performances this week.

True. I hated watching all their games during the last run-in but I couldn't not watch. Plus I'm ill with covid at the moment so I'm not really up to doing much other than lying around watching telly. I'll have convinced myself Brighton can get something by kickoff tomorrow night. Good, well-coached team, in form after winning at Arsenal and Spurs etc. etc. Then no doubt I'll regret it when City are 2-0 up after 20 minutes and strolling around the pitch passing it backwards and sideways.

Neither BT or Sky decide to show either of City's next 2 games when the title race is this close with 6/7 games to go? Can't see any listings for the game with Brighton tomorrow night and their Saturday game is scheduled for 3 pm so that won't be on. Instead they've got a load of games involving the exciting 'race' for 4th place. Great decision making.

9-0 over 2 games against them and that was with periods in both games of completely easing up against them, Jesus, imagine if we'd really wanted to go all out to embarrass them. As others have said, whilst they were at their peak, we always had some hope that even our very worst teams would dig in and pull off some sort of result against them. As well as us just being brilliant at the moment, I'd seen absolutely nothing from United all season that left me feeling there was any danger of them doing the same. They're absolutely appalling and it's reached the point where they've fallen so far that it needs someone of Klopp's stature to go in and completely rebuild all aspects of the club. I'm not sure anyone other than Klopp actually exists who can do that job. Let's hope not, or at least that Ten Haag isn't that man. But enough about United. Apart from a 15 minute spell we were brilliant again. Thiago seems to be in some sort of permanent computer game power up mode at the moment where every single thing he does comes off, no matter how ridiculous. Mo rediscovered his mojo and got back amongst the goals. Mane was excellent again. Every other player varied between really good and brilliant. Thiago seemed to just about stop himself from saying it in the post-match interview, instead quickly reverting to the old one game at a time cliche, but you could tell that he believed the club can pull off something truly unique this season.

Don't really get what they're expecting to achieve by sacking him now. Can't see anyone else coming in and making much difference this late in the season. And although the style of football wasn't great, Dyche performed miracles keeping them in the premier league for so many years. Seems really shitty to dump him at the first sign of trouble. I read an article a while back about them getting new owners, and it sounded like a leveraged buyout. Burnley seem to have very quickly gone from being a really well run club to the sort of basketcase the lower leagues seem to be filled with.

I definitely think it's better for West Ham to be out of Europe by then. They were really poor at home against Everton the other week and only really won because of how bad Everton were. Definitely looked like a team whose focus was on the upcoming European tie. Sounds like they were poor when they lost at Brentford last Sunday as well. If they're still distracted by European football by the time they play City then it will likely be a rout.

Tyler instantly started looking for some reason for our first goal to be disallowed too. When he saw Mane in an offside position in the buildup you could hear the hope in his voice, and I got the impression that he was about to make a big thing of it before Neville quickly cut in and dismissed it. I'm sure it's not a coincidence that him getting worse in our games has occurred as we've become more successful. It was probably a lot easier to appear impartial when we were rarely threatening to win anything. A much improved second half but our passing was still infuriating at times in the final 20 minutes. It seemed like every dangerous City moment came from us giving the ball away cheaply. Hopefully Athletico take a lot out of them on Wednesday and that becomes a factor in the cup semi final. The Benfica game for us should be straightforward enough and surely has to be seen as being an opportunity to give a few players a rest.

I thought I must have misheard it at the time as I just thought surely it couldn't be true. You watch our games and they always seem to be coming out with stats about us breaking all sorts of long-held records for winning and scoring streaks, and then you watch Everton and the stats are equally as ridiculous but for things like winless runs.

The article actually attempts to make out that Jota commits the initial foul. There's some questioning of why this was given when similar incidents are often ignored - still not really sure why this is considered a suitable argument for not giving the penalty anyway - and they pad the whole thing out with a lot of Hodgson quotes. The Athletic have some good articles sometimes and at one point seemed a refreshing contrast to the general clickbait nonsense that seems to largely pass for sports journalism these days, but they seem to have been filling their site with more and more pointless dross recently.

The Athletic feeling the need to write a whole article about the penalty incident from yesterday. I can't say I recall them doing the same when City were gifted wins against Wolves and Everton by decisions that were far more controversial and actually much more pivotal to the result. A bit like when we got a late penalty at Palace you'd think it had led to a late winner rather than simply wrapping up a game we were already winning. Sure, Watford could have theoretically equalized had it still been 1-0, but considering there were only a couple of minutes left and they'd barely crossed the halfway line in the past half hour it seems pretty unlikely. Most importantly, though, it was a clear penalty as rugby tackling in the penalty area is considered a foul by anyone with any sense. Just because refs have for some reason let defenders get away with it a lot in the past seems to have created this weird view that it should be allowed. The amount of moaning from Hodgson has helped to create the narrative. Just another shit manager who will always look for any opportunity to use the officials as scapegoats for games they deserve to lose. They're in the bottom 3 with games rapidly running out, have played more games than most of the teams above them, yet he was happy enough to just take a narrow defeat yesterday despite having had 3 weeks to plan for the game. You'd think in that time a team could come up with a more creative plan than stick everyone behind the ball and hope to nick something at the end when the winning team gets a bit nervy, yet somehow this was viewed as a tactical masterclass from the BT commentators.

Tyler desperately acting like this this was some high stakes game that would have had people hooked all over the world, when in truth even a late United winner might have only been the difference between them qualifying for the Europa League next year rather than the Europa Conference League. Just admit they're completely insignificant at the moment and be done with it.

Another quality freekick from Ward-Prowse. Leeds now looking very shaky.