mike23

24 minutes ago, Rushies tash said:

Did the commentator also say that they haven't come from behind to win a game since 2015? 2015!!! Seven fucking years. How are this shower still in the top flight?

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.

26 minutes ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

How did they get a whole article out of it? I got two short sentences.

It was a foul. It was in the penalty box. 

There's really nothing else to say.

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.

The trips to West Ham and Wolves look like the only potentially tricky games for City outside our game with them. And even then they might both be in beach mode having nothing to play for, or possibly in West Ham's case still in the Europa League and concentrating fully on that. I think we may well have had all the help we're gonna get from anyone else; if we don't win next week it will likely mirror the run-in from a few years back where we just impotently watch them win all their final games.

No point wasting any more time watching this shite now. Best hope is that they don't make too big a dent in the goal difference. Maybe a bit of a deflection but that still looked woeful from Pope for the 2nd goal.

Really is infuriating how often teams concede against them really early on.

I said it about United earlier in the season, but it's the same with Everton. It really is like a Liverpool fan is scripting their whole existence these days. Except with United it was always like there were limits they had to adhere to to at least keep it realistic. They couldn't, for instance, let United get relegated or go bankrupt because that would just be too far-fetched. But with Everton those constraints seem to have been removed completely and reality seems to have been completely discarded for the sake of maximum comedy.

The season to finish with us winning the quadruple and Everton being relegated on goal difference  - which is largely attributable to a 10-0 defeat at Anfield in one of their final games.

A quick glance at the comments section of any article in The Athletic about Newcastle shows you how bad their fans already are for defending their owners. No doubt they'll be much worse in a few years when they're competing for trophies.

Was that first half played in slow motion?

I think I could happily watch van Dijk's penalty again and again for hours. The look of utter disdain he gives Kepa afterwards is brilliant. 

Nice one Spurs. 

8 minutes ago, Boss said:

Norwich are down. If anyone gets out of that bottom three it'll be Burnley. We need them to go on a run now. Everton have City at home and Spurs away in their next two fixtures. They should get zero points there.

Yeah I said the other week I thought Burnley were the one team down in the bottom 3 capable of getting out of it. They've been here before and will still have complete belief they can turn it around. They've always come out with mini winning runs out of the blue in other seasons just as everyone is writing them off.

At least the results today will have Everton and their fans a bit anxious again. After last week they were probably feeling secure enough to feel they could cheer on a City win at Goodison next week. Losing that game now may at least have some negative connotations for them.

Nice and comfortable in the end but it certainly was starting to become extremely worrying before our quickfire double. The first half wasn't great but we still created some decent chances and it felt as though sooner or later we'd go and score at least a couple of goals and win the match comfortably. Their goal was certainly rather fortunate but we had started the second half very slowly and sloppily. It seemed to wake our players up, though, and we laid siege to their goal after that. The substitutions certainly helped. Ox and Keita were both really disappointing today. The ref gave Norwich soft freekicks all day but thought an assault on Mane in the penalty box was fair (followed by VAR taking all of 2 seconds to review it). But we got the goals in the end. Nice to see Diaz off the mark. 

Hoping Spurs can at least give it a good go against City, although their recent performances don't fill me with much confidence they will do. 

Very frustrating half. The ref is doing my head in. Norwich are doing my head in putting in a thousand times more effort than they did against City last week. But most of all we're doing my head in with the sloppy play and wasteful finishing. Please sort it out in the second half. 

Ah well, was fun watching them sweat for a while, but sadly this will give them just the sort of boost they needed. As bad as they are, there are just too many really bad teams in the premier league for them to get relegated at the moment. Leeds have been atrocious this afternoon.

I think Burnley could be the key. I see it being Watford, Norwich and one other. Newcastle look like they're turning things around and Leeds will probably just about have enough to stay out of trouble. If Burnley can go on one of those surprise runs they've managed every other season, where they suddenly pick up a load of wins at once, then Everton could be in big trouble as they looked like a team completely unprepared for a relegation scrap last night. The trouble is Burnley have only won 1 game all season. They've had a couple of hard fought draws in the past week but they need to start turning draws into wins now. Let's hope they do so (starting after we've played them on Sunday of course).  

Looks extremely tight and just about on from that pic, but then you have to ask why they sometimes have such quick checks and other times spend so long scrutinizing them. They took forever on Jota's second on Thursday and it was nowhere near as tight as that.

The joys of watching football on dodgy streams. One moment West Ham had it in the United half and then it suddenly cuts to United celebrating a goal. Not even sure how you go from having possession with 30 seconds to go to actually conceding but kudos to West Ham for managing it. Second time this season they've gifted United 3 points by doing something ridiculous right at the end (first time out they brought on Mark Noble just to take a penalty only for him to then miss)

Bloody stream died just before we scored but nice to see that we were in front when it came back on. We seemed to start fairly well but get worse as the half wore on. Hopefully the goal will settle us down.

A Liverpool fan couldn't have written a better script for all the comical incompetence at United and Everton in recent years. Was there a single person on here who didn't think Rafa going to Everton would be an absolute disaster? And because they've been so trigger happy with other managers in recent years there now seems to be a desire to persist with him to the bitter end when others have been sacked for far less. Looking at the table and they're really fortunate that are 4 really bad teams below them or they'd be in serious trouble now.

1 minute ago, Red74 said:

Has there been many flops for city though under Pep

How many fullbacks have they bought in recent seasons who haven't worked out. It's too early to write Grealish off maybe but he's had very little impact so far; if any other club went out and spent 100 million on one player he'd have to be one of their key players and an instant difference maker.