mike23

Coutinho Gerrard Sterling

I still fancied them to turn things around against Olympiacos before today - not because they're any good but just because Olympiacos are so shit. But I'm not sure they've even got much chance of that now. Most of their players just didn't look like they give a shit really and it's hard to imagine them suddenly doing so a few days later. If they go out of Europe at this stage and lose to City next week you'd think they would surely sack him but to be honest I'm amazed they haven't already and maybe they really will be mad enough to give him another season. They'll almost certainly spend big this summer to try and sort themselves out but it could be a one time opportunity for a quick fix before they go into a long decline as they're not going to be able to keep just throwing money at the problem, and if he's the man they trust with that money it could set them back for years. Please let it happen.

Gerrard Henderson Allen

Jesus feel like I aged about 10 years watching that. Four goals at home to a team in the bottom half of the table and yet the result was in doubt right until the final whistle. Really glad we managed to win but we're not going to keep winning if we defend like we did in the last 2 games. The goals certainly seem to have dried up for Suarez at the moment but fortunately Sturridge is on a hot streak. Hopefully Spurs will drop some points at Norwich now.

Can't have any complaints about the performance. Just wasn't our day. I said on Wednesday Sturridge has to be one of the most reliable finishers in one on one situations and then he misses three of them in the next match so I'll take that back for now as it seemed to jinx him. Webb was an absolute twat the whole game and how on earth he doesn't give that penalty on Suarez when he's looking right at it from a yard away I'll never know. Maybe a case of a ref not wanting to give 2 penalties to an away team or more likely Webb just being his usual incompetent/bent self whenever he referees us. Really thought Agger was going to score with that header at the end too. Oh well - let's just concentrate on finishing as high as possible in the league now.

Gerrard Sturridge Coutinho

Guess it shows just how far United have fallen that Arsenal fans would boo a home draw with them. Watched the start of the game whilst waiting for ours to kickoff and it was quite lively early on but looks like very little happened after that with both sides more concerned with not losing than winning which seems a bit odd really as a draw doesn't seem to do either side much good. Would be pretty funny if Arsenal just completely fell apart like they so often seem to do at this stage of the season. Hopefully we can knock them out of the cup and I can see Bayern absolutely hammering them over two legs in the champions league. They completely outclassed them at the Emirates last season but just seemed to become completely complacent in the home leg and that seemed to give most Arsenal fans the impression that they actually pushed them really close.

Strangely I was wondering the other day when the last time was we won a game with a really late goal. And while it would obviously have been far less stressful if we'd just gone there and hammered them it was great to see us scrape a win as since those 3 1-0 wins at the start of the season we either seem to have won comfortably or not at all. We always look to have goals in us these days but our defending is really threatening to let us down. We can't keep having to score 3 or more goals to win games. Hopefully Agger coming back from injury will help matters. He's had his own faults in the last 18 months or so but he will surely be an improvement on Toure. Really poor first half. We started slowly and the daft own goal occurred before we'd had chance to settle down. I just spent the first 40 minutes wondering how we could go from hammering Arsenal to playing so badly a few days later. Fulham were clearly up for it after their draw at Old Trafford and the early goal gave them even more encouragement but we just looked all over the place. The goal came completely out of the blue but what a pass from Gerrard and Sturridge must be one of the most reliable finishers when in a one on a one situation. We started the second half much better but couldn't get the goal and when Suarez hit the post and they then scored a few minutes later thanks to more horrific defending from pretty much their first attack of the half I thought we'd get a point at best. But we got the equaliser pretty quickly and we did seem to really go for it unlike the Villa and West Brom games. When Coutinho shot just wide I thought that would probably be the last chance. It was a daft and needless challenge for the penalty so we got a bit lucky but it was reward for going right to the end. Strangely considering I always fear the worst with us I didn't feel nervous at all waiting for Gerard to step up and put the penalty away. Every game just feels huge at the moment. I still think City or Chelsea will probably win the league but every Liverpool win just gives me a little bit of hope that we can do it whilst the table is so tight that every dropped point has had me looking at the teams below us and worrying about getting 4th place.

When I saw the fixtures for this weekend it definitely looked like it had the potential to be one of those where everything that could go wrong would go wrong. All the other teams at the top with very winnable looking games while we had a fixture we never win. So made up with that. Our defending was shocking and very concerning at times but getting 5 goals at Stoke after all those drab draws and depressing defeats in recent years was great. We had a fair bit of luck with the first goal and a dodgy decison go our way for a change for the penalty but we've not had much luck or help from refs really so we were probably due some.

Nice routine win to get back on track. Shame about some of the finishing or it could have been a lot more. Would have been a lovely team goal if Henderson had finished off that move in the first half and Coutinho really deserved a goal for that run at the end. Ref was absolute shite. Nice to keep a rare clean sheet. Back into the top 4 but shame about the finish in a couple of the other games as with a couple of minutes left it looked like Arsenal were going to draw and Everton were going to lose.

What a shit weekend. Every other team at the top managed to grind out a win and we lose. Very disappointing first half. Got the early goal but they just completely dominated us after that. Disappointing again from Mignolet for the second goal. Not exactly a howler but the sort of shot you would expect a top class goalkeeper to save. Second half wasn't bad but there didn't seem to be any real belief in the side we could get an equaliser. Suarez had a quiet game and seemed to be getting more and more frustrated with the decisions and poor final passes from teammates and unfortunately once again no one else was able to step up and produce something instead. Coutinho had some good moments and Sterling looked good until it came to actually producing a final pass or cross. What the hell is wrong with Johnson at the moment? His defending is bad enough but what's going on with his attacking play? Every time he gets the ball he seems to be completely in 2 minds over what to do with it and just ends up standing there doing nothing with it until he eventually gives it away. And yet we'd still have got something from that game if it hadn't been for Webb. The foul from Terry on Suarez would be a foul anywhere else on the pitch but to be fair it's the sort of thing most refs won't give a penalty for so I wasn't really surprised we didn't get that one. But how on earth he couldn't give the second one when he was a couple of yards away and staring right at it is beyond me. Having seen the replays of the Etoo challenge early on too that could quite easily be a red. The decisions that went against us at City, the none red card for Mirallas's challenge in the derby and the decisions today - those go for us and we could quite easily have had 5 points from 3 vital away games instead of 1 and be in a great position in the league right now. We're still only a point off fourth and play most of the big teams at home in the second half of the season (where refs might be less inclined to fuck us over) but it could go either way really with so many other teams competing. A win over Hull on Wednesday is absolutely essential and it won't be easy with all the injuries piling up and them full of confidence after a big win at the weekend. Steve Bruce also seems to have some sort of jinx over us as whatever mediocre team he seems to be in charge of at the time seems to have some uncanny habit of fluking some result against us.

Very good performance and a really frustrating result. Deserved at least a draw but missed 3 big chances and were undone yet again from a setpiece and yet another individual mistake in this fixture. Considering we can't defend setpieces against mediocre teams it's no surprise City scored from one against us. Mignolet's been very good this season so just a shame he picked this game to make a mistake in. Mason was his usual useless self like he is just about every time he referees us and that offside decision from the linesman on Sterling in the first half was just shocking. Even before seeing the replays I thought there was no way it was offside and it shouldn't even have been a difficult decision for him. It was 0-0 at the time and we did go a goal up after that so maybe we still would have lost the game anyway. Or maybe not. It's impossible to know how the game would have turned out really but it's a lot more difficult to win games when you have decisions like that go against you. But considering the way City have battered pretty much everyone at home this season including United, Spurs and Arsenal then we can at least take plenty of positives from the performance.

Suarez Sturridge Toure

Back on track after a bad week. Made harder work of it than we should have by giving a bad goal away but I didn't think the overall performance was anywhere near as bad as some people are making out on here. Sturridge and Suarez were great together. Been a great weekend for us with the way other results have gone for us and nice to see us taking advantage for a change when others have slipped up.

Thought we were the better team for long periods but gave away another really poor goal from a corner and kept messing up our final ball when in promising positions. Still it was an improvement over most of our recent trips to Old Trafford where the entire team usually collectively seem to forget how to play football and it was certainly a lot better than Saturday. Frustrating night and it's been a shit week and really need to go and get a win at Sunderland on Sunday now or that good start to the season will have been completely undone.

Most of the good work from the start of the season undone with that pathetic performance. No idea what Rodgers was thinking playing 4 centrebacks. Easy to be wise after the event and I haven't read the start of this thread but I doubt anyone on here looked at that lineup at the start of the game and thought 'oh that's a good idea.' We ended up with the team we should have started with at the end but it was too late by then. Aspas looked completely lost again and really shouldn't be starting any games. Under Rodgers we do normally create chances even when playing poorly but they could have added on a couple of hours injury time in that second half and we still probably wouldn't have troubled their keeper. Really poor goal conceded from a corner we just gave away with a couple of really sloppy bits of play. Not many players come out of that with much credit but Gerrard and Lucas were particularly poor and the midfield is becoming a real concern. We had some key players out obviously but still no excuse to be that bad at home against Southampton. Hopefully the return of Suarez will help us but that performance today and the last half hour at Swansea shows how much we miss Coutinho.

Skrtel Sturridge Mignolet

A little deflated after that second half performance. A point away at Swansea is hardly a disaster but we just seemed to be chasing shadows in that last half hour and barely seemed to be able to string 2 passes together. Sakho had a few iffy moments but I actually thought he did okay for his debut overall and the main problem in the second half seemed to be the midfield. Coutinho going off was a blow, especially as Aspas seemed to have absolutely no impact on the game at all and we might as well have been playing with 10 men. Moses was really impressive in the first half and could be a great asset for us this season but he did fade badly in the second half. Not a great night but can't grumble at 10 points from 4 games and being top of the league.

Agger Skrtel Henderson

Not a good second half but after the past few seasons of regularly playing well and failing to win I could happily get used to winning ugly. For all their possession I don't remember them having a single clearcut chance and hopefully a few other teams will have been watching that and realised how average a side they really are. If Spurs don't win then we can go into the international break top of the table which is a nice contrast to this time last season when we had 1 point after the first 3 games, and if Spurs do win we can have a good laugh at Arsenal so it's a win win situation.

New season is only a few weeks old and I'm already fed up of it from a betting persepective. 3 different accumulators all messed up today by one result. Bayern let down one - needed over 3.5 goals in their game and genuinely couldn't believe it when I had a look after an hour and it was still 0-0. One let down by Everton being unable to beat West Brom and a big over 1.5 accumulator where every other game came in really easily but Accrington and Cheltenham only finished 0-1. I'm really due a change of luck soon.

1) Gerrard 2) Sturridge 3) Mignolet

Thought we were really good in the first half apart from the last 5 minutes. Second half was poor but at least we were solid and ground out the win and after the way we started last season it's really nice to have 6 points out of 6. Great goal from Sturridge and Mignolet producing another vital save right near the end again to ensure the win.

Coutinho Toure Mignolet Tough choice as there were plenty of other good performances too.

With each missed chance in the second half i became more convinced they would end up nicking a draw and the suckerpunch seemed to have come right at the end with the penalty. But a great double save from Mignolet and it felt really important that we got off to a good start this season so that could prove to be oneof the biggest moments of our season.