mike23

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.

Not really much to say about that as very little happened. Coutinho had some good moments and Gerrard was excellent but no one else did much. Lucky to get away with the disallowed goal. The players looked like they were happy enough with a point in the last 20 minutes and considering that pretty much ensures we finish below them again that's hard to understand.

If we appeal the ban then maybe it might eventually be reduced to 8 or something but how exactly do appeals work? Could he start serving a ban now on the basis that he accepted he had no objections to serving a 3 match ban and have it reduced later or if he appealed would he still be able to play for now and only start serving the ban when the appeal had either been successful or rejected. The over the top ban just seems like pure spite from the FA to me. They knew it wouldn't really affect us this season much but they were determined to fuck up the start of next season too.

Went for a double of Bayern and Dortmund to win this week. Thought it was possible and the odds were very nice but it certainly seemed a bit of a longshot. Easiest bet I've ever won. Also tried a few daft bets on the game tonight for low stakes including a quid on Lewandowski to get a hattrick so that was nice. Would be nice to see Dortmund win the trophy. Bayern will no doubt have other chances if they don't win it this year but Dortmund seem to be becoming a victim of their own success having their best players poached by bigger teams just like happened when Porto were really successful so it might be their only real chance for quite a while.

More than 5 I'd imagine. You never really know with the FA. They really seem to make it up as they go along and punishments seem to vary from nothing to excessively long bans for similar offences. They also seem to base their decisions on how they think it will make them look in the media so they'll come out with as long a ban as possible so all the sports journalists write nice things about them.

Sturridgge Carragher Suarez

Regarding the game - we seemed to start quite well and I just don't know what happened with Johnson when he was put through on goal. As soon as i saw it was him I just thought back to his winner at Stamford Bridge the other season and expected him to calmly slot it away again but it looked as though he was anticipating getting clattered by Cech and didn't really fancy it and just had a half assed prod at it as quickly as he could. Sadly it seemed in keeping with his play at both ends of the field in the last few months. Thought he was our second best player after Suarez in the first half of the season but he's been shit for some time now. Chelsea started pretty poorly and hadn't really threatened but as usual with us they didn't really have to do anything much to score. Another poorly defended corner and I feared they would score every time they got a corner today as we just looked all over the place trying to defend them. The 20 minutes after the goal were just depressing to watch. Just misplaced pass after misplaced pass and Henderson in particular didn't seem to be able to do anything right. Great start to the second half with Sturridge making an instant impact. He's been crap recently but I wanted him to start this one as I thought he'd want to have a big game against his former club. If he'd started I would have had a bet on him scoring. Looked like the player we had in the Arsenal and City games. Not sure what's happened since. Is he someone who just thinks he needs to perform in the big games or maybe doesn't have to bother so much after a couple of good displays occasionally or has he just been struggling to get back to form after injury? Hopefully the latter but he showed what he could do today which makes his recent performances all the more frustrating. Fancied us to win it after that but almost straight away they got the penalty. Maybe Suarez was fouled a bit and that led to the handball. He clearly wasn't happy about something but maybe he was just angry with himself. Hazard scored and celebrated like a twat. Players never seem to mess up penalties against us. Reina's poor record for saving them in recent years gets mentioned a lot but I can't remember many he's stood much chance with. We played alright after that but I never really expected us to score. It seemed to be like most games at Anfield where we've needed a goal towards the end of the match and there are a few token attempts on goal but there doesn't seem to any real belief we'll actually score. Shelvey was crap again when he came on. Got booked virtually straight away for another needless challenge and added another to a long list of unbelievable misses from our players in the past 2 seasons. It was a pleasant surprise to get the goal right at the end. We deserved something or at least I don't think Chelsea deserved 3 points as they did fuck all in the match other than score 2 goals we gifted them. Funny reading on a forum before their fans alll whining about how Suarez and Sturridge shouldn't have even been on the pitch and how the ref should have blown the whistle by then and how it might cost them champions league football. With them all moralising about Suarez and calling him a disgarce to football after some of the players they've had in recent years I hope it does. Would be hilarious if they missed out by those couple of points.

Surely it would be best to just get as much of the ban out of the way this season as possible. There's not really a lot resting on the end of this season now. I don't think we're going to climb any higher or fall any lower. Unless a ridiculously long ban is given then we should just accept it and move on. Still not sure what Suarez was thinking today. Like other people on here have said it's kind of hard not just to laugh at the incident when you see replays of it. It's just such a bizarre thing for a player to do. If it was a player with any other club it would be hilarious to be honest but it's Suarez who gets loads of abuse even when he doesn't do anything so you just know the media shitstorm on this will go on and on.

No we shouldn't get rid. He's a world class player and we have very few of those. I'm not sure I'd have the same opinion if most of our ther players had done it. Why couldn't Shelvey be the one who was completely insane instead? Who cares what the media or mongs on phone ins think? They were happy for United to keep Cantona even though he attacked someone in the crowd (even if that guy deserved it it doesn't mean it was in any way acceptable). We shouldn't try to defend him either as there would be no point. Get him to apologise and accept whatever ban is given. I think it's fair to say Kevin Friend didn't see it. He's a poor referee but I'm pretty sure he knows players aren't allowed to bite the opposition.

Avoided defeat at least and I think we deserved something for the second half performance. But it's all going to be overshadowed by what Suarez did. I've got fed up of the media and other fans having a go at him for things numerous other players do but that was just completely indefensible today. He's clearly facing a lengthy ban and hopefully we can get some of it out of the way this season when there's nothing to play for but the real fear is the club just decide he's too much hassle after this and it makes up their mind to cash in on him. Really hope that won't be the case as we'd be much worst off without him even if we got a huge fee.

Infuriating game. I can only assume it's because I was daft enough to bet on us that we didn't win so sorry about that. Otherwise one of those chances would surely have gone in. Some amazing saves from the keeper - the one from Gerrard in particular was just unbelievable. Having said that though some of our finishing and decision making in the final third of the field were actually criminal against a team who seemed to spend most of the match just asking us to score. Unfair to maybe single one player out from that performance but Sturridge after his bright start has been crap for some time now. Maybe we decided to draw 0-0 on purpose just to end any chance of getting in that pesky Europa League next season.

You surely didn't expect anything else did you? In fact they had more of a go than I expeced them to. We had quite a few decent chances to counter attack where they'd committed a lot of players forward and every single time we messed it up with a poor pass or wrong decision.

Reminded me of the West Brom performance where every time it looked like we might build some momentum there would be an overhit pass or a poor piece of control to give possession away. It wasn't just one or two players - they all seemed to be at it. Suarez had probably as poor a game as he's had all season and as usual no one else bothered to step up. Looked a clear penalty on Gerrad and had we nicked the gme 1-0 it could have quickly been forgotten about but it's hard to make a case that we deserved to win that. Jaaskelainen made a few decent saves but nothing you wouldn't expect him to and tat really was about the best we managed. We must get more corners than any other team in the league yet we barely ever even create a chance from them. We had 11 or 12 and didn't create one single chance from them. They had 2 and very nearly won the gme with one of them. Looks like the season is petering out and I can't see us even managing to overtake Everton now. It seems like we either win convincingly at home or not at all. When was the last time we managed to nick a game like that with a late winner? Chelsea, Spurs and Arsenal don't look that much better than us to me but they're going to finish miles ahead because they've had plenty of games where they've not been all that great but have managed to pull off wins.

They mentioned on sky during our game with Villa that Di Canio was heading to Sunderland for talks. If nothing else he'd probably liven the premier league up a bit. Did well at Swindon gaining them automatic promotion from league 2 and they were doing really well this year until he had some sort of falling out with the board over finances and left the club. Not sure if he'll be a success in the long term but I think the Sunderland board have just panicked and are hoping a change of manager will get them the 2 or 3 wins that would clinch survival - it's amazing how often teams on really bad runs will immediately pick up a couple of good results when someone new comes in even if that manager ends up being shit in the long term.

Gerrard Coutinho Henderson Not much in it and Suarez could easily be in there too as despite having one of his quieter games this season there were still some moments of real quality.

Crap first half but turned it around in the second half. Good performances from Gerrard, Henderson and Coutinho. We really do look all over the place defensively still though and this really needs to be addressed if we're going to achieve anything next season.

0-2 home defeat to Bolton in the FA Cup under Souness. Outplayed at home by a team in the equivelent of what is now the first divison. 0-1 home defeat to Wolves under Hodgson, which has already been mentioned, is the worst league performance I can ever remember. I think their keeper had to make one save from Meireles in the first five minutes and after that we didn't create a single chance at home against the team who were bottom of the league and had the worst defensive record in the league.

Spurs were absolutely dire in the second half. Can see them bottling it in the run in like they did last season and Arsenal yet again somehow making the champions league despite being utter shite for most of the season. Really depressing that we can't even challenge these teams for a top 4 place.

Thought we would surely improve in the second half and at least create some chances but never got anything going. Not many will come out of that with much credit but Johnson and Allen were particularly bad and Skrtel is taking the piss moaning about being on the bench and then coming back into the team with a performance like that.

Unbelievably bad first half but we're somehow back in it. Lucky not to be getting hammered. Hopefully we'll take advantage and sort it out in the second half

Probably one of the very few games this season that we got more than we deserved from. Couldn't see us getting anything when they went 2-1 up and there was a 10 minute spell or so where it looked like it might actually get embarrassing. A mistake gifted us a way back into the game but there have been more than enough games we should have won this season that we've thrown away through mistakes so it was good for it to occur the other way round for a change. Thought the ref was absolute shite. Seemed to apply a completely different set of rules for the 2 sets of players. Teeniest bit of contact on a Spurs player and it was a freekick while nothing but the most blatant foul got us anything. Quite surprised he gave the penalty but it was kind of hard to turn down another one after already turning down the one for the foul on Sturridge. He should have given us another one near the end too when Vertonghen fouled Sturridge. Good to beat Spurs. Got sick to death of hearing how great they and Bale were in the build up to this game. You'd think we were some plucky little relegation battler the way the commentator was going on at times today. He sounded absolutely gutted in the last few minutes and so did Alan Smith (another on the long list of former footballers who seem to hold some bizarre hatred of us). Champions league is probably still just out of reach but the win keeps our chances looking vaguely realistic for another week at least. As some have mentioned Spurs have a tough run in so you never know. At least it finally puts us above Everton - about time that statistic was put right.

Suarez Coutinho Reina Easy top 3 to pick because they made the most crucial contributions but there were plenty of other good performances.

Enjoyable game. We're 7th in the table so it's obviously not been a good season but there have been some really enjoyable performances along the way. Making a nice habit of not just beating but completely demolishing the shit teams. Great play from Coutinho for the first 2 goals, Suarez was great as usual (wonder if the media will rave about his goals the same way they have every time Bale has done something recently) and Reina had his best game for a long time.

I expect Bale to win it. To be fair he's had a great season but I agree with the original poster that some of the things being said about him in recent weeks have been ridiculous. He's not as good as Messi or Ronaldo. No one in football comes even close to what those two have achieved in the last few years and they've been doing it virtually week in week out whereas most other players just enjoy purple patches and then have quiet spells. But Bale is British and people in this country always tend to go overboard when a British player has a few good games. Not sure Walcott has done quite enough to deserve to be on that list but the other five players have all had great seasons. Michu is definitely the signing of the season considering what he cost. Still not sure how so many clubs overlooked him considering how well he did in Spain the season before, but I'd be surprised if he was still at Swansea next season.

Can't fault the performance or effort. We were the better team for most of the tie and they really didn't look anything special but we went out because we missed good chances in the first leg and gifted them a goal in both games. Real shame for Carragher for that to happen in his final European game for the club after contributing so much to so many great European nights in his career. I think the Rodgers bashing on here has been way over the top but I've got to agree that the 2 substitutions right after the third goal were very badly timed. Zenit were absolutely all over the place at the time and there was plenty of time left to get the fourth goal so he could have at least left it another ten minutes to see what happened. Not really much left to play for now this season but I hope the players don't just give up on the league like they did towards the end of last season. Get as many points on the board as possible and try to finish in a respectable position and give us something to build on for next season.