mike23

Most of City's top players seem to have had pretty average seasons. Aguero and Silva just seem to have had odd matches where they've reproduced last season's form and Tevez doesn't seem to have scored many. Seems they've finally had enough of Balotelli so I wonder if they've got someone else lined up before the transfer window closes. It's too late to make any difference to the title race though. With each passing week our home defeat to Villa looks even worst. A draw probably would have been best tonight to keep Newcastle in trouble but it's probably too much to hope both they and Villa go down in the same season.

Agree about the team selection. It really wasn't that weak a team we put out and that was perhaps the most worrying thing. We've arguably put out much weaker teams than that in some of the Europa league games. Couldn't believe some of the comments on here last night moaning about Rodgers taking risks by not playing a full strength team. If we can't afford to leave out a few regulars against a team as shite as Oldham then we've really got problems. Rodgers talked after the Mansfield game as though the team had done well and passed some sort of great test in clinging on against a non league team but I'd hoped that privately he'd bollocked some of the players for their performances that day and let them know it had ben unacceptable. Guessing after yesterday he really hadn't seen a problem with it because we made all the same mistakes again.

Gone for Skrtel but it's a tough call to make because of his form this season. I wouldn't be surprised to see Carragher start against Arsenal now but it could be just about the worst game to bring him back for with the pace they've got in the team. Like a lot on here I feel it would have made a lot more sense to play Carragher against Oldham and bring Skrtel back against Arsenal. Is Reina going to be ready for the Arsenal and City games? I'd be seriously worried about Jones playing in these games after yesterday.

Agree that Shelvey is another one who would have seemed an ideal starter for this game, especially as I'd be seriously surprised if he started against Arsenal on Wednesday. He's a player who if nothing else would have at least put in a shift and those were the sort of players who should have been starting. Too fed up to even feel particularly angry with the result or performance. Just completely deflated. Seems like every single time we seem to be getting somewhere this season an absolutely monumental fuck up happens (I'm still trying to figure out how we managed to lose at home to Aston Villa) to bring our progress to a complete stop.

Only managed to catch the second half. Sounds like it's probably best I didn't see the first half. Had a feeling we weren't going to turn it around when Borini missed an absolute sitter within 30 seconds of the second half starting. Their third goal seemed to confirm that and it was one of those where you wondered how the hell no one managed to deal with it. We had chances after that and maybe on another day with a bit more luck might have salvaged a draw but it was absolutely ridiculous we were in that position against a team as utterly shite as Oldham. Gerrard is exempt from blame as he gave everything when he came on, it's just a shame the same couldn't be said about most of the other players. I can't think of any other team of the same sort of size as us who struggle so much so frequently against lower league opposition in the cups. In the last 20 years we seem to have gone out against more than our fair share of lower league teams and even when we win it rarely seems to be convincingly. We got away with a half assed dispaly at Mansfield in the last round but weren't so lucky today. Rodgers would have received criticism whatever side he put out. A full strength team and some people would have moaned he shouldn't be risking players when we had big games coming up. The one player I am surprised didn't play was Carragher who would have maybe had the defence a bit more organised and certainly would have given it everything. A quick look at Oldham's recent league form though indicates that whatever side we put out should have comfortably been able to deal with them. The FA cup was probably by far our best chance of winning a trophy this season as there are a lot of very good teams left in the Europa League. It could be a very depressing week with trips to Arsenal and Manchester City to come.

Gerrard Suarez Henderson Tough choice really as everyone played well and a few other players could have madethe top 3.

Enjoyable game. Everyone played well. Sturridge settling in nicely.

Steve Claridge has to be one of the most annoying. He seems to criticise Rafa more than most. A shit journeyman striker who spent virtually his entire career in the lower leagues and once managed the mighty Weymouth yet he feels he can constantly belittle a man who has won the Spanish league twice, the champions league and the FA cup. The pundits on most programmes are annoying but the BBC comfortably seem to outdo the rest to the extent that I'm sure their recruitment policy involves purposely assembling the biggest panel of complete fuckwits they can find. Mark Bright, Garth Crooks, Mark Lawrenson, Alan Shearer, Jason Roberts, the aforementioned Steve Claridge - I refuse to believe anyone finds any of these people insightful or entertaining. And now they seem to be grooming Michael Owen to become a regular panellist and I can only assume it's because someone made a bet with them that they couldn't find anyone even less insightful or interesting than Alan Shearer.

Sturridge Agger Gerrard Unfortunately the top 3 worst players is much easier - Sterling, Allen and Downing.

At least we made a game of it in the end and that was all I was asking for at half time. But everything about that first half was wrong - the tactics, the team selection and the effort from some of the players. Encouraging start for Sturridge. He lacked a bit of composure with some of those chances but at least he was getting in the positions and being prepared to have a go. Sterling needs some time out of the team as he just doesn't seem to be contributing anything to games at the moment and Henderson should clearly be starting ahead of Allen on current form.

Anyone other than Suarez and it wouldn't have been a big deal but no doubt there will now be a 6 week media debate about it and it will be seen as justice when we inevitably get shafted by the referee at Old Trafford next weekend. We started the game well and it looked like we were going to run up a cricket score in the opening stages. Sturridge played well and it was good to see him get a goal on his debut. After the first 20 minutes though we just seemed to get worst and worst as the half wore on and the second half performance was embarrassing at times. The state of the pitch didn't help but it's no excuse for some of the half assed performances from members of our team. Afetr 20 minutes I was thinking we probably could have got away with me playing in goal for Liverpool today Brad Jones had so little to do but depressingly he needed to be one of our best performers in that second half. Still we seem to nearly always make hard work of winning games like this and winning the game was the main thing.

If people are saying no because they think it's just a pipedream then fair enough because it probably is but I can't believe anyone would think he wouldn't be a good signing. Maybe not the player he once was but he'd still score for fun with the general standard of defending in the premier league this season.

Suarez Gerrard Henderson

Decent performance. Defence looked a little shaky in the first half and Sunderland missed a couple of chances that nearly always seem to end up in the net against us and maybe it would have been a more difficult game if they'd scored but some of our football was lovely to watch. Suarez was great as he usually is, Gerrard had probably his best game of the season and Henderson impressed me again. Only negative was Johnson's goal being disallowed - looked an absolutely atrocious decision from the replay and extra annoying because he's in my fantasy football team. Seems I'm not the only one on here who lost money on bloody Chelsea tonight. Thought both teams to score in Newcastle v Everton looked very likely but odds were a little short for a single so doubled it up with Chelsea to win thinking there was no way they wouldn't with the way they've been playing recently and seeing how bad QPR were on Sunday. Didn't even risk them on the handicap either. just a straight win. Really don't know why I bother with football betting. I'm sure no other sports produce results as ridiculous as that so regularly.

3/1? That's seriously tempting. Reading are surely going down. QPR too probably although I do keep looking at their squad and thinking no way should they be as bad as their league position shows. So there's probably one more spot to be filled. Fulham are struggling but surely have too much quality to stay where they are. Wigan always seem to find a way of suddenly coming up with big results like today just as things are starting to look hopeless. So it might well be between Southampton and Villa and although they're shit at the back they do have goals in them. Villa would probably stay up by the skin of their teeth if I made the bet - with the help of a 1-0 home win over us with a deflected 89th minute goal after we've messed up two dozen decent scoring chances at the other end.

An incredibly frustrating day. Did 3 accumulators and they all messed up by 1 result. All the awkward looking games came in on one but league one leaders Sheffield United got beat at home by Hartlepool who are about 10 points adrift at the bottom of the table and hadn't won for about 20 games. My both teams to score accumulator messed up by Wolves who couldn't score at home to Ipswich and my over 2.5 accumulator messed up because United decide to have a low scoring win for a change instead of all the 4 and 5 goal games they've been having all season - all the other games games were in with over half an hour remaining on that one which made it even more frustrating. Sums up the sort of luck I've had in 2012. Here's hoping I'll be luckier in 2013.

This club does seem rotten to the core. We have owners who seem clueless and ambitionless and let him down badly in the transfer window. We had a very poor transfer window in the summer and maybe a lot of it wasn't his fault with the owners looking to recoup some money and get high earners off the wage books but he is the manager and has to take some responsibilty. He was given some money to spend to bring in new players and it certainly could have been spent more wisely than on Allen and Borini. Some of his tactics and team selections just baffle me. I still don't understand how we can never have anyone in the box but are constantly caught wide open on the break (I was just too fed up to even get annoyed with the team after an hour tonight apart from one big rant with about 5 minutes to go when Suarez played a perfect ball across the face of goal and we had one player nearer the edge of the box than the goal and every other player outside it - we were losing 3-1 for fuck's sake!). I have seen very few incidences where all the passing about between the back 4 and goalkepper have actually benefitted us in any way. So often after this has gone on for 20 pointless passes or so without going anywhere Reina seems to have just lumped it aimlessly up the field and we've lost posession anyway. Other times we have given away needless chances to the opposition from doing this Something is clearly being lost in translation. There's no point just keep sacking managers and hoping someone else will magically turn things around. He certainly deserves until the end of the season unless things go spectacularly wrong in the next few months but so far heis looking rather out of his depth here and I'm rather doubtful he's going to improve quickly enough to suit us.

Had a tenner on Spurs to win. Evens just looked very generous. Had a single on Middlesbrough that won but one on Fulham that didn't and I bet on under 1.5 goals on our game with Stoke. That didn't last long lol. It could have been worst though - I seriously considered a big bet on under 2.5 goals in our game. It would have come in every other time we've played them in the league at their place since they've been promoted and with our scoring problems and their strong defence but not particularly potent attack it seemed like a good bet. Ideally we'd have won 1-0. I rarely bet on us but I can't bring myself to bet against us either. It's a shame no other team like Liverpool exists for betting. There really is no one who messes up as much as we ever do who are constantly odds on or favourites to win games. Stoke have been rock solid at home this season and we've had one away win all season but somehow we were favourites for that game. It just didn't make sense. There are people constantly laughing about our odds on punters lounge and saying how average we are and it gets annoying reading it but mainly because it's hard to disagree with any of it.

Agree with everything except the last paragraph. Stoke is a tough place to go of course but we can read a lot into it because we made the same mistakes in this game that we have made in numerous other games this season and we're just not learning from them. Every single time we come under the slightest bit of pressure we concede a goal. We made a bad mistake for their first goal which was absolutely infuriating but you can understand things like that. The players then just seemed shellshocked and there was a short when we were under constant pressure. The least we should have been able to do was get the basics right and remain solid until we'd weathered the storm and slowed their momentum and quietened the crowd down a bit but we couldn't even manage that. This period didn't even last for ten minutes. All the times we've been putting teams under pressure for virtually 90 minutes without making it count yet we couldn't even hold out for 10 minutes without giving away a goal that was as soft as they come. Then there was the usual comedy show up front where players shot when they should have passed or passed when they should have shot. I seriously don't believe the number of times we've been in great positions in the last 18 months where not only have we not scored but we've not even created a hlaf decent chance. It all looks good and then someone underhits a pass or tries to take on one player too many and it all breaks down. Suarez didn't exactly have one of his best games for the club and probably should have scored from the chance Sterling created for him but he was one of the very few players who kept going in this game. A lot of players just gave up at 3-1 and that's not good enough whoever you're playing against.

I've never known a team find so many different ways of fucking up games. The only problem we ever normally have against Stoke is breaking them down and getting in front. We do that with a goal caused by two actual miracles coming together (1) Suarez being awarded a penalty and 2) that penalty actually being awarded to us by Howard Webb) and then we concede two goals a Sunday league team would be ashamed of. We've dominated the match since and been in some good positions but as usual messed up at the end and as usual we'll end up dropping at least 2 points and I'd be surprised if it wasn't all 3. What a prize tit this presenter on sky is. Actually questioning if Suarez needed to go down when he was fouled in the box. No he should have just stayed on his feet and got nothing. Wouldn't have been said if it was any other player. To be fair Hoddle and Redknapp both seemed to think it was a stupid question too.

It's probably more of a surprise when United don't score late winners in matches like that now. At 0-1 and 1-2 I still thought they would win but when Newcastle went in front again with only about twenty minutes left I thought they might manage a point. But it was 3-3 within a couple of minutes and a United winner was just ineviatble after that. Looks like they're going to walk the league this year. City haven't really looked right for most of the season and they never seem to score at Sunderland for some reason. They should really be walking what is a very average league for the money they've spent but they've got a very average manager, some very average squad players and none of their top players seem to be having particularly good seasons.

I didn't notice it whilst watching the match and this is the first report I've read since so it's disappointing to read of Downing's goal celebration now. If it was aimed at the Kop then sadly it seems to sum up the arrogant attitude a lot of professional footballers have these days where they think they should be paid huge money yet be completely exempt from criticism and loved unconditionally even if they turn in substandard performances week in week out. Regarding his assists record from last season: my fantasy league has him down for one assist from last season but I certainly can't remember it. Their assists do include things like a player playing a two yards sideways pass to a player who then scores a screamer from 30 yards or dribbles past 6 defenders before scoring so it wouldn't surprise me if it was for something like that. Anyway I'm focusing far too much on a minor negative side issue from a really enjoyable home win. Good report for a good match, Dave. Please can we now all get a late Christmas present and beat Stoke for a change.

Happy enough with this signing. Can he please just be an instant hit. Even most of our successful signings in recent times seem to have taken time to settle in and we need someone to just do well right from the start. Seems a bit selfish on the ball from some of the games I've seen him in but that might not be such a bad thing considering some of our players constantly seem to just want to pass responsibility on to someone else even when they're in a great position themself. I'm a little less convinced about Ince if that is happening too. He might be good in the long term but surely we need players who are definitely ready for the first team now rather than just another promising youngster.

Downing - never thought I'd be typing that Gerrard Skrtel Not much in it really between most of the players this week. It was just a good team performance with everyone contributing.

That was enjoyable. The most relaxed I've felt watching a game in a long time. Still not a million miles off fourth spot. Would have been right in the mix now if we hadn't messed up at home to Villa last week.