Positives...JOHNSONS INJURY LETS HOPE ITS A LONG ONE! Positives....Moreno who after making a cock up for the first goal,didn't hide, and stood up to it second half. Even played on with dodgy ankle and still looked better than Johnson. Positives...Markovic looked lively and inventive. That's about it. Won't go into negatives but when lambert came on Sturridge came to life. Need two forwards so think ballotelli will come straight into the team. Lallana possibly too. Manquillo at RB . Skrtel still looks slow to react. We played better than the score line,which flattered city, and we still played better than united. Tottenham next. Last seasons 5-0 win looks unlikely but will not be as tough as city that's a fact.
My thoughts on the game: Sterling. Henderson, Sturridge all criminally wasted chances to put decent balls into the box in a first half which was equal, and to be honest really boring. One mistake cost Liverpool. Second half, Liverpool looked really bright for about ten minutes just after the break, Henderson wasting another great chance when put clean through by Gerrard's clever chipped free-kick, and then the defensive frailties showed again and City just clicked in and out of gear as required. Decent general play, but you need more quality on the final pass to beat Man City. The problem that Rodgers is hoping Mario solves, is that without Suarez, there's no thrust to the attack, and no player raising everybody's game because they're honoured to play in the same team. Seriously, after the first bad cross Suarez would have been making his sadface at Sterling, and you can bet your arse Raheem would have picked his f***ing ideas up. But tonight I watched as continual awful ball after awful ball caused no problem to Kompany et al. Long way to go, Liverpool will be up there, but Citeh looking ominously mighty at the moment in terms of efficiency.
It is odd.............but its a measure of how poor GJ has been for at least 18 months.He's just ****.
If Sturridge had been on form he could have had a couple tonight. Moreno picked him out from a cross and he got it stuck under his feet. Another one got pulled back some reason rather than put across the middle for a tap in. The Lambert of Saints would have shot and 75% of the time scored from it rather than cross. Let's not kid ourselves, we weren't great but we had chances in this game and we just weren't quite up to it. We made silly mistakes for the goals, Moreno for the first, poor line for the 2nd and 3rd, well just a lack of concentration 20 second after a long break.
It is really poor when we wish our own players to be injured. Brendan should recognise he is not good enough and stick him on the bench.
Why did Johnson try and get his leg to his head to clear the one on the line instead of just using his head
I'm not going to go off on one over this match, as there were positives, but the biggest negative is still Rodger's lack of a big ball sack with a big pair of kahunas stuffed inside, to enable him to make big decisions. We should have well made a change before we did, and we should have started with more attacking intent. Allen did very well for me, but Coutinho didn't, and he should have gone off at half time. Gerrard is dragging the team back now, as soon as Lallana is fit, Rodgers better keep with his promise not to play Gerrard all the time, and just save him for League cup duty ;-) But hey, it's only one game, and others will fare far worse at Citeh this season, hopefully we can overturn this at Anfield later in the season.
Markovic looked threatening when he came on though. One positive Him and Moreno looked good going forward together on a couple of occasions.
Your right but ballotelli would have smashed it in , no question. If we had scored then who knows what might have happened. City certainly looked panicky at times but all their last ditch clearances always seems to fall to a team mate.
I disagree with the Glen Johnson hate, I think he had a fairly decent game today, I paid close attention and his positioning wasn't as bad as I've seen. Not saying he was amazing but there was far worse players on the pitch for us today, stop using Johnson as a scapegoat. Personally this result doesn't shock me or change my outlook on the season, I expect City and Chelsea to fight it out for the title, Arsenal and LFC to chase 3rd with United, Spurs and Everton in no particular order fighting it out.
From today's match I think it confirms that Brendan has made a strategic error. He should have used some of the Suarez money to bring a top class striker. Don't ask me whom. But many pundits have said that Liverpool should have bought a 40-45m striker. They may have a point because we were toothless.
I'd like to think that the only reason Johnson is getting games was so 3 of the 4 were not new in a game against the best team in the league. We saw that just two new in the four caused enough problems tonight. I think it will eventually be manquill otherwise we wouldn't have bought him.
He should stick him on the ****ing transfer list and mark him 'free to good home' ...in fact it doesn't even have to be a good home anywhere except Anfield will do.
Maybe we have in Balotelli. Just because he didn't cost £50m, doesn't mean he can't have the same effect as one. I'm not saing he will, but how many big money forward actually go and score a goal a game? Cavanni doesn't have tat record, Falcao doesn't, Ruess doesn't...