I'll give my thoughts
the truth is I was a little disappointed at the team selection, lucas and kuyt recalled. Well, to be fair to rafa both were in the team when liverpool beat manu at home earlier in the game.
It was a shame rafa didn't go for the team that passed the ball so well the previous league match.
Babel and aqua missing out because you'd suspect rafa didn't truth the defensive side of their game where manu would be doing most of the attacks being the home team. As I said, disappointing but 'understandable'.
liverpool got off to a dream start, a through ball to gerrard who found kuyt, a inch perfect cross to torres who superebly arced his header away VDS and liverpool are in the lead. It was a real pity liverpool couldn't have held that lead longer as the longer manu would be behind the more they would start to panic unfortunately they were given a helping hand by a dubious penalty (was webb the ref who gave the dubious penalty to manu last season when spurs worked so hard to take the lead?)
anyway, a shocking header from insua right into the path of the on rushing valencia, valencia then makes a b line for the penalty box, masher starts to foul valencia outside the box but valencia's strength and dogged determination forces himself into the penalty box. penalty!
there are two ways you could take the incident;
a) freekick
the foul starts outside the penalty area, therefore that's where the foul should be punished
b) penalty
the ref plays advantage at first but has no alternative to finally punish the foul which is now inside the penalty box.
I actually thought the latter of the two. I had no complaints about the penalty, I also thought it was the right decision to leave masher on the pitch because jamie was definately the covering defender.
rooney stepped up to take the penalty, the sky research showing the vast majority of rooney's penalties going to rooney's right, pepe brilliant dives the right way obviously having watched rooney's methods unfortunately the ball drops in rooney's path and he cooly tucks the ball away. pepe defiantely deserved better.
from then on liverpool drop deeper and deeper, fergie obviously giving instructions to go at insua as often as possible. maxi simply didn't have the pace to cover insua and get forwards himself to either attack himself or add numbers to midfield. liverpool's passing becomes more and more erratic as gerrard and torres become more isolated. half time couldn't come fast enough.
my hope was at half time rafa would gamble and go for all three points fling on babel and aqua and really go for broke as liverpool are so far adrift of the people chancing forth (if games in hand are converted into points) but we continued in the same vein, determined to keep it as tight as possible making as difficult as possible for manu to play through us. the inevitable eventually came, and this time I had no complaints about insua's haplessnesss,
insua is faced down by flecther, neville the slowest fullback in the league then makes a decoy game (exactly what fullbacks are supposed to do and what our fullbacks has been doing precious little of) insua has to make a choice of staying with the ball or going with the runner, in the end he kinda does neither as he edges towards the runner, fletcher then whips in an inch perfect cross and we are behind for the first time in the match.
I really don't blame insua as if he has totally stayed with the ball carrier and fletcher released the ball to neville and neville crosses for park to finish then people would have said why didn't insua go with the runner. basically the fault was with the person tracking neville and for the CM not making any kind of tracking of park.
from there was only one team who was going to win the match. I really wished rafa has made his subs sooner and there is nothing in the rule books that say subs have to happen after 65mins or that they have to happen 1 at a time.
babel comes on and starts to run at the manu defense, this was a real oppertunity missed as someone with babel's pace would have really hurt neville who is about as slow as they come, also torres wasn't given enough of the ball to run at vidic who is patently shit scared of him.
I normally think it is a cop out to blame the ref but some of the decisons must of left the liverpool fans apoplectic with rage.
1. neville nearly beheads maxi - not even a free kick (not even a fucking free kick)
2. flecther nearly breaks kuyts leg and if he had properly connected he would have
3. and this was the worst, rooney makes the worst dive of the season, gets up raises his hand with a grin and smile in a mock 'okay, ya got me, I dived' and the cunt of a ref STILL gives the freekick (fucking unbelieveable!!)
but the blame of the defeat ultimately lies with us as we didn't do enough to even deserve a point but even then we had a glorious chance to nick a precious point as gerrard tees up torres only for the hotter than hot torres to fluff his lines and the yossi to head straight at the keeper. our chance come and gone.
things that disappointed me most
1. the team selection
rafa could have been a little braver especially given what happened on monday, okay it was 'only pompy' but reward good performances and peformers, that way you have people chomping at the bit to perform rather than apathy because they think they wont get selected regardless.
2. the captain
a truly poor showing from gerrard. he defiantely deserves slack because of the amount of times he has saved us but some leadership, encouragement and blood and fire would have made up for the miscontrolled touches and wayward passes
3. torres
sometime even though you are being kicked in the air, the best response is a goal, not petulence, nando is so much better when he is focused.
4. insua
well, nuff said.
5. kuyt
tracking back is admireable but sometime you have to gamble and attack and left the fullback exposed, no guts no glory after all manu had no qualms about going forwards and there is no way on this earth neville would be able to get back in time if we counter attacked but they took a gamble and got a goal. kuyt really has to remember that first and foremost he is an ATTACKING player not a defensive player but that was a quality cross so credit where credit is due.
the truth is I was a little disappointed at the team selection, lucas and kuyt recalled. Well, to be fair to rafa both were in the team when liverpool beat manu at home earlier in the game.
It was a shame rafa didn't go for the team that passed the ball so well the previous league match.
Babel and aqua missing out because you'd suspect rafa didn't truth the defensive side of their game where manu would be doing most of the attacks being the home team. As I said, disappointing but 'understandable'.
liverpool got off to a dream start, a through ball to gerrard who found kuyt, a inch perfect cross to torres who superebly arced his header away VDS and liverpool are in the lead. It was a real pity liverpool couldn't have held that lead longer as the longer manu would be behind the more they would start to panic unfortunately they were given a helping hand by a dubious penalty (was webb the ref who gave the dubious penalty to manu last season when spurs worked so hard to take the lead?)
anyway, a shocking header from insua right into the path of the on rushing valencia, valencia then makes a b line for the penalty box, masher starts to foul valencia outside the box but valencia's strength and dogged determination forces himself into the penalty box. penalty!
there are two ways you could take the incident;
a) freekick
the foul starts outside the penalty area, therefore that's where the foul should be punished
b) penalty
the ref plays advantage at first but has no alternative to finally punish the foul which is now inside the penalty box.
I actually thought the latter of the two. I had no complaints about the penalty, I also thought it was the right decision to leave masher on the pitch because jamie was definately the covering defender.
rooney stepped up to take the penalty, the sky research showing the vast majority of rooney's penalties going to rooney's right, pepe brilliant dives the right way obviously having watched rooney's methods unfortunately the ball drops in rooney's path and he cooly tucks the ball away. pepe defiantely deserved better.
from then on liverpool drop deeper and deeper, fergie obviously giving instructions to go at insua as often as possible. maxi simply didn't have the pace to cover insua and get forwards himself to either attack himself or add numbers to midfield. liverpool's passing becomes more and more erratic as gerrard and torres become more isolated. half time couldn't come fast enough.
my hope was at half time rafa would gamble and go for all three points fling on babel and aqua and really go for broke as liverpool are so far adrift of the people chancing forth (if games in hand are converted into points) but we continued in the same vein, determined to keep it as tight as possible making as difficult as possible for manu to play through us. the inevitable eventually came, and this time I had no complaints about insua's haplessnesss,
insua is faced down by flecther, neville the slowest fullback in the league then makes a decoy game (exactly what fullbacks are supposed to do and what our fullbacks has been doing precious little of) insua has to make a choice of staying with the ball or going with the runner, in the end he kinda does neither as he edges towards the runner, fletcher then whips in an inch perfect cross and we are behind for the first time in the match.
I really don't blame insua as if he has totally stayed with the ball carrier and fletcher released the ball to neville and neville crosses for park to finish then people would have said why didn't insua go with the runner. basically the fault was with the person tracking neville and for the CM not making any kind of tracking of park.
from there was only one team who was going to win the match. I really wished rafa has made his subs sooner and there is nothing in the rule books that say subs have to happen after 65mins or that they have to happen 1 at a time.
babel comes on and starts to run at the manu defense, this was a real oppertunity missed as someone with babel's pace would have really hurt neville who is about as slow as they come, also torres wasn't given enough of the ball to run at vidic who is patently shit scared of him.
I normally think it is a cop out to blame the ref but some of the decisons must of left the liverpool fans apoplectic with rage.
1. neville nearly beheads maxi - not even a free kick (not even a fucking free kick)
2. flecther nearly breaks kuyts leg and if he had properly connected he would have
3. and this was the worst, rooney makes the worst dive of the season, gets up raises his hand with a grin and smile in a mock 'okay, ya got me, I dived' and the cunt of a ref STILL gives the freekick (fucking unbelieveable!!)
but the blame of the defeat ultimately lies with us as we didn't do enough to even deserve a point but even then we had a glorious chance to nick a precious point as gerrard tees up torres only for the hotter than hot torres to fluff his lines and the yossi to head straight at the keeper. our chance come and gone.
things that disappointed me most
1. the team selection
rafa could have been a little braver especially given what happened on monday, okay it was 'only pompy' but reward good performances and peformers, that way you have people chomping at the bit to perform rather than apathy because they think they wont get selected regardless.
2. the captain
a truly poor showing from gerrard. he defiantely deserves slack because of the amount of times he has saved us but some leadership, encouragement and blood and fire would have made up for the miscontrolled touches and wayward passes
3. torres
sometime even though you are being kicked in the air, the best response is a goal, not petulence, nando is so much better when he is focused.
4. insua
well, nuff said.
5. kuyt
tracking back is admireable but sometime you have to gamble and attack and left the fullback exposed, no guts no glory after all manu had no qualms about going forwards and there is no way on this earth neville would be able to get back in time if we counter attacked but they took a gamble and got a goal. kuyt really has to remember that first and foremost he is an ATTACKING player not a defensive player but that was a quality cross so credit where credit is due.