Fucking oath! - I haven't seen the game again but every time I saw them have the ball they were swarmed by 3 red shirts. Say it ain't so bro!
Man City match thread
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Tonight is the kinda night that keeps you believing that there is a basis of a decent team in the squad. I think we all believe that we have a good man at the helm. Lets hope we can finish the season strongly. If we smash the scum in the Europa it might even be quite an uplifting end to a tough season.
Yep we swarmed all over them as soon as they got the ball. Can was immense, they all were.
Yay! 3 points and a clean sheet.
Oh yes, its been a good night 🙂
Even more embarrassing for City was their manager blaming tiredness. You've got gazillions of cash to build a squad to deal with it. Knobhead.
We had exactly the same run of games but with a day less rest built in (they had an extra day after Europe last week). It was nonsense.
Interesting to note that we have a +5 goal difference for the whole season so far and a +6 GD with just Manchester City for the season.
Amazing stat that we're the only away ground in the PL that Sheik Manblah hasn't won at.
You mean one person?
Great game, bit of a faith restorer. Maybe we do have some decent players after all. Who'd have thought that maybe a bit more application would pay dividends.
Yes, Adam, this is the way: see what happens when you add more straight lines and draw fewer circles? Boom!
With everybody in the top 4 dropping points it's hardly as meaningless as I had thought beforehand...
Could be only a 6 or 7 point gap to 3rd and 4th...
Jinxed the fuck out of it...
Just saying... NOT impossible...
Could be only a 6 or 7 point gap to 3rd and 4th...
Jinxed the fuck out of it...
Just saying... NOT impossible...
I missed the game and I have a question for everyone who saw it – how did the Origi and Firmino look together, did they show any good interplay and understanding? Because on Sunday I thought Sturridge had a much better understanding with Coutinho than with Firmino. It's nice to have everyone healthy again, but now starts the work of figuring out how put this puzzle together...
How about playing Coutinho as the 3rd midfielder, following Rodgers' strategy (which he later seemed to abandon) of developing him into a Deco type rather than and out-and-out AM? Because I'm starting to hate him on the wing. If this works maybe we can go back to the "diamond" and have this super-attacking, but also pretty hard-working lineup:
------------------Can------------------
------Henderson-----Coutinho----
----------------Firmino----------------
--------Sturridge------Origi---------
With 2 defensively solid full-backs this might just work.
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Church.
3 problems with that
You can't really play a diamond with 2 defensive full backs. They're your main source of width so they need to be great at attacking.
Secondly, Coutinho is great, but in central midfield, especially deeper, he can be erratic with the ball. I'd rather have dependable ball users here.
Thirdly, in a diamond your two wider central midfielders - in your case Henderson and Coutinho are the work horses of the side. Not only do they need to function as central midfielders up and down the pitch, they also need to shuttle between centre and wide in order to protect the full backs. In a diamond you're essentially playing a 7-3 system. 7 structured players and 3 fluid attackers. The likes of Milner, Henderson, and Allen are perfect for these shuttling mid roles. I wouldn't want to take our most creative player and make him a workhorse who needs to be disciplined. If we played a diomand despite all it's flaws - Coutinho needs to be number 10.
On a side note, Coutinho playing wide is no bad thing. It's too easy to get picked up and crowded out in the middle. From the left he's harder to pick up and gets more space. It's no co-incidence that the likes of Zidane and Pires played some of their best football coming in from a wide left position.
I didn't notice much interplay between the two. Origi didn't receive the ball that much relative to the likes of Lallana, Firmino and Milner (he played about 10 passes the whole game, according to the match centre in FourFourTwo); his main contributions were in harassing the City defenders when we didn't have possession, closing them down and forcing them to make passes under duress, and in offering a pacy outlet for a long ball from deep.
He had an efficient game - a low volume of touches, but his high workrate and commitment up front contributed a lot towards the high tempo game we were able to play all night.
Not specifically related to Origi - I thought the team played a lot more directly the whole night; we kept the fancy flicks, no looks and circles down, didn't over-dribble much, and played passes faster and with fewer touches.
I thought they played well mate, not so much as a partnership but as a sum of their respective roles. Origi has this newfound ability and confidence to battle with big defenders like Kompany, he held the ball up well, closed everything and didn't let their back four settle, but his pace gives us an outlet too down the channels. I thought he had a really good game and continued what's been a few months of promising form - he just needs a couple of goals, but his menace around the box meant his team mates were often picking up the ball around him due to the uncertainty he was causing in their defense.
Firmino is the same, he chased everything, I think that front three worked perfectly in terms of workrate and closing the opposition, to force errors. It basically stemmed the flow from the back and stopped their side having any rhythm. Their midfield became bypassed due to hurried clearances and their attack was left inconsequential. As I said earlier, it's near impossible to drop Coutinho and Sturridge, but it certainly gives us a healthy dilemma.
Reminded me of when we beat Chelsea after losing to them in the FA cup final in 2012. We did play well last night but I'd have rather won the important game.
What this team needs to do now is to match the intensity and invention in the next match. These players have done this before in a game only to re-emerge looking limp and listless. There won't be a sound sense of optimism about the future until they show they can sustain the commitment and string (at least) three or four really good performances together.
I am curious as to why the players are like this. Initially I thought it was a problem with Rodgers and he couldnt get them to be consistent. Klopp seems to face the same issue as well. It seems like when we buy players, we don't find out enough about the mental aspect of the players. I hope our future transfers are more well researched with Klopp in.
Yes. I've never known anything like it. It really bemuses me. I've seen squads that can't play well enough, or compete enough, but this bunch is the first I've known who turn it on and off like a tap, without much connection to the relevance of the games in question. They'll be great in a big game, then absolutely flat in an even bigger game. You look at the two games against the mancs coming up and, normally, you'd just be worried about whether we can get the right results, but with these players you worry that they might not even turn up. They're exasperating, they really are.
Well on Sunday it was clear that when Origi and Lallana came on we started playing. Maybe they're just fresher, maybe they work better playing against a side like Man City, but whatever happened them starting made a big diff.
Origi is another one I'd written off who looks to be improving all the time. I know he didn't score but his work rate made all that space.
Origi is another one I'd written off who looks to be improving all the time. I know he didn't score but his work rate made all that space.
Good point Woland; his physicality, movement and pace pulled City's CB's all over the show making plenty of room for Lallana, Firmino, Milner etc.
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