Liverpool Leap, Manchester City Stumble
Article by Red Phil
The e-Football Podcast
What a difference a day – or three – makes? From the utter shambles of our attacking play against the Turks we return to rip City apart with MOVEMENT and PACE, with players who weren’t hurling themselves to the ground at the first sign of physical contact and with a mind-set that our pace would cause City major problems. The difference in the two games couldn’t have been greater so why did we play like we did in Istanbul?
Apart from one little bit of unnecessary aerial acrobatics near the end we didn’t see any of the front three getting up close and personal with the grass, preferring to remain upright and moving forward, and that helped heap the pressure on to City. Our pacey game isn’t helped by too frequent stoppages or players seemingly being intent on getting free-kicks, come what may.
Obviously, Balotelli isn’t the sort of player to play a fast game as he hasn’t received the ball whilst moving since he came here and no team can play the sort of game we played against City if one of the main strikers is as mobile as a pillar box with arthritis.
We’ve got to start the fund-raising to get a statue of Philippe Coutinho to go alongside the one we have of Bill Shankly because that lad is more than capable of becoming an Anfield legend. Superb yet again, and rightly the Man of the Match – yet again – he and both Sterling and Lallana caused City so many problems with their pace and movement and, of course, we had the much-improved Joe Allen and Jordan Henderson performing superbly in the defensive midfield roles and the two wider players, Moreno and Markovic played well too.
Over all, it was excellent with City not having much success going forward and only having one shot on target in the game. They are the champions, don’t forget, but our defence did well against one of the best strikers in the world (Aguerro). Silva, Yaya Toure and Samir Nasri played well and, of course, their strikers need watching but they couldn’t cope with the speed we showed in this game but couldn’t produce in Istanbul. If only . .
Realistically, it is hard to point a finger at any of the players from this game as they all played well. I still want to see Emre Can play in midfield but the newspaper talk of us signing the Real Madrid midfielder whose name is something like Illarimendi is something to get the juices flowing as he’s a top-notch player.
I moan a lot, I whinge, I complain and I don’t like anything less than excellence from the team I’ve been watching for fifty years but when we beat the champions in a very good performance only a couple of days after a shambolic performance in Turkey and a long and arduous trip back in the middle of the night any thought of negativity goes straight out of the window. This was good and, hopefully, will see us continue in that vein against Burnley, Blackburn and whoever we play in the coming weeks. If I have a minor whinge it is only that, once again, our goals came from long-range shots and we aren’t creating as much as I’d like within the penalty area.
I work with a of City and United fans so I’m going to enjoy going to work this week . . . and the City fans will be dreading me turning up, and rightly so! God, sometimes I just LOVE football!!!!! Strange isn’t it, I hated it last Thursday but love it today . . .
© e-Football 2014 All rights reserved no part of this document or this website may be reproduced without consent of e-Football
The e-Football Podcast
What a difference a day – or three – makes? From the utter shambles of our attacking play against the Turks we return to rip City apart with MOVEMENT and PACE, with players who weren’t hurling themselves to the ground at the first sign of physical contact and with a mind-set that our pace would cause City major problems. The difference in the two games couldn’t have been greater so why did we play like we did in Istanbul?
Apart from one little bit of unnecessary aerial acrobatics near the end we didn’t see any of the front three getting up close and personal with the grass, preferring to remain upright and moving forward, and that helped heap the pressure on to City. Our pacey game isn’t helped by too frequent stoppages or players seemingly being intent on getting free-kicks, come what may.
Obviously, Balotelli isn’t the sort of player to play a fast game as he hasn’t received the ball whilst moving since he came here and no team can play the sort of game we played against City if one of the main strikers is as mobile as a pillar box with arthritis.
We’ve got to start the fund-raising to get a statue of Philippe Coutinho to go alongside the one we have of Bill Shankly because that lad is more than capable of becoming an Anfield legend. Superb yet again, and rightly the Man of the Match – yet again – he and both Sterling and Lallana caused City so many problems with their pace and movement and, of course, we had the much-improved Joe Allen and Jordan Henderson performing superbly in the defensive midfield roles and the two wider players, Moreno and Markovic played well too.
Over all, it was excellent with City not having much success going forward and only having one shot on target in the game. They are the champions, don’t forget, but our defence did well against one of the best strikers in the world (Aguerro). Silva, Yaya Toure and Samir Nasri played well and, of course, their strikers need watching but they couldn’t cope with the speed we showed in this game but couldn’t produce in Istanbul. If only . .
Realistically, it is hard to point a finger at any of the players from this game as they all played well. I still want to see Emre Can play in midfield but the newspaper talk of us signing the Real Madrid midfielder whose name is something like Illarimendi is something to get the juices flowing as he’s a top-notch player.
I moan a lot, I whinge, I complain and I don’t like anything less than excellence from the team I’ve been watching for fifty years but when we beat the champions in a very good performance only a couple of days after a shambolic performance in Turkey and a long and arduous trip back in the middle of the night any thought of negativity goes straight out of the window. This was good and, hopefully, will see us continue in that vein against Burnley, Blackburn and whoever we play in the coming weeks. If I have a minor whinge it is only that, once again, our goals came from long-range shots and we aren’t creating as much as I’d like within the penalty area.
I work with a of City and United fans so I’m going to enjoy going to work this week . . . and the City fans will be dreading me turning up, and rightly so! God, sometimes I just LOVE football!!!!! Strange isn’t it, I hated it last Thursday but love it today . . .
© e-Football 2014 All rights reserved no part of this document or this website may be reproduced without consent of e-Football
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