i doubt zebedee wants to pick over this game
i doubt zebedee wants to pick over this gameZebedee, come here and teach this boy please !
Mate, we completely outplayed you, you had about 2 attempts on goal and we had most of the possession, we looked more dangerous and more organised, no question, and is your friend who supports arsenal imaginary?
time will tell whether he changes it. but it was insanity putting gerrard and lucas, vs barry, de jong and yaya. taking on two of them would have been a tough ask as it is. kuyt spent most of the game on the defensive as a resultso true. it appears we can all see it apart from possibly Woy, anti-rafa fans and a few pundits...
city dominated possession, most of your shots were outside the area, snatched ones that were generally blocked, city were fairly safe against those shots, its not about the number of shots, but the quality and the vast majority were poor quality.View attachment 101808
stat's show you didn't "completely outplay" us at all,
imho, they show you were more clinical than us, with many of our shots coming from outside the box, but not that you outplayed.
I also think that us being terribly poor has made it look as if Man. City were amazing, when they were not...
View attachment 101808
stat's show you didn't "completely outplay" us at all,
imho, they show you were more clinical than us, with many of our shots coming from outside the box, but not that you outplayed.
I also think that us being terribly poor has made it look as if Man. City were amazing, when they were not...
very good post. interesting bit about balotelli, i think they offer totally different things, i can see a milner - balotelli wing partnership and a silva johnson one, milner playing a more defensvive almost box to box role on his flank allowing mario to be far more aggressive on his.tacially milner is the most important of the 4, his versatily can be used to offest a lot of the oppositions threats (think park) while the others do the damage (think better verison of nani)Although obviously difficult to really come to a conclusion after only one game, it looks, from today, as if some people (probably including me) will be eating humble pie after the general consensus seemed to be that the move for Milner was a poor one. Milner scored 7 goals in the PL last season, and added 12 assists, a remarkable record but there is no doubt he is not worth what Man City paid for him (a £26m cash + Steven Ireland deal) but he looks like he could be utilised very well by Mancini. He stepped into the role that Balotelli probably would have been given had he not been sidelined by a knee injury - playing on the 'wrong' side, cutting in from the left onto his right foot, and linking up well with Adam Johnson, doing a similar thing on the left (incidentally this is also what Bayern Munich, and Holland used last season with Arjen Robben operating from the left, but often drifting inside looking for space. An increasingly fashionable role, as Jonothan Wilson pointed out on his blog about the 4-2-1-3...
There will be many who will say that Milner's part in the game deserved the match ball, which instead went to Gareth Barry, Milner's ex-team mate at Villa Park. (There's also a little irony to be seen in that Gareth Barry, for a while courted by Liverpool scored a very good goal against them, having been lured to Manchester by the riches of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan - making his first appearance at a match!). Milner did well to set up Barry's goal, a fine cutback after a good run, but it was Adam Johnson's lovely slide rule pass through the legs of Jovanovic that sparked the chance.
In summary: Milner had an excellent debut, Johnson played probably the best game of his City career, and Tevez's two goals were no less than deserved for City's dominance. Roberto Mancini's team played with width and penetration and, once they had sensed Liverpool's vulnerabilities (of which there were many), they set about exposing them.
I'm going to agree with the general thrust of the zonal marking piece while disagreeing with the specifics.
The reason why the wingers got sucked in centrally is twofold:
1) They ain't genuine wingers
and
2) The central defence played deep, which pulls central midfield deep, which then leads to the non-natural wingers then looking for space inside.
and
3) Further compounded by N'Gog being groomed as a single striker not a link a man, and Torres never being a link man in a million years and so there not being someone there to push the 'wingers' back out wide.
Causal effect - central defence playing too deep, square pegs in round holes and a team which hadn't got a clue what it was meant to be doing and playing in a way which doesn't suit its strengths right now.
Another man in central midfield would have helped out considerably as it would have forced the wingers wide and helped link play up to one of the two strikers who have played as a pair before, erm, once - and that was an experiment which was quickly dropped.
If you play 4-4-2, then you've got to have wingers who stay wide and put the opposition fullbacks under pressure so there isn't an easy outball there for the opposition and which then pushes the opposition back. Which then means you need to play a high line.
Alternatively, you have two well drilled banks of four which don't leave space between them and punt into the channels.
Obviously Liverpool aren't capable of the former, which makes me think that it was the latter being attempted - and as could have been predicted, we're not too good at that either.
So, erm, yes City are good. They really are. But then Liverpool made it very easy for them tonight. Far too easy. Any more results like this and Mr.Hodgson will struggle to convince the players he knows what he is doing, and that will begin the spiral we saw last season once again but from a much worse starting position. Next match is Trabzonspor away. It's not an easy time to attempt to be transitioning, especially given that Mr.Hodgson has no money for quick fixes.
I don't understand all the fuss about you. You pretty much just quoted Andy Gray/ZM's points.
Well done, you can read a hear.
grow up mate, all you have done tonight is pick argumentsI don't understand all the fuss about you. You pretty much just quoted Andy Gray/ZM's points.
Well done, you can read a hear.
Dont be a **** lad, Zebedee knows plenty about football, and Liverpool FC!
Not from what I've seen and do you ever have more contibution to threads than pointless remarks?
grow up mate, all you have done tonight is pick arguments
I don't understand all the fuss about you. You pretty much just quoted Andy Gray/ZM's points.
Well done, you can read a hear.