sigh.... its hard to pin-point the problem really, we seem to be working as a cohesive unit but the lack of creativity in the final third is quit apparent without Mata on the field, we really need to invest in some attacking talent in January and AVB needs to have a serious look at his tactics because it obviously is not suiting our current crop of players as big teams are finding it easy to tear us apart and exploit even a single defensive mistake, its all well and good against the weaker teams .... Malouda was bullshit throughout the game, he does not understand the art of passing the ball quickly and moving, Torres looked good on occassions but nothing from him either, Lukaku got into excellent positions but never capitalised, Betrand was very good and he made some excellent surging runs down the side, Romeu was very good
Special mention to Luiz who had Andy Caroll in his pocket throughout the game although he was partly to blame for the first goal as he played Liverpool onside something due to his lack of concentration
If we are to have any hope of surviving against Manchester City then we have to play a different formation altogether because this one is clearly not working well against the big teams... and for the love of god, if we want to outscore the opposition then we cannot put faith in players like Malouda and Anelka to form our front 3, get some quality players in and then maybe we dont have to worry about the goals we concede... as of now we seem ineffective in attack and poor in defence