Man City vs Liverpool

Result : 2-3
Scorer : Ireland, Garrido (Man City); Torres-2x, Kuyt (Liverpool)
Red Card : Zabaleta (Man City)
Man of the Match : Arbeloa

Have I told anyone lately how much I love football? Well here it is, I FUCKING LOVE FOOTBALL! Multiply that by 10 and you will get how much I love Liverpool!

What a game it was. Two goals down at half time, we managed to score three after the break to win the game. A shade of Istanbul there. Many people were saying that the sending off of Zabaleta was the reason for the comeback; I’m not having that, we were flying in the second half from the word go, we would have won it regardless of the red card.

I’ve been saying how right now I’m happy with the passing and movement of the team as a whole, and how Riera is giving us the width we so lacking before, and those two factors combined to give us a well deserved win in this match. Another big plus, we were suddenly dangerous in our corners (starting from the PSV game actually). Obviously the lads have been working on it in training and they were well rewarded when Torres scored from one of it. Well done boys, well done Rafa!

Rafa again got it absolutely spot on in this game. We started the game with 4-2-3-1 formation which gave us so many wins towards the end of last season. Keane was sacrificed for The Chief, and Torres played upfront alone with Gerrard supporting him. The Rafa haters took no time at all to use that as a stick to beat Rafa. ‘oh his changing things again’, ‘oh how can he left Keane on the bench after Keane scored in the last game’, ‘Rafa the Tinkerman is back’.

Well they can shove their ‘expert views’ up their asses because they are shit. It was the correct decision and we controlled the match from the start. We created chances but failed to take advantage of it. That’s the problem with Liverpool. We are not ruthless enough and we need to have our back to the wall before we can see some urgency in our play. Couple that with our bad defending on the day, Man City managed to score two goals. It has got nothing to do with Rafa changing the formation. When we signed Keane people were complaining that it will ruined our 4-2-3-1 formation, now we have people complaining when Rafa play that formation again? Rubbish!

For me it was necessary to play that formation in this game to contain Man City attacking threat. Right now I don’t mind either 4-4-2 or 4-3-2-1 because we always need to adapt to the games we are playing. I won’t complain as long as Rafa used the right players for the formations and not asking players to play outside their normal position. We have the players to play both ways, and we have the ‘know how’ too amongst the players.

Rafa also got the subs right. It was Benayoun, a sub on the day, who made that good run and cross for the winner. So again, shove your negative comments up your asses!

I have a couple of concerns on the game though; one, we looked a bit tired. Legs looked heavy, the tempo of the game was slower and the running & pressing were not as normal. We can’t possibly be tired this early in the season. Maybe the Euro did take a lot out of the players. For whatever reason, it is worrying because our plays depend on hard running, closing down and pressing. We need everyone to be on top of their fitness.

Another thing, I’m worried about Torres. I thought he was going to hit the ground running in this game but in truth he was awful especially in the first half. His controls weren’t as good and he got bundled off the ball too easily for my liking. He did improve in the second half however and scored two goals to get us back in the game but he was still far from his best. He scores goals when he is not playing well, just imagine what he will be like when he is truly in top form. Scary!

Again, the goals weren’t spectacular in this game and that pleased me to no end. All the goals were scored by the strikers, from inside the box, feeding of good delivery into the box. That showed the team is playing really well at the moment. When your strikers score tap-ins, it means the whole team is functioning as it should.

I’m so pleased to award Arbeloa the man of the match. He improved big time since the start of the season. I have never doubted his defensive quality, it was his contribution on the attack as a fullback that worried me. Now however, he really has shown he can help with the attack. He overlapped all the time, hugged the touchline to give us width and put in good crosses as well for the strikers to feed. It was his overlapping run off the ball and his cross that made the first goal for Torres. I’m just so happy with the way he’s playing right now. He truly deserved the man of the match.

Gerrard was a bit subdued, as were Torres and The Chief. But the rest of the team played well, and Riera and Alonso were excellent. For Reina, he had absolutely no chance on the first goal but I think he should have done better on the second. It was a good strike from the freekick but Reina kind of encouraged Zabaleta to go for it as his positioning was bad. I’m not going to give Reina too much slack as he won us games before. No one is perfect.

Next weekend is the international football break and that sucks. We are flying at the moment and international football often put a halt to our good form. Hope it won’t happen this time around and we will continue where we left. We have a really good team, playing good quality football, and I couldn’t be happier right now…