Liverpool v Man U match thread

[barnes10]

that is why they are champions and why we are a long way from it.

disappointed with masher, stevie, pepe and carra today. skirtel could have jumped for the clearance but my money is on a shout coming from reina who just didnt get there.

alonso, babel and aurelio were average and need the team around them to lift their performance.

its clear with the spine of the team not playing well we had no chance today. masher was totally stupid and i hate that side of the game. used to like the fact that we rarely barraged the ref like the top 3 but we were embarrassing today.

bottlers. and i include our big guns in that. and thats why we won't win the league.

kuyt was man of the match for me.

[einar]

that is why they are champions and why we are a long way from it.
disappointed with masher, stevie, pepe and carra today. skirtel could have jumped for the clearance but my money is on a shout coming from reina who just didnt get there.

alonso, babel and aurelio were average and need the team around them to lift their performance.

its clear with the spine of the team not playing well we had no chance today. masher was totally stupid and i hate that side of the game. used to like the fact that we rarely barraged the ref like the top 3 but we were embarrassing today.

bottlers. and i include our big guns in that. and thats why we won't win the league.

kuyt was man of the match for me.

My point is that we know they are capable of it. So why dont they?

[FatTony]

Bollocks. We settled first and were the better side up until 15 mins. Then they settled and had the better of the next ten mins or so. After which the game settled into a stalemate. Reina made a mistake for them to go one nil up, then the ref ended the game as a contest with the ridiculous sending off.

On the players you singled out, I thought Kuyt was one of our better players, Skrtel clearly got a shout from Reina on the second goal, and Carra did alright.

For me though Gerrard was anonymous, Torres had the **** kicked out of him with no protection from the ref and Alonso never really got to grips with things today in the midfield.

Horse****. We were the better team for the first 10 to 15 and then fell apart, but even then we were only ok and we couldn't even carve a chance. During the "superior" spell they could've/should've been 2 -0 up from the clear chances that they had.

Kuyt..one of the better players!!!!! He did absolutely **** all accept work hard. Useless. Skrtel didn't jump for a single ball and was clearly at fault for a couple of their main chances including the goal. Carra alright? He was average at best as he has been for the last 12 months.

The rest I agree on.

[barnes10]

we were ****e and nobody had a great game. kuyt, torres and aurelio were our better players but based on today's performance, that doesnt say much.

[simey85]

For a man of Gerrards ability i don't understand why he is afraid to play against utd!

[fred_plasticine]

that is why they are champions and why we are a long way from it.

disappointed with masher, stevie, pepe and carra today. skirtel could have jumped for the clearance but my money is on a shout coming from reina who just didnt get there.

alonso, babel and aurelio were average and need the team around them to lift their performance.

its clear with the spine of the team not playing well we had no chance today. masher was totally stupid and i hate that side of the game. used to like the fact that we rarely barraged the ref like the top 3 but we were embarrassing today.

bottlers. and i include our big guns in that. and thats why we won't win the league.

kuyt was man of the match for me.

they bottled it, simple as that. you could see nerves everywhere and in the second they weren't even willing to put up a fight.
they can rise to the occasion and defeat the likes of barca but seemingly **** themselves when facing united ...
our defence was shaky at best, midfield didn't even control the game when masch was still on and we created little to nothing up front.
we grew a wee bit in confindence before conceding and none of them came out in the second half actually believing that we could still turn the game. that was as obvious as it was disappointing.
we lacked leadership and none of them took any responsibility whatsoever. that's why i'm gutted.
as for the masch send off - he let himself and the team down big time. he couldn't help but mouth the ref off after his first booking and it was obvious that he'd send him off eventually and that they fa will make an example of him.

[RoadEnd]

can see mash getting sent off and us getting beat 3-0

Are you the guy that posted the Champions League draw before it happened?

[breffniboy]

Horse****. We were the better team for the first 10 to 15 and then fell apart, but even then we were only ok and we couldn't even carve a chance. During the "superior" spell they could've/should've been 2 -0 up from the clear chances that they had.

I think the Masher sending off is giving us something to hide behind and cloud the fact that we were pants anyway, with or without him.

A midfield of Gerrard, Alonso and Masher was getting bitched by Anderson, Scholes and Michael ****ing Carrick. Gerrard was, as usual, anonymous in a top 4 league clash, we couldn't string three passes together and then resorted to hoofing it up to an isolated Torres who could do nothing to prevent it coming right back down our throats. Crouch was being warmed up before the red card and it was easy to see why.

At times we looked like a plucky team from the lower leagues visiting Old Trafford in a Cup match, not a settled team on a winning run in the upper echelons of the Premiership. Carra was way off the pace and the defence as a whole, Aurelio excepted, was dreadful. Arbeloa got so sucked in for the first goal that it was Carra who had to run to the wing to try and block down Rooney's cross! And every pop ball over the top had us reeling. Shocking, schoolboy jitters stuff. Painful.

That's something like 16 points for Rafa out of 69 against the top 4 I think, which is terrible. Take Europe out of the equation and Rafa has actually been a very poor manager for us.

[Reece]

Take Europe out of the equation and Rafa has actually been a very poor manager for us.

But that's like saying take Torres and Gerrard out of our team and.......

[breffniboy]

Maybe it is but you can't deny that after the length of time he's in charge, to have made absolutely no progress against the top teams in the league is a very poor reflection on him. And that's putting it kindly. He was brought here to win the league, anything in Europe was a bonus, and in terms of his (supposed) priority project he's fallen dramatically short of expectations.

[Frank Leroux]

I think the Masher sending off is giving us something to hide behind and cloud the fact that we were pants anyway, with or without him.

A midfield of Gerrard, Alonso and Masher was getting bitched by Anderson, Scholes and Michael ****ing Carrick. Gerrard was, as usual, anonymous in a top 4 league clash, we couldn't string three passes together and then resorted to hoofing it up to an isolated Torres who could do nothing to prevent it coming right back down our throats. Crouch was being warmed up before the red card and it was easy to see why....

...That's something like 16 points for Rafa out of 69 against the top 4 I think, which is terrible. Take Europe out of the equation and Rafa has actually been a very poor manager for us.

To be fair to our 3 mids - when you have options of Arbeloa, Aurelio, Kuyt and Babel compared to Brown (okay, okay!), Evra, Giggs and Ronaldo - you can see how hamstrung they were in comparison.

Having said that, though, the only one of the three doing anything went stupid and got sent off, Alonso is a shadow of his former self (his head doesn't appear to be on the job in hand at all) and Gerrard.....I've long been a (albeit, quiet ) proponent of LFC testing out the market for him. I don't think he's good for the team.

On friday I was speaking to a work colleague about the game and suggested the first 5 mins would tell me a lot as to the way the game would go. We went out cautious (as I feared) and Utd took the upper hand early. I suspect this was the hand of the chessmaster Benitez looking to kill the game before it even started, gave a potentially (and rightly) nervous Utd the glimpse of hope they needed and the die for the game had been set.

I believed this game could have been a turning point in the relentless quest for 19. We could have sent out so many messages from this game (the hoodoo is finished, we can compete with the top teams, we potentially played a huge role in stopping Utd's march to the title) that a new approach was needed for the game - there was too much potential up-side to start retreating into ourselves and hand the initiative to them so early. Whether what we got was down to the manager and/or the players is - for me - the nub of the issue.

Long, hard self appraisal is the order of the day for them now.

[breffniboy]

Good post sir

[pezzzer]

Maybe it is but you can't deny that after the length of time he's in charge, to have made absolutely no progress against the top teams in the league is a very poor reflection on him. And that's putting it kindly. He was brought here to win the league, anything in Europe was a bonus, and in terms of his (supposed) priority project he's fallen dramatically short of expectations.

but dont you think the other big three have progressed also?

rafa didnt come in and with a setled side and grass routes structure try and build apon what was already here mate, rafa had to overhaul pretty much everything!

the youth were annonymous, and the reserves were achieving nowt and rafa had to completely overhaul from grass routes up. and that was while trying to dump players like the sheriff/biscan/smicer/traore/diouf/ all on silly money and regular 1st teamers, and all on a budget.

i think people dramatically under estimate what rafa's done here, the youth are now producing winning class and the reserves are (finally) producing the goods with some first team prospects coming from the fruits of hard labour. its just a question of time and money (which we now have) before we succeed mate.

[El Jefecito]

If your main man and leader bottles it every time you play manure then well you are not going to win. That only partially reflects on Rafa. We essentially played with 9 men for most of the game.

[pezzzer]

If your main man and leader bottles it every time you play manure then well you are not going to win. That only partially reflects on Rafa. We essentially played with 9 men for most of the game.

gerrards captaincy in that game was shocking