Kicking the ball away...

[ric.williams]

...every time we got a free kick tonight the ball was kicked away or picked up by a city player and yet no one got booked for it. was incredibly obvious and frustrating

[IN_RAFA_WE_TRUST]

[ric.williams]

fair enough

[michelmas]

...every time we got possession tonight the ball was kicked away or picked up by a city player and yet no one got substituted for it. was incredibly obvious and frustrating

[Kenneth]

...every time we got possession tonight the ball was kicked away or picked up by a city player and yet no one got substituted for it. was incredibly obvious and frustrating

Why would someone get substituted for it?

[Rudo]

Meh.

[Shaggy]

...every time we got a free kick tonight the ball was kicked away or picked up by a city player and yet no one got booked for it. was incredibly obvious and frustrating

Completely correct. Skrtel gets booked for his first tackle after three minutes and in the five minutes that followed three of their players booted the ball away and that cunt of a ref did nothing. Although we were undeniably dreadful, Dowd gave them ****ing everything all night.

[SimonNo7]

Completely correct. Skrtel gets booked for his first tackle after three minutes and in the five minutes that followed three of their players booted the ball away and that cunt of a ref did nothing. Although we were undeniably dreadful, Dowd gave them ****ing everything all night.

Yet another case of Premiership Ref bottles it when needing to make a decision against a 'big' home team.

[Parr_Zee]

The ref had nothing to do with tonights result. We were out paced, out passed, out muscled, out moved, out dribbled, everything. We did NOTHING better than Man City and thats why we lost this game.

[the rev leeroy brown]

The ref had nothing to do with tonights result. We were out paced, out passed, out muscled, out moved, out dribbled, everything. We did NOTHING better than Man City and thats why we lost this game.

agreed the ref had nothing to do with the outcome of the result but he still had a shocker. booking skittles 3 mins into a game first tackle for something as weak as it was, was a sham.

[Redspin]

The ref had nothing to do with tonights result. We were out paced, out passed, out muscled, out moved, out dribbled, everything. We did NOTHING better than Man City and thats why we lost this game.

We had more shots on target I believe, which must come under the heading "everything"

[Exiled_red]

We had more shots on target I believe, which must come under the heading "everything"

Please don't go down 'the Houllier route' (maintaining after being torn apart we were the better team because we had more shots, corners or throw ins) We only created a couple of real chances (that resulted in a double save from Hart) aside from that everything else was from distance.

BTW I agree with the OP I was frustrated by the kicking the ball away and Adam Johnson's moaning and attempting to get people booked everytime he was fouled.

[Parr_Zee]

BTW I agree with the OP I was frustrated by the kicking the ball away and Adam Johnson's moaning and attempting to get people booked everytime he was fouled.

I think he was probably frustrated that the only way we could stop him was by fouling him.

[Rudo]

Adam Johnson was a right **** last night i thought. Good player tho

[ric.williams]

The ref had nothing to do with tonights result. We were out paced, out passed, out muscled, out moved, out dribbled, everything. We did NOTHING better than Man City and thats why we lost this game.

oh yes, please dont think im blaming the ref. we were poor last night. just thought i'd comment on a tactic i really dislike.