Liverpool – Manchester City 3-2 Match Report

Lessons learned?

The Silva-Milner partnership is one that Pellegrini would do well to utilise more, and James Milner is a big game player. Whilst Navas did ok in the first half once we got him into the game, maybe in hindsight the more durable qualities of Milner were what was required in a white hot atmosphere. Why he is not used as a central midfielder a position excelled at with his previous clubs – is the source of some mystery. Garcia would have been another option and he would possibly have helped offer some protection to a beleaguered back four, but even then he may well have struggled with Sterling’s pace though. To be fair to Pellegrini, Navas has done well and offers us pace, so his selection is understandable. Vincent Kompany did make mistakes at all three goals but he was brave enough to play with his injury, and besides, other mistakes were made by others in at least two of those goals. Could we have been set up better? For instance if we’d had a player on each post for corners we may have stopped the second goal. Playing the blame game is not constructive but this defeat is not down to the manager or any one City player. There is some focus on Manuel Pellegrini. However whilst this was another big match where he was beaten, but he cannot be held accountable for unexpected individual mistakes which undid us. We win collectively and we lose collectively too. We just have to learn lessons and do better.

It would be churlish not to give credit to Liverpool credit even if they were fortunate to be presented with a chance to win in the end. Very few sides would have coped with the storm they served up in that first half hour when they played with great passion, verve, intelligence as well as pace. Brendan Rodgers has done an amazing job to get the fro 7th place finish to being top and in pole position with four games to play.

Is the title lost? No, not yet as there are still a few matches to play, and hopefully City will win all of them. Liverpool still have to play Chelsea at home though that is either side of the Londoners playing in the Champions League. If Liverpool win it they will have deserved it, but we can be forgiven for not applauding too loudly, or not applauding at all.

But this isn’t over yet. We have to continue to treat every game as it comes and we need three points against Sunderland on Wednesday.

We’re Man City, we’ll fight (in a football sense anyway) to the end…

Att: 44,601

Goals:

Liverpool: Sterling 6, Skrtel 26, Coutinho 77

Manchester City: Silva 57, Johnson og 77