Johnny Baguette
Alert Team
City, once again, failed against one of the leading Barclays Premier League title contenders at Anfield last night. Never one of their better hunting grounds, having only won there in 2003, one could be forgiven for thinking that the outcome of this match had an air of inevitability and in the end, so it proved.
Guardiola, once again offered us a cabinet re-shuffle in defence with Sagna and Clichy given the New Year's Honour of the Order of the Bench, enabling Zabaleta and Kolarov to provide sentry duties on the corners with, today, a back four completed by the returning Stones and the seemingly inevitable Otamendi.
The Blues lined up 4-2-3-1. Ahead of the pre-stated back four, plus of course City's worst mistake ever, Coco the Clown in goals, it was a case of out with the new and in with the old as Fernandinho and Yaya once again aligned in tandem. Sterling, De Bruyne and Silva were to provide the thrust and the now free-from-suspension Kun Aguero was the lone forager.
Klopp did show City some respect by fielding Herman the German in the shape of their Heinz 57 Tin Can Man, whose role was designed to kick anything but the ball, foul anything in a blue shirt and generally not offer much else. Still it worked.
But it started quite well with City playing their neat and tidy keep ball football, mainly in their own half and Liverpool were quite happy to let them do that. What's the point in doing otherwise? The stats go up, but as we have found all season with City, stats don't win matches. They seem to have forgotten that goals do.
So inevitable it was too, when after nine minutes without the ball, Liverpool retrieved it, played long to Lallana, who drew just about every City defender to the ball before delivering a pinpoint cross to the head of the unattended Wijnaldum, who did the rest, easily beating Bravo.
Effectively that was that. Liverpool then got into a fairly easy stride, biting in midfield, showing City the doors to nowhere and ensuring Aguero an early evening of toil without seeing the ball. Even after Klavan was booked early on City couldn't draw a second foul out of him that might have asked questions of referee Pawson, the subject of such scrutiny in recent times, especially for his generosity to two-footed tackles in Stretford.
During the remainder of the half City offered precisely nothing in the attacking third as Liverpool squeezed space effectively leaving Silva and De Bruyne, for me very out of touch at the moment, with nowhere to go.
In reality, Liverpool didn't do much. City had the ball a lot but didn't do anything with it. Liverpool had a goal and did everything with it.
The second half gradually saw City take more control of the game and sent Susan to the sin-bin she calls a bedroom, unable, as usual, to watch the team she calls "my boys". Convinced City would equalise and go on to win a la Arsenal, she clearly hasn't been seeing what we've been seeing for the last couple of months, said Arsenal match apart.
Indeed, it was close on an hour before City got sight of Liverpool's goal. Aguero it was, but Aguero it was not to be. His tame shot caused no problems at all for the Mickey Mousers. Shortly after, Silva probably had City's best chance, but as his shot curled around the post, City's only real hopes of snatching anything seemed to go with it.
Spaces did appear for City to play their football but a plethora of missed passes meant that most of City's work lost momentum with nothing finding Aguero or even Iheanacho when he appeared.
I'm disappointed that the Liverpool supporters persisted in booing Sterling every time he went near the ball and expressed delight when whatever he tried to do didn't come off. I had the Liverpudlians down as having much more dignity than that. I am aware the circumstances in which he left Liverpool were not good, but, as we have seen with Yaya Toure, agents are often the mischief makers when all the player wants to do is get on and play football and I think the Liverpool fans should take that for what it is. Can you imagine City fans booing Milner when he returns to the Etihad? Or, maybe next season Joe Hart? It isn't likely is it?
It didn't work out for Sterling in this match. He was trying perhaps too hard, but Milner knew all his moves and effectively pocketed him. Having said that, Sterling's decision-making too often let him down. At times when he had Milner, not exactly a pace merchant, isolated, he chose to cut in before trying to cut back out, giving their defence time to get back and settle. Sterling should immediately go around the corner into the space and get an early cross in behind the defence. At the end of the day Milner is a converted right winger playing left back. He is right-footed, so Mr Sterling, use your pace on the outside and get into the box. Liverpool had clearly studied the cross-town route he took to gain the penalty in the match at Hull plus the goal he scored against Arsenal and basically shut that door.
The game ebbed and flowed to an untidy finish with missed passes on both sides and nothing more to wake up the scorers. The result leaves the distance between City and Chelsea now one of beach and horizon as the Londoners despatched Stoke 4-2. The key problem now is that the Stretfords have crossed the horizon behind after a series of roly-poly-lie-down-for-Zlatan matches. They even get Liverpool away after Liverpool's first series of matches involving midweek football, Christmas excepted, and with Mane away at the African Cup of Unwanted Football.
For City, though, this is becoming a season of reality-checking. Guardiola might have "his way of playing" but it springs no surprises. The movement has become completely predictable, it is easy to set up even the most mediocre of footballers to play against City and there doesn't appear to be the kind of urgency there was at the start of the season. Effectively they seem to have run out of steam already whereas, under Klopp, and with fewer resources, Liverpool haven't.
Take a look at Chelsea. They more resemble the team Guardiola had at Munich. A mixture of neat footballers in the mould of Hazard plus the criminal formerly known as Fabregas, include Willian in the non-criminal version mixed among bigger but still athletic players such as Matic, together with the debatable "skills" or more likely dark arts of Luiz all topped-off with the power of Diego Costa. Yeah, I'm sure we don't like Costa, but we would love to have him in our team wouldn't we? Wouldn't everyone?
City have slipped back into the realms of the last two seasons. Playing Aguero alone as a striker, back to goal, back to three defenders. The runs from midfield are not happening. Nobody is loading the box when Sergio gets the ball, if in fact he does. At the start of the season Aguero played more with his face to the goal and therefore scored more goals. It's not rocket science, Guardiola. As you tinker and pratt about with the line-up and tactics, the Premier League title chances have vanished and we are staring into the abyss of missing out on Champions League football next season if the Stretfords and or Spuds can keep any kind of momentum going.
The fact that since his apology, Yaya Toure has been man of the match more or less every week speaks volumes. It means that the footballers City have spent almost billions on are not doing their jobs. Add to Yaya the best other two players all season, Fernandinho and Silva, plus possibly Aguero, I don't see too much input from the manager. We don't have the over-the-top alternative which Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham and the Stretfords use effectively in times of need. In fact, City are probably the only team in the Barclays Premier League who do not have that offering. So if the tika-taka plan is worked out, and in this league it is, where do City go hunting for goals? At times the midfield do not move the ball quickly enough to generate the openings and as a result, Aguero's space is closed down quickly. We need to get him playing face-to-goal so that he can pick his spots.
With De Bruyne off-key, I don't see at present where the secondary goal threat comes from. Silva has never been prolific, Sterling makes too many poor decisions, Nolito and Navas are a pair of "nul points" so it only leaves Yaya who is playing deeper some weeks than others. I'm not seeing Coutinho, Hazard, Lallana or even Alli or, dare I say, it Pogba? Guardiola might want a team of midfielders, but the point he is missing is that midfielders don't score enough goals, especially midfielders at the Etihad.
And then that leaves the defence. Can anyone see the value of the "who's in this week then" approach to keeping a clean sheet? Bravo is attacked regularly in these pages, and rightly so, for a Premier League net minder he is not, but the job is difficult enough when you know who is in front of you each week, but to have a shift-change almost every time City takes the field is simply wrong. It will not work in the Premier League which is why most teams start with a solid back division. Chelsea stop other teams scoring, generally, leaving their creative players able to open up to create and generate goals. City's creative players know at the outset that if they don't score at least two they won't win.
Players like Stones are the future. I thought he had one of his best games yesterday. So, select him every week and get in someone who is Premier League savvy. I seem to have been saying this since Lescott left. Talented he was not, but he knew how to play in this league. For the last 6 months I have been throwing my hay on Van Dijk. His game has suffered in recent weeks because of the speculation, plus he got sent off yesterday, but I hope that only means he can get a rest before joining City this month.
So the show moves on to the Etihad tomorrow for the visit of Burnley. Guardiola will probably change the guard once again and bring back Sagna and Clichy, but for now every other position picks itself so there will be no element of surprise once again. Burnley will play backs-to-the-wall stuff as they did at Sold Trafford, look for a goal, as they did in the corresponding fixture at Turf Moor and as they did against Liverpool and then try to shut up shop for the rest of the afternoon. I can't wait!
Read more: http://www.manchestercity.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=576077#ixzz4UWBb0Afd
Guardiola, once again offered us a cabinet re-shuffle in defence with Sagna and Clichy given the New Year's Honour of the Order of the Bench, enabling Zabaleta and Kolarov to provide sentry duties on the corners with, today, a back four completed by the returning Stones and the seemingly inevitable Otamendi.
The Blues lined up 4-2-3-1. Ahead of the pre-stated back four, plus of course City's worst mistake ever, Coco the Clown in goals, it was a case of out with the new and in with the old as Fernandinho and Yaya once again aligned in tandem. Sterling, De Bruyne and Silva were to provide the thrust and the now free-from-suspension Kun Aguero was the lone forager.
Klopp did show City some respect by fielding Herman the German in the shape of their Heinz 57 Tin Can Man, whose role was designed to kick anything but the ball, foul anything in a blue shirt and generally not offer much else. Still it worked.
But it started quite well with City playing their neat and tidy keep ball football, mainly in their own half and Liverpool were quite happy to let them do that. What's the point in doing otherwise? The stats go up, but as we have found all season with City, stats don't win matches. They seem to have forgotten that goals do.
So inevitable it was too, when after nine minutes without the ball, Liverpool retrieved it, played long to Lallana, who drew just about every City defender to the ball before delivering a pinpoint cross to the head of the unattended Wijnaldum, who did the rest, easily beating Bravo.
Effectively that was that. Liverpool then got into a fairly easy stride, biting in midfield, showing City the doors to nowhere and ensuring Aguero an early evening of toil without seeing the ball. Even after Klavan was booked early on City couldn't draw a second foul out of him that might have asked questions of referee Pawson, the subject of such scrutiny in recent times, especially for his generosity to two-footed tackles in Stretford.
During the remainder of the half City offered precisely nothing in the attacking third as Liverpool squeezed space effectively leaving Silva and De Bruyne, for me very out of touch at the moment, with nowhere to go.
In reality, Liverpool didn't do much. City had the ball a lot but didn't do anything with it. Liverpool had a goal and did everything with it.
The second half gradually saw City take more control of the game and sent Susan to the sin-bin she calls a bedroom, unable, as usual, to watch the team she calls "my boys". Convinced City would equalise and go on to win a la Arsenal, she clearly hasn't been seeing what we've been seeing for the last couple of months, said Arsenal match apart.
Indeed, it was close on an hour before City got sight of Liverpool's goal. Aguero it was, but Aguero it was not to be. His tame shot caused no problems at all for the Mickey Mousers. Shortly after, Silva probably had City's best chance, but as his shot curled around the post, City's only real hopes of snatching anything seemed to go with it.
Spaces did appear for City to play their football but a plethora of missed passes meant that most of City's work lost momentum with nothing finding Aguero or even Iheanacho when he appeared.
I'm disappointed that the Liverpool supporters persisted in booing Sterling every time he went near the ball and expressed delight when whatever he tried to do didn't come off. I had the Liverpudlians down as having much more dignity than that. I am aware the circumstances in which he left Liverpool were not good, but, as we have seen with Yaya Toure, agents are often the mischief makers when all the player wants to do is get on and play football and I think the Liverpool fans should take that for what it is. Can you imagine City fans booing Milner when he returns to the Etihad? Or, maybe next season Joe Hart? It isn't likely is it?
It didn't work out for Sterling in this match. He was trying perhaps too hard, but Milner knew all his moves and effectively pocketed him. Having said that, Sterling's decision-making too often let him down. At times when he had Milner, not exactly a pace merchant, isolated, he chose to cut in before trying to cut back out, giving their defence time to get back and settle. Sterling should immediately go around the corner into the space and get an early cross in behind the defence. At the end of the day Milner is a converted right winger playing left back. He is right-footed, so Mr Sterling, use your pace on the outside and get into the box. Liverpool had clearly studied the cross-town route he took to gain the penalty in the match at Hull plus the goal he scored against Arsenal and basically shut that door.
The game ebbed and flowed to an untidy finish with missed passes on both sides and nothing more to wake up the scorers. The result leaves the distance between City and Chelsea now one of beach and horizon as the Londoners despatched Stoke 4-2. The key problem now is that the Stretfords have crossed the horizon behind after a series of roly-poly-lie-down-for-Zlatan matches. They even get Liverpool away after Liverpool's first series of matches involving midweek football, Christmas excepted, and with Mane away at the African Cup of Unwanted Football.
For City, though, this is becoming a season of reality-checking. Guardiola might have "his way of playing" but it springs no surprises. The movement has become completely predictable, it is easy to set up even the most mediocre of footballers to play against City and there doesn't appear to be the kind of urgency there was at the start of the season. Effectively they seem to have run out of steam already whereas, under Klopp, and with fewer resources, Liverpool haven't.
Take a look at Chelsea. They more resemble the team Guardiola had at Munich. A mixture of neat footballers in the mould of Hazard plus the criminal formerly known as Fabregas, include Willian in the non-criminal version mixed among bigger but still athletic players such as Matic, together with the debatable "skills" or more likely dark arts of Luiz all topped-off with the power of Diego Costa. Yeah, I'm sure we don't like Costa, but we would love to have him in our team wouldn't we? Wouldn't everyone?
City have slipped back into the realms of the last two seasons. Playing Aguero alone as a striker, back to goal, back to three defenders. The runs from midfield are not happening. Nobody is loading the box when Sergio gets the ball, if in fact he does. At the start of the season Aguero played more with his face to the goal and therefore scored more goals. It's not rocket science, Guardiola. As you tinker and pratt about with the line-up and tactics, the Premier League title chances have vanished and we are staring into the abyss of missing out on Champions League football next season if the Stretfords and or Spuds can keep any kind of momentum going.
The fact that since his apology, Yaya Toure has been man of the match more or less every week speaks volumes. It means that the footballers City have spent almost billions on are not doing their jobs. Add to Yaya the best other two players all season, Fernandinho and Silva, plus possibly Aguero, I don't see too much input from the manager. We don't have the over-the-top alternative which Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham and the Stretfords use effectively in times of need. In fact, City are probably the only team in the Barclays Premier League who do not have that offering. So if the tika-taka plan is worked out, and in this league it is, where do City go hunting for goals? At times the midfield do not move the ball quickly enough to generate the openings and as a result, Aguero's space is closed down quickly. We need to get him playing face-to-goal so that he can pick his spots.
With De Bruyne off-key, I don't see at present where the secondary goal threat comes from. Silva has never been prolific, Sterling makes too many poor decisions, Nolito and Navas are a pair of "nul points" so it only leaves Yaya who is playing deeper some weeks than others. I'm not seeing Coutinho, Hazard, Lallana or even Alli or, dare I say, it Pogba? Guardiola might want a team of midfielders, but the point he is missing is that midfielders don't score enough goals, especially midfielders at the Etihad.
And then that leaves the defence. Can anyone see the value of the "who's in this week then" approach to keeping a clean sheet? Bravo is attacked regularly in these pages, and rightly so, for a Premier League net minder he is not, but the job is difficult enough when you know who is in front of you each week, but to have a shift-change almost every time City takes the field is simply wrong. It will not work in the Premier League which is why most teams start with a solid back division. Chelsea stop other teams scoring, generally, leaving their creative players able to open up to create and generate goals. City's creative players know at the outset that if they don't score at least two they won't win.
Players like Stones are the future. I thought he had one of his best games yesterday. So, select him every week and get in someone who is Premier League savvy. I seem to have been saying this since Lescott left. Talented he was not, but he knew how to play in this league. For the last 6 months I have been throwing my hay on Van Dijk. His game has suffered in recent weeks because of the speculation, plus he got sent off yesterday, but I hope that only means he can get a rest before joining City this month.
So the show moves on to the Etihad tomorrow for the visit of Burnley. Guardiola will probably change the guard once again and bring back Sagna and Clichy, but for now every other position picks itself so there will be no element of surprise once again. Burnley will play backs-to-the-wall stuff as they did at Sold Trafford, look for a goal, as they did in the corresponding fixture at Turf Moor and as they did against Liverpool and then try to shut up shop for the rest of the afternoon. I can't wait!
Read more: http://www.manchestercity.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=576077#ixzz4UWBb0Afd
