City away at Scousers

[KunDB]

The last and only time City won at Anfield was 2003 when a certain Nicolas Anelka scored a brace. Other than that Lost 13 Drew 5.

Shocking record that needs corrected today. Come on City.

CITY XI | Bravo, Zabaleta (C), Stones, Otamendi, Kolarov, Fernandinho, Yaya Toure, Sterling, Silva, De Bruyne, Aguero

CITY SUBS | Caballero, Clichy, Sagna, Fernando, A Garcia, Iheanacho, Navas

[gavin]

Is that stat just in the Prem? There was a world before!

Come on City! We need a big win today regardless of history. It is needed for this season. We can't let Chelsea run away from us.

[KunDB]

Has Pep ever told our players the game starts on the referees whistle not 20 minutes later. 

[gavin]

Abysmal.

[KunDB]

Abysmal.

Hard to believe we can be so impotent. Plan A B and C long punt forward or piss around passing in midfield.

[gavin]

Much better second half but not creating anything clear cut

[KunDB]

Deserved to lose.

As a team ineffectual.

[lee]

garbage

kolarov is shite

[gavin]

Load of shite

[Swiss]

garbage

kolarov is shite

Aye, was twice at fault for the goal and seemed determined to give the ball away at every opportunity. He wasn't the only shit player tonight but he did stand out the most.

Otamendi frustrates me immeasurably, he'll come up with some brilliant defending, and then get some simple defending wrong. He'll make a superb pass, then pass it to the opo in a 5 yard pass.

[lee]

i was gonna name otemendi as well but to be fair yes they were all shite

[Neil Mcnab]

A poor performance, not a great game. We were better in the second half. Was that Liverpool running out of steam and holding what they had? Sterling looks like he cant handle going back to his old employers. We had no star performers. De Bruyne was out of it and reluctant to work.

[Ludo]

There was quite a lot of shite on show tonight but Kolarov was extra specially shite.

A special mention in the shitness category must go to Pep. His reliance on Bravo, Kalarov and late substitutions is mind boggling.

[lee]

agree about the subs at the end..10 mins earlier would have seemed feasible

[gavin]

Yeh, fuckin waste of time bringing Iheanacho with a couple of minutes left. Made me laugh that Pep was so busy jabbering shite to Navas for several that he completely missed a chance to get him on when he'd been ready to get on for a while.

This league season has gone apart from making sure we get in top few places, above the rags.

[KunDB]

If we are to finish top 4 we will need to see some serious urgent improvement as we are playing like a hollow purposeless vessell waiting to be sunk.

Same players, same shite, same soloution - Get rid of the waste. Koloarov, Fernando, Navas, ............. and have as back up the nearly men, Bravo, Otamendi, Sterliing. I could name others but I am sure we all know the players incapable of delivering consistently good performances. Even the good players are struggling under Pep the tinker man DeBruyne, Silva.

Finally we are way to one dimensional and lightweight up front, that is blatantly obvious hence the need for continual creative genius or a lucky break just to get a goal against defender packed goal areas.

Slow, slow, slow, slower, slower still, then explode: oh dear too late there's a well organised brick wall of defenders in the way now - thats City under Pep.

Pep needs time and he will get it but boy what a challegne he now faces, we are nearly as bad as we were under Pelle. Out with the old and in with the new I say.

[Hesperus]

A disappointing performance and result, no doubt about that. I'm a big Pep fan and believe he'll get us to the very top, but not this season and not with the defence and keeper we have. Not many positives at the moment and the rest of the results yesterday made it even worse. Difficult understand the summer recruitment policy when you look at the way we've defended all season. Anyway Happy New year all, things will improve. 

[nimrod]

Depressingly predictable,  gutless half arsed lack of desire display

And who the fuck bought that old goalie.

[Gareth]

we are nearly as bad as we were under Pelle.

Didn't Pellegrini's team win the League Cup and Premier League in his first season as manager?

If only we were that bad now...

[bluebrendan]

garbage

kolarov is shite

I'm giving Yaya 50% of the blame for that goal, WTF was he thinking chipping a free kick sideways in a good attacking position?

Kolarov wasn't in space and he (and Clichy for that matter) aren't noted for their ability to play inch-perfect first-time volley passes so there was always a good chance that Liverpool would get possession.

As we conceded just the one goal our defending wasn't entirely catastrophic but our attacking threat was non-existent. I thought everyone, including Pep, was aware that Sergio is generally sluggish after a few games absence so he wasn't an ideal starter last night. KdB may make a top class no.10 eventually but in these games where the opposition are smothering the midfield he has to drop deeper to look for the ball instead of waiting for it to arrive. Without looking too threatening we did at least control the game better in the 2nd half when Silva moved into the no.10 slot.

Oh aye and the subs were about 15mins too late, it had been fairly obvious for a while that we weren't going to score with the starting formation.

[Rowley Birkin QC]

Reading the media match reports this morning I got the impression that the mighty "only team likely to catch Chelsea" Liverpool had totally dominated this game. Well that's not the game I've just watched (on delay).

Granted - City weren't good, especially the first half, but we were marginally the better side for most of the second and you could hear the tension in the Anfield crowd when we went forward (that's when they weren't too busy booing, or the usual scouse choir practice...). In fact going forward in the second half we looked OK and threatened quite a lot - only to be always let down by the final ball or last touch in the box. Liverpool during the same period created almost bugger all. They can count themselves fortunate that we offered up the usual defensive horror show one-off to gift them the goal. 1-1 or 0-0 might have been a more reflective scoreline.

However, I'm not trying to dress this up as something it wasn't. We were disappointing. I was particularly frustrated during the first half by how static we were when Liverpool had the ball. I thought we were guilty of ball watching and not anticipating quickly enough to close opponents down. As a result too many Liverpool players were drifting off our boys and finding too much useful space in the middle. Liverpool on the other hand gave us a first half lesson in how to press an opponent!

I shall go on defending Kolarov (even if he doesn't  ). Some of you are too harsh. Yes he was at fault, but as Brendan said, Yaya's ludicrous free kick put him under unnecessary pressure and having lost the ball Kolarov was always going to struggle to get back and reset in time. He didn't do a lot else wrong. 

Continually losing at Anfield to cocky scousers is becoming very tiresome.

[gavin]

They're no better than us that is the annoying thing. So many players let themselves and us down yesterday. De Bruyne was the worst for me, lacking creativity, often giving the ball away and lacking in defensive responsibility. Over the years I've got all too used to shit players being shit but it is very frustrating watching potentially world class players be shit. Unfortunately, so many of our were yesterday. Pep must shoulder his share of the blame but players have to take responsibility and improve themselves too.

[KunDB]

The fact is some of these players do not have the stomach and determination for a real battle and even some of those who do are just well past their best.

Pep must share some blame for overseeing such limp performances (repeatedly) against our top rivals, all season. There ain't no points for possession in this league.

[nimrod]

The fact is some of these players do not have the stomach and determination for a real battle and even some of those who do are just well past their best.

Pep must share some blame for overseeing such limp performances (repeatedly) against our top rivals, all season. There ain't no points for possession in this league.

Pep is already adapting to the prem
In fact our performance looked like Pellers was still in charge.....but with a worse goalie

[Swiss]

I shall go on defending Kolarov (even if he doesn't  ). Some of you are too harsh. Yes he was at fault, but as Brendan said, Yaya's ludicrous free kick put him under unnecessary pressure and having lost the ball Kolarov was always going to struggle to get back and reset in time. He didn't do a lot else wrong. 

According to Squawka Kolarov gave the ball away on 16 occasions (passing). He had a pass accuracy of 69%

De Bruyne was the worst for me, lacking creativity, often giving the ball away and lacking in defensive responsibility.

KDB gave the ball away on 9 occasions, but had a pass accuracy of 65%. Suggesting he didn't have the ball enough.
He only created 1 chance (Corner) but had 9 crosses in the box, the rest didn't make it to our player. The heat map shows he did put himself about the pitch when we needed him to be supporting Aguero who spent most of the match on his own. We had two DM's on the pitch which should have released KDB to work further up the pitch, but both DM's gave the ball away a total of 23 times ('Dinho 15 & Yaya

Even Silver ( ) gave the ball away on 12 occasions!

We were our own worst enemies & the heat map is damning for the amount of time we spent in their box, virtually zero.

[Rowley Birkin QC]

According to Squawka Kolarov gave the ball away on 16 occasions (passing). He had a pass accuracy of 69%

Yes - that is a lot. Too much. But from the rest of the stats the whole team were guilty of giving the ball away like it was Christmas.