Man.Utd 3:0 Liverpool. In game and post match finger pointing.

As has been the case so often this season this result leaves me flat and I cannot see things improving with the transfer window in January. L.F.C appears to have no sense of direction from the top down, and nobody accepting responsibility for our inept displays.January is an opportune time to move on underperforming players coaches and the manager if he is not up to the job. Fenway do something before it is  too late.

it appears that nobody wants to take responsibility which makes the "rudderless" quote apt.

Sorry, I don't agree that De Gea was world class yesterday. You kick the ball right at him and he's going to block it all day. Aside from the Balotelli save, he never had to move a step left or right. It was a case of very poor finishing for me.

Exactly. There have been instances in the past where the goalie plays the game of his life against us. Not yesterday. It was pisspoor finishing from us. It was like the strikers were surprised they got so many chances to score and just looked plain confused and slow with what to do with the ball. They were just striking with the hope of getting it through somewhere.

What a bizarre football game. We got beat 3-0 but I'm left feeling (and I'm sure many others are too) that we should and come away with 3 points there.

Putting that aside, we still had many faults.

Much has been said starting Jones over Mignolet. I was made up to see this myself. The timing of it is irrelevant because I would never, ever, EVER, start Mignolet in goal for Liverpool. I've been praying Jones comes in for months. Not because I rate Jones, but because I don't rate Mignolet! Overall I thought Jones did well too. He did a stupid dive for Rooneys goal and his positioning was poor for RVP's but during the game I thought he did pretty well. I was impressed with him throwing the ball out quickly which was refreshing to see because I'm used to that stupid dick head Belgian slowing everything down.

I couldn't believe BR dropped Lucas who has been our best player for the past month. I also couldn't believe he started Joe Allen who has been our worst player for the past month. Joe Allen had another shocker yesterday and it's no coincidence we then concede 3 with him in and Lucas out. We've been more solid recently so why change it for our biggest game of the season? It doesn't make sense.

Playing three CB's with Johnson being one was odd too. I know he went off injured but no idea what BR was thinking here. It worked briefly against Basel but we were down to 10 men, in a must win game, at home, against a poorer team, who were happy to put men behind the ball and defend their lead. Why was sakho not included who was on the bench on tues?

Didn't play with a recognised striker. I had a debate on this forum in the summer (I cant remember who with but I'll find it) and basically I'm going to sound like a little smart arse 'I told you so' now, but I repeatedly said that sterling is an exciting player who creates chances but he isn't clinical and his final pass is poor. Can anybody argue against this seriously? He finds himself in great positions or makes chances for himself with his pace but he just can't bury the ball for his life! How many times have we seen him 3 or 4 yards out and him trip up over his own feet? He should have had a hat trick yesterday if not more. Sterling will never be a top player for me because of those reasons - final pass is sh*t & isn't clinical enough.

I thought Balotelli did a lot better yesterday and I've been one of his biggest critics. He could have had a hat trick himself but at least he had those chances to miss for a change. It was promising and on another day he would have scored a brace there.

What a bizarre football game. We got beat 3-0 but I'm left feeling (and I'm sure many others are too) that we should and come away with 3 points there.

I thought Balotelli did a lot better yesterday and I've been one of his biggest critics. He could have had a hat trick himself but at least he had those chances to miss for a change. It was promising and on another day he would have scored a brace there.

me too... I thought if Sturridge had Sterlings Chances he would of scored, but Mario did as well as Daniel would of done for me and was just come up against an on form keeper

De Gea did make a couple of decent saves but for many of our 'chances' they were quite weak attempts and hit straight at him.

I understand that, but if you look at all games in terms of stats, when one team has more possession, and more shots, and more shots on target, that team tends to score more goals and win more games.  We beat United in all of these stats through the first 60 minutes.  The only thing missing was a goal.  It was unfortunate that we couldn't turn our dominance into goals, but on another day I think we would have.... 

I'm personally much happier with our performance in this game than I was with our recent performances against Basel, Sunderland, Leicester, or Stoke.  In those games we looked abject and disjointed, but today we pressed well and won the ball back in good positions, strung quick and incisive attacking moves together, and created a handful of really good scoring chances.  This was the most dangerous we have looked since Studge got injured.  The finish wasn't there today, but if we continue to create as many opportunities in the upcoming games as we did today then it will eventually drop. 

A better performance? I saw very little in the way of back tracking at all. Especially for their first goal. Three players watched and did F**k all to prevent Rooneys goal. Lallana, Allen and Moreno just F***ing watched!! How is that better? They should be running through brick walls to stop players doing that!

We are using the term "if" a lot these days. how much did UTD pay for their 3 goals scorers including Rooney 10 years ago about £100 mil whilst we had Sterling on his own then Balotelli with Lambert on the bench total value £5.36p.
Luis and Daniel are worth a combined £100mil so it shows that strikers in particular are valued realistically pay peanuts get monkeys.

We are using the term "if" a lot these days. how much did UTD pay for their 3 goals scorers including Rooney 10 years ago about £100 mil whilst we had Sterling on his own then Balotelli with Lambert on the bench total value £5.36p.
Luis and Daniel are worth a combined £100mil so it shows that strikers in particular are valued realistically pay peanuts get monkeys.

Bang on.
We've gone from a 100 million strike force to 20 million.
You get what you pay for, unless it's defenders called Lovren.

De Gea did make a couple of decent saves but for many of our 'chances' they were quite weak attempts and hit straight at him.

Exactly what i was about to post until i read this.

Most of the shots hit at De Gea were straight at him, you don't have to be a world class keeper to stop them, you just stand there and move the odd arm or foot. The tip onto the bar from Balotelli was class though.

I'm hurting today, not in the manner that we lost but the fact that had we had a half decent striker playing we would have won this game hands down. We cut through United like butter but again we fail to to do the most important thing, and that is to bury the chance.

It's hardly surprising mind, United have no defence, it's almost as bad as ours. We seem to be going nowhere with our defensive mess and still it continues. What the F**k Johnson was doing as our right centre back only Brendan can explain. Now i know many of you are not Toure fans but i don't see what he's done wrong to get dropped in favour of Lovren the calamity kid. Very harsh on Toure i thought and sort of blows a hole in Rodgers theory of players getting picked on merit.

Another hole in that theory is the selection of Joe Allen, nutmegged for the first goal and brushed aside for the whole of the game like the little boy he actually is. He is so out of his depth i'm surprised Brendan doesn't kit him out with a life jacket.

I really want Balotelli to work out but it just isn't going to happen. He was so pathetic with his finishing yesterday that he just looks like he doesn't give a F**k. I thought Brendan could get under his skin and release the real Balotelli but it isn't going to happen yet.

My main concern though is the regression of Henderson and Coutinho. Two pivotal players during the last campaign yet they seem former shadows of themselves this Season.

Something is very wrong at Melwood and whatever that is it needs addressing as it is transpiring from the training pitch onto the match field.

I don't want Rodgers gone but unless he can turn this around i doubt very much he'll be here for the start of next Season.

Our intensity has completely gone from our game. Is that a result of losing Suarez and Sturridge? It was the pressing from the front that won us most games last Season. We don't have anyone here with that tenacity.

Our transition from defence to attack has gone. Is that due to the fact that we no longer have an outlet with pace to attack with?

Last and by absolutely no means least, our defence. Sakho, Lovren, Ilori, Manquillo and Moreno and still no improvement begs the question, does Rodgers have a clue about the defending side of the game?

Our most critical signing in January may not be a player, it may just be a coach to help Brendan in the most critical area he is struggling in at the moment and has done since he arrived.

I agree that it was a weird game and it could easily have been our day but our finishing is absolutely awful, we need players who know how to score a goal ffs. Sterling needs a rest and/or some intense work on his finishing because its bloody awful, much like Coutinho. If those 2 can get more clinical in front of goal, which I was actually hoping for this summer then the future is looking very bright but until then we need goals from somewhere.
I have to applaud Brendan on his team selection, was very bold, well apart from that useless Joe Allen, who only has one admirer in the whole club, unfortunately that is Brendan :-(.
I'm actually quite optimistic after that performance and I tell you guys another thing, Manure are being very very lucky at the moment, they are no where near as good as their results seem to indicate.

If we can get Sturridge back plus buy a top notch striker in January then I still fancy us to get 4th.

See all of you who claim that I'm negative and miserable sometimes I see the positives. ;-)

The Joe Allen Nutmeg was a disaster. He got nutmegged and he just continued to allow Valencia continue his run like it was suppose to be a normal thing.

Valencia was almost static. Just stand slightly sideways and on yer toes to stop him doing a simple nutmeg, force him to the side. Allen looked on his heels and not ready for what happened - really poor.

Even though I support BR, and think our main problem is our brutal strike-force, defensive organization is a big achilles heel which he needs to sort out. If he can get us scoring again, the defensive problems will still be there - and though maybe not as urgent to solve as goal drought, that could be something that would sink him longer term if not improved upon (cause I think our defenders have potential to be a lot better as a unit).

Disgrace. Once again the goals we let in were an embarrassment. Sure we had plenty of chances but they were mostly feeble attempts and they could easily have scored another 2 or 3 goals.

Lucas should have started instead of Rodgers' precious little Allen and Balotelli was crap once again, walking around and just trying to shoot every time he got the ball.

Not good enough and we go away with the Mancs laughing at us.

MUFC vs Liverpool Positional Tracker

Here is our visualization that shows the smoothed positions of players around the time as indicated.

As we don’t have access to detailed tracking data we have tried to be as smart as we can with the “on-the-ball” data collected by Opta; we think we’ve made a decent attempt at trying to understand the flow of the game and the general positional trends of the players within the game.

We know it’s not perfect, but we’d need full tracking data to ensure that we have the exact positions of every player correct at all times.  In the absence of full tracking data, hopefully people will find these visualizations helpful.

Click to open viz in a larger window.

A couple of my thoughts:

- Game was exceptionally compressed in the middle third during opening half hour
- Moreno totally neglected his defensive positioning during the first half.  He is shown as further forward than Coutinho during nearly all of the first half
- In the second half Fellaini dropped right back to offer additional protection to United’s defence



Stats Bomb

MUFC vs Liverpool Positional Tracker

Here is our visualization that shows the smoothed positions of players around the time as indicated.

As we don’t have access to detailed tracking data we have tried to be as smart as we can with the “on-the-ball” data collected by Opta; we think we’ve made a decent attempt at trying to understand the flow of the game and the general positional trends of the players within the game.

We know it’s not perfect, but we’d need full tracking data to ensure that we have the exact positions of every player correct at all times.  In the absence of full tracking data, hopefully people will find these visualizations helpful.

Click to open viz in a larger window.

A couple of my thoughts:

- Game was exceptionally compressed in the middle third during opening half hour
- Moreno totally neglected his defensive positioning during the first half.  He is shown as further forward than Coutinho during nearly all of the first half
- In the second half Fellaini dropped right back to offer additional protection to United’s defence



Stats Bomb

can you track father Christmas on that ?

MUFC vs Liverpool Positional Tracker

Here is our visualization that shows the smoothed positions of players around the time as indicated.

As we don’t have access to detailed tracking data we have tried to be as smart as we can with the “on-the-ball” data collected by Opta; we think we’ve made a decent attempt at trying to understand the flow of the game and the general positional trends of the players within the game.

We know it’s not perfect, but we’d need full tracking data to ensure that we have the exact positions of every player correct at all times.  In the absence of full tracking data, hopefully people will find these visualizations helpful.

Click to open viz in a larger window.

A couple of my thoughts:

- Game was exceptionally compressed in the middle third during opening half hour
- Moreno totally neglected his defensive positioning during the first half.  He is shown as further forward than Coutinho during nearly all of the first half
- In the second half Fellaini dropped right back to offer additional protection to United’s defence



Stats Bomb

What the hell is up with Johnson's positioning?! He's all over the place.

I was actually surprised to see so much hate after the match from LFC fans on twitter, FB, etc.

Obviously there was going to be that frustration from just losing to Man U, but before the match, I was really starting to get worried about our lack of ability to create chances. We were playing the most boring football that I've ever seen from a LFC side since Hodgson.

Lovren probably had the worst performance of the squad. Brad Jones for some reason likes committing to a side before the shot is even struck...but overall, we played high tempo, pressing football. If Sterling bags that first chance, the match changes.

Stick Sturrdige into that side, and I have no doubts that we would have won that. I truly believe that. Not to say Danny will fix everything, but of everything, we were just missing a clinical striker. DDG was solid but we made him look a lot better than he really was.