Inches... literally a game of inches. The inches were the difference between Manes shot hitting the post and coming out and Sanes shot hitting the post and going in. The inches were the difference between the ball being completely over the line and Stones clearing. The inches were the difference every time the ball bounced inside their 6 yard box and they got it away in desperation.
Far from a horrendous performance, far from a horrendous result. Just one of those wars of attrition. In fairness to City they put absolutely everything into that.
I don’t think there are any scape goats or individuals to blame here (although Twitter looks fuckingtoxic and definitely disagrees), the bare fact is that their game plan worked better than ours. They pressed us into oblivion, and completely took our midfield out of the game. I had no reservations about the mid field 3 at the start, so I would be a hypocrite to critcise the choice now, however after 25 mins it was clear they weren’t going to work here. Fabinho was the right call and came on with enough time to make an impact, and he did. He sat in and allowed both full backs to get further up the pitch which lead to our goal.
Their other plan was clearly to target Trent, they’ve tried it before but it worked well for them tonight. Whenever we tried to get over to cover Trent, they recycled the ball very quickly and used those spaces well. It would be easy to pick on Lovren but I don’t actually think he was terrible, they really pressured that side and with the exception of the goal (he did check behind him but Aguero was in his blind spot) and that moment of madness when he played both Sane and Sterling in for 2 good chances he was far from terrible. No one was, but unfortunately it’s in those moments we someone to be amazing and it just didn’t happen tonight. 6 and 7 out of 10’s everywhere. Whereas City had 2 moments of magic and 3 or 4 players putting in a 9/10. Just not our night.
The media will milk it, but it means just as little as if we had won, its 3 points, no more, no less. There’s still a lot of football left to play, a lot of points to pick up and we’re still 4 ahead. In a weird way this is one of the best ways we could have lost our unbeaten run, from here on every game would have the added pressure of the unbeaten tag. It’s gone now, F**k it. There’s a reason it’s not done every year, it’s football, you lose some games, just make sure you win more than the rest, and we’re still doing that.
One bump in the road, we dust ourselves off, have a very well deserved rest against Wolves and We Go Again!
Allez Allez Allez 🔴🔴🔴
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