Strange game, but as we've lost the last 3 PL games there, a draw was always a more than decent result.
For the first 25 minutes we were superb with everything but the final ball; quick passing, fluent movement up front with Mane & Salah looking particularly sharp. Once again though, the number of great positions we got into without ultimately troubling the keeper was so frustrating; build up play fantastic, but final execution poor.
Overall play though in that opening spell was fantastic, with Hendo snapping at City's heels, frequently coming away with the ball. As well as our great attacking play, we also restricted them going forward, as they didn't register a single attempt in the opening 25 mins.
Once they got the goal which largely resulted from Mane's unnecessary press pulling Gini out of position, they started to exert more control of the game.
The second half, after the first 10 mins, was largely a damp squib. Not sure if that was us settling for a draw, or running out of energy after an intense first half following on from a Euro away trip, or maybe even Firmino going off played a part in us losing an attacking threat the last half hour. Not sure, but that's for our tactical gurus to shed light on, maybe.
Anyway, all things told, a point there is an improvement on the previous 3 seasons; hope the injury to Trent is only minor, Matip had a decent game defensively in a tough comeback match (albeit his passing was woeful), the stats show we restricted them to only 7 shots on goal in the entire match, so we were doing something right defensively.
Hopefully have Thiago & Fab back after the international break, which gives us some great options in MF.
Still make us favourites for the title, and if injuries aren't too much of a factor, think we can also go very deep in the CL, despite no VVD.
COYR!!!
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