Man City 3-0 Liverpool: In game and Post Match Disappointment

Downing- waste of money.
Henderson- same but improving. Doesn't tackle. (Watch him pretend to tackle and then stand off.)
Kuyt- hard working load of tripe. (couldn't beat a drum)
Adam- see Downing.
Carroll- Can't judge as he doesn't get good enough service.
Reina- Worrying as he seems to beginning to make silly mistakes.
Skyrtel- Vast improvement on last year.
Johnson- Wrong position . Should be played further forward (a la Bale)with Kelly behind him.
Spearing - doing well in place of Lucas.
Maxi- Will never make a good attacking winger.

Thank God for Gerrard, Bellamy, Enriques and Agger.

On Downing, 3 things stick out with him in this match.

1) his miss, he looked very low on confidence when he hit it. He looked like he just wanted to hit hit the target and hope for the best, instead of going for goal with intent.

2) actually beating Micah Richards, who is big and pacey himself, 2 or 3 times down the outside on the left hand side. This showed he was able to do it, why not try it even more and then put a ball into the box?

3) on the right hand side, every time he got the ball, instead of attacking down the outside and crossing with his right foot, he chose to check back every time back inside, almost as if he was too scared to take on Clichy. We know he can do it, he done it for England earlier in the year.

His confidence obviously took a massive hit after that early miss.

For me one of the most disappointing parts of our game is the quality of our crossing - we consistently fail to beat the first defender with our crosses, and this was again evident against City.  I think in one passage of play Toure or Kompany (can't remember which) was able to clear three successive crosses in the space of a minute at the near post area with absolutly no challenge, and I don't recall a good cross that gave Carroll any real chance to attack the ball all night.

This

If it is just about getting crosses in then play Fabio Aurelio out there. I would rather see Maxi, Kuyt, Suarez-when he's back,bellamy and Stevie pass and moving. Let the full backs overlap for crosses. At least then you know there will be some bodies moving into the box and they will be cunning. Anyd Carrol definitely has a role but he is still adjusting. It will be up to him though, how good he is.

Still pissed off about this game. Was quite confident going into it but when I saw the starting line-up I got worried.

Its all ifs and buts BUT if that early chance that fell to Downing had fallen to Maxi or Bellamy we'd have been a goal up and if could have been a totally different game. Have to say, at no point did I think he was going to score that chance!

It's hard to pick a goal threat out of Carroll, Kuyt, Henderson, Downing and Adam and there was the problem. I can understand Kenny not starting Bellamy and Stevie but surely Maxi should have started. Think our approach was to keep it goalless until HT then bring Bellamy and Stevie on around the hour mark, problem was when they got that early goal despite all our possession the writing seemed on the wall for me.

But lets keep things in perspective, we started that game without our best players and City wont get a harder three goal win for a long time.

Still think we'll go there next week and beat them in the cup.

IKKWT

We are really hard to beat (3-0 aside). THat is always a good start. We create lots of chances. I think we need one or two attacking talents. We may have them or we may buy them but what really matters is the team.

 I think in the atermath of the City defeat a bit of perspective is called for.

 Yes one or two of our players looked below the absolute top class when compared to some of theirs, and yes they are a better team than us over a league season, you'll get no argument from me on either point. Kompany is a better centre half than either of ours, Hart was better than Pepe on the night. None of Henderson, Adam, Spearing, Downing, Kuyt or Carroll would get a game for them at the moment, not even close. Yaya Toure and David Silva are different class to any of our midfielders bar Gerrard, Aguerro better than any of our strikers bar Suarez. But bugger me, what are we going to do, slash our wrists about it?

 The point is, we got beaten by the probable Champions there. This is the same team that have won ten out of ten at Home. Not only that, but it could have been different if in the Kings words we had been more "clinical". It's painful to admit it though, but the truth is that in terms of the league Man City aren't currently our rivals. Hopefully if they keep imploding Man Utd may become one of our rivals, but my guess is even Spurs are currently ahead of us. The reality is that our main rivals at the moment are Chelsea and Arsenal, the other two teams currently competing for fourth. Now yes we learnt that if we are to be genuine title contenders there are a few of our players who either need to improve or to f*ck off, but this bunch of players first task is to get us back into the top four. Last two seasons we've been 7th and 6th, we've got a lot of ground to make up, we ain't goinna do it one season.

 So yes it hurts to get beat, but we didn't give too bad an account of ourselves. Yes they are currently a better team than us, but that doesn't mean we can't take care of them in the Carling Cup semi. It's not the time to panic right now, it's time to get behind the team and the manager and believe in them. We are one win off fourth, and we have to play our two main rivals at Home yet. They've got to worry about Europe, we haven't. Not as good as Man City? Yes I'll give you that, but we ain't that far behind everyone else.

 I agree with you bigmick,we could of won ,I feel the turning in the match came when Downing failed to score early on in the match,if he had scored I think we would be talking about a great win and not a miserable loss.Sure there was mistakes that let City in but that miss by Downing was costly.I do not think we have anything to fear against City as we proved at Anfield  at the end of November.

Spot on Bigmick yeah we're not as good as City but you know what no one else is either.

City are nailed on for the title & frankly so they should be imagine any other team having a player like
Carlos Tevez on gardening leave & players like Nasri & Johnson not getting a game!!!

I thought we played pretty well for most of the game, it was just a slip up from Pepe caused
by Kuyt trying to beat a man(never a good idea) & Downing not putting the ball in the net when
he had the perfect chance(nothing new there).

We need to realise we are not going to go from 6/7 to 1st in a season it's pie in the sky.

Our objective is to finish above Chelsea & Arsenal that in itself will be a great achievement.