PBP: EPL - Liverpool FC vs Manchester United FC - Oct 14, 2017 [R]

Made me chuckle when he also said that they played with a midfield 3 and as the home team, he expected them to 'try' more...

 

Jose brings his bus once again ✋ pic.twitter.com/HDLYcSqhyz

— B/R Football (@brfootball) October 14, 2017

 

We will not beat any of the top sides away from home this season

 

Perhaps, but we may not need to if we do the job against the bottom 14 clubs. We've already dropped 2 points to Stoke but if we can assume for the moment maximum points against the bottom 15 clubs, home and away, that's 82 points right there.

How? 28 matches x 3 points each minus the 2 dropped to Stoke already.

I will assume 12 more points -- 94 total -- will be enough to lift glorious trophy.

Where do we find 12 more points from the other top 5 (of 6) clubs? Well, we picked up 1 today and I'm going with 3 when Liverpool come to OT. So we'll need to find 8 points from the remaining 8 matches of City/Chelsea/Spurs/Arsenal -- 8 of those 24. I don't
know which of those 8 matches will yield those 8 points but I have to believe 8 from those 24 points is very doable.

But this all presupposes we run the table with the remaining bottom 15 feeders and you know there's a banana peel or two in there somewhere, so let's take 4 points (two draws, no losses) off the board, which means we'll need to take 12 points from those 24 points of City/Chelsea/Arsenal/Spurs. A challenge, but doable. But we will need to, and it seems to me we will, take at least two wins from those eight matches, which again I think is doable. Maybe the double off Arsenal.

Despite the "ugly away point" performance today, when we get Pogba, Bailly, Fellaini and of course Ibrahimovic back I'm pretty confident in our ability to pick up wins against top sides, although I must concede alarm at City's dominance so far this season.

In other words, if we settle for draws away at City and Chelsea we're still in great, great shape. But w have to do the job against the bottom 15 clubs. And punk either Arsenal and/or Spurs, which of course is no given.

 

United lacked power and energy to beat Pool today - Mourinho

www.skysports.com/football/news/11667/11080969/man-utd-lacked-power-energy-needed-to-win-at-liverpool-says-jose-mourinho

United's tactics would be unacceptable at Pool - Klopp

www.skysports.com/football/news/11669/11080909/jurgen-klopp-questions-jose-mourinho-tactics-after-liverpools-draw-with-man-utd

I guess he did not watch much of Pool in the Rafa years...

 

Students of United under Ferguson in his latter years will recall many performances not unlike what we saw today.

 

We did not fail spectacularly either. And we're missing key players to boot. At worst, this is an "incomplete" for United. But when the tabulations will be complete at the end of the season, this could still be an important point.

My biggest worry is for the weeks to come, while we're still undermanned so to speak. Hope we can avoid dropping too many points during that time, especially with games coming thick and fast the rest of this month alone.

 

Jose has no trust in Smalling-Jones partnership and with a relatively soft midfield didn't want to have them exposed during fast breaks. I do think with a healthy Pogba and Bailly we would've had a more positive approach.

 

Spot on. Pogba is far and away our best outfield player, a player who instantly developed a solid understanding with Lukaku. We miss him when we're up against top six clubs. The downshift from Bailly to Smalling is massive, yet we held Liverpool to only one serious shot on goal.

We expect absences due to injury but when you consider that Bailly, Fellaini and Pogba are regular starters under Mourinho it's not hard to appreciate that we sent up two players, Smalling and Herrera, today who have seen very little action so far this season and look like players who understandably have yet to find rhythm this season.

This wasn't a match anyone here would have bet a substantial sum on us to win. Winnable, of course, but a win away at Anfield is never a bet you'd want to risk a lot of money on.

We did well to get the point. As far as I know we suffered no new injuries and we're teed up well for our next two away fixtures, Benfica and Huddersfield. Job done, no complaints are warranted apart from rueing Lukaku's missed glorious chance.

 

"we did well to get a point"???

This is a Liverpool team not in fantastic form missing their best player. Creating 1 chance against this team home or away is a joke. Brighton will create more chances than we did....and that's not on our players, that's on Jose.

 

Saw most of the game. We were poor by design. Jose to take blame for a disjointed display and negative tactics. It was VERY clear that we were not to hold the ball or attempt to beat the press with passing. We hit it long continually with Lukaku up by his lonesome.

With the personnel at hand, we should have played wingbacks. That would have allowed width and pace in dangerous positions and allowed Martial to support Lukaku and Mkhi to play in the hole.

As it played out, we sat deep and didn't pose a threat on the break at all. Stupid game plan.

That said, with a couple of chances aside, we didn't look like conceding and most importantly, we didn't. A draw against pool isn't glamorous, but if we beat minnows and draw better teams we could win the league.

 

Precisely why I was hoping for a 3-5-2 or 3-4-3, after Fellaini went down. Our available personnel and circumstances were begging for it. We could have troubled Pool way more than what we ultimately did with some serious wing play.
Our tactical choices were disappointing, because as mentioned prior to the game, Pool were there for the taking. But also, at the end of the day, a point at Anfield is not the worst result either.

 

Liverpool are always a dangerous opponent for us -- our most bitter rival. Form guide goes out the window for their cup final.
We've historically done poorly in our first match after an international break -- and we saw it again today.
Without Pogba, we've only got one world class player and he's our keeper.

Some of us here need to come to grips with the fact that despite our league record so far we're not Real Madrid or Barcelona. We're good and we'll dispatch the West Hams of the world but we're just not the dominant squad we all wish it were. To wit:

• Valencia at right back?
• Jones and Smalling at CB?
• Darmian at LB?
• Young at RW?

Those five will never make Klopp shit his pants.

We did well to keep a clean sheet, which is always the first priority away against a club which has a realistic T4 aspiration. Like it or not, that's the Mourinho way. We can rightly moan about the lack of quality chances and I agree that Miki had a terrible game but we had the glorious chance we were looking for and Lukaku couldn't pull it off.

Would I prefer a 0-4 thrashing over Liverpool? Of course. But in light of the circumstances a draw at Anfield, where Arsenal was destroyed 4-0, was a good result for us. You don't have to like it, but that's the reality. Apart from City, I don't see any other team in the EPL destroying Liverpool at Anfield. Do you?

 

"we have 1 world class player"

How many do Liverpool have...I must have missed the memo.

 

Philippe Coutinho.

Barcelona reportedly were prepared to spend 140m for Coutinho.

What...never heard of him?

Let me help you out with the wiki page on this dude:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Coutinho

 

I'm going to feed your need for attention because I'm in a playful mood.

If for arguments sake we say each team has 1 world class player...and then there are a set of next tier players. Are the next tier of players massively in Liverpools favour? Is Can beter than Matic? Lovran better than Jones? Firmino better than Martial? etc

Just as it's okay to praise Mourinho for good performances..fans have every right not to want to put up with this negativty and call him on it. We have no idea if we could have won that game, because the players were instructed not to try.

 

i was really disappointed by mkhitaryan and herrera.

mkhi is clearly not a 10 and he has a tendency to somehow shiy away from the ball in important games - griezmann, or at the very least oezil, is needed in january or in the summer. mkhi needs to go back to the right wing.

herrera is just not good enough. you need to be great at something to play regularly in a top side - what's that something for herrera? he's not a great playmaker, ball winner, anchor or shuttler. also, he manages to be soft and reckless at the same time, he could have easily cost us a penalty against coutinho when matic had the play covered. i can't wait for pogba and fellaini (yes) to be back.

 

Herrera isn't soft and he's a great ball winner and an excellent 6/8, however his strengths don't match up with Pogba/Matic/Fellaini etc. Midfield is all about partnerships and shared responsibility. He can handle distribution and play around the press but not if he doesn't have outlets and the instructions are to hit it long.

 

what a loser. i can't stand managers complaining about the other team's tactic (jose included, when he does it). you weren't able to convert when you had all the possession - that's on you. palace could try to park the bus against city and still get slapped around silly.

 

This is the fact. Mourinho is scared of Liverpool, City and Chelsea. He puts his ego above the team. He lacks faith in his forward players to win him the game. That rubs off on the players, and we get performances like today.

 

i'd argue that he can't handle distribution, unless that just means safely knocking the ball around - that shouldn't be enough for us. we're missing pogba in his now deeper role. herrera can't unlock runners with his long game.

ok, if he can't play in a 2 with a dynamic playmaker (pogba), a holding mid (matic), or a B2B (fellaini)... what's his ideal partner? i don't like midfielders that need their hand to be held. matic and pogba are good on their own, regarldess of tactic or pairing - that should be the united level. and i can't want fo the latter to get back so herrera can go to the bench or the stands.

 

Laughable that Herrera is being made a scapegoat after those tactics. The amount of times I saw him nearly injure himself from stretching to beat the opponets from poor passes from the rest of our team..was ridiculous. Why were those passes so poor? Mourinho put it in the mind of our players that they were going to try and crush us. The paniced passing and clearences was all on Mourinho. The players had no confidence in trying to win this game.