TRon

If we are looking for positives to take from this game, at least Man City will have dropped out of the running for his signature after today.

I think we'll beat Forest. Said last week as well, but I'm more worried about Bournemouth, that gives us one less spot to chase unless we can rein them in.

Said in the pre-match I hoped he turned up today. He didn't.

He needs to spot these things coming though. He's not going to get it right every time, just to put it in perspective. He's won plenty of these battles as well, but we have been on the end of a few hidings now, so seems like when we get it wrong, we get it badly wrong.

You wouldn't expect our team to though.

They didn't look like they had bought into whatever the game plan was.

Think it was just a tactical car crash tbh. We know we can give teams a chasing when we play at 100%, but you have to know how to win when everything isn't perfect. This was Man City away. Felt like we forgot that they have been the best side in England for the last few years.

Really need Willock to step up now that Big Joe is out for a while. He might not be as physical, but technically he should be better if he is on his game. There's real potential in a midfield 3 of Bruno, Tonali and Willock.

The PL are just lucky that Everton or Leicester didn't get relegated on the back of points deductions, otherwise they could be facing very costly compensation claims. It's the clubs who are ultimately paying for this, at some point they have to stop funding this breaking of the law.

Honestly, the best thing that can happen is that the shackles come off and we can start buying proper CL quality players due the the ATP rules being blown out of the water. Then we can look back on this as a nice little earner instead of "oh nos, look at what we have lost!"

Fuck UEFA tbh. Just get the sponsors lined up.

Unless it's up front.

I just explained this in the post you are quoting that it is probably clickbait. But it wasn't me who posted the story, I am just reacting to it. I'm not saying he is going to Liverpool, but I can see why the link would be made, even if it is made up.

I would enjoy it more if we were allowed to compete with the cartel clubs. The reality is though, as long as we are not in a position to try and win the CL on a consistent basis, or pay our top players what they can earn at those clubs, there will always be a chance that they could get their heads turned. FWIW the talk of Isak being interested in a move to Liverpool sounds like clickbait, but it is one of the few clubs where I could imagine there is interest. He's done them over enough times even if we didn't manage to turn that into wins.

Given City are not the most athletic side these days, I would think we'd want to go with a high press so back to a 4-3-3.

Salah and Nunez are right sided forwards, Isak is more left. I'm presuming they might want to sell Nunez given he's been a relative flop, and move things around if Salah leaves.

I wonder if he still lives in Liverpool? I'm guessing probably, as much for family reasons as any.

I am a bit surprised that all the talk has been of Arsenal though, considering Liverpool would be looking for a striker to replace Salah, and he is one of the few strikers who VVD probably sweats bullets every time he comes up against him.

Big plus to have him back. After flogging Miggy the wide options were looking a bit limited.

No, although if PIF are reduced to running it purely as a business, it's not the worst thing.

No idea what to expect from this game. I'm sure their fans are a lot more pessimistic than usual, but they still have a lot of players who can hurt us if we turn up at 70%. Got a feeling it will be a score draw, which is not bad. Would be expecting a bit much to go down there and win, they are still ahead of us in the table despite the shocking season they've had.

It looks the opposite of aerodynamic. It would work better if you turned his head upside down with the chin at the top. pseuedo-phreonology grift...fail.

Same here. I used to work with a fella who was living up here and he was a proper Mancunian who absolutely despised Man U, probably through always feeling like the other club because Man U won a lot of worldwide support through the Munich tragedy. This is back in the days when City were less successful than us, but he grew up there and he supported City because it was local to the side of Manchester he was from. As opposed to Man U whose support ranges from Burnley to Tunbridge Wells.

Could be snatching at chances somewhat because he's not playing regularly so not getting a chance to get in his groove. He was in a great position to get another in the second half on Saturday if Murphy had squared it, so he is getting in the right areas.

I think any draw at home against a non-cartel side has to be considered a decent one. Could have had an easier draw, but could just as easily had a much harder one. If we go out we go out, but you would fancy us to win this most days.